Just calculated my SOA

alemted

Thanks for all advice so far, some great stuff there. Will be putting it all into practice.

One thing after another - little boy had a type of asthma attack last night as I was on this forum, was at the hospital for 3 hours, got back after 1am. he's OK now - on steroids for 5 days and they will investigate to see if it is full blown asthma - he's only had this once before when he was 1 yr old - 2 years ago.

No reply from payplan yet - I will ring them I think.

No credit left on any cards - have been using them for food, petrol, living etc, but managing to pay off monthly credit bills.

Anyone recommend a good bank account - looks like we will have to switch from the Lloyds TSB and redo all our DD's, etc.

Thanks everyone so far, helping me deal with this calmly - wife is much more emotional about it than me.

all_hours

Sorry to hear about your little boy. I hope it's not too serious.

I work out your current total £2396.51 leaving £611 for debts. What are the total minimum payments at the moment?

Are you eligible for payment holidays on the lloyds loans? Banks often allow one holiday of 3 months if you've made enough payments, usually 6 or 12 months. This would give you a little breathing space while you organise a longer term plan.

Could you and your wife change working hours so that one of you drops off and goes to work late, the other goes to work early and picks up so you could cut down on the childminding costs?

alemted

Just spoke to payplan, they are coming up with a plan and ringing me back wednesday for full account details, balances, etc.

They advised opening another bank account with the co-op (smile) as they're not affiliated with any other creditors.

Will take about 3-4 weeks to be in some kind of Debt Management Plan.

Hoping to have £600 + per month for creditors - currently paying over £1500 p/m minimum payments and not getting any less. No credit left to transfer to!

We already drop off and pick up twice per week, costs are for 3 kids over 3 days.

I work strict 9-5 mon-fri, lates on wednesday to cover the 2 times I drop off the kids at school per week, wife does shifts and weekends so she is at home usually 2 days during the week.

childcare cost will actually be going down, more early club starts and no more late club as it's much dearer (early= £1.25 each child, late = £5.00 per child)

Hoping to half those childcare costs.

Verbatim

Hi alemted,

Welcome to dfw. I'm glad you're managing to make some changes and hope you can sort things.

The only thing I'd say is to agree with those who've said ditch the tumble drier. Evil energy swallowing things!:eek: :eek:

Could you use an indoor airer or three? You can get ones that can be attached to a wall or ceiling and hoisted up as well as plastic coated metal or wooden fold out ones. As you're all out all day they needn't impact on your home life too much and the washing would be dry/dryish when you came home. I've got a "sheila maid" which is remarkably efficient. Before I had this I used to use doors upstairs or bannisters to hang large items over and radiators too. Plus of course the great outdoors whenever possible. I'll never use a TD because of the high energy use/carbon emissions/climate change never mind the cost!

tryhard_2

hi
if you are going to open a new account use quidco to open the account. it is a cashback site. also A+L offer 0% OD and if you look on the referrers board on this site - you can get £25 for opening a new account as does the person referring you. hope that makes sense