In debt-Cash in Shares??!

CMorena

hello, this is my first day on MSE and I've spent all day on the DFW forum
Just a quick question, I have £12000 debt.
I have shares to value of £500. is it costly to sell them, should I do this or should I stick with them?
Any thoughts?
Thanks

chesky369

How many shares and who with?

CMorena

50 shares with Abbey (Banco Santander)
had them since a kid, only just realised had them, have been tracking them and they have gone up steadily recently.

brixandmorta

Shares are an unknown, your debt isn't, you know exactly what it is costing you in interest for that debt. Are you managing to keep up your repayments without any penalties? If not then whatever you can knock of it would be a bonus, particuarly from the one costing you the most:beer:

chesky369

If you're thinking of selling these shares as the main plank of your grand plan to get out of debt, quite honestly I wouldn't bother - it would be like putting a £500 sticking plaster on a £12,000 gaping wound. I don't know exactly how much it would cost you to sell them but I believe The Motley Fool has a cheap share dealing service. Try Goggling them.

But really it's only worth doing if you're going to get the rest of your life into shape and cut down spending all round.

CMorena

I'm on top of minimum payments and am doing a strict budget to work out where I'm spending my extra cash and am going to change my ways so I can cope with the debt but the interest is killing me so am looking at ways to cut this.
Just thought might be an idea, don't know much about shares and wondered what people thought.
Thanks

brixandmorta

Are you able to balance transfer your credid cards to say asda, or tesco credit cards, a lot of companies offer this, thus giving you 6 months grace to help you get sorted. Theoreticaly you can keep transfering to ease the pain of the dredded interest.:money:

CMorena

chesky369 wrote:

If you're thinking of selling these shares as the main plank of your grand plan to get out of debt, quite honestly I wouldn't bother - it would be like putting a £500 sticking plaster on a £12,000 gaping wound. I don't know exactly how much it would cost you to sell them but I believe The Motley Fool has a cheap share dealing service. Try Goggling them.

But really it's only worth doing if you're going to get the rest of your life into shape and cut down spending all round.

Am implementing plan to get Debt free - debt diary, budgeting, cost cutting etc.
the extra £500 was an afterthought
.

CMorena

brixandmorta wrote:

Are you able to balance transfer your credid cards to say asda, or tesco credit cards, a lot of companies offer this, thus giving you 6 months grace to help you get sorted. Theoreticaly you can keep transfering to ease the pain of the dredded interest.:money:

Hiya, have gone through all this, and have a plan to get through the interest cos have been rejected for capital one. am going to try LOB cards and also up my paymnts once have freed up some cash in my budgeting and also extra work
thanks

dancingfairy

I think it will cost you around £20 to sell them depending on where you sell them (ie with your bank or another company etc). In theory they should increase in value over time especially if you are reinvesting the dividends to buy new shares. But I doubt they will make you your fortune, sorry.

It depends on how much time and interest it can shave off your debt-free date really. If you sell them and use the money to pay off some of your debts then great - if you see it as a windfall and start spending the money then maybe worth keeping them as shares (if you see what I mean).

Haven't Abbey been taken over by Banco-Santander and you should have their shares in return if I remember rightly in which case it might be harder to sell them unless they are listed on the U.K stock market - not sure though.

I would find out what company they are in and work out a more precise value of them (times the share price for the shares on the web/from paper by the number of shares) and see then.

Hope this sort of makes sense and help a bit.

CMorena

Haven't Abbey been taken over by Banco-Santander and you should have their shares in return if I remember rightly in which case it might be harder to sell them unless they are listed on the U.K stock market - not sure though.

I would find out what company they are in and work out a more precise value of them (times the share price for the shares on the web/from paper by the number of shares) and see then.

Hope this sort of makes sense and help a bit.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for this. I check them most days and they were worth £472 today at their peak. They are lised on LSE even though taken over by Banco Santander.
Dont know much about shares, my gran got me 50 shares when I was born so only just worked out they could worth something to me, especially in my debt ridden state!!