Argh Debt is hideous please help.

savagevixen

Hello,
Like so many others on here, our debt is acculmulative over the past 7 years and has spiraled hugely. Initially overdrafts and cc to support us through husbands degree (after birth of first child.) And has just been loans increased etc. New baby, bigger car etc etc.

We have 5 kids aged 8, 5, 4, 3 and 10 months.

Natwest Loan £15000 + int £17900 left to pay
Council Tax £400 arrears
Natwest overdraft £1000
Natwest overdraft £800
Catalogue £300
Housing Beneefit overpayment £900
Water £150 arrears
Capital One cc £126

Incomings

Husbands wages £850
Child Tax Credit £948
DLA £166
Working Tax C £ 52
Child Benefit £257
Housing Benefit £130



Outgoings

Rent £650
Council Tax £100
Water £35
Oil £ 65
Elec £ 70
Car in £46
House Ins £ 21
Car Tax £ 35
Car fuel £ 80
Car extras £ 50
Groceries etc £550 Inc Nappies
Broadband £ 14
Telephone £ 11.50
Mobile £ 20 (tried to cancel contract but no joy)
TV license £12
Next Catalogue £45



Probably a few more things!

We need 2 cars, husband works some distance, and we live in country village so need car. Can't move to cheaper, this is £200 cheaper than any other in 10 mile radius for our size family. We have cancelled sky (6 months ago) We have no unnecessary activities, husband need broadband for work, and the children are not doing any out of school activities.

I input all our details into cccs and it has been assessing the info for 1hr, how long does it take?
payplan said we had a £5.50 excess in our outgoings to incomings. What is the best plan of action?
Our credit history is pretty bad. Lots of late payments etc. Managed to get low rate lone due to good bank history. Applied for loans last year to consolidate and buy car to include 5th child, got 5 loans sent through from natwest. Sent back the wrong one, thought we were getting 13000 (bad enough) over 5 years, but £15000 over 7 went through. Breathed a sigh of releif when saw the 7 day cancellation period, but when phoned to cancel, they said I had to have £15000. Of course the previous loan of £7500 had been cancelled and I did not have the cash to pay off the new one. So the loan stayed. We got our second hand people carrier and the loan has overtaken our lives. We are living in the overdraft.

Do you guys advise DMP's or IVA's or sticking with what we have? Can we even open other bank accounts with this sort of history? Do we struggle on or can we realistically get help.
Any comments greatly appreciated.
Vix

bigmac2020_2

Hi there,

the first thing to do is take stock of your income and expenditure. Personally I contacted the CCCS, who are a registered charity and can arrange a DMP for you. I don't know much about IVA's but it depends on how you want to proceed. I had a DMP with CCCS for £74,000 and a projected debt free date of around 7 1/2 years, however after 4 1/2 years and a house move I am nearly fully paid off. I have received 3 confirmations of acceptance of my full and final settlements and am awaiting another 7, so hopefully if they agree I can be debt free very soon. The difference is that I will have paid in full, all except about 13% of my remaining balances. I can also request that the creditor makes a note on my credit file that the debt has been paid in full, something I don't think you can do with an IVA? Not sure on that but someone else can maybe advise better. Whatever you decide please don't wait too long, if you get in first and take control then you will feel in control all the way through and the fear soon leaves you, I took great delight in reminding my creditors that this was our decision and not theirs. Go for it!!!!!!:rotfl:

tourette_t-shirts

I would recomend:

Downgrading car if possible.
Stop shopping at next - shop at primark tkmax etc. until debts paid off.
Do a moneysupermarket.com search for cheaper insurance
Purchase own brand food.

Then hopefully this can help you pay your debts in arrears and then start paying off more and more things all the time.

I know thats not much and is pretty obvious but hopefully it may help.

Other on here will give you better and more complcated advice on other things but i thought id try and help at least!!

savagevixen

tourette_t-shirts wrote:

I would recomend:

Downgrading car if possible.
Stop shopping at next - shop at primark tkmax etc. until debts paid off.
Do a moneysupermarket.com search for cheaper insurance
Purchase own brand food.

Then hopefully this can help you pay your debts in arrears and then start paying off more and more things all the time.

I know thats not much and is pretty obvious but hopefully it may help.

Other on here will give you better and more complcated advice on other things but i thought id try and help at least!!

Thankyou, but we got the cheapest car that would fit all 7 of us in! My husbands drives a tatty old 'K' reg heap, and cycles to work when he can. He makes sandwiches for work every day and the kids have sandwiches for school. The eldest child has Aspergers and is currently not at school, due to the nature of his disabilities, shopping is very difficult, and I always shop in primark! Tesco deliveries (with codes!) are used weekly if poss. And I homecook 90% of our meals. We are vegi and all our meals are vegetable/lentil etc based. The next bill was all half price (never pay full price for anything!) beds for the kids and a few clothes (agree-do not need to use it) And I always buy whatever is cheapest-either on offer or own brand. I never pander to marketeering!!

vix

CLAPTON

can you EDIT your post and add the following

debts
add, minimum debt repayments per month and APRs

add a lin for total debt and total monthly repayments

spending

start a spending diary to find out where all you money goes..at the moment you show nothning for clothes, socialising, presents, xmas, holidays/days out
etc...try to think of everything you will spend over the next 12 months and work out a monthly average

remove 'next catalogue' from spending and out it in the debts section because its a debt

insert a total for spending

miggy

You are doing lots of things right by the sound of it but collective MS wisdom will no doubt come to your aid.
Have you joined Freecycle? http://www.freecycle.org/
All sorts of things seem to get 'set free' on our local one, and it may help with things for kids, replacements around the house, etc.
Sorry if I missed it, but can/do you grow any of your own food?

hypno06

Good morning and welcome.

Have you spoken to your local authority about the council tax arrears and are you making arrangements to pay this off?

I say this because I would be pretty sure that this is one of the priority debts and you don't want to end up in court because of it. So, if you haven't already done so, please give them a call (probably now on Monday).

It is not always easy doing your full SOA but certainly its worth it. The only thing is to be honest with yourself - including birthday presents/cards, Christmas stuff etc needs to be there and can easily be forgotten. When you are already living on a shoestring it is easy to think that you cannot cut back any more, but you will be amazed at what a difference can be made with a few suggestions from fellow MSE bods and a couple of trips over to the OS board

I hope all goes well for you and remember that we are all here for support, a rant and a bit of a laugh too (all helps!).