I need help and advice

tiptoptony

Hi,

I am facing up to the reality of my debts. Here is my SOA.

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1,315


Total - £1,315

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage/Rent - £420
Council Tax - 70
Electric - £42
TV License - £10.99
Phone - £35
Landline - £10.50
Internet - £17.99
Water - £29.78
HSBC Loan - £173.05 13 paymets left

Total: £809.31

Debts

HSBC Loan - £2249.65
N&P Credit Card - £2050 0% till May 07
M&S Credit Card - £1450 3.9% life of balance
Mint Credit Card - £2000 - 15.9%
Egg Credit Card - £1150 - 15.9%

Total £8899.65

I dont have an overdraft and I have around £2500 savings which I really need to keep for the summer to buy a car. IO dont have to worry about food costs or travelling costs. All the money I have left over can go towards debt repayment...only other thing left is money for me. Any advice on which debts to tackle first would be appreciated.

Regards

plumduff-2

The HSBC loan payments of £173.05 are one of the debts, so do you have 2 debts to HSBC...

What about gas, mobile phone, food and travel costs..?

flowerofscotland

Hi and welcome

Normally the debts with the highest rate of interest should be paid off first. However the snowball calculator will help and also give you a debt free date
https://www.whatsthecost.com

Can I ask why you "need" a car? The usual advice is to use savings to pay off debts and a car is a major commitment which only begins with paying for the actual vehicle. Tax, insurance, MOT, servicing, breakdown insurance, petrol, replacement tyres etc etc all have to be budgeted for and will make quite an inroad into your debt repayment money.

If you could possibly continue to manage without a car at least until the interest bearing CCs and loans are paid off you would be debt free much earlier.

plumduff-2

An alternative would be to enter a DMP with CCCS or Payplan, on this you generally pay something to each of the debts rather than paying off the highest interest rate ones first

tiptoptony

hi,

i only ihave one debt with hsbc..but its a fixed repayment so I included it with my outgoings. dont have any gas and the mobile phone is included.

I dont drive at the moment and I have a lift to work. However, this will end in the summer and I will have to get a car as there is no other way to get to work. I am fortunate enough to have a very helpful family member who helps with the food.

SunderlandBlackCat

I agree with what flowerofscotland said. If you register on the whatsthecost site you can save your snowball calculations & can then go back & recalculate really easily if anything changes.

Something else worth considering is if theres any room left on either the 0% card or the &More card that you could transfer some of the balance on the high interest cards to those which will save you money & get things paid off quicker. I know from personal experience that &More arerelatively easy to get a credit limit raise from.

mjdh1957

Instead of getting a car is the journey to work bikeable? Or a motorbike/scooter would be a lot cheaper than buying a car (though colder on wet winter mornings...)

tiptoptony

i wish it was bikeable..but ufortunatley not and public transport is a no go. What the cost was very helpfull. could be debt free in 14 months..but that would be a very tight budget. thanks for the tips,,time to start hitting the balance down on that mint card!

bananakinz

Hi!
How much do you think you will be able to save by the summer?
Do you need to spend £2,500 on a car?
How about clearing the Mint or Egg card with your savings, then save the money again, but also putting snowballing the money you would have paid on the Mint or Egg onto the one that is left?
How far do you travel to work? You will have to budget for all the additional costs of having a car.

mjdh1957

You can buy cars on eBay.... I sold mine there and got £800, it was a nice little runabout. If you know a bit about cars you could get a bargain for a lot less than £2500.

And yes, the cost of insurance (especially if you're starting with zero no-claims), road tax, petrol, is not something to be taken lightly. I gave up my car last year and it's saved me a fortune (luckily I can use partner's car if I need to).

CLAPTON

you SOA show a surplus of 500 per month less say 150 minimum payments on the CC making 350

so you could use your 2500 saving to clear the highest APR debt and in six months you could save your 2500 back up again so saving paying 15.9% on the CC.