24K debt, 25 years old, work in a bank = problem!!

Lara44

Hear hear... Those kind of 'holier than thou' comments are not very helpful for the OP.

Broken_hearted

Funny thing is you can afford them when you have them, then life gets in the way.

Timmne

....or people on their high horses with nothing helpful to say like 'daveboy'.

Have you had any further thoughts Gav?

themaccas

Hi Gav welcome to MSE and well done for posting on here. Ok here's my idea.......

Tell your employer. They might be able to help you as all you debt seems to have been accrued BEFORE you joined them. I say this because I have personal experience. Just after myself and OH got married, we found ourselves in 7.5K worth of debt which was a lot then considering OH and I had a joint income of around £800 pm and both working full time. We looked in to the consolidation and applied to every bank to consolidate and were refused although a financial advisor in one bank (Lloyds) gave us the phone number of a 'friend' who could help us, turned out to be a debtbuster loan type of deal and it scared the hell out of us. I was at the time working for a bank too and we were getting really stressed so I bit the bullet and decided to talk to my manager about it.

The bank were great because the debt was accrued before I started working there and my manager wrote to HO with our income/expenditure and we were told they would refinance at a favourable/staff rate. However this was taking weeks to sort out and within that time, our circumstances changed, OH got promoted with a decent payrise and I had started to snowball our debts and so by the time we got the forms to sign we had worked out our own way to pay back our debts so never took the refinance package. With hindsight I wouldn't have told them because of that but I was surprised at how supportive they were.

I have long since left the bank but the lessons from that debt were not learned hence our debt today. However I remember the snowballing and budgeting and that has certainly helped this time. And when these debts are paid off, we will never be in this !!!!!! again, that I can promise!

itsarichmansworld

daveboy wrote:

26 years old, no debt, no children.

Maybe it's just me who thinks you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford them, amongst other things.

:mad: Was there any need for that??? Please be nice to DFW'rs we are all trying to help in what sometimes can be a horrendously suffocating time.

As Thumpers mum used to say "If you aint got nothing nice to say dont say nothing at all"

Anyway Gav, Hope you are feeling better some great advice here, You'll be be sorted in no time!

gpage2000

hopeless_case wrote:

how is your credit rating so good if you are £400 per month short?

Simple answer, i've always paid the minimum payments, never missed a dd payment out of the 100's i've made in the last 8 or so years... lived in my hone for 3 years, not missed a mortgage payment, no defaults/ccjs etc

the 400 a month thing, i've basically been draining my overdraft(s) frequently, buying shopping and even paying bills with credit cards... and any loans i've had have kept me 'in the clear' for paying bills. it's always been important to me that i pay a bill when it comes in... otherwise i may as well go bankrupt! Just as good as getting a few CCJ's and messing up my credit forever.

Same goes for my fiancee, we have only been turned down if we've applied for a few things close together, or for some loans where affordability is checked, and all our debt shows up.

I'm in no way proud of the debt... but i am pleased that we've never defaulted on anything.

gpage2000

daveboy wrote:

26 years old, no debt, no children.

Maybe it's just me who thinks you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford them, amongst other things.

and should i add no life?

No offence to any of the other lovely people who agree this comment was uncalled for if you don't have kids, but...

what is the point of life if not to reproduce?! I'd happily be in debt forever rather than be debt free with no children. Even if we didn't have kids, this would not have affected the situation 'that' much - as the extra earning would have been spent on something else, like a bigger mortgage perhaps.

People's lifesyle changes when they earn more money, so there's a high chance i'd have less debt.. .but probably still a fair whack.

Having kids doesn't cost money, and people that think it's a major expense, it isn't really! By the time they're at school, my income will have gone up (hopefully lots) and my fiancee will work full time, so problem solved. I have many friends who wont have kids until they've saved thousands of pounds, moved to a bigger house etc... and these people may never have a family.


I could go on for ages, but i think that this quote above is can i say, not in agreement with the other guys on the site either!

gpage2000

I forget everyone's names, but thanks for all the comments. Been busy at wrk today hence the lateness of reply. Managed to win £50 in vouchers of my choice and around £20 in bonus commission today... more days like this and things could be looking up!

Thanks for the tip about speaking to the employer, you would hope that a bank (especially the one i work for... they turn 60% of the WORLDS money last year!! guess who...) would be able to help, the words 'hardship loan' comes to mind... but we must have a number i can call. will try tomorrow.

I'm starting to slowly steer away from the secured loan, but i'm still awaiting a quote and the contract, as now i'm more curious than anything, but i do feel better 'talking' on here - which is nice.

Me and the fiancee did sit down last night with our fancy Excel spreadsheet, and worked out a new plan, which taking into account her working say even just Sundays, would give us £250 per month short.

Then if she could work Saturdays too... say £100 short... taking that my 1/4ly bonus is going to be around £500 to £1000 in April, if i manage things well, i might just make it work. BUT then it will take me about 20 years to pay off my credit cards?!?!

IDEA... after 3 years, i'll save £140 as one loan will have finished... 2 years after this, another loan finishes, so that's another £177 saved... so ove £300 per month can be allocated to clearing cards.... any payrise, fiancee working more....

I reckon i might be on to something! What are you all thinking of this?

gpage2000

itsarichmansworld wrote:

:mad:

As Thumpers mum used to say "If you aint got nothing nice to say dont say nothing at all"

Thanks particularly for this one... it applies in all areas of life, but there's always one deerhunter....

CLAPTON

it would be best to really work out a full SOA including absolutely everything.
at the moment you are only serviving because you are paying CC off by increasing your CC debts. the problem here is if anything goes wrong..a bonus cancelled or an unexpected expense (ch /car breaks/tiles off the roof or whatever) then a problem would turn into a crisis.
i would seriously think about increasing income even if it impacts on family time.