It's not going to be easy.....

longforthesun

Hi MrsPennyPot

I know exactly how you will be feeling at the moment, I don't think I will ever forget the moment I realised that something needed to be done and it was going to be a long hard slog but then I don't want to forget as I never want to be in that situation again.

We are a family of 4 and manage on about £250 for food. If you could get yours down to £300 then you could see the smaller debts gone in a few months.

As for your whole chicken, before our LBM I would bin the chicken after one meal but not now, I get great pleasure spending time pulling the bird apart and getting all the meat out so it can be used for so many different meals, nothing nicer than being elbow deep in a chicken carcass:rotfl:

MrsPennyPot

Hi Firewyrm, thank you for all your comments and mostly your positivity!!

Our grocery bills/takeaway and odd sundries for lunches and coffees are embarrassing!:embarasse Need to do an awful lot of work here!

Whilst selling property 2 thus clearing mortgage 2 and outstanding debt would be logical, we currently rent the property. Mr PP's concern is that we cannot sell with the tenants in and we also can't afford to pay the mortgage (as well as our other bills) whilst it is sitting empty waiting for a sale. We will go on deliberating this one I am sure!:D

Never knew you could do so much with a chicken, you are a star!!:A

Hi Fatbelly, yes £160K is property 2 which we current rent. £140K is mortgage 2 and 654 is the rent we receive after the management fee has been deducted.

It has been a long day and the angst and then concentration to do SOA is making me feel cross eyed!! :rotfl:

Thanks for your post Longforthesun, its great to know it can be done!!:)

Mrs PP. x

fatbelly

On those figures property 2 isn't a disaster. There is 20k of equity (suspect less than that in practice) and it generates a net income of £488 per month.

Obviously there are all sorts of other factors involved here.

With equity in 2 properties, I do think that you would have struggled to get an IVA that worked for you. But I'm not an expert on them.

I noticed something else. Benefits 135 pcm is presumably child benefit for 2 children at £30.80 per week. Do you not get any child tax credits?

MrsPennyPot

Hi Fatbelly, one of the things that did concern me about the IVA was the clause regarding property equity, however, the lady at the charity debt advice company said that it wasn't really an issue as its very unlikely we could remortgage to release any equity so all we do is make a further 12 months payments so IVA would be 6 years.

We have never looked at child tax credit as we were under the impression our income was too high??!! I also thought child tax credits were being scrapped/scrapped by the government....will look into this.

MrsPennyPot

Also, forgot to ask......

We have shares in a high street bank (they are not worth any where near what we paid for them).:eek:

Clearly, if we weren't in debt we would just keep hold of them for the long haul and just sit tight but was wondering if we should just "bite the bullet" and sell them to reduce our debts down - they are worth £2,500??

Am thinking the answer is probably going to be sell them but would just like some opinions on this if possible.

Thanks.

Mrs PP. x

LealeaV

Hello MrsPennypot! Firstly I just wanted a say a big well done on being brave and posting your thoughts and SOA on here!

I wish I had found MSE when I had my LBM - cos it has changed my life for the better! The tips, advise and info on this site is amazing and then you have the lovely people on the forum, who have been through the same thing as you and have had the exact same thoughts and feelings has you have and will have on your journey!

I love your positivity and I reckon that you will tackle this with no problem - so long as you keep plodding on!

You may have some dark and dismal days along the way - but we're all here to support you on your journey!

Regarding the shares - I personally would ditch them and use the money to pay off the debt! I would be very surprised if they were returning more interest than the interest you are paying on some of debt?

Anyway best wishes and good luck!
Lea x

Hovel_lady

MrsPennyPot wrote: »

Also, forgot to ask......

We have shares in a high street bank (they are not worth any where near what we paid for them).:eek:

Clearly, if we weren't in debt we would just keep hold of them for the long haul and just sit tight but was wondering if we should just "bite the bullet" and sell them to reduce our debts down - they are worth £2,500??

Am thinking the answer is probably going to be sell them but would just like some opinions on this if possible.

Thanks.

Mrs PP. x

As lealeaV says sell the shares and put it towards whichever debt has the highest interest rate

MrsPennyPot

Hi lealeav and hovel lady, thanks for the advice!:hello:

Decided to go ahead with selling the shares. Its something we have known we have to do deep down but I think we were trying to kid ourselves that they would someday pay off all our debts in one go!!:rotfl:

Had negatives and small positives today...lets get the negative out the way first!! Have NO money left until next Friday so we will be living off the CC for the next week!!:embarasse

On a more positive note....have set up a quidco and ebay account today. I have also made a note of all the cashback, click and survey sites to research.

One thing with the ebay thing...whilst reading Mr B's diary there was a discussion about people paying for items via paypal or payment on collection. I think the general gist was to ask for payment on collection as you can get stung by payments not going through and people having it away with your items??!! Can anyone elaborate??!!:question:

Thanks for listening as always.

Mrs PP. x

fatbelly

MrsPennyPot wrote: »

Hi Fatbelly, one of the things that did concern me about the IVA was the clause regarding property equity, however, the lady at the charity debt advice company said that it wasn't really an issue as its very unlikely we could remortgage to release any equity so all we do is make a further 12 months payments so IVA would be 6 years..

The question is whether the creditors would have accepted the proposal. Hopefully we'll never know...

MrsPennyPot wrote: »

We have never looked at child tax credit as we were under the impression our income was too high??!! I also thought child tax credits were being scrapped/scrapped by the government....will look into this.

From

Tax credits - do you qualify?

If you have two children, for example, you may still be able to get tax credits if your income is up to £32,200 a year.

I guess you're borderline - worth looking into, though. As Tesco says, every little helps

fatbelly

MrsPennyPot wrote: »

On a more positive note....have set up a quidco and ebay account today. I have also made a note of all the cashback, click and survey sites to research.

I have used Quidco and Topcashback since I discovered mse in 2005. I've never had a problem with them,. Anything you can buy online you can probably buy through them and get cashback. I'm not a big spender online - insurances mostly - but I think I have earned around £1000 with each site.