Some help needed please . . .

koalabear75

Hi Everyone :wave:

Im new to posting, but have been lurking for a while and now I could do with some help please.

Im currently self-employed and also receive working/child tax credits as I am on my own and have one child. Unfortunately, work is slowly drying up, although very luckily I have managed to get a part-time job which starts in a few weeks, so will carry on with the businuess alongside it.

Ok, I have some debts, and although they are not massive ones, Im still short every month and my poor family have to keep bailing me out, but this cant go on forever.

I have already cut back on everything I possibly can, I don't have Sky or similar (use a freeview box), I have got rid of the contract phone and use PAYG, I am on a dongle for the internet. I have cancelled life policies and insurances until a time I am in a better position. I batch cook already. But I still dont have enough to cover everything.

So. . . my problems . . come from robbing Peter to pay Paul in one continuous circle.

I have a mortgage, which is relatively low, but currently no mortgage protection as I cant afford it. Not behind with the mortgage, maybe a couple of late payments, but always managed to pay it by second DD attempt, so far anyway.

Two bank accounts with Barclays, one with a £1,500 overdraft and a charge of £15 per month charge for the privelege and the other is a basic one with a free £100 overdraft. Both have the reserve facility on them, so I get charged £22 per week if I go over the agreed overdraft. I have paid the small one off several times, but then always something comes up which means I usually end up dipping into the reserve amount again. So some months, i can have charges of upto £176

I also have a bank loan, which was £5,000 over 5 years, but with PPI of £1,000 attached to it . This only has approx £1,300 left to go. I have no idea if I can get back the PPI, as I have no clue on this kind of stuff A few of the payments have bounced but been paid by the 2nd direct debit attempt (no black marks from this I dont think, maybe a couple of lates on my file).

And the biggest problems are two credit cards, both with approx £2000 on and at some astronomical rate of 30% . They didnt start out like that but I have been barely able to make anything more than minimum payments for about 2 years, and they just kept putting the % up. I dont use them, they were used last about two years ago, to pay for major repairs on car and house. I cant let the car go as its needed for my work plus its all tax deductable. I have payment protection on one card at £15 a month I think it is.

Also, I have dual fuel through EON, who are the bane of my life. Ive received an estimate for last quarter which was way over what I normally use, Ive paid approx £250 but it was for £100 more. Since then Ive given them my new readings and have recieved the bill for this quarter in the last week or so, but they have passed it onto collections (for last quarters??) even though it was only an estimate to begin with. Any suggestions there would be much appreciated.

Im also returning to studying in September, but I will work alongside this as its only part time. But I desperately want to try to get rid of some of the debt before then if I can.

Ive collected all the loose change together which I will bank this week and I also am going to set up an Ebay account, but this may take a couple of weeks to sell anything.

Any suggestions with anything please x

sistafromanothermista

Hi :wave: and welcome. At the top of the board is a stick thread with a SOA (statement of affairs) link.
If you fill that out and post we can look and see if you can reduce anything you may not have thought of.

koalabear75

Hi Sista

Thanks for the welcome.

I have gone through everything, I dont have anything coming out other than mortgage, car, car insurance and household bills and then servicing the debts.

Also, at the moment, my earnings are so sporadic that I dont even have an amount I can say for earnings. Ive already done the SOA, and theres nothing else I can chop off, so to speak . Once I start my new job, then I will at least have a more stable income, its just the above that I cant seem to make head way with. I really dont want to go into a debt management if I can avoid it.

Thank you anyway though x

Aiming_High

Also head over to the PPI board - it's easy to claim, we've done it twice, once with a simple form and the other was only one phone call.

sistafromanothermista

The ebay thing sounds like the way to go then

koalabear75

Thanks both, I will try to post in the PPI section, when i can dig out the T & C's for the PPI.

Come on lottery!!

triple_choc_chip

Hi I'm no expert but I think if you're self employed the PPI probably wouldn't have been any benefit to you and therefore you have a legitimate claim. Same goes for the payment protection on the credit card.

Have you tried for a balance transfer to reduce the card interest rates? A low life-of-balance deal may be easier to get and cheaper in the long run. Even if you can shift one of them it will save you approx £40 a month in interest.

Regards EON, have you spoken to them? Don't assume it's gone too far and can't be undone. I've been in this position in the past because I hadn't acted fast enough and I've managed to get the new bill spread over 3 months - that was with EDF but hopefully they all act the same way.

Sorry if I've made a lot of assumptions and you have already done all of this, but sometimes when you're in the middle of your situation it's hard to see through the fog ( and I've been stuck in some thick fogs!)

Barbeduk

You can definitely get the ppi back on the mortgage and the card, there's no way they should have sold that to someone who is self employed! I'd get on to that straight away.

So in summary you owe

£4k on cc at 30%
£1300 remaining on personal loan
£1600 overdraft costing up to £176 per month
Possible debt to EON
Plus mortgage repayments.

The credit cards and overdraft seem to be sucking up your money. Can you get a 0% balance transfer or have you tried this already? If not can you get a personal loan at a good interest rate and roll them up together under that? Otherwise I think you're going to need to contact a debt counselling charity as you 're not going to be able to get out of this with the interest rates working against you. Although you never know, your ppi claim could help significantly here.

Finally, and this,I appreciate, is teaching grandma to suck eggs, always ring the energy supplier with a meter reading if they send you an estimated bill!

Good luck, it'll get better. We are also self employed and my oh has done exactly what you're doing, working elsewhere part time to keep our business going.

dancingfairy

Hi - have you raised an official complaint with your energy supplier? Ring and ask them for a copy of their complaints procedure.
Get everything in writing to them , make sure you head the letter Formal complaint (unless their complaints procedure has any different info).
You can go to the ombudsman if they refuse to treat you properly but you should raise an official complaint with company concerned first. How much do you think you actually owe them? (as opposed to some random amount they have dreamed up?)
Have you written to the cards refusing a rate increase? It might be a bit late now but you do have the option of refusing rate jacks - they should give you a certain amount of notice of an increase in interest rate and as long as you reply within a certain amount of time you can reject the interest rate rise (as long as you cut the card up and stop using it) and the company have to let you continue to pay it off at the rate it already was. Probably a bit late now but do remember it in future.
Would it make more sense to try and set up payment plans for this (if it does exist) debt to the energy company, along with any other debts rather than scrabbling around each month? It would be better to stick to what you can afford each month rather than incurring late charges, bounced dd's etc.
Can you move your essential bills at all to make it less likely they will bounce?
Are you clamining all the benefits you are entitled to? I had a feeling you could claim JSA if you were seeking a job and they would reduce the amount you were paid based on any self-employed income. It would be a pain but at aleast if you had a dry patch you would know you would at least have the JSA to fall back on while you look for another job.
Best of Luck
df

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi koalabear75,

Hope you don't mind me sticking my oar in here but thought I might be able to offer a bit of info about the balance owed to E.ON

The first thing to do is get the account billed up to date, then I would suggest a payment arrangement, if there is a balance I'm sure we will be able to include this in the arrangement and let you spread it over a little bit of time.

So you will need to pay for the energy that you use and some off the balance each week/month depending on how you would like to pay.

We offer lot's of payment arrangements so ask what would suit you best, there are discounts for having a monthly Direct Debit and you might be able to get on to a better tariff.

If you have only had one debt collection letter then the process won't have gone too far, so ring us and see what we can do for you.

Or come to me and I will help you as much as I can.

Helena