Please Help Me! Friendly advice needed!!

I_Heart_NYC

So i have been looking over all the threads on this website for months and months and really found it interesting, so thought hey why dont i post one and see what advice i can get... :embarasse

So firstly i desperately want to be rid of my debts (dont we all...) but i have been in debt since i received my first credit card at 18 (i am now 24!) nothing improves over the years, it only gets worse...

I constantly borrowed to pay off other debts, then of course would run the other again, i was very irresponsible to say the least... Now i am getting older i just want RID of it all, it is like a dead weight hanging over me.. and can never talk to anyone about as they judge...

i have investigated the info on here about Full and Final settlement figures. The one company i am going to first is Black Horse, does anyone have any experience with them regarding this?? I have two loans which they claim i owe £1220 on which i am paying back £120 a month! i want to make them an offer of £600... the only reason i can afford to pay this back is that my boyf has offered to give me the cash so thought if i could pay this off and free up an extra £120 a month to pay off other debts quicker...

I also took out a stupid loan with Welcome Finance of £1,500 which after like 5 months i still owe £1,500 on my credit file, god knows what their settlement figure is...

i also had a loan like 4 years ago with Lloyds TSB which they refinanced for me as i had trouble paying everything back so reduced the payments over like 7 years! I currently owe them now £2,850, but as i am only paying £40 a month feel like is going to carry on forever! So was wondering whether to make them a settlement figure? Does anyone have any experience with Lloyds?

Also after taking all your helpful advice have written a letter to Lloyds TSB claiming my bank charges back of nerly £3,000! And although they have not responded yet i feel i will prob have to take it to court as Lloyds are the worst in this.... :eek:

speaking of charges they took out £200 worth of charges from my account this month even though i called them to say i was experiencing financial difficulties... :mad:

Anyway i have debts near to £20k and although this is not a lot to others this is too much for me so just wanted some helpful advice (and no judgment!) on how i can get this paid off asap and if there is anyway to reduce the debt so i can get it done quicker?

Thanks so much! (sorry for rambling....) :easter:

LandyAndy

Hi and welcome to the board.

To give you good advice we need as much information as you can give us set out as clearly as possible.

So - Look at other posts (and of course southernscousers sticky template) to see how to set out your Income and Expenditure and also how to list your debts including current balance, apr, monthly repayment etc. ( a phone call to each lender will give a current settlement figure).

Try to set these out as a logical list without further comment then its easier for other readers to pick out the important information.

LandyAndy

immoral_angeluk

Hi NYC and welcome to DFW. As for the final settlements.. are you accounts in default and been passed to DCAs? Otherwise depending on how your interest was added on I wouldn't expect much of a reduction on how much you owe for a final settlement. I recently paid off my black horse loan but because of how the interest was added I had to pay about £40 over what the actual amount owing was the clear it completely.

System

Nothing to say except welcome to the rest of your life - it starts with DFW. You are in the right place, do not go anywhere! Lenny

hypno06

Are you currently up to date with all your payments and do you have any defaults or CCJs on your file?

My reason for asking is that if you want to keep your credit reference in good shape, then by asking for full and final settlements you will be causing yourself a problem for the next 6 years at least.

Of course, if you are ok with that, then Full and Finals may be the way to go.

Have a look at all the options, post your SOA on here and we will see if we can help release some of this £120 by some other means.

Also have a go on the snowball calculation - https://www.whatsthecost.com and put your figures in there. It may be encouraging to see that you have a debt free date that you can play around with.

Whatever course of action you choose to take, don't be afraid to keep posting here. We are a friendly bunch. Honest :rolleyes:

LandyAndy

Just asking the lenders for their current settlement figure for information purposes won't cause you any problems. just don't try and negotiate reductions in these figures until you've had the info looked at here.

I_Heart_NYC

I do have some defaulted payments yes, no CCJs though...

Here is a breakdown of my expenditure etc:

Income - £1780

Outgoings:

Car Insurance: £30

Black Horse Loan (1) - £85 (Owed: £511.71)

Black Horse Loan (2) - £35 (Owed: £706)

Car Loan - £144 (Owed: £5180) - Settlement £4,000

Halifax CC - £120- (Owed:£5,000) (this has to to be paid by April '07 as it is a friends!)

Lloyds TSB Loan - £45 (Owed:£2,800)

Welcome Finance - £80 (Owed: £1,500)

Travel - £40

Natwest Loan - £245 (Owed:£5,500)

Capital One - £10 (Owed: £220)

Barclaycard - £10 (Owed:£260)

Vanquis - £10 (Owed:£250)

Next - £65 (Owed:£530)

LEAVES:£871

Now i have written to Black Horse offering them £250 and £350 on the loans, as i am in arrears slightly, but to be honest i considering to stop paying them so they accept my offer as i am desperate...

From then i need to clear the Next account really as that is a high min payment on £530!! so if these two were paid off it leaves me an extra £185 to add to my leftover... leaving £1,055

So any ideas what to tackle first and how much....??

Thanks again for your helpful comments, i think this is going to be a start of a wonderful relationship!! he he :rotfl:

mintymoneysaver

So now we also need to know where the other £871 is going so that we can see where you can make savings and get rid of these debts more quickly.
You have a good income compared to many people on here so I'm sure we can sort something out.
If you could clear enough from other places to pay off some of those smaller debts you would have much more money to throw at the bigger ones.
You owe just over £21,000 which is a lot of money but not impossible to pay off.
The other obvious thing is that you need to cut all those cards up and burn your next catalogue!

james_p_3

Get rid of store cards first. (next)
even if you have to live on egg and chips for a month.
the smaller ones can also be paid off releasing more funds for the bigger !!!!!!s, your payments to blackhorse/welcome are minimal so you will incur more intrest, even if you save in a high intrest acount youll always be at 20% or over. reduce the capital.
couple of other small incentives, 1 put some cash into premium bonds (you may win), second book a holiday as a prize for your persaverence