I am asking for help

DepressedDad

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

There's not a lot of saving to be made, but:-

£800 pa for 2 mobiles is high. Go PAYG ASAP (£20 pm for 2) and, in the meantime, see if you can lower the tariffs.

Dump the Satellite/Cable TV (£138 pa) and go Freeview.

Halve the spend (currently £500 pa) on presents.

That's, potentially, another £940 pa, towards the 21.9% loan.

BTW. Is the 0% card on the absolute minimum payment and at the limit?

I agree about the Mobile. I must admit that is my achilles heel! I pay £31 a month for my mobile and have recently entered into it but I might be able to convince the wife to down grade :cool:

I LOVE my Virgin. I think £36 a month for phone line, broadband and TV is quite good and that is our main source of entertainment but I agree it is a luxury which we might need to get rid of in the future.

£500 pa for presents is birthdays and christmas but will do our best to bring that down.

I can no longer transfer the balance on the 0% card at 0% but we just did a shuffle and currently the only card we're paying full apr% is the big one!

Thanks for all your advice :beer:

DepressedDad

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

So do you really watch much/any live TV?

Yes, all evening every evening.

DepressedDad

Verbatim wrote: »

Hi there,
Do you have a spare room? If you could take a lodger the extra money would be considerable and it's tax free up to around £5500 ish pa. (You'd need to check the exact amount). If that seems too daunting you could consider taking a foreign student if there's a language school near you. They are typically young, 20s I mean, although there are also schemes for children in the summer mostly. The joy with foreign students is that they stay for between 1 week to 3 months usually and you can choose when you want a break. I did this when we were paying down debt for over a year and will do it again when my husband retires to help with house maintenance costs,
The other spare room option is having a Mon night to Fri morning lodger, ie someone who works in your area but has home and family too far away to commute daily.
many people feel it would be too intrusive, and we thought it would be too, but we have happy memories and some amusing ones too and are still in touch with our "favourite" student 6 years on.

Unfortunately there's no room at the inn! But thanks for the tips!