Finally posting my SOA - any help and advice appreciated!

robpw2

why not ask your boyfriend to move in to help you with house costs so you can spend more money on your debts -if a lodger really is out of the question

theoretica

The bottom line is you need £150 more a month and it does not look like your outgoings can be squeezed much. On the good months with overtime you are nearly there, and the two months without council tax are coming up which will help.

Selling on ebay is a start, how else can you raise £5 a day? Have a look at the up your income forum here for ideas. A lodger would help greatly or a 2nd job on evenings and weekends, or going self employed with any hobbies...

chippy61

I know you say that your debt to your parents must be repaid and is non negotiable, howeverI think you need to sit down and discuss with them the options as at the current rate you will eventually have to sell your home. If you suspended payments to them for 15 months you could start to pay off your credit cards by using the snowballing techniques. Once they are paid off you could tackle your parents debt and would pay them off in 35 months. It will take 23 months as it is anyway

vasseur

chippy61 wrote: »

I know you say that your debt to your parents must be repaid and is non negotiable, howeverI think you need to sit down and discuss with them the options as at the current rate you will eventually have to sell your home. If you suspended payments to them for 15 months you could start to pay off your credit cards by using the snowballing techniques. Once they are paid off you could tackle your parents debt and would pay them off in 35 months. It will take 23 months as it is anyway

I was thinking this too. At the moment there is no wiggle room to start snowballing.

vics199

Hi everyone, thanks for your comments and advice. I think I am just going to see how it goes for 2 months without a lodger and see if I can just about cope and keep up payments. I just really can't consider having anther lodger at present as 2 out of 3 of my lodgers just haven't worked out and the last one caused damage to the property and made my life hell. There is a possibility that my boyfriend may be able to get out of his rental contract in March instead of September which would help a lot because he could move in and pay the same as a lodger would.

Selling my house wouldn't be a sensible option. As I said in a previous post, I didn't pay the deposit and have only been paying the mortgage for 2 and a half years and so I haven't paid off enough to make it worthwhile even considering selling it. Plus renting somewhere will only save me £50 a month but all the rental money would be going into a landlords pocket and not into buying a house. my probem is only short term as well (9 months max) before I know i can get by on the extra income from my boyfriend.

The situation with my parents is complicated. They bailed me out last year and let me off of 2 months repayments so I could fix my car. That nearly ended in us not speaking ever again and I can't risk that again. They know my financial situation already and are fed up of bailing me out and believe I should sort myself out because I was the one who got myself into this mess. And to be honest, I agree with them. I'm 28, they shouldn't be bailing me out anymore.

But on a positive, I'm just finding ways of making more money such as having a huge clearout and ebaying it all, surveys, overtime at work, maybe even look into some well paid evening work if I can find any opportunities nearby in my profession.

vics199

So I guess what I'm getting at is that I realise I need to increase my income.I would rather do it by working 2 or 3 evenings a week than by renting out my spare room. So that is my next plan of action I think. I should be able to earn £20 an hour if I can find somebody to take me on. So if I could get about 6 hours a week that should solve my problem.

HappyMJ

vics199 wrote: »

So I guess what I'm getting at is that I realise I need to increase my income.I would rather do it by working 2 or 3 evenings a week than by renting out my spare room. So that is my next plan of action I think. I should be able to earn £20 an hour if I can find somebody to take me on. So if I could get about 6 hours a week that should solve my problem.

I would consider a DMP... You have no room to cut anything from your budget so should consider paying token payments on your debts and unfortunately that must also include your parents. You can increase your other spends such as groceries to £200 a month to allow a bit extra cash in your hand to be able to give to your parents but you won't be able to tell your creditors you are doing that as you would be preferring one creditor over another.