are we doing the right thing?

RAS

Zip

You are struggling to pay these now.

Do you realise that if you have real problems (say one of you loses their job or falls sick or your relationship breaks down) you can negoitiate to pay unsecured loans and CCs off over a longer time via a Debt managment plan or other means.

If you secure the loan, you will lose your home. First plus can make you sell up to pay off the loan.

Please can you expand your SOA. List each credit card, with the amount owed, the maximum limit, the APR and the minimum payment. Also, please add to your list whose name each CC and loan is in.

Sorry but this board is littered with people who have taken out loans in their name and then when the relationship breaks down, they have landed with the whole debt. Some have even got parents to take out loans and then landed up with a mess.

In the end it is up to you but this secure loan is the way to real problems in the futre

zipwen1

taken your advice and are getting in touch with our bank now to speak to them about the loan they offered us i don't mind paying the 11% apr if it means that we wont risk loosing our house.
we arnt struggling to pay our debts we just don't want the credit cards hanging over us and would rather just have one loan.
at the moment we pay between 550 and 600 per month towards our loan and cc's so if it was all in one it would save us around 100pm that we could start putting away for holidays etc instead of getting them on the cc's.
i know that there are lots of people on this site that are in a lot of trouble with credit. but at the ripe old age of 23 i have learnt my lesson we plan to start a family after our debts are paid off and there is no way that i want to be pushing a buggy around at the ripe old age of 40 so this is it for us now.
we haven't spent on the cards now for two years but the total just doesnt seem to come down because the interest is about £150 a month and we are only paying between £250-£300pm off them. i know that we have x amount left over after our bills, food,ect come out but we don't want to use it to pay more off the cc's because we would have no life and it would probably lead to more spending on them so the best thing for us to do at the moment would be to pay them off and cut them up. dose anyone agree?

Little_Miss_Winner

zipwen1 wrote: »

taken your advice and are getting in touch with our bank now to speak to them about the loan they offered us i don't mind paying the 11% apr if it means that we wont risk loosing our house.

Hi there,
How much would the monthly payment be, and over how long?

zipwen1

cant remember exactly but i think it was around 500 for 5 years for around 11% don't quote me on it though. we can afford to pay 600 or 650 but wouldn't really wont to as it wouldn't leave much for us to play with on the weekends

lynzpower

we earn 2400 a month ( i only work part time at the moment)
725 mortgage
300 loan ( till when )
250-300 cc ( til when )
99 sofa ( till when - & APR)
75 service charge
112 council tax
90 water/electric/gas ( checked these are the cheapest etc)
20 life insurance ( do you need this? )
26 phone/Internet ( this seems a bit high, you can drag this down a bit to 20)
80 mobiles ( how come you are wasting so much on these hun, go PAYG, or drag down your contracts, by downgrading- I even have a contract and I dont spend half as much as you are!))
20 contents insurance ( just contents, seems very high indeed)
50 car insurance ( if you only drive weekends, do you need to spend all this per month, polus you havent accounted for repairs, mot etc)
30 petrol (only used at weekends) ( Id sugggest looking at getting rid of th4e car TBH)
100-150 food (only me to feed during the week partner gets expenses) ( this is high, this is what we spend on food for 2, eating 3 meals a day, looking after a dog and so on)

theres a fair amount to slice back here.

OIn saying that a quick total up shows you have ( after these expenses) a whopping 623 left over. Im really not sure why you are not managing unless theres a whole raft of stuff you havent added to your SOA.

I suggest starting a spending diary and makig sure you know where every single penny goes. there is no point at all consoidting if you cannot control your finances, youll simply end up back in the same boat all over again.

Good luck xx

zipwen1

i know we have a lot left over after expenses we use that for weekend stuff as my partner works in London all week an im in Cheshire so we like to go out and do things when we are together, plus im starting to learn to drive soon so ill need some money for that.

at the moment we arnt finding it hard to make payments on the debts i just think it would be easier to consol them into one so we haven't got loads of dd's coming out every month and so we know the cc's will be payed off, and we wont still have them 10yrs down the line.
im not up for scrimping and saving to pay more off them because i dont think it would be the best thing for us to do we would get tired of it and eventually we would end up just spending what we are paying off if you know what i mean. we can comfortably pay £600 per month off our debt if it was all in one it would be over in six yrs
i dont see us paying off the cc's all at 16% in six years at the rate we are going so i think it would be for the best.

zipwen1

725 mortgage
300 loan till sept 2010
250-300 cc all 3 are 16% and god only knows how long it would take to clear them
99 sofa 0% ends 2009
75 service charge
112 council tax
90 water/electric/gas not lived her long so thease are the initial rates
20 life insurance needed for mortgage
26 phone/Internet high becouse we pay for bt landline then virgin bb ontop
80 mobiles 12 months left on contract only ment to be 65 but bf always manages to go over his minutes
20 contents insurance thought it was high myself bf sorted it will look into
50 car insurance
30 petrol (only used at weekends)
100-150 food (only me to feed during the week partner gets expenses) includes cigi's

Ytaya

If you're worried about piling more debt onto your credit cards, put them out of temptation's reach until you've got a handle on living with what you have in front of you? You could either cut them up or freeze them in the middle of a bag of water - that way they're there for true emergencies, but you can't get them on a whim!

southernscouser

zipwen1 wrote: »

we arnt struggling to pay our debts we just don't want the credit cards hanging over us and would rather just have one loan.
at the moment we pay between 550 and 600 per month towards our loan and cc's so if it was all in one it would save us around 100pm that we could start putting away for holidays etc instead of getting them on the cc's.

This is exactly why consolidation for 95% of the time doesn't work. Trust me. I've been there.

The simple maths is, the more you pay to your debts a month, the quicker they get paid off. I urge you not to do anything rash and sit down and work everything out.

If you're not struggling to meet the payments then why not (as an alternative but not necessarily the best) take an unsecured loan where the payment remains the same as what you are paying now? It will mean you pay less interest and pay the loan off a lot quicker.

I know it's nice to think that you will have more 'spare' money but it's a slippery road!

Are you in control of your spending, ie are your outgoings less than your incomings?

If I was in your shoes I would apply for a low life of balance credit card. There are some out there at 3.9%.

zipwen1

yeah the outgoings are less we havent spent on the cc's for two years ( they keep sending us letters to try and get us to Carry on spending) learnt our lesson now.
tried to get low life of balance cc but refused i think we have applied to many times now so it looks like the bank loan is our best option as they have already done the search