are we doing the right thing?

Indebted2uRen79

zipwen1 wrote: »

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.

Please don't take this as me being rude but if you are really desperate to get debts under control then I think you should find some less expensive things to do at weekends with your partner.

My husband and I have had to go to CCCS and go onto a debt management plan. Whilst working out the figures we had to be realistic and allowed ourselves some money for leisure, mainly because we have kids but those treats consist of renting a dvd, microwave popcorn, and some chips to share between us. We only ever go out on very special occasions ie mine or his birthday. This is the price we pay for living beyond our means and being foolish with credit.

As someone mentioned more credit won't cure the problem because you never know what's round the corner.
At the time we got loans, credit cards, etc we both had good money coming in. A wedding, a car, and two children later, it all add up. Not to mention my husband about to have a third operation within a year and me needed at home as a carer for him.
It's harsh but you will keep sliding if you are not willing to adjust your life.

zipwen1

for everyone who is reading all posts i apologize for repeating myself and boring you to death, for all those who just skim the post i feel i should make things clear. we wont be borrowing anymore credit we are borrowing the same amount of credit. we are paying off the credit cards and will never ever ever ever ever ever apply for credit again!!!!! (not including mortgages) we talk about our debt 24/7 it is constantly on our mind and just because we are consolidating doesnt mean that we are instantly going to forget that we are 25k in debt and run out to get the most credit cards we can. we are disappointed that we have been so stupid in the past, getting things on credit because we couldn't be bothered to save up for them. and we kick ourselves every day because £600pm is coming straight out of our bank to pay for a: things we don't have anymore b: crap holidays that were a waste of money c: who the hell knows i don't remember going to the check-out with 25k worth of stuff.
i think to be 23 and be in 25k of debt is ridiculous and my parents would be so ashamed.
im glad we are sorting it out, but im not going to struggle and stay in and waste my younger years. im going to life comfortably and pay my debts, i don't see why i cant do both. if things go bad and we earn less then obviously we will change our lifestyle, but at the moment we can afford to pay an adequate amount off our debt and have a life too

Emmzi

zipwen,

sounds like you've already decided, so good luck with it.

For me, I couldn't enjoy spending knowing I had unpaid debt... it's a personal choice and down to what you can live with.

lynzpower

zipwen1 wrote: »

for everyone who is reading all posts i apologize for repeating myself and boring you to death, for all those who just skim the post i feel i should make things clear. we wont be borrowing anymore credit we are borrowing the same amount of credit. we are paying off the credit cards and will never ever ever ever ever ever apply for credit again!!!!! (not including mortgages) we talk about our debt 24/7 it is constantly on our mind and just because we are consolidating doesnt mean that we are instantly going to forget that we are 25k in debt and run out to get the most credit cards we can. we are disappointed that we have been so stupid in the past, getting things on credit because we couldn't be bothered to save up for them. and we kick ourselves every day because £600pm is coming straight out of our bank to pay for a: things we don't have anymore b: crap holidays that were a waste of money c: who the hell knows i don't remember going to the check-out with 25k worth of stuff.
i think to be 23 and be in 25k of debt is ridiculous and my parents would be so ashamed.
im glad we are sorting it out, but im not going to struggle and stay in and waste my younger years. im going to life comfortably and pay my debts, i don't see why i cant do both. if things go bad and we earn less then obviously we will change our lifestyle, but at the moment we can afford to pay an adequate amount off our debt and have a life too

I have a freind who sounds exactly like you are in. her hubby worked away and they were drowning in debt. they then consolidated into a secured loan.

She gets pregnant, their income drops, hubby finds himself out of work after a takeover of the company, and he uis scrabbling about for something minimum wage. they are utterly shafted for money now

they cant go into a DMP, because they cant use secured debts in a DMP.

So they stagger on as best as they can and try not to lose thier home. However, thier days are numbered.

I just cant understand why you would choose smoking and driving lessons over the security of your home?

angelavdavis

Hi Zipwen,

I think you have received some good advice so far and for the record, I am afraid I am in the "don't transfer unsecured debt into secured" - its a scary downward spiral and there are plenty of us that have been there.

I extended my mortgage loan a few years ago to pay off debts and when mortgage fixed rate deal finished, the interest rate had increased, I found I had to change the term to a longer term to meet repayments. As a result, instead of being mortgage free at 48, I will be nearly 70! Suffice to say, I won't be doing it again, and plan to throw every penny toward the mortgage to try to meet the original date!

Credit Rating - I think you should try to get the debts onto a fixed rate life of balance deal - it will remove the pressure of having to apply for a 0% tart deal. It might be worth you and OH taking up the opportunity to review your credit files using advice from Martin. There is an article

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1101485056,23650,

My quick advice would be:

-Look for defaults on payments (ie missed payments) sometimes these can occur if a dd has arrived late, etc.
-Check for old credit cards that aren't being used any more. Cancel them immediately via a letter to each company (or phone them up and see if you can cancel over the phone if possible) so the available credit is removed from your file - this can affect your credit rating.
-Make sure you are on the electoral register.
-Limit the amount of applications for credit you make to reduce the amount of credit checks on your account. If this means sticking it out for 3-4 months so be it, it will mean limiting the expenses for a while but will mean - if you have ensured Martin's advice on repairing the credit rating is followed, you can then apply for a lower rate credit card.
-Follow Martin's advice relating to credit cards and which fit which income stream.

Existing Credit Card Debt - In the meantime, if you haven't already tried, phone your existing credit card companies and ask for a reduced rate - ask them what the apr is and appear shocked, saying you have been shopping around and was surprised what you were being offered by other companies and so are thinking of switching to one of these so would they be prepared to offer you a better deal to keep you custom.

Although there are never guarantees, it is worth doing these things and seeing if you can actually improve your situation with regard to obtaining a better rate. I would also look to see if you can switch to a life of balance credit card interest rate deal - consolidating onto one card if possible.

B/Fs mobi - If bf work away most of the time, can he not claim back his mobile phone calls? He really needs to work on reigning in his usage to reduce this bill.

Sofa Debt - How much is the total sofa debt? It might be worth seeing if you can switch this to a lob credit card when you can.

Good luck with everything.

zipwen1

lynzpower wrote: »

I have a freind who sounds exactly like you are in. her hubby worked away and they were drowning in debt. they then consolidated into a secured loan.

She gets pregnant, their income drops, hubby finds himself out of work after a takeover of the company, and he uis scrabbling about for something minimum wage. they are utterly shafted for money now

they cant go into a DMP, because they cant use secured debts in a DMP.

So they stagger on as best as they can and try not to lose thier home. However, thier days are numbered.

I just cant understand why you would choose smoking and driving lessons over the security of your home?

1* we arnt taking the secured loan anymore as i have already said we are going with the unsecured loan from our bank.
2* the is no chance of me becoming pregnant
3* my boyfriends company has already been taken over by a big american company and he still has his job, also they have taken on two new big 5yr contracts so i think the risks of him becoming jobless are low
4* if the worst came to the worst, i would have no problems with selling my apartment and starting over again.

zipwen1

angelavdavis wrote: »

B/Fs mobi - If bf work away most of the time, can he not claim back his mobile phone calls? He really needs to work on reigning in his usage to reduce this bill.

Sofa Debt - How much is the total sofa debt? It might be worth seeing if you can switch this to a lob credit card when you can.

Good luck with everything.

the sofa debt is 2000 with no apr we are only paying the 2k for it

the mobile bill is for two phones mine and bfs, he also has a work phone which is paid for by the company. i have no idea how he manages to use his minutes and texts up and even though i nag at him to watch what he is doing with it he never dose

as for credit files both are fine no late payments no none payments. we arnt on the electoral role but i have just filled the forms out for it so we will be soon.
i think we may have applied for credit to many times though

FRUGAL_4

Hi,

Firstly my apologies for not reading the thread in detail, but I know you said you have decided not to go for the secured loan, well done on that front, those companies which advertise on tv are vulgar, they seem to say consolidate your debt and you will have extra money each month, whilst this maybe so, you will be paying for that debt for much longer, the same goes for re-mortgaging.

I also would not be so keen to take on a bank loan, why don't you wait for your credit scoring to improve, don't apply for anything for a couple of months, you said you are not struggling, and then you can apply for zero percent or low apr cards (3.9% for the lifetime balance transfer). This in my opinion would make more sense. I am talking from experience here, I am debt free now only thanks to Martin for the advice on the endowment claim, but please consider consolidation very carefully which ever method of consolidating you may chose, its not an easy opinion, nor a way out by reducing your debt repayments monthly.

I do hope you don't think I have spoken out of turn here, its not my intention, CONSOLIDATION IN THE MAJORITY OF CASES DOES NOT WORK.

Wishing you success with your aim to be debt free.

FRUGAL

zipwen1

i know for most people it doesnt work but i think it is the best option for us we wont have the credit cards with extortionate rates and we will have an actual date that we can say we will be debt free, plus for what we have planned for our future there is no way we want to get anymore debt than we already have. we are committed to paying it off and we are committing £600 per month, but we will be paying more from time to time, we have worked out that we will try to over pay around 3k per year but this is not guaranteed if we don't manage to do it every year it wont matter as long as we are making the guaranteed payments that we are comfortable with.

i apologise to every one who has tried to steer us away from the consolidation loan i know you are trying to help and you are all probably thinking that by the end of the year we will be in 30k of debt. but honestly we have been stupid with money, now we are wiser and wont fall any deeper into debt

and with regards to the low lob cc's we did try before but i think we are at our credit limit as we tried 1yr ago and couldnt get one