Soa

mrsspendalot

I would suggest that you could shave a good £100 off your food bill, reduce gas and electric & phone/broadband costs and then I would pop onto https://www.whatsthecost.com and enter all your debt details and see what the snowball calculator suggests. This worked much better for us than consolidating. I also have a family of 5 and have reduced my food bill down from £300 to about £175 a month, including nappies for a one year old, and we eat fresh fruit, veg and meat - we have just cut out loads of snacks and other bits we don't need and meal planned like crazy. Even with your stepson taking bits back to uni, if you reduce the price of what you are buying you will still make savings. What kind of things does he take?

mrsspendalot

Also try and claim back your bank charges - at £72 a month they will have added up!!!

mrsspendalot

Sorry, me again, petrol is very high, do you have a long commute?

steve700

Unless I've read it incorrectly, in 12 months time you will have £385 a month extra to throw at your debts - Will your morrtgage be paid off then?

Clairee_4

Petrol, thats my husband he works about an hours drive from home, so yes quite a lot of petrol.
The 72 bank charge is for using the over draft facility, not charges as such,
Cant see the apr on credit cards at moment, am searching there bills
Also forgot 2 more debt
HFC - 973 owing repayment 27.00 a month ( interest is 16.32 a month)
HFc - 2000 owing repayment 54.00 a month (interest is 38 ish a month)
Both min payments of course. God it is now even worse now

mrsspendalot

Can your husband car share? Or have you looked at whether a monthly train pass or buss pass would work out cheaper? I know it is not an option for some - my hubby has just finished a job where he was half an hour commute out in the sticks with no train or bus and no one to car share with, so I understand your situation.

Clairee_4

God no, just the interest only period will be up then the morg will be sky high, well about £650
I have another 16 yrs left on that

Clairee_4

No he works outside a train route, it took him 2.5 hours to get to work when the car was being serviced..

mrsspendalot

What is your credit rating like? Have you any CCJs defaults etc. arrears? Just wondering whether you should go for an IVA or DMP or something like that as you clearly can't carry on the way you are, especially if your mortgage payments will be increasing soon.

Miss_Moneypenny_6

Hi there, please, please don't take out a loan until you have had a few more responses and have read through the site more - I was in your situation - going to take out a loan to consolidate but from the great people on here I realised that by cutting down & shopping around I was able to free up about £100 a month.

More experienced guys will be along soon to help but for starters your sky/phone/broadband seems very high. With Tiscali I pay £30.97 which includes line rental all local & national calls (ROI as well) & unlimited broadband my sky is £18 a month making a total of £48.97 saving you £32.03 a month without missing out on anything.

Could you ask your father in law to reduce/freeze the payments for 2 months & use the money to pay off the Debehams store card, this would leave you £20 a month to throw at something else.

Can you check your insurance and make sure you are getting the best policy at the cheapest price?

Hope it's of some help.

Good luck

PS Just noticed that you have not allowed for car maintenace, birthdays, christmas etc: