Aahh, finally got round to actually deal with debt!!

creditcardjunkies

Well Hi everyone, as you can tell from my name, my husband and myself have got ourselves in a mess with credit cards!! We are more or less still managing to keep up our minimum payments, but thats as far as it goes, and them payments just cover the crazy interest rates!! I will write down our SOA before i get carried away!
Here goes!!!..............

MONTHLY INCOME
£1400 husbands wages
£350-£400 my wages
£298 tax credits/child benefit

TOTAL £2048

I've not long gone back to work after the birth of our second child, so i have just recently started getting wages, and i'm only working 1-2 days a week and i get paid on commision basis, so we try not to rely on this money. Just to let you know we have 2 children.

MONTHLY OUTGOINGS
£473 mortgage
£40 child care
£86 endownment
£124 council tax
£18 garage rent for motor bike
£40 life/sickness insurances
£11.35 tv licence
£32 car insurance
£22.50 bike insurance
£5.50 car/bike mot
£24 car/bike road tax
£30 broadband/phone
£70 mobile contracts (tied in till dec 07!!)
£80 petrol
£98 gas/electricity
£300 shopping
£45 catalogue
£190 mbna
£110 eggnow£130.28 (see below)
£35 bos
£54 barclaycard
£100? xmas/b'days(not really sure about this amount, we r stupid at xmas etc and this is prob how we are in mess with credit cards)

TOTAL £2008.63

My gas and electricity bill looks high, this is down to the fact than npower didnt review our direct debit through winter, and we were using more than we were paying for!!! So paying for it now!!

CREDIT CARD DETAILS
Egg card outstanding £5170 (limit £5250) 24.9% transferred to egg loan 4yr term, with apr 7.9%!!!!
MBNA card outstanding £7600 (limit £7500) 17.9% just foubd out this has jumped to 27.9%!!!
Barclaycard outstanding £2230 (limit £2500) 19.9%
BOS card outstanding £1494 (limit £1600) 15.9%

TOTAL £16434

Well thats all the scary details of our debt finally down in black and white!!!:mad:

Our situation as it stands is we feel like its a constant struggle to keep on top of paying the credit cards minimum amounts and it is just covering the interest. But we have, until recently, managed to do this. The MBNA card has became our main problem, as making the minimum payment is bringing it into the credit limit but as soon as the following months interest is applied we're back over limit again, therfore incurring charges. Aahh!!

We did try applying for balance transfer cards near the end of last year, but think we have had our lot and got refused. We also applied for both unsecure(declined), and secure(accepted but only for £9000 so we didn't take it) loans. We have considered seeing if there is any equity to release in our house, but dont really want to go down this route.

We've not applied for any other finance since december as it obviously doesn't help our credit files, and our recent MBNA dealings won't have helped our situation.

Our ideal resolution would be to get all the debt into 1 place, just so we have 1 bill to worry about and 1 lot of interest, but i suppose that would be living in the ideal world!!:o

Thank you to anyone whos actually read this without falling asleep. sorry if i babbled on too much .

Any advice. and i mean any would be totally appreciated, as just now i feel like my blonde locks are begining to wear thin from my constant pulling, lol!! But i seriosly dont know how we're going to get out this mess!

Thanks again, a stressed out creditcardjunky x

emzig123

Hiya, well done for joining and posting!

First thing, could you move £100 from the MBNA to bring you below the credit limit, possibly put it on BOS.

Secondly, how many kids have you got? Food could be cut down, especially if you are part time and can cook from scratch.

You have lots missing from your SOA, christmas, birthdays, car tax/mot/maintenance..... is this where the extra money is going? try to keep a spending diary writing down every penny you and OH spend and it will give you an eye opener to see where it goes!

Good luck and welcome xx

chevalier

1) don't forget you can claim back all of the charges for overlimit etc, see the thread on the board about this
2) ask you card providers to drop the interest rates, some might
3) do you really need to rent a garage ie you have a car in it? If it is full of junk then ebay, car boot until it is empty!
4) is the BOS credit card limit really 16000 or 1600? If the former you have space on that card for nearly all the debt on the other 3 (bar a few hundred pounds) so you would be paying less interest if you could move it to there
5) you have £211 left over after all of your payments apparently. But is this left at the end of the month? I suspect things like car mot, tax, servicing, birthdays, holdidays, christmas etc will be eating into this amount. So you and OH need to do a spending diary. Write down everything you spend money on you may be surprised after a month or two where money is being spent eg on magazines, coffee, paper everyday etc.
Good luck
chev

creditcardjunkies

Hi thanks for looking, i have 2 children. As for the cooking thing, its actually something i've just started doing, my baby is definately getting fed well, i'm like supermum, no baby jars this time round! Lol!!:T

I dont think i can transfer £100 from mbna to bos due to the 95% of available credit thing that most cards apply to balance transfers. But i will get my husband to enquire about that. I had considered increasing my overdraft as it is only £100 to get mbna out the red, but not too sure.

I wasn't quite sure how to add all the odds and ends you mentioned on the SOA. But i'll come back tomorrow with a clear head and try to add things i've missed, i'll maybe have a wee look at other peoples SOA's see what i've missed out.

Thanks though, you were quick off the mark, thought i would wait days for someone to look:j x

emzig123

Nah, i'm sat here avoiding revision! will look out for your posts tomorrow, sleep well!

creditcardjunkies

Hi Chevalier,

Oops yeah the BOS limit was a bit of a mistake unfortunately, that would have been great!:j

Think i need to do some tweeking to SOA and add all the other bits cos i dont have £200 left at end of month.

Thanks for bringing all this to my attention.

joeblack066

creditcardjunkies wrote: »

Well Hi everyone, as you can tell from my name, my husband and myself have got ourselves in a mess with credit cards!! We are more or less still managing to keep up our minimum payments, but thats as far as it goes, and them payments just cover the crazy interest rates!! I will write down our SOA before i get carried away!
Here goes!!!..............

MONTHLY INCOME
£1400 husbands wages
£350-£400 my wages
£298 tax credits/child benefit

TOTAL £2048

I've not long gone back to work after the birth of our second child, so i have just recently started getting wages, and i'm only working 1-2 days a week and i get paid on commision basis, so we try not to rely on this money.

MONTHLY OUTGOINGS
£473 mortgage
£40 child care
£86 endownment
£124 council tax
£18 garage rent
£40 life/sickness insurances
£11.35 tv licence
£32 car insurance
£30 broadband/phone
£70 mobile contractsAre you locked in to these? If not, get Genie Cards on o2 and get 300 free texts per month for topping up £10 per month
£80 petrol
£98 gas/electricity
£300 shopping You could work hard and get this down by at least £80 per month.
£45 catalogue
£190 mbna
£110 egg
£35 bos
£54 barclaycard

TOTAL £1836.35

These are all I can see immediately but they would give you another £130 to throw at your debt. Do a Snowball calculator https://www.whatsthecost.com , and remember its worth registering as you can save your snowballs then. Start a spending diary to see where the other cash goes to as well. Once you have done this, you will be able to see exactly how you are going to pay off your debt, and will feel much more positive.

creditcardjunkies

Well thanks for handy little pointers eveyone.

I've updated my SOA, i had missed out a few things, probably still have.

But we're both going to start a spending diary, see how we get on. I'm also going to start bagging all my sons baby clothes into bundles and sell them on ebay, no point in them gathering dust in attic!!

I was in tesco today and opted for some cheaper options in things i usually buy!! Next stop Aldi!!

Thanks x

catewithers

Just wanted to say welcome and well done on getting started. You'll get so much support and advice on here you'll do just fine!

creditcardjunkies

Well as you can see from my updated SOA, i've been on the phone to egg and they've kindly transferred the balance of my egg card to an egg loan with a much nicer interest rate of 7.9% rather than the crazy 24.9%!!!! Although i've decided to take the loan over 4 years, making my monthly payment go up £20, i can now see a light at the end of the tunnel!!:T

My husbands now away to try the same tactics with MBNA, as we've just found out the interest has shot up by 10% which explains why we're constantly over the limit!! But i'm actually pleased with ourselves regarding MBNA as this is the card we always seem to struggle with and i've some jow managed to pay an extra £80 to it today!!:rotfl:

creditcardjunkies

Well no such luck with MBNA so far! Got to phone different department tomorrow! They basically said we weren't in dire staights yet!! Would they rather you leave it till you cant make any payment at all!!!!