Help & Advice Wanted

spacekadett_uk

Hi All,

My situation is I am on a low income supporting both myself, my wife and our daughter of 2yrs of age. And we have an increasing large debt which we are struggling to find ways to pay.

Our debt is as follows;
Egg Loan, app £11,000
Lloyds TSB loan, app £5000
Mastercard, app £4,000

We currently have an agreement with Egg and Lloyds TSB to pay a revised amount of £71.29 & £27.90 repectively. And with Mastercard the minimum payment is being made at around £130 a month. With all this money going out on top of our monthly outgoings of rent, council tax and utilitie bills. We bearly have enough money to pay for food and clothing, let alone entertainment & leisure expenses. I know must of you will say "send your wife out to work" but by doing this we would have to pay out a high amount for childcare, and we would lose all of our current benefits. The thing we cannot afford to do is to go bankrupt as I would end up losing my job. Even though mu current job is only low paid at the moment there is alot of chance in the near / long term to earn more therefore life would be much easier but at current we are struggling.

If anyone can help us, with any advice or suggestions. This will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading and taking the time to respond if you do its nice to know someone cares

a desparate spacekadett :rotfl:

GirlRacer_2

Hi and welcome aboard.

The first thing you need to do is post your statement of affairs (see southernscousers thread for first time posters. Once you do that everyone will come along with some ideas on where you can cut back.

You say your on low income, are you claiming all the benefits your entitled to?

Post up your SOA and we'll have a look how we can help you.

Swishter

Hi,

First off all a big :grouphug:

Well done for getting here. If you want some real help you really need to post an SOA, please see southernscousers sticky at the top of the DFW page. Basically what you need to do is show us yuor incomings versus your outgoings, we can help you see where you can make savings/cut back and then give you real advice on your circumstances.

Swish

Swishter

Ooops I crossed over with you Girlracer. I'm a bit slow on the keys tonight!

SunderlandBlackCat

Hi Spacekadett & welcome to the board

As girlracer said if you post a SOA we'll be able to offer advice specific to your circumstances. Theres a template here

It might be worth your while having a look at http://www.entitledto.org.uk/ as well to make sure you're getting everything you should be.

chevalier

If you do not feel that you can earn more at the moment (ie in another job with better pay), then you need to make the money you have go further.

So check that your gas/electric/insurances are all the cheapest. If you find a cheaper deal, then sign up https://www.quidco.com and switch via them . You then get cash back on the deal too.

If they are all the cheapest, then is you house (?) well insulated? Check the thermostat on your central heating, if it is above 20 degrees C then turn it down to this. Turning heating down 1 degree saves about £70 off your fuel bill.

Could you wife do mystery shopping where she could take your child with her? There is a whole thread on here about this. It won't earn a lot of money but every little helps.

Could you (or your wife) retrain so that one of you could get a better paying job. Not all training costs, for example, many councils run IT courses that are free.

Best of luck
chev

spacekadett_uk

HI all

Thank you for all your kind words here is my SOA and i hope i have included every thing for you if anything missing just ask


Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £880
Partners salary - £0
Benefits - £334 This is only temparary as we are still awaiting a response from Housing benefit and child tax credit needs to be confirmed

Total - £1214

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - £425
Council Tax - £117
Gas - £19
Electric - £40
TV License - £12.50
Phone - £86 (this includes BT and moblies)
Food - £300
Car Insurance - £31
Petrol - £40
Broadband - £18.50
Water - £36
House Insurance - £9
Egg loan - £71.29
LLoyds TSB loan - £27.60
Mastercard £130
Ovrdraft fee's - £20.52

Total: £1383.41

Egg Loan - £10500 this is approximate as we are currently unable to get thru to them to confirm this amount. Unsure of term end date as have already told them unable to pay full monthly amount and we have made arrangments to pay £71.29

Lloyds TSB loan - £4348.37 apr 6.4% unsure of term end date as have already told them unable to pay full monthly amount and we have made arrangments to pay £27.60

Master Card - £3655 (limt £5400) currently paying just over the minmum payment

Overdrafts - £1750 limit which we are contanctly at the max of.


Addittional notes

Both housing benefit and child and working tax credit still need to confirm our monthly payments as i have just changed jobs to a stightly lower paid job to to a job which i can earn more with overtime and working unsocial hours but as i am still a newbie i am currently unable to do this.

Also we can not reduce our heating bill by turning down the thermasate as we do not have central heating and we use coal or engery efficent heaters for heating but now it is warm weather we don't heat the house at all.

Spacekadett_uk :cool: