Need Assistance

MikeyW83

Hello,

Been a long time coming posting on here, looking for any tips or adivce from anyone thats been in the same situations as myself.

Im 29 years old, have a partner and we have 2 kids together, however I currently stay with my parents as we cannt afford to live together as the debt I have accured over the last 5-8 years has almost crippled me.


At the moment I have

• Loan = 4.7k
• HP (car) = 3.7k
• Credit card = 1.9k
• Credit card = 1.5k
• Debt to parents = 9.7k
• Sofa on store credit = 2k

Total = 23500

I am in the process of trying to sell my car to wipe out a lot of the debt, my car is worth 5.5k against the value of HP at 3.7 k so that and one of the CCards will be repaid, however for the rest I was toying with the idea of taking a consolidating loan out ( i applied and failed with my current loan providor), therefore my father has said he would help me to do so by taking it out in his name, the debt to my parents in the form of a 3k loand to my mother and my father has 6.7k against a credit card that is now attracting interest, would you suggest that that would be the best course of action, I may also add I am in the process of starting a second job driving taxis for a private hire company, I earn a really good wage for someone my age (c£35k pa) and I really cant beleive I have gotten myself into this mess in the first place.

Anyway im guessing im asking if anyone has any other ideas that may help me move in with my partner ?

Thanks in advance

kittiej

Do not let your father take out any more credit for you in his name - it is a recipe for disaster.

Have you done the debt remedy on the Stepchange site (used to be cccs) a DMP might be a better option.

You must get out of the mindset that in order to make things easier you need to take on more debt - it does not work.

Post up your SOA so people can give you some constructive advice.

Cycrow

What are you outgoings, and your debt payments currently and interest ?

if your living at home i assume you have no rent or anything to pay?
at £35k, you should be taking home about £2.2k a month so you should have quite abit avaialble to pay the debts, if not, where is it all going to ?

A balance transfer card would be a better option than a loan, assuming you can get one, as long as your not tempted to use it for anything else and get even more debt

MikeyW83

Hi, yes I earn about £2,200 per month.

Outgoings:

Loan: 240
Hire Purchase: 220
Credit cards: 75
Debt to Father: 339
Debt to Mother: 198
Money i give for kids to fiance: 450
Sofa: 52
= 1572

Total left : 628

Which is more than enough, however if I want to move into the house where my fiance is staying, she would lose all of her benefits and we would be negative even before we started, she works as a self employed childminder, however has just started out, our daughter has just turned 10 months and its so frustrating because im missing out not living there and the only times i see them all during the week is when they come up to my parents house as im not allowed down there or she will lose everything and im not risking that.

Ill go onto the stepchange website and see what it says.

kittiej

How long have you got left on the HP? Is this for a car, can you hand back after paying 50% off and if so can you hand it back voluntarily yet - aka voluntary termination.

What do you spend the surplus on and do you spend all of it each month?

MikeyW83

I dont know actually, I am in the process of trying to sell the car, I want to actually sell it though as the HP value is a lot less than what the cars worth so with the sale I could clear the existing HP and maybe on credit card.

I spend the rest on general stuff, food, and stuff for the kids, i never buy anything clothes wise, i maybe go out with friends once every 6 weeks.

kittiej

OK well that's a plan, sell the car which will hopefully clear CC as well as HP.

So £220 saved from HP
£450 saved due to living together
£628 surplus
=£1298

So could you live together if you had £1298 available with the future increase due to other debts being paid off?

Or you can stay at home and have £848 and make some serious overpayments on the debts.

rob404uk

What is the rate on your credit cards and loan? If you have £600 a month to play with, say £300 after having a life, use that to pay off the expensive debt.

We need more information but on the face of it, I have heard of many worse scenarios and with 2-3 years dedication, that debt could be gone.

foxgloves

From personal experience, I'd really advise against taking out a consolidation loan. I did it 2 or 3 times when I was single, as did partner, then we did it 3 further times after we got together. Each time, we said it would be the last time & would only be so we could get our finances straight. We also earned good money. However, our spending behaviour didn't change. We carried on as we were, never bothering to budget or check we were living within our means. As the credit cards, overdrafts, etc, started to rack up yet again, we clearly weren't!! FINALLY had LBM & realised that behaviour HAD to change. Despite partner initially wanting to take out one last consolidation loan, we didn't. We cut back our outgoings, did a monthly budget each time we got paid to see what we could realistically throw at clearing our debts & we used the 'snowballing' technique. However good our intentions, consolidation didn't encourage us to change our habits. It just got us out of a hole temporarily by lowering repayments (though over a longer time period). This happens to so many people who go down the consolidation route, so I'd always advise against it. Ultimately, it's the lenders who do the best from consolidation loans......oh, & the other thing about them, it's very tempting just to borrow that little bit more than you actually need to clear the debts, just so you can have whatever item it is that's been on your list for a while. Best way is to tackle each debt one by one & really get that sense of satisfaction as each one is paid off. At our highest, we had around 30k in loans/cards/overdrafts. It's now gone & we live within our income. It can be done, it really can, & I wish you all the best with it.