Credit card debt!help!!

[Deleted User]

help ,anyone
need help desparately, just recently plucked up the courage to look at my debt and iam shocked,iam totally at a loss and don,t know what to do for the best,hope someone could give me some advice.its just me the wife and one kid.

income:wages £1200
wifes beneifit :£600 edit "£738"
not much as you can see my wife only gets that money because my son has heart problems,dla,tax credit!
nothing else coming in!

outgoing sheeeeeesh
marks and spencer money£2700 "3.9%" £80 minimum payment
mbna owe £2800 high rate"15.9%" i think £79"minimum payment
morgan stanley £2700 /4.9% for life £60 minimum payment
american ex £3000 /as above about £90 a month minimum payment
halifax £9000 high rate"18.9%"scared to look about £190 minimum payment
nationwide loan £3000 21 months left £150 a month
northern rock £500 outstandig 5 mths £120 a month
mortgage is £440 a month with £60000 still to go,rbos current account mortgage.
council tax £92
elec £25
gas £40
no sky
petrol £80"dla car"
food £200
mobile phones £40
gha £20 building insurance
ntl "broadband ,phone"£35
a lot of money also dissapears when the wee man is in hospital.

cards are all at minimum payment
i have a mortgaged house with about £25000 equity.
heres my dilema i dont now whether try and get a loan and put all the debts in the one place,remortgage, or try and get another low rate for the life of the bal card ,problem is they dont give much of a limit to start with.i really need to do something as all the different payments are taking there toll and its getting impossible to get by.

hope someone can help ,things are getting desperate now.
thanks.
update just tried to up my limits on the balance for life cards,could only offer £600 ,no luck there then. gulp!!!

vyvyan_2

Hello and welcome :hello:

There's lots of help and support on here. You've done the hardest thing by admitting it all and coming on here for help. You will need to get a full SOA posted on here to get the best advice and help from people. Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280

With your list of debts: try to find out the APRs on all of them, the balances, the limits per card and what the minimum per month is.

With full details of these and your household outgoings, the helpful bods will be able to see if there's any room for manouvre(sp). Also useful to say how many people in your household and a breakdown of your combined income and benefits.

Mozette

Keep a spending diary, literally write down everything you spend, it's amazing where it goes!

[Deleted User]

anyone?????

silkglade

Hi and welcome to MSE. to be honest the first thing I notice is the rather nice and low interest rate on the Morgan Stanley CC, have you tried calling them to see if they can give you a higher limit to transfer any of the other balances.

What are you paying on the 1st two credit cards?

Also I notice that one of the loans will be gone in 5 months (even with no extra payments) so you will then have £120 spare to throw at the ramaining debt.

1st rule, do NOT get a consolidation loan. you are far better getting them cleared off 1 at a time.

Make a spending diary as someone before me has mentioned to see where your money goes and where you can cut back. all the little things mount up. You will also be supprised how many un-needed things you buy.

Hope this helps for a start. I have not read it all yet as I just got home from work and didn't want you to feel alone or ignored.

silkglade

just read the last part. if they can up the limit by £600 would it not be worth getting them to pay up on the £500 loan instead? It then free's up £120 a month for you guys?

silkglade

Also your with NTL, which is now Virgin Media if I am right, in that case you can cut down your Mobile phone bills to half. for existing tv, phone and internet customers you can get their "SIM ONLY" deal, It is not a contract but pay monthly and for £10 a month each you can get 300 texts and 300 anytime any network mins.

silkglade

Also negotiate a package with them, We used to be telewest which is also virgin media now.

For £30 a month we get phone, broardband and the top tv package (not including sports or movies)

Most people do not realise you need to re negotiate with them every 12 months to continue getting the best offers.

silkglade

I am going to bed now, will check on your replies later and see what else I can think of. But just having a quick look gave me lots of ideas as you can see. I worked out if you could do as mentioned before then you could get the nationwide loan gone within a year with making extra payments

[Deleted User]

thanks for your ideas i never thought about them.i will write more tonight and try and make it more detailed ,just about to go out the door,"work",thanks again for your help.

[Deleted User]

thanks again for your ideas silkglade.home again.
i was thinking the loan was a bad idea.i will try the virgin media thing,cant believe i overlooked that and will look into paying off the loan,would i just phone and ask them i will definately give that a go.
i,ve put in some more figures reguarding rates and stuff,its even more depressing.the halifax one card is giving me the biggest headache what with the high interest,someone suggested i phone and ask if they would reduce its got to be worth a try.
once again thanks for everything.