Credit card debt!help!!

mo1_2

i thought if you had any charges it would reduce your amount owed

hypno06

Have you tried putting your credit cards etc in the snowball calculator on https://www.whatsthecost.com ?

It will give you a debt free date and will really focus your mind to clearing the debt that is costing you the most first (not always the one you would choose to pay off first so quite an eye opener).

Snowballing can be very motivating and incredibly rewarding IMHO. Lots of us use it on here.

silkglade

obanite wrote: »

thinking of remortgaging to get the monthly outgoings down a bit,any thoughts,,,

I still think it's best tto let the loan finish and then pay the £120 off the others to get them gone sooner. If you remortgage then the debt is still the same, just over a longer period.

chrisski

Hi
im in same boat as urself, i currently owe £15000 on my credit cards and have been juggling with 0% cards which i have come to the end of the terms. I am confused as to whether to remortgage my buy to let property and put the debt on that or put my debt into the marks and spencers card as they offer 4.9% for the life of the balance! im also getting married nxt yr which is an added headache! I asked on here and only really got replies saying folk needed to see a statement of affairs which to me doesnt answer my question! i currently keep a spending diary and that is helping big time!
hope u get something sorted! personally remortgaging seems the best way!

chris

raq

hi there

Welcome. One thing I would say is that I am a family of 5 ( one tiny baby) and we spend under £50.00 a week on food. We do eat extremely well and there are also nappies and a tin of £5.98 baby food in with that. Also because I am now home I tend to do a lot of cooking and not rely on those £2.50packet of rubbish from the supermarket. We shop at Tesco and when money is a bit tight the following week I go to Lidl/Aldi.

It is difficult but you will get there and will workthings out

All the best

[Deleted User]

thanks everyone for your comments,iam going to try the
caculator thing later today to see what comes up.i
don,t really want to remortgage ,silkglade but feel i have too many different payments going out and cant keep track.i was thinking i could maybe get a better interest rate and it might not cost as much as iam currently on about 6.80%.to chrisski the marks and spencer card was one of my better moves out of all the daftness that got me onto this.
thanks again for all your help

david_hellier

Hi and welcome.

According to my figures you have £54.93 per week to spend on food and anything else. Clearly this is a serious situation and needs an immediate control of overspend. Firstly write this amount in a little notebook on a Monday (a spending diary, ebay) and keep a note of what you spend by subtracting.

On the cards, cancel direct debits and set up standing orders to cover current minimum payments and leave it at this level. If you do have any extra money left at the end of the week, use it to pay extra towards the Halifax, as this is the most expensive card. You must stop paying minimum payments. Your "for life" cards are actually quite a good deal, so keep them and do not consolidate or seek secured loans.

You will need to generate about another £50 per week to feed you all and have a little fun, so can you get some more part-time work?

Ensure you are entitled to all the benefits such as Council Tax second adult rebate, if your wife is not working. Go to your local council one stop shop and and ask them to explain all the benefits you are entitled to.

I note no extra car costs, tax,mot, insurance. Are these covered?

Good luck, the figures are as follows:

income weekly monthly
self 1200.00
partner
ben 600.00






total 0.00 1800.00 divide by 4.33
£415.39

£415.39 total weekly income

spend weekly monthly
rent/mortgage 440.00
council tax 92.00
elec 25.00
gas 40.00
water 0.00
secured loans 0.00
TV licence 11.00
fines 0.00
m+s 80.00
mbna 79.00
morsta 60.00
amex 90.00
halifax 190.00
nationwide 150.00
norock 120.00
petrol 80.00
mobile 40.00
build ins 20.00
ntl 45.00













total 0.00 1562.00 divide by 4.33
£360.46

£360.46 total weekly spend

Start= income - spend = £54.93 per week

silkglade

Hi, I know it can be confusing and frustrating having lots of different payment going out each month, but just think of the EXTRA interest that you will be paying if you remortgage as it will be over a much longer period.

Get yourselves a spiral note pad and then note down all incomings and monthly outgoings on 1 page and then the other write down your day to daty and weekly food spends, keep a running total and that will really help you to get on top of and in control of your finances.

I know that you can use Excel also but my Hubby does not like using it and gets all confused, so we have a note book instead and it really works well.

I can without looking tell you exactly what goes out when and how much. Call it obsession if you like, but we feel so IN CONTROL of our money now Its great.

Also give yourself a total for food for the month and then split it into weekly amounts, If you spend less 1 week then you have that bit extra for the rest of the month.

We are a family of 5 and when things were at their worst (last year) we had £38 per week to live on which included nappies and baby milk too.

[Deleted User]

thanks to all,
checked with my the wife and found out exactly what she gets did,nt want to tell her what i was doing.

tax credit 240 month
child benifit 66 month
dla 258 month
carers allowance 180 month
so this is £738 its a crazy situation but if my wife works more than 16 hours we would lose tax credit plus carers allowance.my son is disabled and needs his mum so she could,nt work full time if she wanted too.we have a disability car so dont pay insurance,tax david.i could work overtime now and again but i would see less of my son and the tax credits would come off,crazy.
i earned £1500 more than last year and when i declared my earnings at the end of the tax year lost about £600 tax free money from the gov.
did check about council tax no joy said there was to much money coming into the house,would be easier to get blood from a stone ,no help whatsoever.
kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place really.
thanks again to everyone iam amazed so many people are trying to help me,cheers

[Deleted User]

kinda gettin a bit lost now not got a clue what to do for the best. another mortgage payment coming up .£100 in the current account now ready to hit overdraft.
feel my brain is going to explode going to spend all day trying to sort out something.starting to feel like a right fool?