does my plan make sense

Verbatim

Hi DF1D,
I didn't see your thread back in June and have just read it through now. First

WELL DONE!

You've done really well to reduce your debt by so much so quickly, so give yourself the credit.:A :T

In your original posts you hoped to be earning more in September, which is now only weeks away. Is this still likely/definite? Also you said that some of the bonds start to mature around then too. Have you factored this in?

Like most others on here I'd endorse the view that turning unsecured debt into secured would be too risky to consider, especially with 5 children. After 3 months of penny pinching it gets to feel as if anything would be better but if you stick with it now I'm sure the debts will start to tumble more and more quickly as the snowballing effect gathers momentum.

When the kids go back to school get them to take their lunch with them. The old style board has good ideas for this and all other df style menu dilemmas.

Are you still smoking? Is it possible to cut down /give up. If you see it as a pleasure you could put the money saved from not buying the tobacco into a jar and agree to use the money for a night out when you are up to £20 and thereafter keep half for debts and half for fun. Or even all for fun! (It's got to be better than continuing with something that's so bad for you, even if not dfw).

I don't think you've said how many bedrooms you have but could you take a lodger? The taxman lets you have £4k+ a year without having to pay tax.

I'm sorry the text is weird but it hasn't changed back as it usually does and I'm not sure which is the default one.

Thanks for posting again and I hope you start to find things start to get easier. You're obviously rather good with money matters in thet you've done the cc switching successfully up to now, and I know how time consuming that is and how important to get the timing right. So I'm sure you'll get through this.

Hugs and good luck,
V

Verbatim

PS If you remortgaged now you'd lose a year's worth of your lovely fixed low rate. By next Autumn you are likely to be in a much better financial position and the interest rates might be lower too enabling you to pick up a good deal at that point.

xela_17

Hiya, I'm another one that's new to your thread and you seem to have done really well in the last 6 weeks. Did anything ever come of asking the credit card people for lower/frozen interest? I seem to remember from somewhere (please correct me if wrong) that irritatingly cc companies don't tend to consider lower interest until you have missed a couple of payments. I guess they think if you're a good on time payer, why should they lower them. Doesn't really help you though.

Can your eldest get a part time job to pay for their own stuff? That way you wouldn't have to give them pocket money.

I do think the best to get on top of this debt is for you to work full time again. As previous poster said, is this achievable in September? Will extra money earned outweigh child care costs?

Don't give up as you really are doing great.

duchy

Wow another thread that shows just how much can be achieved in such a short time. You owe £10K LESS than six months ago. That is HUGE !
One thing I've noticed is that people who bring their entire family into the effort and try and make it fun seem to do better with dealing with the whole situation. Hypno's diary is a good example-humour and determination.
Have you found any work for September ? If not think about looking at the stores for Christmas work-many companies employ from October through til the sales finish in January so get a CV in now even if they aren't advertising. If OH works Monday to Friday then maybe you can get something for the weekends or evenings ? Sometimes parttime works out overall more profitable than full-time if childcare needs to be costed in. Definitely do the sums first. Once the kids are back at school you'll have more time for Ebay and Amazon too.
With the kid's activities-often places will give free activities in exchange for a parent working during the sessions.
Put any savings into a seperate account too so you can SEE what results you are getting from your efforts-it's a great booster to keep you on track.
You've come such a long way already -keep going !

Seaxwyn

HI df1d

Well done on so many great steps forward.

I sympathise with your feelings of frustration and fear. I have days when I want to throw it all in and go on a DMP or to debtors jail. And I know I'm very lucky in having comparatively low interest rates.

But it really is worth sticking in there. Didn't you say you have some savings you can cash in next year? If you can keep going til then, you will suddenly in a much better position to transfer debts around and maybe even remortgage if it still seems a good option.

And I would endorse what others have said about involving older children. Mine are a huge support. The older two have got a paper round so don't require any pocket money. They are also brilliant shoppers and take pride in spotting supermarket bargains.

And we've set up a 'swear box' and every so often the little ones deliberately say 'oh bum' and solemnly drop a few coppers in. They understand that we're on a family mission to save money and take pride in playing their part.

debtfree1day

Hi

Not a lot of luck with the Credit Card companies at this stage. One reduced from 24.9 to 19.9 for 6 months, but a zero% will start accruing at 14.9 in sept with Barclaycard.

To be honest its the high interest I am paying - circa 500 a month to credit card compan ies and the fact that my two loans which total 1100 a month are at low rates but have to be paid, which makes me think about going down DMP route.

At present I am anti snowballing....i.e paying my cheapest debts first!

10K in 6 months sounds great BUT this includes an annual bonus my hubby receives each June (only 10 months to go) and 3ks worth of savings, but I am proud that we have made some progress. Thanks for all your encouragement

lISA

RAS

debtfree1day wrote: »

At present I am anti snowballing....i.e paying my cheapest debts first!

Hi

Snowballing means paying as much as you can towards your most expensive ccs off first eg the ones at 24.9%.

Whilst doing this you paying the minimum on the cheaper cards.

And by the way you a £200 spare on a low rate at 5.9%, pay off £199 of the 24.9% card wiith that. it will reduce your minimum payments a wee bit.

xela_17

I think the OP's point was that all her money is having to go towards the loan payments which are inevitably cheaper than ccs but then doesn't have spare money for more expensive debts; thereby frustratingly "anti-snowballing".

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much you can do about this bar defaulting on the loan (obviously not recommended) or cutting back/making more money (as I know you've tried to do) so you do have more money for the ccs. Only you know if a DMP is right for you. Have you read up on all the pros and cons?

chevalier

Hi there
A couple of things that might have got lost in the advice you have been given.

Online shopping. This save me a fortune because
1) I make a list and then stick to it. So no impulse buys
2) Saves me petrol to get there and back
3) Can often get money off vouchers for free delivery/ extra points so don't pay for that either.

I live 8 miles from my nearest supermarkets, yet they both deliver to me as does Occado (my post neighbour uses them!!!), so this would stop you being reliant on the co op. Though if you do shop there a lot I hope you have a loyalty card!!

Ref the DMP The thing is if you can't get loans etc at a normal rate of interest, then your credit files my already be dodgy just because you have such high debt.

With a DMP you are paying what you can afford not what they want. In most cases if you go through CCCS or Payplan the creditors stop the interest and any charges, so even the mimumum payments you are making NOW would start to pay off capital rather than just paying interest. Yes it would trash your credit rating, but so would a repossesion if you secured the loans onto the house and then couldn't pay.

How are you doing with the job hunting? Did that work out?
chev

pandapaws

I know it's a pain to do, but would you be able to post an updated SOA? You've paid 10k off so far, but I'm not sure which payments these were against? It would probably help all of us looking at it if you added the monthly amount/minimum payment that you're making to each of the debts, and as much info as is possible (when I did mine it took about 2 hours and I though there was far too much info, but it really does help people trying to give advice). Also, the amounts that you're spending have gone down with the cutbacks, so a revised list of these would help too (be honest - if you haven't managed to make a cutback that everyone has been on at you to do, then just admit it. People are always on at me to spend less than £500/month on food &general stuff, but I'm sticking to my guns on it!).

Ref the mortgage - sorry if you explained it fully earlier, but can you just confirm - if you borrow all the extra money, does the fixed rate still end next March or is it extended? that's only 7 months away (or so my belly tells me!), so if at all possible it might be worth hanging on by the skin of your teeth until then and reassessing it. You might get a much better deal with another company, and it would be daft to pay such high fees for such a short period of time. Also, you don't want to take out a much bigger mortgage, and then find that you're stuck with it when the rate jumps up in March because your credit file hasn't recovered enough to get a deal with another lender.

Hang on if you can, look forward to the updated SOA!
xx