Help with remortgage/consolidation

tashlovestosave

Hi there,

Recently I came on here and went through the budgets and whats the cost and although we have paid off a small debt, we are still struggling bug time.

I know this is the 'debt free' thread BUT it is a debt question......the mortgage question is related to that.

Also, I am losing sleep because our mortgage is an interest only at 4.49% fixed rate till sept. The mortgage is 156k. We have approx 50k equity in the house already. I went to money supermarket to see what kind of mortgage we could change to at the end of the period........moneybox.com called me back and went through some deals but said they were worried about our outgoings. They said that we could consolidate and it would be over £500 LESS than we are paying out now. I know it would mean paying over 20 odd years but at the moment we pay a £750 per month daycare bill alone.......that will decrease by this time next year........We have £3600 coming in and almost £3400 going out (including food and fuel) i really dont know what else to do to be honest. I dont know whether to renegotiate with the halifax and save a big fee or to consolidate with another company

Opinions from others would be a great help.

tashlovestosave

Oh , i forgot to say........if we remortgage and consolidate......our outstanding mortgage will be just over 180k

savvykaz

BUMP

Hi - it would also probably help if you could post an SOA, then the experts can come and advise if any cut-backs could be made
HTH

GettingThingsDone

hi tash!

i'm sure moneybox did come back to you with a consolidation offer! did you run it through whatsthecost to see what profit they'd make? huge i guess...

pop up your soa and lets work from there

tashlovestosave

Hi again,

Right here goes..........

My income 1350.00
Hubby income 1850.00
Rent income 617.00
Child tax credit 38.00
Child benefit 72.00

Total 3927.00

Here is the bad stuff..........

My Car £251 per month. Ends may 08. 4.9%

Hubbys Car loan £130 per month not sure of Apr

Loan £212 per month ends in 2011 5.4%

Loan £100 per month ends Aug 07

Daycare bill £750 per month going down to £650 sept 07

Mortgage £624.00 for 156k on fixed rate @ 4.49% till sept 07

Credit cards x2 both have 2900.00 on them. 14.9%. Have tried changing. Been refused

Next accounts. One has been cleared (yay) the other has £750.00 29.9%!!!

HFC Bank £54.00 and £38.00. 24%. ends in 2011 (have done whats the cost and we are snowballing these due to the high interest)

Overdraft on joint acc £1200 (always to the max) 21% apr
Overdraft on hubbys account £750.00 (at its max) 19%apr
Overdraft on my account £600.00 (at its max) 21% apr

Bills
Food, approx £300.00 per month
Fuel £200.00 per month for two cars
Sky £54.00 (our one luxury)
Phone £50 BT (just changed to talktalk)
Gas/Elec £60.00 (changed to cheaper provider)
Cars/home/buildings Insurances £150.00
Other various bills/charges approx £100.00 per month (varies)
Mobile phones x 2 £60.00 (changed for better deals recently)

We live in a military house and our rent and council tax comes out of salary already. No water rates either. This is also why we have the two cars...........we each have a 22 mile commute everyday.

I regularly overspend so much. Also because our direct debits come out at varying times of the month we have recently ended up defaulting and when that happens we find it a struggle to pay the payment AND the charge. We would end up in the poo if we reclaimed our bank charges and had our accounts closed!!!

okra

tashlovestosave wrote: »

Hi again,

Right here goes..........

My income 1350.00
Hubby income 1850.00
Rent income 617.00
Child tax credit 38.00
Child benefit 72.00

Total 3927.00

Here is the bad stuff..........

My Car £251 per month. Ends may 08. 4.9%

Hubbys Car loan £130 per month not sure of Apr When does this end?

Loan £212 per month ends in 2011 5.4%

Loan £100 per month ends Aug 07

Daycare bill £750 per month going down to £650 sept 07

Mortgage £624.00 for 156k on fixed rate @ 4.49% till sept 07

Credit cards x2 both have 2900.00 on them. 14.9%. Have tried changing. Been refused

Next accounts. One has been cleared (yay) the other has £750.00 29.9%!!!

HFC Bank £54.00 and £38.00. 24%. ends in 2011 (have done whats the cost and we are snowballing these due to the high interest)

Overdraft on joint acc £1200 (always to the max) 21% apr
Overdraft on hubbys account £750.00 (at its max) 19%apr
Overdraft on my account £600.00 (at its max) 21% apr

Bills
Food, approx £300.00 per monthThis could be reduced. We are a family of five, and our food costs inc. cleaning products etc are £40/week
Fuel £200.00 per month for two cars
Sky £54.00 (our one luxury)Not want you want to hear, but it's a luxury that you can't afford. You aren't going to lie on your deathbed wishing you'd watched more TV.
Phone £50 BT (just changed to talktalk)This is a lot
Gas/Elec £60.00 (changed to cheaper provider)
Cars/home/buildings Insurances £150.00
Other various bills/charges approx £100.00 per month (varies)What exactly is included here?
Mobile phones x 2 £60.00 (changed for better deals recently)Again, a lot. I guess you're tied in for now, though?

We live in a military house and our rent and council tax comes out of salary already. No water rates either. This is also why we have the two cars...........we each have a 22 mile commute everyday.

I regularly overspend so much. Also because our direct debits come out at varying times of the month we have recently ended up defaulting and when that happens we find it a struggle to pay the payment AND the charge. We would end up in the poo if we reclaimed our bank charges and had our accounts closed!!!

We have been exactly where you are, and the temptation to consolidate was huge. It would probably be a huge weight off your mind to reduce your payments, right? Securing unsecured debt is a huge risk, though. I think it's probable that there will be another interest rate hike in the near future, and the impact of losing your fixed rate period plus another interest rate hike on a larger mortgage could wipe out the saving you hope to make.

Looking at it practically, you have a drop of £100 in childcare, a £100 loan finishing and £250 on your car ending in the next 12 months. That's £450. I estimate that you could save £150 on your household bills (food and sky) if you were willing to commit too. That's £600. Your bank charges would go some way towards helping too.

If you could just sit tight, you could be in a much better position in 12 months time. We did the same - we cut everything back and spent 6 months treading water and are now getting to the position where we can make real inroads with our debt rather than facing a future of paying for consolidation.

tashlovestosave

Thanks for the advice.......its great when someone else gets to look inside and to hear what they see.

I went onto the snowball calculator and to be honest......it looked simple if we tighten our belts. I did that a month ago and paid off a small debt. The feeling was amazing.

The trouble we have had is that we switched to the halifax from natwest. When we did this.....the halifax said that they would switch all of the bills and direct debits for free. They didn't do this BUT we didn't realise and we have defaulted on a loan payment (the one that was SUPPOSED to finish on the 1st July). The charges have taken hubby over his overdraft limit, he has been charged for missing the loan payment AND its gonna take more than £100 to get back on track. And when you just dont have that extra cash its hard. This has happened twice now. The other month we went to natwest and said here is £400, please clear the loan, well in the meantime there was a bank charge and therefore there wasnt enough to pay the loan...........a vicious circle comes to mind!!!

keatergreyhound

Would a childminder work out cheaper than daycare?
What sort of daycare does your child have?

hypno06

tashlovestosave wrote: »

Thanks for the advice.......its great when someone else gets to look inside and to hear what they see.

I went onto the snowball calculator and to be honest......it looked simple if we tighten our belts. I did that a month ago and paid off a small debt. The feeling was amazing.

The trouble we have had is that we switched to the halifax from natwest. When we did this.....the halifax said that they would switch all of the bills and direct debits for free. They didn't do this BUT we didn't realise and we have defaulted on a loan payment (the one that was SUPPOSED to finish on the 1st July). The charges have taken hubby over his overdraft limit, he has been charged for missing the loan payment AND its gonna take more than £100 to get back on track. And when you just dont have that extra cash its hard. This has happened twice now. The other month we went to natwest and said here is £400, please clear the loan, well in the meantime there was a bank charge and therefore there wasnt enough to pay the loan...........a vicious circle comes to mind!!!

I changed my bank last year and as a result this happened to me resulting in an adverse credit entry on my file.

I wrote to the loan company concerned (tesco via Royal Bank of Scotland) and explained the circumstances, I could obviously prove I had changed bank because my DD for the loan payment had changed at that time. They wrote back saying that as I had never been late etc with payment before, and could prove that I was not in financial problems (ha ha, little do they know) but that it was a "technical hitch" type thing, they would mark my file as all ok. Good as gold they did it, so perhaps it is worth writing and explaining and asking for it to be corrected and late charges withdrawn?

Good luck x

petetidball

If halifax were meant to move your DD's across and didn't, surely they should be liable for the costs incurred due to their mistake? Even just having a talk to them and asking for them to pay the charges incurred could help.

I would also say when it comes to remortgaging, get a free broker to look at it. We had a look on tinternet when we were getting a mortgage, but actually having a person who does the looking for you and knows how to use the system found us better deals than the interenet based brokers could, and all without any dodgy dealings!

Hope it works out for you and you figure out what to do!

tashlovestosave

keatergreyhound wrote: »

Would a childminder work out cheaper than daycare?
What sort of daycare does your child have?

My daughter goes to a full time nursery. The reason for this is that because of our jobs the nursery is flexible. They work to the military hours and it is on the unit where my hubby works. I did try a CM last autumn and it was awful............the timings etc etc.

My daughter starts pre school in sept........this is the reason for the drop in the bill. Next sept she starts school so even more to use for snowballing then.

As for the Halifax............the first time this happened i spoke to them and they sort of didn't explain what had happened. Obviously we tried talking to Natwest but as we had changed from them, they were less than helpful. I know we have adverse credit now because of this.