Please Help.

AlexLK

Mrs_A wrote: »

I still can't work out why you are attacking the loan before the CC.

Have you compared the APR on them?

Because I have never missed a payment on the loan and it's with the same bank as my mortgage.

*Nervously waiting for Mrs. K to come home.*

Mrs_A_2

I'm not suggesting you miss payments on your loan. I'm suggesting you tackle the CC alongside the loan. If you've never missed a payment - but are now going to be saving XX amount a month, where are you going to put the XX? Into over paying the loan, or into the CC? Thats where I'm coming from and what my confusion is over.

theoretica

Alex,
You have not mentioned the business plan for your self employment and whether you anticipate income increasing, and how fast. Are you working at it full time? Could you take on a part time job as well? If you sell your collection and get the debt under control a small increase in income would help a lot.

I think you are making good progress, but you do need to be ruthless about prioritising. For instance my parents valued education and were able to send me to a private school - in a 2nd hand uniform from a neighbour, while driving one family (3 door) car, holidays to self catering cottages or grandparents (and abroad every 4 years or so) in a country house where ice formed on the inside of the windows in winter... You are still mostly writing about shaving a bit off here and there and may need to make some drastic cuts.

Are the credit cards still with the original banks? As has been mentioned by an earlier poster any which have been referred to debt collectors may be open to a 'full and final settlement' where they wipe them in full for less than you owe.

wegle

Now that you've addressed the credit cards and know where you stand it might be worth contacting them all asking them to freeze the interest and offering them token payments for the time being. Once you and your wife have worked out a budget together that leaves you with a surplus you can use the snowballing tool to work out where to allocate your surplus first.

I know you feel 100% like carp at the moment but trust me you are now in a much better position than you were this morning. There is always a solution. You've identified some great initial savings and a way to up your income (eBay). The first overpayment you make will feel like a grand victory and that will be the first of many grand victories!

AlexLK

Mrs_A wrote: »

I'm not suggesting you miss payments on your loan. I'm suggesting you tackle the CC alongside the loan. If you've never missed a payment - but are now going to be saving XX amount a month, where are you going to put the XX? Into over paying the loan, or into the CC? Thats where I'm coming from and what my confusion is over.

The savings would be going into the CCs.

AlexLK

wegle wrote: »

Now that you've addressed the credit cards and know where you stand it might be worth contacting them all asking them to freeze the interest and offering them token payments for the time being. Once you and your wife have worked out a budget together that leaves you with a surplus you can use the snowballing tool to work out where to allocate your surplus first.

I know you feel 100% like carp at the moment but trust me you are now in a much better position than you were this morning. There is always a solution. You've identified some great initial savings and a way to up your income (eBay). The first overpayment you make will feel like a grand victory and that will be the first of many grand victories!

She is home, so this will be brief as we've a lot to discuss but I will be making use of the SOAs I put up on here.

Can you link me to the snowballing tool, please?

Yes, I feel awful at the moment but still a little better than earlier as she has apologised for earlier. I really am beginning to hope we can sort this out. Mrs. K has also had a think over today at work about helping me through all of this. I've honestly taken her to hell and back over these past four / five years. I just want to get back to how things were in the good times, though hopefully when that comes I will have learnt from my mistakes.

AlexLK

theoretica wrote: »

Alex,
You have not mentioned the business plan for your self employment and whether you anticipate income increasing, and how fast. Are you working at it full time? Could you take on a part time job as well? If you sell your collection and get the debt under control a small increase in income would help a lot.

I think you are making good progress, but you do need to be ruthless about prioritising. For instance my parents valued education and were able to send me to a private school - in a 2nd hand uniform from a neighbour, while driving one family (3 door) car, holidays to self catering cottages or grandparents (and abroad every 4 years or so) in a country house where ice formed on the inside of the windows in winter... You are still mostly writing about shaving a bit off here and there and may need to make some drastic cuts.

Are the credit cards still with the original banks? As has been mentioned by an earlier poster any which have been referred to debt collectors may be open to a 'full and final settlement' where they wipe them in full for less than you owe.

I will put a more detailed post up about the business later on as that is something my wife and I are going to discuss along with other things. At the moment I am not working full time and the salary I pay myself is low in order to put extra capital into the business. If I were to take on more working hours it would mean our son having to go to a nursery.

The collection is going, not only have I come to realise it is for the best but my wife has basically told me if I don't make an effort then she's had enough.

Two of the credit cards are with debt collectors, I will ring them tomorrow and see what I can do as far as a full and final settlement goes. Will the original banks also accept a reduced final settlement?

I am still thinking about selling the house as an option also.

nicp60

Alex,
Well done for posting the new SoA and for taking the comments made throughout this thread as well as you have. They can't have been easy to hear.

I imagine that your wife will be much more understanding when you have a plan and a solution in place. Tackling this together will bring you closer.

Here is the snowball calculator: http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/snowball-calculator.php

All the very best of luck.

tallyhoh

I probably wouldn't consider selling your house. If your debts are just the loan & credits cards then that's £35,000.

If you can sell your pens/watches you could clear the loan in one hit of approx £5000. That would free up £305 a month & still leave you with approx. £9000 to negotiate paying your credit cards off with.

Even better as you enjoy selling start a big clear out for ebay. You must have loads of stuff to sell as you like nice things. Clothes, shoes, gadgets, your sons old clothes. Then there's a car you can sell.

I am sure you can do this with a bit of dedication. As I said before there are 3 adults in our house, we have paid the mortgage off but we still have all other bills. Our monthly income is £900 & we manage.

Good luck

wegle

Good luck talking things through with your wife. Hopefully all the support on here has helped you to see that you can get out of this. nicp60 has posted the link to the snowball calculator. This will give you a great plan that you can stick to. I've stuck mine on the fridge so I can cross each month off at a time. Look through the other threads on here for ideas on how to tackle the debt. I love the 1% challenge, it makes the debt seem so much more manageable.

Let us know how you get on. Xx