Help to sort myself out?

[Deleted User]

Ask to pay CT over 12 months, which will save you about £18pm which, although not huge, is something.

Any chance your OH could increase her salary?

Overtime? Second job?

Even a couple of hours per evening (eg. Bar work) would bring in about £200pm extra.

Johnnybegood

The car payment is absolutely killing you and is utter madness in your situation, you need to sell it or return it and get yourself a decent reliable Japanese car for 2 to 3 thousand. Yes you'll take a short turn loss but save thousands over the life of the loan repayments. Your debts will be halved, your repayments will be halved and you should be able to make your remaining repayments quite comfortably. A new car depreciates on average 70% over the first 4 years. Sell it, its a lump of metal and plastic and its squeezing you financially until its hard to breath and will continue to do so for years ahead. Might I suggest you read, 'the total money make over' by Dave Ramsey. Good luck

nomunnofun

It looks like you are paying around 6% into a pension scheme according to my calculations. Your pay increase should result in around £310 extra net per month if this is correct.

Tixy

The payday loans it looks like you could probably afford to repay over say 3monthly installments. So I would contact them and offer them that (as someone has advised you need to cancel the CPAs etc first and I wouldn't provide them with a SoA or inform them of your earnings etc).

That would still leave you in a position to repay more than the minimums on the credit card, and allow for at least interest/charges on the overdrafts that you haven't included in the SoA.

After that pdls are repaid then you can focus on clearing the other debts and starting to build up a buffer fund. As a homeowner particuarly you need to have a fund so that you don't need to consider payday loans again in the future if you have an unexpected cost.

I'd also suggest keeping a spending diary to see where else you are spending money as at the moment your SoA doesn't explain why you ended up needing pdls in the first place.
Think carefully about what other costs you need to budget for - e.g. you mention that you don't need car maintenance costs, but your deal probably doesn't include tyres at you will need those probably once a year based on your mileage.

jayss

Can you get a lodger or 2?

fatmcgav

Wow, loads of replies - Thanks for all...

In turn then:
justjohn - Definitely something to consider.

Bedsit Bob My partner recently dropped down to 30 hours due to work stress, depression etc... So atm I don't want to ask her to look at that... And by some of the suggestions from people I don't think things are that desperate just yet... Cheers for the suggestion though.
And will double check on my council tax bill irt 10/12 months...

nomunnofun - am paying 3% pension contribution, and a Cycle to Work scheme which is £48pm. My tax code is also slightly lower than the norm at 928L due to a previous Bupa company health plan last year eating into my allowance.
Running the figures just now on The Salary Calculator, it predicts take home will increase by nearly £300, so looks like you're bang on the mark

Tixy Ok, 3 months sounds like quite a short period. I've got £1000 owning on Wonga, and £600 on QQ, so that would be ~£530 pm going out... The QQ loan also wouldn't default until December when the final £500 is due. If I wasn't repaying Wonga come 1st December, then I could probably afford to make the £100 payment due on QQ... Or is it worth just letting that miss aswell so that QQ defaults early?

Ahh, OD usage fees... On Santander they're £1 p/day, and capped at £20 pm I think... Halifax has been free up-to now as an introductory account offer, however think they kick in from this month on a similar basis. However as the Halifax is a bills account I'd quite like to get that back into the black and then keep the account ticking over with money in = money out...

A few people have suggested a spending diary, so I've installed an app on my phone this morning which I'll use to track all my spending... Just need to go back through to the 1st of the month so that I've got the full picture for this month
And yeh, Tyres are probably the only expense I'm likely to encounter on the car... Hopefully I should be able to get 20k+ out of the current set before swapping though, which gives me another 6 months run time... But that's £400 there that I'll need to budget for...

jayss Currently my dad lodges throughout the week as he still works in Bristol, commuting to/from Wales on a Mon/Fri...
Asking for lodging money also might not go down to well considering they helped out a lot with the purchase of the house... However cheers for the suggestion...

Keep em coming ppl, all really useful info

Thanks again.

Gav

Tixy

Just a thought - what is parents financial position?

Might they be able and willing to loan you the money to pay off the pdls and then you repay them over say 3-4months?

That would mean you wouldn't need to default on any agreements and so won't have such a long term impact on your credit file. You could explain that these were costs relating to fees on the house purchase etc and you hadn't budgeted for them and ended up borrowing on payday loans?

I have to say I am surprised that you were able to get a mortgage of the size you did with the level of unsecured debt/HP etc which is why its been a struggle in the first few months, coupled with the fact that you didn't have any savings for the fees etc.

[Deleted User]

fatmcgav wrote: »

My partner recently dropped down to 30 hours due to work stress, depression etc.

Has she considered changing job?

Working in an occupation which causes her stress, isn't going to do her health any good, long term, and with it being ~ MW, is it really worth sticking with it?

nomunnofun

I know that some have mentioned the APR on the credit card and, obviously, clearing it is a priority.

But the balance is only £500 - what is the limit? Surely the absolute priority is to get rid of the payday loans? Can these not be cleared with the credit card (goes against all advice here!) and the resultant balance of £1900 could be cleared over four or five months - especially with your salary increase!

All on the understanding that the credit card is destroyed, of course!

[Deleted User]

To clear £1,900 off the 16% CC, in 5 months, would require payments of £400pm.

Add that onto the HSBC loan, Mortgage and HP, and the OP would be paying £1,800pm on their debts, leaving them just £550 for everything else.

Their basic living expenses are ~ £700.

Even with a £300pm salary increase, it would be very tight.