Where do we start?

xsussax

Hi All


My partner and I require practical advice to get us out of our £10,000 unsecured debt. Since we bought our house in May 2007, just before the crash, we've had a torrid time with unemployment, things going wrong with the house, low income with new jobs and car problems. However, over the past year our luck seems to have changed. We now earn a comfortable living but we're still burdened with debt from our past difficulties and we can't seem to get ahead.


We have:


3,000 overdrafts between us in separate accounts (which we practically live in every month)
1,000 credit card debts
1,500 catalogue debt
4,000 hire purchase double-glazing loan
700 for our sofa (it's a 0% with a year left so not too worried about this one)


Under no circumstances do we want a consolidation loan and I do not think we would be offered one anyway due to past adverse credit (a CCJ and default in 2011 which were settled in the same year).


I've started by asking my partner to hide my credit card and I'll pay it off this year by paying £50 a month. I'm also going to reduce my overdraft by £50 a month and try not to spend on the catalogues. I've also opened a Park account for next Christmas and cancelled an unused O2 contract. What else can we do? I'd love to not see as much going out every month and a + amount when I look at my bank account. I appreciate this will take time but the more debt reducing measures I can take, the quicker the day our finances will be healthier.




Thanks for your help.


Sam

hampsterpoo

Hi Sam welcome , one of the first things to do is a SOA so that people can see what your outgoings are.
Keep a daily spend diary to see where the pennies that you should have left over are going , its the little things you take for granted, coffees , snacks lunches .
Im sure someone more knowledgeable will be along.

Wilkins

Write an SOA using

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php


post it on here in MSE format and then people can make suggestions on how to cut your expenditure. Congratulations on your can-do attitude and good luck.

its_maths_not_magic

Two places I can not recommend highly enough for advice are the national debt helpline and stepchange. You can find their contact details in the last sticky of this thread. They are staffed by lovely people who really just want to help and are completely non-judgmental. They can also offer better advice than I can.

As stated above, you can also post a SOA and people here will go through it and help you cut your spending down. There are also heaps of great money savings tools and ideas on this site so its worth it to spend some time going through the site. Good luck with your journey.

Million_Percent

Don't 'hide' the credit card. Cut the damn thing up.

The first thing is to make sure you have a monthly budget you can stick to. ie. make sure you are living within your means. Then you can allocate any surplus to the debts which are costing the most (ie. the highest interest ones)

Do an SOA and plenty of advice will be forthcoming.

heartbreak_star

Million_Percent wrote: »

Don't 'hide' the credit card. Cut the damn thing up.

And call up the company and close the account. That way you can't order a new card.

Good luck

HBS x

-taff

Yep, cut the card up.
Put the money for the park account into an ISA or make a regular DD or SO to an online account you can't access without physically going into the bank to get money out. Park is ultimately an expensive way to spend christmas money and you'll have no protection for your money if they go bust - think Farepak hampers.....

Start meal planning and shop around for food - look at the Old Style board for more help.

See if you can move any debts to a 0% card, but check the transfer fee first, if you can pay it all off in less time than the 0% runs out and you'll spend more in interest on the original card than on the transfer fee, do it.

Check your services - you don't need a television licence, you can stream from broadband and have a netflix or similar account for half the price You can also watch on demand programs instead of live. Check your mobile/telephone contracts and see if you can get cheaper elsewhere.

And put an SOA up.

retepetsir

This post was from January!

-taff

didn't think to check that...unecessary bumping

xsussax

Here's my SOA. Better late than never!


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1185
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2153
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3338
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 599
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 88
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 100
Electricity............................. 42
Gas..................................... 67
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 49
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 44
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 83
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 400
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 350
Road tax................................ 16
Car Insurance........................... 53
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 30
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 30
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 37
Buildings insurance..................... 25
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Haircuts................................ 21
Entertainment........................... 16
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
(Unnamed monthly expense)............... 0
Gym Membership.......................... 60
Unite Union............................. 13
British Gas Homecare.................... 24
Experian................................ 15
Equifax................................. 9
Tesco Food Stamps....................... 15
Park Christmas Savings.................. 45
Total monthly expenses.................. 2343

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 100000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 600
Other assets............................ 500
Total Assets............................ 101100

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 108000...(599)......4.99
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 3491.....(88).......5
Total secured & HP debts...... 111491....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Capital One....................371.......50........23
Capital One ...................400.......50........25
Barclaycard....................700.......50........25
Bank of Mum & Dad..............9000......100.......0
Overdraft (Partner)............1800......20........0
Overdraft (me).................1500......30........0
Very ..........................482.......160.......0
Next Directory.................556.......50........14
Moneyway.......................368.......34........5
Harveys Furniture..............421.......43........0
Total unsecured debts..........15598.....587.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,338
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,343
Available for debt repayments........... 995
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 587
Amount left after debt repayments....... 408
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 101,100
Total HP & Secured debt................. -111,491
Total Unsecured debt.................... -15,598
Net Assets.............................. -25,989
Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

[Deleted User]

The mobile phones and Pay TV add up to over £1.5k per year, which is A LOT. :eek:

I suggest going PAYG/sim only on the mobiles (saving about £24pm - £288pa), and reducing the Pay TV to a basic package or, better yet, cancelling and going Freeview/Freesat.

These two options (PAYG/sim only and cancelling the Pay TV) would raise the "Amount left after debt repayments" to about £515.