debt help please

desperado88

Hi everyone new here and looking for a little advice as at my whits end.
here we go to cut a long story short i have a morgtgage of £48,000 and cc debts of at least £32,000. i work and earn £22,000 my wife is unemployed but receives at least £800 a month in benifits i.e tax credits and money for our disabled son.
iam seriously stuggling to make the payments on my cards but havent defaulted yet "only a matter of time".
my mortgage is £370 and the rest of my payements take me just over the £1000 a month mark.went to citezens advice and the said matter of factley oh just change your bank and go on a dmp as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
i really dont want to do this and iam thinking of taking a second job in agengy hgv work as i have a couple of days spare a week.point is is it worth it and will i every pay this off two of my ten cards i only owe a couple of hundred pounds on so can see an end to them but iam so desperate now iam not sleeping and it is starting to effect my health.if i started that dmp "iam in scotland btw" how much money would they take off me a month would i be better off,the reason i dont want to do this is my son needs a car for his quality of life and when he is sixteen in four years time i will need to buy him one as i fear the system will abandon him."he currently has a motobility vechicle.
please i know i have been stupid but at the time my son was young we where told he might not be with us long so i bought him everything he wanted that i do not regret but now i realise its time to get help.

thanks for reading.

JustAboutThere

Desperado,

Welcome to the forums and sorry to hear about your troubles.

The best way to see if its worthwhile you taking a second job would be if you fill out a Statement of Affairs (SOA) that lists all your income and outgoings. Unfortunately, just to be really unhelpful, I can't locate it at the moment, but hopefully someone will pop along and post it shortly.

People are really good at being able to find ways to cut outgoings - maybe some you haven't previously considered.

Best wishes.

thecassman86

Hi there and welcome to the forum :wave:

Firstly, the idea of a DMP is to help you in situations just like this and make your month to month payments much more manageable - you will arrange a payment of whatever you can afford so you don't need to worry about them taking too much. The biggest part of a DMP is that it's done alongside your creditors so often interests are frozen etc making it more affordable.

There are plenty of people on this forum that have successful stories with DMPs.


All that being said, we may be able to help you in other ways to give you help saving money with or without the need of a DMP. The first step is to post up a Statement Of Affairs. Here, you will specify all aspects of your incomings and outgoings as well as the amounts, payments and APR's of your debts - from that, we can see if money can be saved and find the most effective way to get rid of your debts.

So, to do an SOA, you need to fill the form in here: http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php and then format it for the MSE forums and post it back on here.

Good luck, you've come to the right place

thecassman86

Ahh, it appears that i'm getting an error from the SOA link so the service might be temporarily down but keep trying it and hopefully it'll be up soon!

In the meantime, could you perhaps highlight your unsecured debts for us? I.e. list each card, the amount you owe, the minimum payment, how much you actually pay, their limits and their APR's.

The more info you can give the more help you will get.

desperado88

thecassman86 wrote: »

Ahh, it appears that i'm getting an error from the SOA link so the service might be temporarily down but keep trying it and hopefully it'll be up soon!

In the meantime, could you perhaps highlight your unsecured debts for us? I.e. list each card, the amount you owe, the minimum payment, how much you actually pay, their limits and their APR's.

The more info you can give the more help you will get.

unsecured debt on the halifax card about £14,000 that one i cant seem to shift the rest are £2000,£3000 and lower on different cards totalling roughley £32,000 all are on descent rates apart from the halifax....if iam going under that will be the killer.
dont have much going out apart from petrol for the car,nthell
£50 .
have about £25000 equity in the house but was warned against using that by citizens advice,the banks wont entertain me anyway unless i get my income up and my debts down a bit.....feel so trapped.

19lottie82

Why are you so against a DMP? At first glance of your situation, based on the info you have provided, it sounds like it might be the best solution.

desperado88

19lottie82 wrote: »

Why are you so against a DMP? At first glance of your situation, based on the info you have provided, it sounds like it might be the best solution.

Did`nt want to go down that road unless absolutely no other way... worried about buying a car later and maybe moving house at some point,if i do a dmp then iam well and truely stuck..... if i have to i will though as i need to keep the house for my son.just wondering if there was any hope for me any other way.

Sedge123

From what you have said your outgoings seem quite low and when you factor in your wage and wife's benefits there is a healthy income. Complete a soa and you may be surprised what you spend on things. Also keep a spending diary to identify where the extra is being spent.
Once you've done the soa then post it on here and folks will try and help.

patman99

Just wondering something. If the interest rates are much lower on the non-Halifax cc's, would it be financially beneficial to transfer as much of the balance from the Halifax cc to the others (you need to factor-in the increase in min. payments on the lower APR% cards against the drop in payments to the Halifax cc).

Btw, if the Halifax try raising the APR% again, you have the right to refuse the rise. If you do, then be aware that the card provider will freeze the card & from that point on, will treat the outstanding debt as a 'loan'.

thecassman86

I'd second the above comment and look at the possibility of transferring as much away from Halifax as possible (without taking on new credit..!). You need to try and pay as little interest as possible without increasing your minimum monthly payments by too much.

I would definitely look into a DMP long before releasing equity in your house. Your equity is an asset and for most people (considering cars are usually worth little or on finance) it's actually the only real asset that you have! A DMP will allow you to become debt-free without losing anything.

The SOA link still appears to be down (boo), so, in the meantime if you create a spreadsheet and create a table of all of your outgoings, along with any other information that you can gather, and get them all onscreen, this will allow you to see your total outgoings. From there, you can start using comparison sites or calling rival firms for "new customer" rates etc... I know it sounds like a drop in the ocean but it's remarkable what you can save.

When i first had my LBM i went through all of my outgoings, cancelled some that were no longer needed (that i hadn't realised i was still paying!!!!) and then moved everything (and i mean everything) to new suppliers. It saved me £140/month. I'm not joking.

desperado88

Sorry i have`nt posted in a few days...i have been trying to work out things unsuccessfully.
I seriously don`t know what to do now morgtage and a credit is due before i get paid tuesday and iam £200 short......i really don`t know what to do now.feel like just throwing in the towel.so fed up.