Cannot afford to pay all our bills, what are the options?

Horseunderwater

If your OH refuses to deal with her debts, then write up a letter, from her to the companies concerned stating that she gives you permission to speak to them both by phone, email & snail mail. Send by recorded so that you know they have them & go from there.
DD's can be cancelled now & then write to each one explaining why. Bounced charges at £35 a time is money you cannot afford to lose. There are letters on here somewhere about getting any charges back, where extreme hardship is involved. Worth checking out.

Pollycat

Protocol45 wrote: »

This is the confusing part, I will check out your link below for the letters. Mixed signals, people say I should and should not cancel DD's. My credit score is ruined anyway, I'm honestly not bothered how much worse that gets, taken me 10 years to repair the damage I did in my teens and it still was bad and not enough to get credit.

pmlindylou probably knows more about debt than I do (no offence meant, pmlindylou ) so don't take my advice about not cancelling DDs as gospel.

Protocol45 wrote: »

We shop solely at Iceland at the moment. Not healthy food at all, but cheap, £1 here and £1 there on food. We can make it stretch more now, so that £400 estimate will need updating.

TBH, I can't see how shopping at Iceland costs you £400 per month in food.
You really can eat cheaper and better with some effort.

Protocol45

Thanks for the information thus far. I am in the process of filling in some letters to send out to my creditors.
Just a few simple questions to ask.
I assume I would send this letter to my mobile provider also?
What happens if the creditor refuses to let me pay a smaller fee and outright demands I pay what I agreed?
Also, if I send them the SOE form along with the letter while saying I can't afford to pay, wont they see I currently pay them say £30 since that is in the form and say while not still pay it?
Feels odd sending off a form with my outgoings including mobile bill and then saying I can only spare £x a month to pay for things.
Finally, do I apply this technique to the energy company/water company also? Or will I have to pay them what they ask for?

fermi

Pollycat wrote: »

This thread really need to be on the DFW board, I'll try to pm one of the board guide and ask for it to be moved.

Moved and merged with the one already there.

Protocol45

Most kind

lazer

Protocol45 wrote: »

I Guess I'm just seeking guidance. A few people have mentioned here that I should cancel my DD's with immediate effect.



I was wrong in my assessment, we are both on £30 each.


The Fiat is indeed a baby.


Nope, one more thing we can't afford.


I was paying off my Littlewoods slowly, but the £50 they wanted was too much for me to handle after I lost my job. My partner has a slightly more, lazy(?) approach. She will just ignore things and has made no attempt to content the creditors to explain the situation. I know it is wrong and I have tried to talk to her about it, but she refuses to do it.



Not as of yet, I was waiting to see what I could figure our here, then I could at least tell them now much I can spare.


Yes, I spoke to the energy company and Littlewoods and they did lower prices, but it doesn't seem to be enough, not to mention the £800 arrears on the energy bill, that is a huge cloud over things.


We shop solely at Iceland at the moment. Not healthy food at all, but cheap, £1 here and £1 there on food. We can make it stretch more now, so that £400 estimate will need updating.



Not in the immediate area no. For this area, 775 pm for a 2 bed flat is actually standard. We could downsize to a 1 bed, but therein lies more issues with my son. Unless we flat out move really far away, which will mean she will have to leave her job, as the travelling costs will not be worth it.



thank you.


I will contact them tomorrow when my son is being looked after by a friend to relieve some of the pressure.


They suggested I pay £800 pm to make up the shortfall, the arrears are about £250/£300.



This is the confusing part, I will check out your link below for the letters. Mixed signals, people say I should and should not cancel DD's. My credit score is ruined anyway, I'm honestly not bothered how much worse that gets, taken me 10 years to repair the damage I did in my teens and it still was bad and not enough to get credit.

In terms of your flat - what age is your son? If you get a decent size one bed flat you could perhaps partition off a bit of the living room for either yourself or your son? Or give your son the bedroom and you and your wife use a sofabed in the living room or similar - you should be able to afford you rent on an income of almost £2,000 a month, but due to paying off debts etc - you can't, so it's time for changes!


Is there anything you could sell - the mobile phone contracts - you could the phones and get cheap £10 phones?
You have said you are paying for a TV (I think at £40 a month?) - could you sell it? Old style CRT TV's can be picked up for free lots of places and could tide you over.


Your Grocery spending needs to be cut down, £400 is almost £100 a week for 3 people - that's a lot, try Aldi or Lidl. As you are a sat at home parent, you should have the time to cook and eat cheaply - go to the old style board for advice


Good luck

terra_ferma

I can totally sympathise with you, we too took a big drop in salary although it wasn't because of redundancy, so I know what going from having a good income to less than half means.
£400 is a lot of money, you can still buy good quality food by shopping at Asda, Lidl, Aldi and pound shops (I'm talking about branded, or equivalent own brands, and on date). I used to shop at Waitrose, and it wasn't until I started shopping and Asda that I realised that their produce is even better and they offer a great choice, and a lot of own brand stuff is so similar that it must come from the same factory
Again the pound shop sells branded food, same as you find in supermarkets, but much cheaper.
Finally you'll have to cook, no way round it, unless you want to eat crappy frozen ready made meals. If when you are ready you post a 'help me!' thread in the old style board, people will give you lots of useful advice on how to do simple things to make cheap nutritious meals for your family, so much so that you will not want to go back to ready meals

Also make your two bed house pay something back, you have room to stockpile stuff, saving even more money, as a long term plan

Do you have anything you can sell on ebay? Maybe branded clothes, watches etc? Worth checking what they would fetch by searching completed listings The boost your income board may have tips on how to make a few extra pounds a week.

pmlindyloo

Protocol45 wrote: »

Thanks for the information thus far. I am in the process of filling in some letters to send out to my creditors.
Just a few simple questions to ask.
I assume I would send this letter to my mobile provider also?
What happens if the creditor refuses to let me pay a smaller fee and outright demands I pay what I agreed?
Also, if I send them the SOE form along with the letter while saying I can't afford to pay, wont they see I currently pay them say £30 since that is in the form and say while not still pay it?
Feels odd sending off a form with my outgoings including mobile bill and then saying I can only spare £x a month to pay for things.
Finally, do I apply this technique to the energy company/water company also? Or will I have to pay them what they ask for?

Having re read your SOA I now realise that you have a mixture of debts/arrears and things that you cannot pay each month although you are not yet in arrears.

So, you need a different approach for each.

I am going to revise my advice about dealing with this yourself and suggest you go to CAB or some other free debt agency so that they can advise you on the whole scenario. (there is a sticky about the ones you can use)

[Deleted User]

Protocol45 wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0 - Can you find a job? Any job (even out of your normal field) is better than nothing.
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1444
Benefits................................ 490
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1934

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 160
Rent.................................... 775
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 120 - If this is over 10 months, swapping to 12 months will reduce it to £100.
Electricity............................. 90
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 30
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 60 - This is high, even it's for 3 phones. PAYG/sim only can be had for £10 per phone.
TV Licence.............................. 15 - Unless you have just joined a scheme, this should be £12-12.
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 50 - Dump and go Freeview/Freesat ASAP.
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 400 - This is high. Y should be able to cut at least £150 off this.
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 200
Road tax................................ 0 - Nothing?
Car Insurance........................... 30
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 - Nothing?
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0 - Never?
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0 - You need this. About £10.
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 - Nothing?
Haircuts................................ 0 - Never?
Entertainment........................... 0 - Never?
Holiday................................. 0 - Not even days out?
Emergency fund.......................... 0 - You need something in here.

Total monthly expenses.................. 1950


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0 - You own a car worth nothing :huh:
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 0


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 6000.....(160)......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 6000......-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Littlewoods....................250.......50........0
DFS............................800.......40........0
Littlewoods (Partner)..........400.......50........0
Loan ..........................1000......14........0
Credit Card....................1000......25........0
Credit Card....................1500......40........0
Total unsecured debts..........4950......219.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,934
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,950
Available for debt repayments........... -16
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 219
Amount short for making debt repayments. -235

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -6,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -4,950
Net Assets.............................. -10,950

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Are all your debts really on 0% APR?

Mersey_2

That's good advice re Council Tax. From last year, everyone now has the right to pay in 12 monthly instalments, rather than the unilateral 10 instalments that most Councils 'demand.'