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Fed up

wigglers
wigglers Posts: 151 Forumite
Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
edited 7 October 2014 at 9:56PM in Debt-free wannabe
Hi I live with my fiancee and 2 children both under 3, I earn nearly £1500 a month take home my fiancee earns £260 a month with a little cleaning job and we get 330 a month in ctax cred and 138 in child benefit but I have no money at the end of the month especially now we have preschool fees too. we have credit cards with a with £5530 on 1 with £2000 on 1 with £850 on another with £1700 on and 1 with £1500 on but balance interest free for a while most the others are upto 20% interes and a cap 1 card with £200 on it and im in my overdraft £1000. We are paying minium off the cards rach month until my personal loan finishes in Jan which will bring in £250 a month and our car loan same ll month another 270 free but it's spiraling and I duno if I wouldn't be best in an iva? as I'd love to clear the debt and can pay more starting Feb .... but I have 2 small kids and we need to at least rent a house with garden and space which is at least £200 a month more than what we're paying rent now!

I'm lost please help
thanx in advance
matt
«1345678

Comments

  • atolaas
    atolaas Posts: 1,143 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Have you checked to see if you are eligible for any benefits?
    SPC7 ~ Member#390 ~ £432.45 declared :j
    Re-joined SW 9 Feb 2015 1 stone lost so far

    Her Serene Highness the Princess Atolaas of the Alphabetty Thread as appointed by Queen Upsidedown Bear
  • wigglers
    wigglers Posts: 151 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Yeah I have we get child tax credits and child benefit that's stated in the post, like I say we are paying it all atm but only just but then needing to use cards to pay little bills or top up shopping etc...
  • atolaas
    atolaas Posts: 1,143 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    You may be eligible for help with funding for preschool care...but its something you'd had to look into. I know there is available funding for 2 year olds to have 15 hours of free childcare per week. Failing that, CAB or Step Change may be useful organisations to get in touch with...hope that helps :D
    SPC7 ~ Member#390 ~ £432.45 declared :j
    Re-joined SW 9 Feb 2015 1 stone lost so far

    Her Serene Highness the Princess Atolaas of the Alphabetty Thread as appointed by Queen Upsidedown Bear
  • wigglers
    wigglers Posts: 151 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Yeah we are entitled to funding forpreschool when my daughter is 3 which will be after Dec 9th I am aware of this but my point is we are only just managing to cover everything only paying minimum deposits and like I say creating more debt by using cards and overdraft to pay and top up bills or buy food and diesel with :(
  • wigglers
    wigglers Posts: 151 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Also my fiancee has a Virginia credit card with 0% balance transfer offer at the minute so thinking about transferring the 5530 on that and then at least it's balance free but it would be 3.5% and can't garuntee It would be the best thing to do??? As the 0% will end at some point!
  • Hi Wigglers, have you completed a full SOA?

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

    I had my budget worked out much like yours above. It was vague but I knew I was overspending on everyday things - like the top up shops. When I got it down in detail it was much easier to see where to cut back.

    Since you're still just able to make payments perhaps that would help. I know there's lots of people here who will be happy to help suggest where you can trim down!

    Best of luck.
  • We were in a similar position 3.5 years ago and when we put all our debt together realised we had over £30k spread over loans,credit cards etc. we ended up using payplan (they don't charge) and doing a dmp we will be debt free within 12 months and during this time have managed to have a good quality of life (still go out even sneaked in holidays through saving little extra bits we got). When we set it up we were paying over £1500 a month to our debt and most of it was minimum payments so the debt was rising. We couldn't see an end to it ever, can't believe it's now actually so close to ending.
  • The figures you give in your OP don't give a proper picture (no indication of when 0% ends, no accurate APRs, no minimum payments, whether any are defaulted etc.), nor what you are spending on household items (Rent, CT, utilities, food etc.), meaning we can't give any worthwhile advice.

    I suggest posting a SOA, so the good people of MSE can advise properly.
  • wigglers
    wigglers Posts: 151 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Hi haven't done a soa... but I don't know if I could scale down on anything as with 2 young kids and a missus doing slimming world our food bill is usually £100+ a week but we shop at aldi and eat fresh healthy fruit and veg etc so nowhere we can scale down
  • linrog
    linrog Posts: 11 Forumite
    applogies for jumping on your thread but i am new and have no idea how i make a post please help thankyou
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