Help! I need some serious advise, Please?? SOA added!

Bexylou22

Hey, thanks all for you advise. I can't ask my parents, I pay them back £220 a month which is for credit cards for when i was at college. All my friends were rich or had rich parents so I took out the cards so I would be the same as them. Big mistake I know but hey, I'm paying the consiquences now.

I still live at home so thankfully don't have the worry of paying for rent, bills etc. The £50 I try to put in my savings account is for my car maintenence but I always end up taking it all out. i currently have £70 in there so I will pay off some of HSBCs OD with that I think. Although my car does need a service and the MOT in due in less than a month. So more money will need to be thrown at that

I spend a lot on petrol because I don't work close to home and when my fella comes back from the army at the weekends, most weekends anyway, I have to go and pick him up from the train station which is roughly 70 miles away from where we live. I have been helping him out as well as he's only being paid £500 a month due to still being in training. This is due to go up as of this month though as he will be passing out shortly. He has promised to give me roughly £100 a month to get out of this situation as he helped create the mess we are in. I am going to try and ask for more though as it's both of our fault but then he still needs to buy army equipment etc out of his wages and transport which i have told him i can't help him out with anymore.

I will call A&L and see what they saym the nearest branch is about 15 miles away from me so I can't really pop in there unfortunately as I have to pay for parking and it would have to be a Saturday as I am at work all week. Also A&L said they would switch it all over for me which they have now but I am still receiving charges from DD that keep trying to come out of my HSBC account. I have stopped them all now, I think I had my last charge this morning of £25.

i do really need my car, I can't get to work without it and no work means more and more debt as I'm sure you are aware. I'm just so worried, I'm gone against my parents in taking this loan out and now I've messed everything up. I can't get a loan to consolidate it all and lower the payments. I get a bonus at christmas hopefully, although I only started my job in june, this should be about £1000 so that will help hugely but in the meantime I need to stop any further charges to my account. Thanks again for all your advise. If you have any more i will truely welcome it with both arms. I will get on the phone to A&L this evening to see what they can do and I think I will pop into HSBC next week and see if the can refund any of my charges as they have done in the past. I just want to close that account as soon as possible as all they have done is cause unwanted stress since I opened it.

Thanks again guys, I'm so glad I joined this website. xx

smudgemanc26

Hiya

Just been reading your thread if i were you i would get writing letters to the bank re charges its worth a go and the price of a stamp. The template letters are all on the reclaim bank charges thread so you just need to adapt them to suit you. I reclaimed mine even though i have an overdraft with my bank i just thought well if they close my account and ask for the overdraft back they'll be waiting a long time to get repaid so what the heck and i wrote to them anyway and was successful.

Like they say if you dont try you dont get so give it a go hun and try not to let the money situation get you down i know its hard and most of us on this board have been there! Chin up

wordsfan

only a newbie myself but have some insight into the army side of things. Having read your thread I can think of a few things.

1. - phone bill, there are many options re calling your boyfriend, no way need it be so expensive. Many mobile companies offer special rates/packages for long distance/overseas calls so look into that. If he's overseas and you can get your parents to trust you enough, there are companies that can bring the cost pretty much down to cost of a local call by dialling a pin number first. there will be a monthly fee too but I bet it'd be cheaper than what you are now. Y are you guys on the phone so much? Does he call you too? blueys (armed forces special letters) which you can get from any post office, also bf should be able to get you tons free, are postage free. There are also email blueys and ordinary email (depends where he's stationed, if he's in middle of nowhere emails blueys might be best due to technicalities of phone set up).

2. Re the car for work - do you have to drive all the way to work? can you do a sort of park n ride somewhere? Another option if you are in middle of nowhere is to car share or offer a lift to someone heading in same direction and they give you summat for petrol. also use that redex stuff, keeps everything running smoothly and you won't use as much petrol. Are you getting best price for petrol?

Also are you using the car at weekends/evenings just to "pop out"? Maybe ask yourself if you really need to?

3. transport again, this time the bf again - can he not get a connecting train/bus to somewhere nearer you? Is he using his travel warrants to best advantage? (think they get 4 a year which entitle them to free (army pays for it) travel "home"), he also should have a forces railcard which gets him a 1/3 off all rail travel.

4. Defo do what anntics said - whoever is responsible for messing your money up should be the one who pays - not you - stick to your guns.

5. Cut back on smoking? never been a smoker myself so no idea how hard, but might be worth considering

6. sorry to say this one hun, but your bf having you on re his pay:

http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/l0104.html

check out this link, i used this when my ex trying to claim he was earning less to CSA.

Also check army haven't stitched him up - they have a tendency to encourage them to join life insurance policies/endowment policies etc that army gets a commission on rather than encouraging him to seek best deal. plus as you've no kids yet, does he really need life insurance? Army have a fund for accident/injury/death anyway. PSF (their personnel dept) should be able to help - they're sort of a CAB which specialises in army info, these are the guys he goes to to give his pay info etc so he should know where to find them. This is job my ex does and he always knew EXACTLY what he was entitled to!! Older army members are usually helpful too - maybe he should try approaching them? they love being asked for advice and he'll impress them with the fact that he's willing to take responsibility and be careful with his finances. this kinda thing is part of their assessments for promotion. Tell him not to say he's having problems, more something along the lines of he wants to make the most of his salary and opportunities army gives him - that'll defo impress the boss and could even get him a quicker promotion in long run.

Hope that all helps

shell_girl

Have you thought about generating some extra income? One evening a week working behind a bar is roughly an extra £100 per month, two evenings a week roughly an extra £200. I know you have to drive a long way home from work each evening but my calculations are based on an average 7-midnight shift (and personal experience!). It wouldn't necessarily be a weekend night either, so you could still see your bf.

RAS

Bexylou22 wrote: »

I
I spend a lot on petrol because I don't work close to home and when my fella comes back from the army at the weekends, most weekends anyway, I have to go and pick him up from the train station which is roughly 70 miles away from where we live. I have been helping him out as well as he's only being paid £500 a month due to still being in training.

I think that you will find that BF get £500 left in his mitts after he has paid for his accomodation and food.

With respect to transport, can i suggest that you play with this web-site

http://www.transportdirect.info

as you may find a rather cheaper mans of getting him home. Personally, if you are paying that much out on fule, you need to consdir if you can afford for him to travel hom most weekend rather than every other for instance.