Drowning In Debt

Craig32

cookson wrote: »

Good luck with tackling your debts.

Is there anyway you could cancel the marathon? If I was you I would seriously limit any non essential spending. I know it's for charity but any spending like that will mean you keep paying a large amount of interest.

Do you keep a budget to track your spending? Is there any areas you can cut back? People on here are great at looking at your SOA and identifying possible savings.

I had given great consideration for cancelling the marathon. Unfortunately it would cost me more to cancel it than it would to run it. Because i am running on behalf of Anthony Nolan, I have £1000 target to get. I am committed to that value, so say I got no sponsorship, then I would have to fund the £1000 myself. Going would only cost me £500-600 for everything including flight, hotel and living.

I think the marathon has helped me keep positive and forget about the gambling. I am now into my 7th week, running 5 days a week, around 40-50 miles each week, so I would like to continue this.

I have a tracker and my spending is as minimal as one could be right now. I am spending maybe £15 a week on food for instance, which is a huge cutback to what I was. I have stopped nights out, drinking. Pretty much any socialising which causes money.

Craig32

thegreenone wrote: »

I'm far from being an expert but I would definitely have a look at the snowballing link from Dobbibill. If you can spare £50 per month from the £564.50, off the top of my head and not knowing the interest rates, I reckon you could shift the bottom four in eight months.


£150 to PDL2 for two months then £250 to PDL1 for one month.
£350 to BCL2 for three months by this time you should only need a couple of months to get shot of BCL1. (very rough figures).


These are the uglies and I would imagine be a big no-no for any future landlord doing a credit check on you next year. You will also need to save money for a deposit. Can you spare extra each month to pay into a new basic bank account? Keep the card but cut up the pin and request a new one when you need to access the money ONLY for a deposit.


Definitely talk to stepchange though about help with the big ones.
Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. To be honest, of that £500 available, I could put a lot more towards my debt than just the £50. It is just the next 2 months I would struggle due to my marathon commitments.

Ideally, I would like to commit £1000 to my debts a month at the minute, and I would try as best possible when I can, to pay more with the £500 a month I would have, but I am unsure if this sort of idea would be possible with DMP.

My thinking is, say i had to move out, I could easily rent cheaply for £400 a month, and this would then leave me another £300 (as i wouldn't be paying my dad rent money), which I could live off.

I would move more central to the city too, so i would look to pick up some part time work at weekends to boost income to pay off debts quicker.

aznlayer

Well done Craig for facing your debts. I was in a similar position a few years back in terms of debt amount and income. You will be surprised how much progress you can make. You're lucky that you can benefit from cheap living costs at the minute. Make the most of it by cutting back on absolutely everything apart from just the essentials for now.

As people have said, contact charities or the companies yourself. I know the right thing to do is to tackle the high interest debts first, but you will also benefit mentally from getting rid of a few low value ones asap.

Other obvious steps are to do a strict budget. Payout what you must at the start of the month, but aside for food and travel and the rest to debts.

Craig32

Thanks Aznlayer, it is good to know there are people in similar positions, giving positive feedback.

My parents haven't been positive at all at the minute, which is understandle, but also hasn't helped myself too much at the minute.

I have a question of going down a D.M.P:

1) What would happen if I either lost my job, or got another job with a lower income. I know when dealing with companies, you agree to review it every 6 months for example. What would happen if 3 months into this something like this happened? Is there room for negotiating temporarily once more?

HappyMJ

Craig32 wrote: »

Thanks Aznlayer, it is good to know there are people in similar positions, giving positive feedback.

My parents haven't been positive at all at the minute, which is understandle, but also hasn't helped myself too much at the minute.

I have a question of going down a D.M.P:

1) What would happen if I either lost my job, or got another job with a lower income. I know when dealing with companies, you agree to review it every 6 months for example. What would happen if 3 months into this something like this happened? Is there room for negotiating temporarily once more?

If you lose your income you obviously can't pay any more so you drop debt repayments to £1 per month immediately.

Craig32

Dobbibill wrote: »

Finding the interest rates is definitely something you need to do.

After paying all your debt & your Dad each month, that leaves you with £564.50 to last the month, for transport to work, mobile phone contract and any other commitments you have.

is a link for snowballing. The idea is, using any spare money you have to pay the debt with the highest interest rate first and then use the spare money & amount from debt 1 to pay debt 2. They are then cleared one by one.

Congrats on joining GA, all the best to attack those debts.

DB

Hi DobbiBill,

I have followed your link, and think that Snowballing idea would be one that would work best for me. I have a question, which you may have the answer too.

1) Is the idea here to get a D.M.P set up firstly, and then payoff this way? If not, then how do I go about getting interest frozen here with each creditor?

I don't see why my creditors wouldn't agree to this, as outwith the payday and bad credit loans, all my creditors would be getting pretty much the same monthly figure they already get.

How responsive to agreeing to these freezes are bad credit and pay day loan companies?

I have decided that I want to pay my creditors their full figures due minus the interest. Prior to this addiction, I had always been a man of my word and would honour any debt.

[Deleted User]

Craig32 wrote: »

How responsive to agreeing to these freezes are bad credit and pay day loan companies?

I don't think you'd have a problem, I know of someone who had an interview what just under a year ago during which one of these newer types of lenders admitted they just didn't get the money back in most cases they had lent, (couldn't believe what was heard either) so they would probably jump at anything these days, they are no where near as demanding as they were 4 years ago!


Good luck with it all xx

tallyhoh

I'm a bit confused about the bit about renting cheaply for £400 versus paying your dad £200?

Craig32

tallyhoh wrote: »

I'm a bit confused about the bit about renting cheaply for £400 versus paying your dad £200?

As I mentioned earlier, my dad and his partner are trying for a baby, so effectively when they become successful and that baby comes around then I am going to have to move out (as he only has a 2 bedroom house), and start renting elsewhere which I reckon I would be looking at £400 a month. My city (Aberdeen) is one of the most expensive places to live property wise, and £400 is about the cheapest I could get in a central area.

tallyhoh

it makes sense to me now