Help!

Chriatie16

Hi,
My partner has a ccj that clears in January 2016 so has a poor credit rate history.
In the mean time he has run up a £2000+ debt in credit cards as his job didn't pay him enough to live when he was on a 0 hours contract.
He is now on a 60% contract but can only afford to pay the minimum and the high interest just keeps building.
Please can anyone offer solutions to help stop this?
Thanks in advance

[Deleted User]

What are the cards, rates and balances?

Chriatie16

Aqua card £2200 38.5%
Littlewoods capital one card £400 roughly the same percentage

Candyapple

Just out of interest, what is a 60% contract?

If he can only afford the minimum repayments then he has 2 choices.

1. Keep paying the minimum repayment on both debts and then pay whatever else he can onto the debt with the highest APR until it is clear. http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

Look for more work, sell something etc. but stick with this plan until both debts are cleared and his credit history won't be destroyed for the next 6 years.


2. Contact a debt charity such as Stepchange http://www.stepchange.org/ and either go with a debt relief order or debt management plan, that will ease his situation however his credit will be shot for the next 6 years.

bengal-stripe

Chriatie16 wrote: »

Hi,
My partner has a ccj that clears in January 2016....
.....can only afford to pay the minimum and the high interest just keeps building.

He might be able to come to an "Arrangement to pay", or even take the scorched earth solution and default on his debts completely. But in either case his credit file will be shot to smithereens for another six years to come.

Get him (not you) to join the 'Debt-Free Wannabe' board and post a 'Statement of Affairs'.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=76

Chriatie16

Thank you for all these replies. I will def get him to look into them. A 60% contract is 0.6 of a full time job so around 24 hours a week.

Ben8282

I guess that the answer you want is to hear that in January when the ccj has gone he will be able to get a 0% card and cease paying interest on his debt.
Having no real idea of his credit history since the ccj it is impossible to begin to estimate his chances at that.
Even though recently he has been making only the minimum payment, if his repayment history and account conduct since the ccj have been spotless then he might get lucky. I would suggest making sure all reference to the ccj has gone before making any applications. If this is his aim, for the moment, as soon as he sees some increase in his income and after taking care of any priority matters, he should concentrate on making more than the minimum payment and reducing the balance. Even if he only paid them an extra £1 each it is better than just the minimum payment. Your immediate aim must be to stop the balances increasing with the desired result that next months statement balances are lower than this months. The more paid the better.
Again depending on his credit history since the ccj, he could approach his bank for a loan to pay these things off. The amount is not large so if he has satisfactorily maintained an account with them for a while he just might get one.
Another possibility would be for you to take on his debt yourself if your circumstances are such that you could obtain lower rates of interest and could afford to make the repayments out of your own pocket in the worst eventuality. You would have to think very carefully before you did this,