Any ideas when there is no money to pay towards debt?

lynzpower

Is your OH putting money aside for the iNland revenue?

ltm07

You can still get quite a few channels through your Sky dish for nothing if you completely cancel Sky. We have moved down to the basic package at £19 a month & will be cancelling totally in February when the contract runs out. I guess you have Sky Sports in that package & OH may not be happy to get rid. I am a huge footy fan but the thought of footy players earning more in a week than our total debt was enough to persuade me to cancel. The compromise you could make with OH is that if his footy team are on Sky then he can go to his local to watch them. That's what i'll be doing from now on & i will only take £10-£15 each time i go & watch them. That's if he is a footy fan of course!

Adrasteia01

Hi,

I have a few additions to make but most others have already said.

To decrease your electricity bill: try energy saving bulbs in the main rooms you use, don't leave appliances on standby, try not to use a dishwasher or laundry dryer unless necessary, try to limit your use of washing machine to bare minimum, switch things off completely when not using them, don't leave phone chargers plugged in when not charging etc. You could charge up your phone or mp3 player at work as well. I remember reading that if you brought down your thermostat on your heating by 1 or 2 degrees it would make a fair impact on your electricity/gas bill, and if you put a brick in your toilet cistern it would save on water (not that I've done that myself).

Get rid of the sky and get freeview when you have the money to spare

Find cheaper broadband or a good package to combine with phone

Spend less money on food if possible, take lunches, try buying cheaper brand or type foods, eat what you have in cupboards/freezer to reduce amount you need to buy for the time being. If you buy coffees out, try cappuccino sachets or regular coffee in work to save money. Eat breakfast cereals at work if they have them. And you could try a cheaper supermarket like aldi or lidl if they're in your area.

Switch your mobile phone to Pay as You Go if you're not bound to a contract. It really can save a lot of money. I reduced my phone bill by more than half. Try to reduce your expenditure on mobile calls to around 10 pound per month (it can be done). Use a landline or office line if you're allowed where possible. Some mobile phone providers offer free txts from the web, or use email or msn. Some mobile phone providers also offer special plans to frequently called numbers or cheap calls to someone on the same network. I switched to the same network as my husband for this reason.

I think the UK govt gives vouchers towards the cost of childcare - someone else already mentioned this.

Stop buying clothes unless really necessary. When you do, try to avoid impulse buys or sale items that are cheap but that you won't wear very often. Try to buy things that will last longer and that you'll get a lot of use out of. Those are the real bargains.

Try to put off going to the hairdressers. You could try one of the 'cheaper' type hairdressers (you know the ones I mean) to get a trim or cut if you don't want to do it yourself. If you colour your hair, try doing your own it's pretty simple, can last longer than that in a hair salon and is a lot less expensive. I've been doing my own since I was about 15.

You could try letting out a spare room if you have one (although it might not be ideal if you have children). If you do, make sure they sign a contract.

Sell unwanted stuff on ebay, amazon, green metropolis, buy and sell etc or carboot or markets.
Earn points through pigsback, quidco, rpoints, survey sites etc. Also you could try mystery shopping if you have time. Almost all of my phone credit is paid for with pigsback points. I've made about 200 euro I'd say through their site so far (remember to register for yourself and hubby as there are more points opportunities when you first join). It's a good way of earning vouchers towards xmas as well.

Start getting bits and pieces over the next 5 months towards xmas as that way you'll be prepared for when the time arrives, adn won't have to budget for it all at once. I've done most of my xmas shopping already and have xmas paper, cards etc stockpiled already.

Keep all of your spare coins together then bag them up and take them to the bank. It can give you a much needed burst of money.

Try to make money from a hobby or think of new and creative ways to save or earn more money.

Instead of buying books use a library (where possible), and instead of renting dvds either buy (cheaply - try ebay or play.com) or trade/share dvds with friends.

My post ended up a lot longer than planned, but hopefully there is some useful info in there!

Tamara

carolinep1

Dear all
Thanks so much for all the replies.

I forgot to put child benefit on our incomings so there's an extra £69.00

The sky is going to basic and we are going to get our broadband for £5 from them so that should save around £40. The clothes money is really for DD which includes her shoes. I think I can reduce this to about £25.

Sorry if my original post was confusing (my 16 month old was trying to press the spacebar all the time). My DH is now employed so his salary is the same each month. Bit difficult to get another job with DD. I have started to sell some stuff on Ebay but this still doesn't release enough to pay any of the debts.

Selling the house means we will pay about £6k in ERC's and still end up with about £40K debt so I'm not sure that is the answer.

We have been offered another secured loan to pay off the original one and clear the unsecured debt but I am concered about doing this for obvious reasons.

I am considering training to become a childminder and working from home, this would mean I have no childcare costs but there are no guarantees that I would fill my vacancies....

I will find out the APR's on the credit cards but not sure how I can snowball them if I've got no spare cash. AARGGHH what a nightmare.

I just hope money management becomes compulsory at school it is ridiculous that I am nearly 40 and am so much worse off than when i was 20...

Adrasteia01

the snowball calculator will just tell you which ones to pay off first so that you pay less interest and pay your debt off faster. It will also give you a debt free date, but that's really only if you continue with the debts listed, keep up repayments and don't put any more on to the cards etc.

Just a thought - have you tried asking your credit card companies if they'll reduce your interest down as you're no doubt paying a great deal in interest.

newleaf

Childminding is a good idea and will save you some money, but would you make enough to replace your current salary? Ask your Health Visitor what she thinks the local demand for childminders is like, she will probably have a pretty good idea.
How old are your own children? Could your husband look after them for a couple of evenings per week to enable you to do a few hours of bar work or waitressing?
Given the size of your mortgage and secured loan payments, I think you would be wise to seek advice from CCCS about coming to some arrangement with your unsecured creditors because at this rate everything is going to go t*ts up before long. Sorry to sound pessimistic, but if you try and sort it out now you might be able to save your home.
Reccommend you have a read of Martin's 'Where to start with debts' page
link here (hopefully!) http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan

carolinep1

"Childminding is a good idea and will save you some money, but would you make enough to replace your current salary? Ask your Health Visitor what she thinks the local demand for childminders is like, she will probably have a pretty good idea.
How old are your own children? Could your husband look after them for a couple of evenings per week to enable you to do a few hours of bar work or waitressing?"

thanks Newleaf - unfortunately DH works nights. I think looking for something on a saturday when he is off may be an idea. Realistically this could bring in an extra £200 per month.

I have also done the debt remedy on CCCS website but it just told me to go back when we'd increased our income and reduced our expenditure.....:eek:

newleaf

Perhaps it would be better to phone them and speak to a counsellor about a Debt Management Plan. As far as I can tell, even if you pared back your outgoings to the bare minimum, you would still be in trouble. It looks like it's time to start coming to arrangements with your creditors.

HairyHandofDartmoor

I wouldn't recommend another secured loan, as you could lose your home if you can't repay this. Why turn unsecured debt into secured debt?

bowz25

hi
we were in a similar position about 4 years ago and consolidated on our mortgage to clear cc debts.
unfortunately it did not work for us and we ran up the cc debts again, thus we have now gone to cccs and are on dmp now.
If i could given advice, and it will always be your choice of course, i would not recommend another loan as from our experience it did not work, and after reading these boards i think it has happened to others as well. If we had not taken the loan and dealt with our debt then we would be a lot better off now and it would not take us as long to pay off our debts.

hope you make the choice that is right for you.
take care