Affordable Budget?

sourcrates

Hi OP,


Have you thought of equity release at all ?


You say you have 25k unsecured debt, are you up to date with your payments, or have they been defaulted ?

With full and final offers, it may be possible to whittle this figure down.
It would depend how much equity you could release from your property, and how old the debts are, and if there are any enforceability issues with paperwork.

Another thought, if you have not yet missed any credit payments, you could quite easily stop paying for a year or two years, save up some money, get a good emergency fund together, then look at the situation again.
Debt collection is a very long process, if you can live with the letters and calls, little else will happen.

enthusiasticsaver

My suggestion would be you write to your unsecured creditors offering a token monthly payment and ask them to stop charging interest. Keep your mortgage up to date and avoid your bank overdraft increasing or open a new bank account with no overdraft and arrange for pensions to go in there.

£25 a month for clothes I consider doable but not a year. Manage it yourself if you are able or do you have adult children, relatives or friends to help you if your health will not allow you to do this?

dancingfairy

A debt management plan is an Indian agreement between yourselves and your creditors and stepchange act as facilitators. If you're not happy with stepchange you can try another debt charity or do one on your own.
It's strange that your figures are so far out with theirs. I'd certainly call them and discuss things, it wouldn't surprise me if they've misinterpreted something or you have. Also remember they have guidelines that are applicable for most people but if for example your rent is higher than average then it's higher than average. As long as the expense is reasonable and you can justify it if asked it should be fine.
Df

poppasmurf_bewdley

Without seeing your SOA, we can't advise.

I'm a Pensioner aged 68. I took early retirement exactly eight years ago today.

My total income is approximately £250 per week. I take out £100 per week on a Monday from which I buy my food and anything else I need for the house. I'm divorced but have a lady friend who lives 100 miles away and spend about £75 a month of diesel to go up there twice a month. From that £100, I usually have £40-£50 left over each week.

But it all depends on your life style. I can feed myself well on £25 a week, but today I'm having a family BBQ and have just spend £60 on food and booze, but that will be plenty for six to eight people.

So put up your SOA and you will receive plenty of help and advice.

Arnak

Hi Everyone,

Thanks very much for all of your excellent replies.:D

Apologies accepted theoretica, expect you do get a fair number who have not tries the obvious solutions.;)

Unfortunately we have tried equity release but the house prices in our area have fallen steeply so the that amount would not even cover all the debt and the outstanding mortgage.

That also removes the full and final offer solution unless we are prepared to effectively sell our house for pittance as the first mortgage would need to be paid back and that would leave very little to offer our debtors.

We took out the mortgage 6 years ago to sort out a previous debt but then fell back into a bad spending pattern, completely our own fault I have to admit.:o

Downsizing is also not an option because of the price we would get for the sale would be to low until the house prices pick up again hopefully in the future.

I am planning to check and see if we can get a secured loan to cover the debts but not the mortgage as the payments would be much less and so would enable us to live within our means.

Contacting our debtors did not help as they do not deal much with individuals but prefer to see budgets from such as Step Change.

In addition I will contact Step Change again and try to get them to see reason and not be so officious in their budgeting which will leave us a reasonable amount to live on.

Their initial budgets did not take into account several things such as entertainment, house and car maintenance etc.

We are currently up to date with all our payments but that will not be the case very soon as we will run over our overdraft limits.

There is also the issue of our ages and mental health problems, what would be reasonable at say the age of 22 is not something that we are prepared to struggle with at our advanced ages.

Given that statistically my wife has 18 years left to live then she is not prepared to have to struggle for every penny for 2 - 3 years, she says it is just not worth living like that at her time of life.

An attitude that I fully agree with. given the difficulties of both of us living with Clinical Depression.

Yes, you can get cheaper decking stain but it just comes off very quickly.:mad:

I will attempt to get an SOA posted but it takes so much mental effort it will take a while.

I have checked on pension credit but sadly we do not qualify.

Again thanks for all the advice.

Martin

Grumpelstiltskin

I will admit I have never used decking stain, I would never have decking, too much hassle to look after in my eyes but I think this is the most well known brand and less than you paid for yours.
http://www.wilko.com/exterior-paint/cuprinol-decking-stain-maple-25l/invt/0340462

sourcrates

OP,

it may be helpful if you could list your debts, exactly how old the accounts are, and how much they are for etc.
If some or all of them are ten years or more old, there are other options available for you to try.

freeisgood

OP I suppose you both have considered the option of earning some money? You sound very able bodied. Part time job in B and Q...dog walking...pet sitting, leaflet dropping etc...it all adds up.

Anoneemoose

If you both have clinical depression and it really does affect your ability to work, can you not claim PIP or something similar to boost your income?

I really don't mean to come across as harsh, but I get the feeling that you don't want to 'compromise' on anything and the solutions being suggested you are dismissing regardless. I have also suffered with mental health issues for 20 years (anxiety, OCD and depression) and I have generally found working to be a boost to my mental health.

The fact is, if you haven't enough money, there can only be 2 solutions and that is upping income or reducing outgoings, through things like opting for cheaper goods, as suggested with the wood stain. I appreciate it can often be 'buy cheap, buy twice', but it doesn't seem like you have much choice unless you tweak your budget somewhere else. You say that this is the second time you have been in this situation in recent years, so you really need to address your obvious overspending.

What about selling up and moving into rented accomodation? Then you would not have to worry so much about maintenance and you may even get some of your rent paid if you're on a low income. Obviously this would have to be considered in detail.

Edited - it would be attendance allowance, as opposed to PIP due to your ages.

Arnak

Hi Folks,

Again, thanks for the replies.

A few points to answer :-

PIP is not available once you are retired.

Taking a job, yes I have re-started my handyman business but work is almost non existent probably due to a lack of money around, especially down here in the South Wales Valleys.

Decking stain, yes, I'll try cheaper but there are no local Wilko's etc in this rural area so I have to allow for postal charges as well.

You are of course correct we have to make some decisions and decide on priorities so I need to re-do the budget and make more allowances that I did not include on the original 2 budgets I did for Step Change and see if they can agree to a longer term to pay back the debts.

They started at 2 years and 4 months but if I can get that to say 5 years we should be OK then.

Renting is not an idea that we had thought off, it may indeed be possible, something to look into as a last resort although we are well outside the limit for housing benefit.

We do have a large house so the gas and electric bills are very high,
about £200 a month.:eek:

That is on the cheapest dual fuel tariff that I can find.

One of the problems is that living in such a rural area we need the car for visits to the hospitals, vets and shopping as the bus service is extremely limited.

Also the car is required to get to any jobs that may come in.

It would be great if week could feed the 2 of us, 2 cats and a dog for say £75 per week, it normally runs to about £100 per week without the fags.

Although the dog is on her last legs and is not expected to live for more than a few more months.
Not much booze at all.

Luckily as a handyman I can do nearly all the household maintenance myself, even making built in furniture in the past!

With respect I do not agree that I am not willing to accept the solutions offered but I did make myself clear that at our age and in our mental state there is a limit to the compromises we are prepared to live with.

If it gets to the point where life is just not worth the struggle then why go on at all?

Martin