To consolidate or not

lovelylass_2

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Can you speak to the banks with which you hold the overdrafts and see if you can get them downgraded. It looks like you are paying for the Halifax ultimate reward account which gives you very little for your £15 per month and is charging you £1 per day for your overdraft. If you have the Santander 123 account then make sure all your utilities/council tax are paid from that to at least cancel out the fee. Same goes for Nat West, see if you can get the account downgraded. You seem to have gone for every fee paying account out there and as far as I can see are getting very little benefit of any use to you. What you need are low overdraft charges and no fees.

All our utilities etc are on the Santander so we do get abit of cash back £7after deducting £5 fee. The nat west and Halifax sold me the accounts because of getting a good rate on overdraft. I need to reduce the Halifax overdraft as I do get charged £1 per day.

[Deleted User]

lovelylass wrote: »

but in terms of entertainment, we don't tend to budget for it as we don't budget.

This may be where some of your cash is going.

A couple of pints in the pub, or a bottle of wine at home, soon adds up.

It's all the little bits (McDonald's, newspapers and the like), that leach away at you cash, without you noticing.

lovelylass_2

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

This may be where some of your cash is going.

A couple of pints in the pub, or a bottle of wine at home, soon adds up.

It's all the little bits (McDonald's, newspapers and the like), that leach away at you cash, without you noticing.

I totally agree - especially these last 6 weeks as I've paid for my sons friends as well as him. I'm a soft touch and don't want him to see how we are struggling.

[Deleted User]

lovelylass wrote: »

I'm a soft touch and don't want him to see how we are struggling.

I think he needs to know.

At the moment, you are spending money you should be putting toward clearing your debts, on keeping up with the Jones's children.

-taff

£51 a month for water bills? That seems very excessive....are you sure? I paid £90 for a 3 bed for 6 months...we do have a water meter though.

fatbelly

-taff wrote: »

£51 a month for water bills? That seems very excessive....are you sure? I paid £90 for a 3 bed for 6 months...we do have a water meter though.

Depends on the region. For South West Water, £51 would be on the low side.

AnotherJoe

lovelylass wrote: »

I totally agree - especially these last 6 weeks as I've paid for my sons friends as well as him. I'm a soft touch and don't want him to see how we are struggling.

So you are educating him to be as spendthrift as you are? Tell him you are struggling.

Look at all the expensive commitments you've made when you patently cannot afford them. I dont know how long you've been running that white goods maintenance contract for, if its five years you've spent £3,500. How much have you spent on fridges, cookers, dishwasher in the last five years? I certainly haven't spent that much. Did you think you would?

Plus Sky, Mobile phones when you are living on three overdrafts !! (and probably doubling the costs of all those when you factor in the overdraft cost)

Your son needs to understand you cant just spend if you haven't got it, think about it, you've actually put yourself in the position whereby you've borrowed from your family or taken out a bank overdraft merely in order to buy treats for friends of your son !

LabRatty

Hi there,
well done for wanting to address the debts; you have already had a lot of good advice.

I think it's worth pointing out that without a budget (which is only a plan of how you intend to spend your money) you are effectively a passenger in your life rather than driving/steering in the direction you want to travel. Getting on top of your debts is going to require a significant change in how you see the process of spending money.

It doesn't have to be all gloom and self denial - some things can be got cheaply or for free with a little creativity. There might be a FE college near you which does free haircuts in a student-run salon. I haven't paid for dentistry for years as I go to the local dental school and get treated by the students under supervision. There will be lots of other examples of this type of saving you could investigate.

Your commitment to your son is obviously very strong but IMO being a 'soft touch' for him (and his friends) is counterproductive. Surely you don't want him to be in the same situation as you're in now in 25 years time? I'd agree that he needs to know your situation so that he can understand the need to cut back and be on board for the journey. The child benefit should be able to fund the majority of his needs over the course of the year (especially if other family members contribute money at birthdays) and if he can learn to live within it and make choices based on having a finite amount of cash to spend on clothing etc which once gone is gone, you'll have given him a really solid life skill.

All the very best in your efforts.
LR

southantrim3

You will have a month's cooling off period after you change you sky package in which you can still cancell. (I know this because I did a few weeks ago)

Netflix is better value (if you're using it) along with freeview / freesat. £50 per month saving not to be snubbed... :beer:

enthusiasticsaver

lovelylass wrote: »

All our utilities etc are on the Santander so we do get abit of cash back £7after deducting £5 fee. The nat west and Halifax sold me the accounts because of getting a good rate on overdraft. I need to reduce the Halifax overdraft as I do get charged £1 per day.

Effectively the Halifax overdraft is being charged at 38% when you take the fee into account and assuming it is overdrawn all the time so yes that is extremely high. I would pay that off as a priority and get rid of the account.