a quandry

pania

Hi Guys!!

Hoping for a little assistance to a few questions that i have....sorry for starting a new thread but not sure it would be answered on my diary. Hope that you are all ok and having a great day.
Right, here goes.

1) I am in a position now to be able to pay more off my debts, prob about £300 give or take. Now put it into a smowball calculator and it says to pay my welcome loan off first, (36.6%apr) paying £350 per month towards it

I spoke to welcome today and they have said that it may well be eaten up by interest over the first year and i'd expect to see very very little difference in the actual loan amount until 6 months down the line!:eek: Not bloomin overpaying for that!!

so 1) do i overpay welcome as the highest APR which the snowball is saying is the best move or move the overpayment across to northern rock where i know it would go off the loan amount.

2) start to clear the really old smelly stuff that is on 0% with DCA's to settle defaults but pay additional interest on the other 2

3) save it up until i have a lump sum to clear a debt off?

HELP!!!!!


Quandry 2

I have a nationwide credit card. was with nationwide paying £24 pm. all of a sudden they stopped taking the payment and i have had no contact with them now for well over a 1 1/2 years. When i'm DF i want to make sure nothing will come back to haunt me. Do i contact nationwide and ask to pay it and risk opening a can of worms, or leave it be and risk opening a can of worms?

HELP AGAIN!!!!

3) work insist on me using my mobi for work purposes but do not subsidise this in any way. they provide LL and broadband and say we should make outgoing calls from there. However when you are out on the road somedays for 12 hours and need to call clients back or call into the office it is unavoidable. net result = £270 phone bill this month!!:eek: Does anyone have any ideas on how to reduce this? are mobile phones tax deductable at the end of the year? (although self employed we still have to do tax returns due to working from home, mileage, allowances etc)

Sorry for picking your brains and rambling on just need some advice. thanks in advance guys.

Pania
xx

floss2

Re Quandry 3 - I think you would be quite justified to claim those work calls on your expenses - get an itemised bill & highlight each one, stating the name of the client. Then state you are not using your personal phone for works calls until it's paid & agreed that you can claim every month, or until you get a company phone.

My DF is home based, with his company paying his l/line, broadband & a works laptop, landline phone, printer & mobile phone. Therefore he doesn't have the tax issue as it's all company-supplied equipment.

GingerSte

Quandry 1
Surely if you were overpaying then you'd be paying a lot less interest, and it would work in your favour. (At 36.6% APR it sounds like they're trying to keep you in debt to them so they can grab all your money!)

Quandry 2
If you are concerned about leaving no mess behind, I would contact them and try and sort it out one way or another. Even if you don't, they will figure it out eventually and come looking for you.

Quandry 3
If you have to use your mobile for work purposes then make sure they pay for the calls. You wouldn't work for free would you?

Hope this helps.

pania

thanks guys and no i wouldn't work for free, this is taking a massive hcunk out of my wages each month. It's an issue that all of my colleagues have to so i'm not alone, it's getting stupid, 6 missed calls when i'm on the phone to one person and thats 6 people i have to call back!! the boss won't budge though! grrrr.

I to was confused re welcome, apparently each month 3% of my total debt keeps getting added on in interest, i pay £126 per month and £96 interest is added on. However when i recently restructured the loan i was told i owed them almost £200 more than i originally took out despite paying £96 pm for a year! i'm blowed if i'm going to up my payment to £350 per month for it to not make a dent for 6 months, cowboys!!

GingerSte

I have to admit that I haven't had a boss like that: who expects me to do work for the company outside of hours AND PAY FOR THE PRIVELEDGE of doing so.

IMHO then if work aren't paying for your work calls, then you shouldn't be making them.

CharliesAngel

pania wrote: »

Hi Guys!!

Hoping for a little assistance to a few questions that i have....sorry for starting a new thread but not sure it would be answered on my diary. Hope that you are all ok and having a great day.
Right, here goes.

1) I am in a position now to be able to pay more off my debts, prob about £300 give or take. Now put it into a smowball calculator and it says to pay my welcome loan off first, (36.6%apr) paying £350 per month towards it

I spoke to welcome today and they have said that it may well be eaten up by interest over the first year and i'd expect to see very very little difference in the actual loan amount until 6 months down the line!:eek: Not bloomin overpaying for that!! - and probably have to pay them fees for finishing early?! they're renowned for 'making up' settlement figures too... keep a beady on them and don't complicate things by paying more!

so 1) do i overpay welcome as the highest APR which the snowball is saying is the best move or move the overpayment across to northern rock where i know it would go off the loan amount.

2) start to clear the really old smelly stuff that is on 0% with DCA's to settle defaults but pay additional interest on the other 2 - getting rid of smelly old stuff is a great boost to the confidence and a fab stress release...

3) save it up until i have a lump sum to clear a debt off? ... but yes.... i'd put it in a high interest savings acount 6% plus and sit on it for a bit, then chuck it at your debts when you're ready, or save it for those 'emergency' times which we all have... lol..

HELP!!!!!


Quandry 2

I have a nationwide credit card. was with nationwide paying £24 pm. all of a sudden they stopped taking the payment and i have had no contact with them now for well over a 1 1/2 years. When i'm DF i want to make sure nothing will come back to haunt me. Do i contact nationwide and ask to pay it and risk opening a can of worms, or leave it be and risk opening a can of worms? ... do you have the card number still to hand? You can use the automated service to get balances etc. Not sure I'd want them tracking me down four years later by DCA with additional fees.... up to you on that one!

HELP AGAIN!!!!

3) work insist on me using my mobi for work purposes but do not subsidise this in any way. they provide LL and broadband and say we should make outgoing calls from there. However when you are out on the road somedays for 12 hours and need to call clients back or call into the office it is unavoidable. net result = £270 phone bill this month!!:eek: Does anyone have any ideas on how to reduce this? are mobile phones tax deductable at the end of the year? (although self employed we still have to do tax returns due to working from home, mileage, allowances etc) Yep they're tax deductable and will show on P11D's - would you be eligible for a business tarriff? Free UK calls etc....

Sorry for picking your brains and rambling on just need some advice. thanks in advance guys.

Pania
xx

And don't be sorry! Pick away...

pania

excellent points coming out. I've decided i'm going to write to welcome and ask them how they came up with my settlement figure when i restructured the loan last month, doesn't make sense at all now i figure it. will ask for a breakdown of payments made and interest added. do they charge fees to!! rip off merchant! nowt like that on my contract!

Think with the phone i need to look into a business tariff, or accidentally running the bl0ody thing over! i quite agree with you gingerste re using it and not being paid. and i do work out of hours! was 0830-2130 yesterday! grrr again. is a tricky one...

hmmm think i'll have to contact n wide and see what comes out in the wash. would rather be clear than not i think. eep.

OberonSH

At 36% can you not free up 'space' on a 0% and balance transfer? 36% is horrendous! I'd ignore what they say, doesn't sound right that it won't hit the balance. The snowball calculator will show the real picture - any overpayment will reduce it. Guess you need to decide of you want the psychologcal boost of clearing some smaller stuff, or getting the big stuff cleared a bit quicker.

Sounds like you're in a good position either way!!

And re the work calls - I'd get together with your colleagues and see if all together you can make a difference. I'd love to see them try that one in a unfair dismissal tribunal - 'we had to fire her, she refused to pay for the work phone calls we insisted she make'.

(Land_of)_Maz

I can speak from bitter experience that welcome do whack on all the interest in the first month... That said i can't see how making payments will not come off the balance though. It's just that the balance at the start will be more than the original loan amount due to the applied charges. It'll still count towards bringing the overall amount down... You just won't be touching the loan amount at first, which is how things would be even if you just make recommended payments. - Does that make sense, i don't think i'm making my point very well.........

As far as I'm aware too, they don't charge for early settlement and overpayments so i'd be tempted to throw money at the welcome thing and get rid as soon as.

See my sig, i have welcome too! If i ever got a windfall i would blow that one away!!!

pania

yup, should be renamed not very welcome!!! pah! bloomin company!

thanks oberon, sadly i'm in that "bracket" of people that won't get credit for love nor money so am stuck with what i've got, just a case of getting rid now hopefully and working through it from there.

i think the big stuff needs to be gone first as they are the biggest outgoing i have at the moment. 274 for nrothern rock per month and welcome @126 per month. My beloved provident loan will be gone at the end of this month, think i may take another as i'll miss the guy so much.... NOT!!!
It would be nice to get some of the defaults paid up but at £11, £20 and £30 respectively the bigger ones are the first priority.

Northern rock is 6.3% and i'm over a year into that so i know that if i overpay it will bring the balance down significantly just not sure i want to take the chance with the welcome one, psychologically it would be fab to have a balance that i could see changing?

benbenandme

what if you told work you don't have a mobile, that you have looked into it and you have decided for environmental / financial / whatever else you can think of/ reasons you have decided tog et rid of your mobile, and that if they require you to make calls while on the road they will need to provide you with one. Surely they wouldn't expect you to provide your own desk / chair at work so why should your phonecalls be different??