Help I don't know where to start

teasolvesit

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I've just been over you debt payments.

Firstly, you need to immediately, slightly increase the monthly payment to the Virgin Atlantic card, as you are currently not even covering the interest, meaning the balance is going up each month.

A year from now, the balance will be £1,745.34, and two years from now it'll be £1,849.90.

Increasing the monthly payment by £10, will at least get the balance reducing, albeit by only a tiny amount each month.

Now for the actual clearing of the debts.

Based on your current situation, it's going to take 46 months to pay off these debts, and cost you £9,570 in interest.

However, if you changed your Mobile Phone to a £10 PAYG deal, and cut out entertainment and clothing purchases completely, that would give you an extra £125 per month.

That £125, put toward your debts, would reduce the repayment period to 37 months, and the interest to £7,045.

That's a reduction of 11 months and £2525, for just £125 extra per month.

You see where I'm going with this?

The more you can cut back, the more you can put toward your debts, and the faster and cheaper it will be, to clear them.

I will defiantly increase my virgin Atlantic payments, thanks for pointing that out.

Do you think i should start by tackling the smallest debt first or start with the highest or just spread the cost between the debts?

thank you for your input.

teasolvesit

kindofagilr wrote: »

I think you can do it without entering a DMP, when we started a couple of years ago, we had payments bouncing etc.
We stripped back all spending, and cut everything back till we got to a point where we weren't having payments bounce.
We were able to pay minimums and a little bit more on the cards.
Then last year we managed to move all the debt onto 0% cards (I really was amazed and didn't think we could have but we did) and so now it's all spread onto 0%

But you need to do the initial claw back on spending etc first to see if you have the wiggle room xx

Thank you for yourreponse. Its good to know that someone has done it without entering into a DMP. I will look at my budget and like you said claw back on spending but I think it will be doable.

[Deleted User]

teasolvesit wrote: »

Selling the car Is an option I have thought about and will I will look at again.

How do the numbers add up, if you were to scrap the monthly train ticket, and use the car instead?

No entertainment no clothes and have already started to search for a new phone deal.

In your position, I wouldn't tie myself into another phone deal.

Instead, I'd go PAYG, so I could skip paying, in the event of a really bad month.

[Deleted User]

teasolvesit wrote: »

Do you think i should start by tackling the smallest debt first or start with the highest or just spread the cost between the debts?

The general rule is to start by overpaying the debt with the highest APR, which will see off the debts in the quickest and cheapest way possible.

In your case, due to the 0% deals, it's a little more complicated.

I suggest you put all your debts into the Snowball Calculator (making sure to include the 0% deals and their expiry dates), and print out the results.

That will give you a spreadsheet style chart, telling you exactly what to pay, each month, to each debt, to clear them in the fastest (and cheapest) way.

teasolvesit

Great thanks will try the calculator and see where it takes me.

teasolvesit

Sorry I'm unable to quote and reply on my phone. But I haven't looked at taking the car to work option. That's something I can try I know there is a charge for car parking and I think it's about £50 a month then I would need to take into account petrol. I will check with Aa route planner to see how much the journey would cost. Thanks.

[Deleted User]

teasolvesit wrote: »

I know there is a charge for car parking and I think it's about £50 a month then I would need to take into account petrol.

If it costs £50 to park, that leaves £250 from the £300 train ticket.

If you can get to work, using a decent amount less than that in petrol, you are onto a winner.

Don't forget to inform your insurance company, if your mileage is going to rise above your currently declared amount.

itsallabitmuch

The people that have already replied are far better in terms of giving financial advice than I.

However, in regards to the Internet/TV:

If you can do without, great, but it's not unreasonable these days to need the Internet. If you do definitely need it, try a switching service such as USwitch to see how much you could save by switching. Generally, the company you switch to will cover the cost of cancelling the previous service.

kindofagilr

teasolvesit wrote: »

Thank you for yourreponse. Its good to know that someone has done it without entering into a DMP. I will look at my budget and like you said claw back on spending but I think it will be doable.

Definitely

We have paid nearly 20% of ours off ourselves and we aren't in a DMP

Another thing I wanted to say was look up the challenges on here, I love them, especially the 'pay off all your debt by christmas 2017' one, I won't have all mine paid off by then, but you can set targets, last year we wanted to pay off £7000 and managed just more than that, so this year I have set my target for £10,000 xx