Help me help my son....£11,000 in debt.

angrybarry

Hi niccol

Many years ago, having being "the son" in the same situation as yours, I would definitely say that tough love is the way to go, depending on how good your relationship is with your son, of course.

As some folks here have suggested, I sat down with my mum and dad and they painted an extremely stark picture of what would happen (bankruptcy, debt collectors, no credit) if I kept spending like your son has/does, as they weren't going to bale me out this time.

They helped me to create a plan, which involved selling my car and getting a cheaper one, getting a weekend job, selling a LOT of my stuff on eBay, getting a cheap but functional mobile and more. They would also "check in" every week to ensure I was sticking to the plan.

There was quite a bit of pain and humiliation and my pride took a healthy battering, but to this day I'm incredibly grateful to my parents for helping me out of what seemed like (to me) a bottomless money pit.

My point is you need to let him understand that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but he'll have to work for it

AngryBarry

calleyw

I agree tough love.

My stepdaughter keeps coming to her dad for money.

Saying she is going to learn drive etc and she can hardly afford to live per month. And her father asks her how she is going to pay no answer. And then she say I can get X car for £3k and her father asks where is she going to get the money and she has no answer. Her father will not cough up for her. She knows there is always a room in the house for her where she can live cheap if she wants to but she does not.

The main thing he needs to do is get the mobile phone contracts down to the min payment he can. That will free up a lot of money.

If the mother of his baby is going to be claiming benefits then an automatic claim is put in to the CSA if not it will be when she tells them.

The CSA are not forgiving I am sorry to say and will put heavy pressure on your son to pay.

Also please don't take a loan out for him. I know it is tough to see your own children struggle. I have never had a helping hand from my parents and had to manage to get by. It made me stronger and a better person to sort my own problems out.

Does your son live at home because his bills seem very low and no council tax or water/gas/electric etc if yes can you not drop his rent down for a few months to help him get back on his feet.

I wish you and your son all the best.


Yours


Calley

painted_lady

I agree with previous posters. Tough love is the way forward.
Help him, but in a supportive way, showing him how he can turn the situation round. Help him phoning CAB etc, setting up payment plans, writing a budget, ebaying. Bailing him out will only teach him thats the way out in future. If he has to suffer and put the work in, he wont do it again! Especially when you will be borrowing to pay him out, I know its hard and you would do anything for your children, but they got to learn the hard way!
Good luck, keep posting and welcome!

trying-very-trying

Hi niccol, and welcome to the board:hello:.

It looks like you're getting a hard time from the members. I do know how you feel, it's heartbreaking to watch him struggle. I would hate to see my children stuck if I was in a position to help. But I have to agree with angrybarry.

I think in this case the best way that you can help your son, is by giving him guidance. You must try and make him recognise the position that he is in, and without imminent action the position he will end up in.

It might be worth getting him to have a look at this site, and also one of the free debt counselling services.

You could take out a loan and clear the debt for him, but in what way would that benefit him. He really needs to learn to control his finances, and he will only learn to do that with guidance and support.

My daughter isn't in any debt at the moment, but she is about to buy her first home and I am not in position to help her financially, but I am here for her, and have told her that I can only offer advice and support. I am hoping that she will have learnt from my mistakes.

SarahNeedle1872

Definately tough love for me.... maybe help him with the intial payment to clear the insurance, but do it as an interest free loan, which he will have to pay back at some point. With regards to getting a loan to pay it for him, I would strongly advise u not to..... I know what I was like as an 19yr old, and if someone had offered to do that for me, I definately would not have learned my lesson.
IMHO the best thing for u to do is sit down with ur son and OH, and help him come up with a plan. He has spent the money, so he needs to take responsibility for paying it back - u can help him as much as u can, but paying it for him is not the answer.

He has a £9000 (thereabouts maybe a bit less) loan with Abbey £2000 overdraft. He is two months payments behind with car insurance, mobile phone contracts and loan payments. Insurance have given him til Monday to pay £380 or they cancel it. He has spoken with Abbey in depth and they wont help, infact staff member told him to change to Electron account which he has so no overdraft facility again, paying back other bit at a time This is actually a good idea, and how many people pay off their OD. Even if ur son can only put in, say £10 pcm, at least it will be going down.
and said look for a loan to consolidate from the back of the papers and try not to pay more than 20%! DO NOT let him consolidate!! This very rarely works!
Income approx £1100 per month Is he able to get a second job to increase this? Does he have anything he can sell on eBay/Amazon to make a bit of money?
Outgoings £150 loan What term is this over? What is the APR?
£ 70 car insurance Is this the cheapest he can get? Worth shopping around to see if it can be bought cheaper
£160 rent
£100 petrol and car expenses What does 'car expenses' include? Can it be reduced?
£300 phone contracts This is the biggest problem - how far into the contracts are they? Can they be reduced to a cheaper tarrif? Can one of the phones be sold to help 'buy out' one of the contracts, or put towards another debt?
£100 food and work expenses What does this include? Again, can this be reduced by taking packed lunches etc?

Have just realised that I have written 'he' and 'him' loads, and not 'ur son'!

HTH

Sarah x

EDIT - Another thought.... could u personally afford to reduce his rent? The reason I ask is that u could use it as incentive for ur son to help pay it back..... If in 6 mths time he has shown u that he is really commited to paying his debts back, u'll reduce his rent by, say, £10 pw, and he has to use that money to pay a debt.... perhaps use it to pay off the money for the insurance that lent him.

Hope that makes sense!

GeorgeUK

I'm guessing a fair % of the debt will be on CreditCard.

I moved my almost £8k CC deficit to promotional 0% interest cards
Without paying interest, the overall debt soon falls.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/balance-transfer-credit-cards#tartornot

He will still need to make monthly payments, but as long as he pays at least the minimum, will be moving in the right direction.

niccol

Thank you all so so much for replies...i cant begin to tell you how much my shoulders are beginning to come out of my ears!!

I spoke to OH last night and we will sit down with him tonight and read the proverbial but also OH has a CC that we dont use, we will pay car insurance and overdue debts with that to help out immediately and he can pay us back weekly from his wages. He works with his dad (long days leave home 5am and its now 7.30pm and they are still not back) so he can make sure he pays back each week. Its been doubley hard for my husband trying to keep him motivated as well at the moment. Thankfully he doesnt (and isnt likely to now) have a credit card.

I will let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

bathgatebuyer

SarahNeedle1872 wrote: »

Another thought.... could u personally afford to reduce his rent? The reason I ask is that u could use it as incentive for ur son to help pay it back..... If in 6 mths time he has shown u that he is really commited to paying his debts back, u'll reduce his rent by, say, £10 pw, and he has to use that money to pay a debt.... perhaps use it to pay off the money for the insurance that lent him.

I was going to post something similar then read back through the thread and saw this! Think this is a nice combination of the two things - your son learning an important lesson (which needs to be learned now as it could get a lot worse if his spending isn't addressed and the loan and cc offers flood in - my own experience talking here!). You could say to him that for every £X he puts towards paying his debts, you'll give him something like 5% back to help him get by with things.

The longer term difficulties he could find himself in if he doesn't sort his spending out now will be way tougher for him than the short term sacrifices he has to make now to get this sorted.

earphones

the phone contracts how long is left on them? and how much is the line rental each month? as he maybe able to reduce these, but tbh if he struggling he should know better than spedning £300 a month on phone calls!

Cousin_I.T.

Hope the talk went well, last night. We've all been there, hopefully this is your Son's wake up call and he will manage to sort it out with your support. Maybe show him the post from an 18 year old Mum who is struggling and appears to be on her own. Once again i wish you and your Son (and OH of course :rolleyes: ) good luck