Help required for debt

wok_boy

lindens wrote: »

Some other things that may help, do the food cupboard challenge. Write down everything in cupboards/freezer and see how many meals can be made out of this stuff. You'd be surprised how many things you find, Then mealplan so you dont get over full cupboards again.
Also ebay anything you dont need/is too big/small.

A good site to use whilst trying that challenge:

http://www.cookingbynumbers.com/frames.html

Danni-R

Hey,
Well done on the SOA. You dont seem to have a budget for b-days, xmas, ect.
If you can get the sky or virgin packages for phone, sky and net you can save your self £30 a month!
Good luck with the council tax.
Danni

hungry_monkey

john957432 wrote: »

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1,011
Partners salary - £673

Total - £1,673

I know it wont make a lot of differenece but your total income is actually £1684!

john957432

Originally Posted by john957432
Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1,011
Partners salary - £673

Total - £1,673

I know it wont make a lot of differenece but your total income is actually £1684!

Every pound counts i guess :-)

woofwoofwoof

john957432 wrote: »

Any ideas to help with this are welcome but I should have added that £60 of this is paying for nicotine patches as ive recently (4 weeks ago) stopped smoking

Is it not possible to get nicotine patches on prescription from the Doctor? I'm sure I've read that somewhere.

john957432

I thought this was just if you were on free prescriptions? Ive never been good at stuff like this though so if someone can confirm that would be great!

RAS

john957432 wrote: »

- mortgage life insurance - what is this, is it an endowment policy linked to the mortgage, or is it just life insurance? This was life insurance taken out in a joint name by myself and my wife at the time of getting our mortgage. It is to pay for our mortgage should one of us die. It pays out no more than the cost of the mortgage.

this look expensive unless you have preexisting conditions?.

Can you go to a comparision site and check term insurance only for the amount that you need? Also it may be cheaper to get term insurance for the full amount you want rather than two policies.

if it works, see if you can swap via www.quidco.com

If there are just two of you, could you take a lodger, even just for a year? upto £4500 tax-free.

woofwoofwoof

john957432 wrote: »

I thought this was just if you were on free prescriptions? Ive never been good at stuff like this though so if someone can confirm that would be great!

If there is no confirmation from anyone, just phone your surgery on Monday morning and they should be able to tell you. Even if you have to pay for the prescription would that not still be cheaper than 'over the counter'.

By the by, that's one thing that really annoys me about all these giving up smoking things, if the government is so worried about people smoking, etc why are the patches, gum etc not subsidised in price? If the 'help' was cheaper than it is now a lot more people would give up! (sorry, rant over!)

Good luck on giving up!

RAS

john957432 wrote: »

Debts:

Hilton Honours – Balance £764 (limit £5400) 15.9% APR
Marbles – Balance £391 (limit £6400) 15.9% APR
MBNA CC – Balance £9,294 (limit £16,000) 1.45% per Month
Egg CC – Balance £3,938 (limit £4,200) 1.385% per Month
First Plus - 15k loan over 20 years (28months in) - approx 14k outstanding?

Total Debt: £28,387

It looks to me that your largest debts are on your most expensive cards and you might be able to knock a couple of percent off if you can somehow pay off the expensive ones with the cheap ones.

Can you pay the MNBA card off with the marbles one? otherwise, pay everything that is not "cash" on the marbles or Hilton card and when the MNBA bill comes in, use the cash you have not spent to pay off that amount extra on the MNBA card.

Play around on the snowball on www.whatsthecost.com and see what works best.

Also cut the limit on your MNBA card back to £9,000 as soon as possible. The less credit you have available, the better.

nboldock

woofwoofwoof wrote: »

If there is no confirmation from anyone, just phone your surgery on Monday morning and they should be able to tell you. Even if you have to pay for the prescription would that not still be cheaper than 'over the counter'.

By the by, that's one thing that really annoys me about all these giving up smoking things, if the government is so worried about people smoking, etc why are the patches, gum etc not subsidised in price? If the 'help' was cheaper than it is now a lot more people would give up! (sorry, rant over!)

Good luck on giving up!

Hi,

Just a bit of advice on the nicotine patches - YES, you can get them on prescription, speak to your GP and they should be able to help you. I got all mine on script. One handy hint - when you reduce to a new level of dosage (e.g. moving from Step 1 to Step 2) if you get them on the same prescription, you should only pay for ONE prescription charge. The pharmacist told me that it counts as ONE prescription, because they are the same product (even if they are different strengths). They'd actually charged me for two but refunded me half the money there and then.

And if you happen to have an awkward GP who won't prescribe them for you - you can buy nicotine patches on Ebay MILES cheaper than in shops. A friend of mine is giving up at the moment and has saved himself a fortune by buying his Niquitin thingies on Ebay.

(By the way, I quite agree - they are an absolute RIP OFF over the counter).

Hope that helps.

(Incidentally, I failed... I still smoke :mad: - hope you have more success).

N.