New start to pay off my debts.

tallyhoh

I see you mention your child care costs going down soon, won't your benefits decrease as well?

-taff

Tarambor wrote: »

WAY WAY WAY TOO MUCH. Cut Xmas by TWO THIRDS, cut birthdays IN HALF. There is no reason whatsoever to spend more than £50 per child on presents for these occasions. £1000 on Xmas presents just for the kids when you've that much debt is just insane.

If you read her posts, you'll see the bit where she says they get useful things like duvet sets etc, which is one way of spreading the cost of things like that over the year.

zippygeorgeandben

Yes but pyjamas, duvet sets (every year), one or two toys still shouldn't be £150.
You have to have a different mindset to most people on here because of the amount of children you have. When you mention the odd take away, well that's £20-30 to a couple but for you it's ALOT more so you really do need to think about these decisions rationally.

Sncjw

If you have £900 left a month you could get rid of the catalogues and tax credit debt.

Does the father not pay child support to help raise the kids

Mumoffourkids

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Are all your debts really on 0%?

Also, regarding the ones you're listing as "Old debts":-

How old are they?

Are they still showing on your credit file?

Are they Statute Barred?

Are they still with the original creditors, or have they been sold on?

The old debts aren't statute barred unfortunately. I believe it was roughly two years ago that they last had payments, but I could be wrong. It certainly wasn't anywhere near six years ago though.

I have got to dig out the paperwork and find out who they are with. I don't believe they have been sold on yet though or at least two of them haven't.

And no the only debts that are 0% are littlewoods and tax credits. I just don't know the interest rates until I find the paperwork which is my job for this evening.

I am planning on trying to clear littlewoods and tax credits asap as I should be able to do that in January with the surplus if I don't pay anyone else.

Mumoffourkids

Tarambor wrote: »

WAY WAY WAY TOO MUCH. Cut Xmas by TWO THIRDS, cut birthdays IN HALF. There is no reason whatsoever to spend more than £50 per child on presents for these occasions. £1000 on Xmas presents just for the kids when you've that much debt is just insane. I reckon if you calculated how much you'd spent on Xmas and Birthday presents for them all over their lives it would come to a sizeable portion of your unsecured debt which kind of tells you something. My kids have never suffered because they've only had £50 spent on them. You're not the only person buying them presents so you've no need to feel guilty.

Also electricity bill is way too high. Make sure you've LED low energy bulbs everywhere, start educating the kids to turn off lights when they're no longer in their rooms. My mate has 5 kids and his house is lit up like a Xmas tree with every light on even though they're all in the living room watching TV together or having dinner

I understand what you are saying and I have said I am going to cut this. Over the last couple of years, I haven't had the money to shop throughout the year for bargains but this is what I am going to do. This is what I used to do so I am going to try this again.

And yes I have been going round changing all the lightbulbs for energy saving ones. Every room has spotlights so as soon as one goes, I replace with energy saving. This is my electric bill though and try as I might, I cannot reduce. Combined with my gas bill the overall cost doesn't look too high to me though, but thanks for your comments.

Mumoffourkids

tallyhoh wrote: »

I see you mention your child care costs going down soon, won't your benefits decrease as well?

Yes they will, but I don't get the full amount of my childcare costs paid by tax credits, doing should still be better off. In addition my housing benefit has a cap on the amount of childcare costs they take into account, so in theory my housing benefit shouldn't go down either.

I might run through the online calculator though to see what it will change to though to give me a better idea.

Mumoffourkids

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

Yes but pyjamas, duvet sets (every year), one or two toys still shouldn't be £150.
You have to have a different mindset to most people on here because of the amount of children you have. When you mention the odd take away, well that's £20-30 to a couple but for you it's ALOT more so you really do need to think about these decisions rationally.

Actually the odd takeaway doesn't cost that much more than what you put for a couple. I tend to find deals and use vouchers if we do have a takeaway, so I would max £40 but in reality more like £30.

Mumoffourkids

Sncjw wrote: »

If you have £900 left a month you could get rid of the catalogues and tax credit debt.

Does the father not pay child support to help raise the kids

Yes that's my plan for January to clear those completely.

And yes I receive around £975 per month. My ex husband pays £671 per month for the oldest five and my ex partner pays £70 per week for my youngest. I don't ask for anything else towards the kids from them though. This income is included on my soa though.

[Deleted User]

Mumoffourkids wrote: »

I don't believe they have been sold on yet though or at least two of them haven't.

Any that have been sold on (or any that get sold on in the future) are candidates for making Full and Final offers.