I've mucked up. Really badly.

enthusiasticsaver

I am staggered that a dog walker charges £88 for just once a week walk. Is that £22 per hour?

As you can see your outgoings are more than your income. You only have two choices really. Either you bite the bullet now and go on to a DMP or you cut as much as possible and up income somehow to get to a point where your income at least matches your expenses. If not, your debt will increase and you will struggle on for a few years until the debt gets much higher. Of course if your OH gets a good paying job after finishing Uni then this will improve the situation. Doing a masters seems completely unaffordable though.

There are a lot of ways your outgoings can be cut but I have a feeling some may be non negotiable (dog walkers and cleaner) so realistically a DMP may be the best option. However I am not sure what costs are allowed for pets/cleaners etc so you may have to go the self managed route.

Tigger_looks_bigger

SuperMoose wrote: »

A prescription repayment certificate will save you money if the prescriptions in your budget are just for you.

Second this, works out as £10 ish a month.

Also might be worth applying for a hc2 (sorry can't link as new user.... hmm hahaha)
I've no idea if you'd qualify as they don't give exact figures but they do take more things into account than means tested benefits.

Could you try the free spotify? It does have ads and the song choice isn't exact. We switched to it last year and have been happy with it.

How much can you get the dogs insurance without the add ons? I get my animals deflea and dewormer online and it saves loads. Can you get clippers to do the dogs nails yourself? Also do you use zooplus for food? I've found it's much cheaper than supermarkets.

a_silver_lining

I!!!8217;m wondering if it would be worth your OH taking a year out of uni to work in a low level HR or admin role within a company he would like to work in the future in. Two weeks work experience really is nothing. He wouldn!!!8217;t have been given any real responsibility or workload and so would have an idealistic view on working there. I also did an undergraduate and decided not to pursue it as a career.

This is not a judgement by the way. I speak from my experience. I did three placements, a few weeks, 6 months and 9 months and then went to a job within the area of the shortest placement thinking that was a dream job. Cut a long story short, I was wrong and would have been gutted if I had spent an extra year studying for it and building up my debt.

Well done on giving some thought to the suggestions people are giving you by the way. I get that it is hard to think of making changes to your life that are luxuries which make it better. I think you can see that your level of debt is just going to increase over time, especially if you OH does a masters. Then you could be facing being made bankrupt and not a DMP.

Mostly_Zen

Hi OhBumsToItAll,

I read what has been going on in your life and registered an account so I could reply. The reason I registered was, you talked about having "episodes" where you spend an awful lot of money in your first post. I work as a psychologist, and was wondering what else happens during these episodes?

Do you have times when your mood is really high (feeling really great and overconfident?) do you barely need to sleep at these times? Are these the same times when you spend excessively? If so, there is a possibility you might be experiencing some form of bipolar difficulty. Its really worth going to your GP and getting referred for an assessment if you think this sounds like the problems you are having.

These kinds of things can be scary to face up to, but if you are able to, you might be able to get some help to address the root cause of the problem as well as either some psychotherapy, or medicine, or a combination of the two. Of course, you may not be bipolar at all - I have never met you and diagnosing over the internet is not wise - although it does sound like it could be.

In any case, I would follow the advise of the others also:

1) Cut up all the credit cards and bin the pieces
2) Delete any apps you can spend with, and remove CC information from your browser and phone
3) See how many of the things you have bought recently you can return? Some things can be returned within 21 days - you could potentially get £100s back this way. My wife returns things like clothes she has bought online fairly often.
4) Only once you have checked all the things you can return should you consider selling things
5) Get a cheaper dog walker
6) Make sure you make the minimum payments
7) Hurl as much cash as you can at the highest interest card first
8) As each card is paid - CLOSE THE CREDIT CARD DOWN
9) If needed, consider balance transfers from high interest to 0% - this is going to take a while
10) If two cards are at 0%, consider paying the smallest debt first, for the psychological boost - this will help you to keep going

Finally, try to be kind to yourself - we are all imperfect, and this world is hard enough without us being down on ourselves. Eventually, when you feel comfortable and able to do so, consider telling your husband what has happened. He needs to understand about whatever emotional difficulties you are facing that are leading to so much spending and debt, and if he loves you, which I'm sure he does, he will surely understand.

Good luck!

Mostly_Zen

Oh, I meant to add - I have known people who do have bipolar disorder to get a letter from a psychiatrist, stating that they were very unwell at the time of their spending spree, and have certain debts written off as a result - if you do think it sounds as though this is you, its certainly worth exploring.

Candyapple

ohbumstoitall wrote: »

Yes Barclaycard I know do it, I've got £600 "free" on the BC at the moment but obviously that doesn't really help at the moment. No offers I can see at the moment. I'll close the TSB one down as that will reduce my available credit which is a good thing. Doesn't help my ratio though but not sure anything would help apart from winning the lottery. I do have a halifax offer but no credit to transfer unfortunately.

Candyapple wrote: »

Barclaycard, Halifax and Tesco credit cards you can increase your credit limits online, and all 3 offer regular 0% deals. Barclaycard offer them monthly - log into your online account to check.

Have you tried doing this yet?

Just make sure that if you do get any increases and transfer over the Amex balance that in turn you contact Amex and ask them to reduce your limit just so that you don't get tempted to spend what you have saved. The aim of this exercise is to move as much of your interest bearing debt onto a 0% deal.

Ian_875

ohbumstoitall wrote: »

You sound exactly like my husband! Can I ask, how you managed to get the job on an IT service desk? Did you have an interest in tech.

No more of an interest that any other person. It's not really IT skills that are needed, just an ability to answer the phone. You really just pick the rest of it up.

Look for 1st Line stuff (keywords Service Desk, Helpdesk, Customer Service). Try and get in with a big company that's hiring as they're much more willing to take people with no skill as long as they come across properly. The place I was at had 65 people answering the phones so it was much easier to ask for help and constantly learn new stuff, whereas the place I'm at now has 3 people, so obviously no room for unskilled people.

Companies to look for would be Atos, HP, Daisy. Atos in particular (although they're a morally bankrupt company) have loads of accounts at every level, and to be honest during my time there I saw them hire people with little more than a pulse! Even so, having left uni with no transferable skills and staring down the barrel of a life back in retail, I was happy with the £17k a year starting pay (in the North). Primary Education really only trains you to do one job, and when you decide to not do that job the sad fact is - at least in my case - the degree has been almost worthless. It sounds like your husband is in the same boat I was.

Attitude trumps experience most of the time with these big contracts, as the people interviewing you normally don't have any IT skill themselves, they're hiring managers.

ohbumstoitall

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I am staggered that a dog walker charges £88 for just once a week walk. Is that £22 per hour?

As you can see your outgoings are more than your income. You only have two choices really. Either you bite the bullet now and go on to a DMP or you cut as much as possible and up income somehow to get to a point where your income at least matches your expenses. If not, your debt will increase and you will struggle on for a few years until the debt gets much higher. Of course if your OH gets a good paying job after finishing Uni then this will improve the situation. Doing a masters seems completely unaffordable though.

There are a lot of ways your outgoings can be cut but I have a feeling some may be non negotiable (dog walkers and cleaner) so realistically a DMP may be the best option. However I am not sure what costs are allowed for pets/cleaners etc so you may have to go the self managed route.

They charge £11 per dog. We have two so its £22 a week but they tend to be out for about two hours really. There were other dog walkers who charged 50% for the second dog but we went with this particular company because they take the dogs off through fields, forests and generally wear them out.

We found one Masters locally thats 6k so there is 4k from the student finance for living plus part time work. That would be doable but the rest of the courses are 10k which swallows all of the student finance. There is also the option of part time. To be honest, the HR Masters is more of a "if I can't get a job" option and he does want to go into full time work.

ohbumstoitall

Tigger_looks_bigger wrote: »

Second this, works out as £10 ish a month.

Also might be worth applying for a hc2 (sorry can't link as new user.... hmm hahaha)
I've no idea if you'd qualify as they don't give exact figures but they do take more things into account than means tested benefits.

Could you try the free spotify? It does have ads and the song choice isn't exact. We switched to it last year and have been happy with it.

How much can you get the dogs insurance without the add ons? I get my animals deflea and dewormer online and it saves loads. Can you get clippers to do the dogs nails yourself? Also do you use zooplus for food? I've found it's much cheaper than supermarkets.

The dogs insurance I paid for a year in advance so I can't remember and it might go up. I'd expect it to be around £40 for the pair using Animal Friends (life time insurance etc). I worked out how much it would cost to deflea and deworm myself and using the same products it worked out more expensive to buy it. Another thing is, we also get 20% off spaying if we have the package so all in all I think it works out at good value. I've tried to clip the dogs claws before and they don't let me do it. I don't know why!

I have looked at zooplus before but they don't do the food I use and whilst I know its expensive, I just get stuck in a maze of different foods and panic

ohbumstoitall

a_silver_lining wrote: »

I!!!8217;m wondering if it would be worth your OH taking a year out of uni to work in a low level HR or admin role within a company he would like to work in the future in. Two weeks work experience really is nothing. He wouldn!!!8217;t have been given any real responsibility or workload and so would have an idealistic view on working there. I also did an undergraduate and decided not to pursue it as a career.

This is not a judgement by the way. I speak from my experience. I did three placements, a few weeks, 6 months and 9 months and then went to a job within the area of the shortest placement thinking that was a dream job. Cut a long story short, I was wrong and would have been gutted if I had spent an extra year studying for it and building up my debt.

Well done on giving some thought to the suggestions people are giving you by the way. I get that it is hard to think of making changes to your life that are luxuries which make it better. I think you can see that your level of debt is just going to increase over time, especially if you OH does a masters. Then you could be facing being made bankrupt and not a DMP.

Well there is also the option of open university, and I do think he needs to get a job as well - I've just tried to be supportive as he's got such little ambition and self confidence. So I encourage him to pursue whatever dream he thinks he has.