scared to go cold turkey

buxtonrabbitgreen

about 18 months ago I moved my 2 credit card debts on to a low LOB card which is coming down nicely , now under £900. BUT. I carried on using the other 2 cards and now owe a total of £2000. I have just recieved a more than credit card to move the debs again. Now i know I have to cancel my other credit cards but I start sweating at the thought of not having one at all. The problem is my OH is in and out of work all the time due to the last 4 places he worked going bankrupt. Yes he is the kiss of death. He now has 6 weeks work but dont know what is going to happen after that. My income is low, I take home about £600-£700 a month depending on whether there is any OT. I do it if there is. I keep thinki9ng this is not a good time to have no line of credit after 6 months from jan to june paying £150 charges for going over my OD. I have now sorted this out but am constantly close to the limit. What do you all thinkplease?

Broken_hearted

The more credit you use the less money you have it's a visious circle.

findingmyownway

I think the answer depends on a few things:

Have you done an SOA? Once you have, you will know for sure if you can or can't live on your income alone. If you can, there's definatly no need to spend on the CCs again.

If your income is less than your outgoings you need a contingency plan for the possibility that OH will be out of work. However, remember he never TRULY has to be totally out work - there is always shop/bar work available (particularly around xmas) so you only need to budget for the potential drop in income that moving to a job like this would make. Again, work through your SOA taking this (say 35 hrs at minumum wage) into account.

Have a look at the 'boost your income' board for more ideas.

The SOA is definatly key to this. There's always some reason or another for keeping the cards open - but all that eventually ends up with is more debt to pay off. If you don't have availlable credit you cant use it!!

buxtonrabbitgreen

I did do an SOA a while ago but nobody answered it, so I just decided to go ahead and do what I could. My debts are not huge, and our income covers living usually, but there is always flipping school trips coming up stuff like that can't always be budgeted for. For instance since the kids went back in Sept I have had topay £18 for alton towers (geography) £16 black country museum (history) £15 NEC gig (music) and coming up a 2 day trip £100 (geography field trip) It is when I get landed with this sort of thing just after having to buy new uniform because they will keep growing I just dont have enough money. As to OH work he is assembling furniture for MFI for 6 weeks so he is not looking for a good job, any job will do.

buxtonrabbitgreen

Broken_hearted wrote: »

The more credit you use the less money you have it's a visious circle.

Yes I agree. It is just being left without a safety net that worries me. Troulbe is if I keep using one card I know it will soon be getting expensive again. Just have to do as much ot as possible I guess.

pania

oh my gosh hon, can only assume that your SOA slipped thorugh the net.. a very very rare ocurance here. I'll see if i can find it and copy it over for you if you like?

Fortheloveofmoney

pania wrote: »

oh my gosh hon, can only assume that your SOA slipped thorugh the net.. a very very rare ocurance here. I'll see if i can find it and copy it over for you if you like?

That's what I thought too. I tried to search for it but came up empty handed I'm no expert though. I hope you find it.

Someone (I don't know who) posted on here a while ago about being in debt was like borrowing from your future self. The more money you spend today, the less you will have in the future. It really struck a cord with me. Maybe thinking about that can help with the overspending.

Fortheloveofmoney

buxtonrabbitgreen wrote: »

Yes I agree. It is just being left without a safety net that worries me. Troulbe is if I keep using one card I know it will soon be getting expensive again. Just have to do as much ot as possible I guess.

Can you give your card to someone you trust to hold it for you? I handed mine over to my OH for about 3 months. It took me that long to get out of the habit of getting it out every time I was a bit short of cash and 'needed' (read wanted!) something.

If I wanted the card back, I had to give him justification. That in itself stopped me asking for it but it was there for a true emergency.

We don't have children though so I can imagine that it's much harder when they want or need things and you don't have the cash.

pania

twas meeee forloveof money

" debt is borrowing from the future to pay for today"

Had a look through all you r previous posts buxton but couldn't find the SOA hon, was it quite some time ago? xx

chevalier

If you are on that low a wage, are you getting all the benefits that you are entitled to? www.entitledto.com. Also if you are on low wages can you not apply to the school to not pay for these trips, or to pay a lower amount? They usually find some money from somewhere to help out.

Your monthly wage is very low, so if you end up not being entitled to any benefit, then could you get an evening job to help out? Or do mystery shopping, online surveys, sell on ebay etc?

And if you do find your SOA again then please repost it on this thread (copy and paste) and we will see what we can do to help


best of luck
chev

Robflh

Hi buxtonrabbitgreen

I have found your old SOA. The top part if fine but the bottom half has too much information.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=432408

Anyhow, can you update it with just the relevant information and post it here.