Debt Crisis or Not?

immoral_angeluk

Chezza71 wrote: »

American Life is for women's problems/cancers. It would pay out if I was to get ovarian cancer or suchlike. I will get the money back when I'm 60! Which seems a lifetime away!

I do pay for petrol & car tax but I'm terrible at budgeting! I just pay for these things as and when. Sorry I'm so hopeless!!

how old are you? do you have any dependants? do you have normal life insurance? do you have a family history of cancer?
my gut instinct is that this is a waste of money. Especially as 'womens' cancers are generally a tiny portion of al the types of cancer there are and the likelhood of you getting one of those specified on your policy is equally tiny.

immoral_angeluk

Chezza71 wrote: »

Thanks GeorgeUK. It's very helpful to read other people's viewpoints/opinions. I do surveys with Pinecone (£4 worth of luncheon vouchers for each completed survey which come in handy)

you can also get the £4 paid into a paypal account if you have one. I used to get luncheon vouchers but find only a tiny amount of places actually accept them now and the ones that do are gradually phasing them out.

Chezza71

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

how old are you? do you have any dependants? do you have normal life insurance? do you have a family history of cancer?
my gut instinct is that this is a waste of money. Especially as 'womens' cancers are generally a tiny portion of al the types of cancer there are and the likelhood of you getting one of those specified on your policy is equally tiny.

I'm 36 and I've got one son. I do have normal life insurance. There is a family history of cancer (kidney).

I could cancel this policy but the company would probably try and talk me out of it.

hypno06

Of course they will try and talk you out of it!! They don't want to lose an income!!

I would have a look at giving the snowball calculator a go. I know it takes a bit of effort, but it would be better in the long run and would save your credit rating.

itsnever2lateisit?

Just a few thoughts

Specsavers - There are online providers of these usually between a half andtwo thirds cheaper

Mobile - You pay two thousand five hundred pence a month, how much is that per minute of the actual calls you make? If you are using less than 250 mins/month you are paying too much

In the months you dont pay council tax, put it against your debt

In_Search_Of_Me

I reco with hard work, discipline & some savvy saving (oldy style boards etc, chea insurance etc) you could prob do it wihout a DMP (my debt MUSH worse & I'm getting there slowly!) but you need to be disciplined and learn a new way of livg and saving money! Flog stuff, do surveys, get cinema couchers use tesco vouchers for days out, save on petrol etc...Just take tme to get to know the site, ask yourself want or need, do meal planning etc &you'll save a bomb!

Chezza71

Thanks for all you replies. Well I think I have found a solution of sorts. I was thinking that if only I had the Lloyds loan to pay for £192 I could afford that. I remembered Lloyds had sent me a letter offering a further £4300 to the original loan while keeping the same payments. While this hasn't cleared all the debts (leaving me £1500 to also repay), it will go to help a long away and of course avoid DMP, which I think isn't right for me. I was not really in a debt crisis - just a debt blip! I've also realised the value of a realistic budget - which I am going to stick to!

GeorgeUK

Have you taken out the extra part of the loan?
Is it still at 5.9% LOB (for the new part?)

This means you'l have the debt for another 6.5 years (I think) - have you checked if you can overpay on this? And is the payment a set value or a %?

You really shouldn't pay off a debt with more debt, but the good part about this would be you are paying off the higher interest with a lower 5.9% interest, so can't argue with that. Hope they are still offering it - and make sure you buy a good pair of scissors for those cards. If you apply the ideas mentioned above to get rid of the remaining 1500 it should hopefully be quite easy to clear and give you a good start to putting some savings away incase you get into difficulties again.

George

Chezza71

Hi George
No the new bit of the loan (and I think the total) will be at 7.9% APR but I can only afford to pay £195 off debts out of my income & expenditure. I wish I could pay more off each month but I have to think about me and my son.

So this will mean:

Lloyds Loan £12192 7.9% APR
Lloyds Mastercard £1048 0% APR until Feb/March 2008
&More credit card £269 3.9% APR
First Direct O/D £250 0% APR

I can't add any more to &More credit card on that 3.9% unfortunately. Lloyds can defer the start of the repayments until Feb/March so that would give me a bit of a breather.


I have cut up my credit cards so that is good news!

consultant31

I hope things work out for you. The only thing I can see with your SOA is that you seem to spend quite a lot on food for just you and one child.

Take a look at the Old Style Board where you'll get some brilliant ideas on how to save money on food and cleaning items.

I get a lot of our food for half price by going to the local shops early (half an hour after they've opened). At this time they've usually been round the meat and fridges and taken off everything due out that day and cut priced them. Lots of it is stuff you can take home and freeze to use when needed. I save a fortune that way and can feed me and DH for much less than you're spending (and we eat a lot )

Do you have a water meter? We have one which cut our water bill by half straight away. I admit to hate wasting water and never leave a tap running etc. I have a 2 litre bottle full of water in each of our toilet cisterns which saves loads every time we flush. I believe we should all be careful with such a precious resource anyway and being so can save a packet.

Could you get a better deal on your home phone, broadband and mobile together? We had a flyer through the door last week offering all three for about £19 I think it was, though I can't remember who with (memory loss due to old age )