I want to clear my debt! 30 January 2020 at 1:42PM in Debt-free wannabe 6 replies 918 views

Tonylesauteur83

Hello all,
I need some good advice here! I'm almost 37 and still completely useless with my money, i have lived a life of mainly borrowing here and there, i.e credit cards, loans car finance etc. I have a decent job and an ok income, 2 two kids of which we pay child care for and living in a rented house. I have a loan in the in laws name of 15k which i pay £247 monthly, 4 credit cards totalling 4.5k amongst the usual rent and bills etc. My wages are barely stretching to the end of the month at the moment and using the cc to pay for every day things. My credit report says i have an excellent credit score although i have defaulted in the past, so i cant borrow any more because of this. I'm after any advice/ideas how to go about getting this debt down.
Thanks in advance

Tony

georgia_c

I am in a very similar situation to you! my credit score is great which i am happy about but im forever borrowing and I have multiple credit cards and a hefty overdraft. my pal told me about consolidating my debts... i think basically you can combine all your debts and only pay one interest fee. have you looked into this?

Bookgal88

Can you post an SOA so we can get a clearer idea of your income and outgoings? That's the best way to get some useful help.

EssexHebridean

Tonylesauteur83 As said above, get your SOA sorted and posted in here and we can give you a lot more help. Please ignore suggestions about consolidation at this point though! The link for the SOA is in my signature below - fill it in openly and honestly and with as much detail as possible - it needs to reflect how things are for you right now - not what you think you "should" be spending. Once you've done it "format for MSE" and paste into the thread.

Georgia c - sounds like you ALSO need to get your SOA completed and then start your own thread here to post it in. Also - I'd strongly advise you against consolidation at least until such point that you have your spending under control and you're not using credit any more. At this point if you consolidate all that will happen is that you'll continue to use the cards and will build up and even bigger debt - then in a couple of years time you'll be back with a hefty consolidation loan and the same amount again on cards.

For any other newbies - consolidation rarely works at least at the first attempt as it doesn't solve the problem - ie deal with the overspending that is causing the debt - it simply hides the debt that has accumulated from view. This is the reason why we generally advise against it.

gettingtheresometime

georgia_c wrote: »

I am in a very similar situation to you! my credit score is great which i am happy about but im forever borrowing and I have multiple credit cards and a hefty overdraft. my pal told me about consolidating my debts... i think basically you can combine all your debts and only pay one interest fee. have you looked into this?

Please don't do this.

The reason I say that is that people who consolidated debt very very rarely learn their lessons and are tempted by their now cleared cards to overspend again, ending up with debt on a credit card and loan.

What you need to do is post your incomings and all your outgoings and then people can make suggestions as to where savings can be made so you can throw that money at the debt.

zippygeorgeandben

I can only emphasise what the above poster has said. Search for my own thread about considering consolidating. It's a sticky in the LOAN section (as that's what I believed I required!)

Unicorn_cottage

An SOA is a statement of affairs which basically lists your outgoings per month. Here's a link to the SOA calculator which you can post here and get lots of feedback on. You can turn this situation around. There are loads and loads of people here who have been in similar situation myself included - was in £25k in debt a few years back. https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

Best of luck!