Please help

Willing2Learn

Hi :)Here are my thoughts on your SOA:
• Are your council tax payments spread across 10 or 12 months?
• Are your water rates payments spread across 10 or 12 months?  Is it metered?
• Mobile phone is expensive.  Is that SIM-only contracts as they are cheaper?
• Your groceries costs are very high.  Have you tried batch cooking?  Can you switch your shopping to Aldi or Lidl to reduce this category?
• Can you cut back on spending for presents?  Maybe you could tell your family and friends not to get you presents in the meantime, so that you do not have to buy them presents.
• Haircuts - Have you checked to see if haircuts could be done by a student hairdresser, so as to reduce the cost?
• You urgently need to be putting money aside every month toward your Emergency Fund.  Unexpected and unknown emergency expenses will crop up from time to time.  You need to be prepared so that you don't need to resort on credit
  
  Have you checked the benefits entitlement calculator from Turn2Us website, to check whether you could get any more?
  
  When your partner is at home caring for your son, does he have any spare time?  I only ask, because I supplement my income by doing online surveys, market research and opinion poll.  I get somewhere between £100-£200 per month, depending on how diligent I am. 
  https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/make-money-surveys/

bloomfelt

Sugar1990 said:

Aldi  was a rough estimate not 100% sure how much i spend tbh

I used to be terrible for keeping in my shopping budget but after being made redundant last year and struggling to get back into full time work i have had to be a lot more careful.  I make a meal plan every sunday evening and use an app on my phone to make my shopping list for food when we are running low on things like shampoo detergent etc i add those to the list as i go to remind me next time i go shopping.  I take out the weekly budget in cash on a monday morning and put it in a separate purse if there is surplus at the end of the week i roll over to the next week as you dont buy certain things every week.  I have been doing this since the beginning of january and so far havent gone over budget. Hope that helps with your shopping bidget

-taff

If any fof those debts were with the HMRC they are the only ones likely to make you bankrupt.

You need to familiarise yourself with debt and the possible consequences to see they are not as bad as you think they are. Your credit will be shot but you won't lose your house and the only debt you can go to jail for is non payment of council tax, hence, definitiely pay that too.

If you are going down the DMP route, then stop paying alltogether and pay what you can into an emergency fund for the next few months and write to your creditors to exaplin you cannot pay and are looking into debt remdies and will be in otuch when you have decided on one.

there is a really good post here from someone about their DMP and how thy set it up, and how they initially approached it but I can't rememer who it was at the moment.

Basically, you default on your debts, use the money you would have used to ay them to mae an emergency fund, then start paying them what you can actually afford.

One other thing about your SOA, you need to know exactly what money is coming in and where it is going out so get your bank statements and credit card stements from the last three months and see exactly where every single penny is going. Guessing is not good enough.

Sugar1990

Hiya sorry for the late reply
Council tax is 12monthly
water is not on a meter
mobiles are contracted
I had a rather sleepless night with worry about  the situation i am in.
Will they send us to court
will they make us bankcrupt 
wish i could turn back time

sourcrates

Sugar1990 said:

Hiya sorry for the late reply
Council tax is 12 monthly
water is not on a meter
mobiles are contracted
I had a rather sleepless night with worry about  the situation i am in.
Will they send us to court
will they make us bankcrupt 
wish i could turn back time

With some fettling of the budget, you could probably manage around £400 per month to pay your creditors.

A DMP will take an awful long time @ £400 a month, and as a homeowner, your choices are limited, your options are IVA or DMP, you can pretty much rule out DMP as it will take forever, IVA`s are specifically designed for homeowners, such as yourself, in your current position.

You need to speak to stepchange, see what they recommend, any debt solution will negatively impact your credit file, but you cannot carry on as you currently are, my suspicion is you are living off credit, and have been for a while, obviously this cannot continue and the edge of the cliff must be getting nearer.

Court action may be an option your creditors choose, bankruptcy is unlikely as they would not get much back, however an IVA would protect you from both eventualities, a DMP would not.

JayRitchie

Just to check - you will be mortgage free in just over 2 years? How old are you and your husband?

Sugar1990

A think you have made me
more worried than i  am already

mortgage sorry i owe 133000

monetxchange

Sugar1990 said:

A think you have made me
more worried than i  am already

mortgage sorry i owe 133000

You've had some really good advice on this thread. Just take a step back and read through it carefully. People have outlined some great options for you. Now it's just a case of going with one of them. Nobody is trying to worry you, they're just trying to push you into action. I know it's scary, but there's no point people just reassuring you it'll be okay in the end, especially if you just carry on the same way. You're not going to be made to lose your home, but this isn't going to solve itself. It's the hardest thing to do, but you're already so close to taking the first step. You're in the right place. Good luck.

Sugar1990

Thank you  

Sugar1990

If i write to my creditors and offer small
token paymenta
how long can i do this for.
Also if they take me to court
what happens there, this is what really scares me.