Need help not slipping further into debt.

lisa1234831

Hiya have you looked at claiming PIP for your boys? It is a NON means tested benefit so your income does not affect it. It may also help them to be slightly more independent or help with their costs. Welfare rights is part of my job and I also have a son with ADHD. 

Lisa x

DayDreamerandGeneralWaster

Not sure how they can take tenants when the have no running water upstairs. Ditto trying to sell it, some mortgage lenders won't touch it.

peteuk

it’s easy to blame covid for the situation but the reality is that you were already walking a financial tightrope before covid came along.  You won’t sell the house. You can’t afford to meet your repayments. You can’t afford to subsidise your sons at university but apparently they can’t get jobs. How do you see yourselves resolving this situation? 

i know this is my fault. 

Rather than point the finger of blame at yourself, step back and look at the whole picture.  Pre Covid when your business was running, was taking the extra to fix things a risk.  I would argue that at that point you had two options 1) take the loans and credit cards and fix the house or 2) try and sell.  Who knows how long that would take and how much damage would have been caused...
So in reality you took the decision to fix and now, like many others your faced with difficulties and are looking for a way out or help... a normal response to an abnormal situation.   Ive only skimmed the replies, but heres my thoughts. 
Children are at Uni - use this as a time to drop the Sky boxes, how often are they home.  Even get rid completely. If you want entertainment look at Brit Box or Netflix. 
Uni Expenses - I know the pain of this we have one child in Uni, who has a part time job and who is being charged £900 a month rent. So we are helping out to. Put it to them that the repairs and covid are causing an issue and see if you can reduce the assistance your paying.  I know this is difficult but as other have said they are adults.  When my wife was facing redundancy my daughter asked the question about the support we provide and we sat down and chatted it through. 
Now they are back in Uni your food bill should come down.  For 2 adults you can food shop for £50 a week at Aldi.  The foods just as good. 
Whilst your husbands been furloughed have you told your credit card companies.  My wifes instantly put her payments to £10 a month.  I know this means the bill gets higher, but it might have brought some time, allowed for further exploration of the debt. 

Questions - apologies if these have been asked else where. 
1) Are you up to date with mortgage, essential bills etc?
2) Do you owe any of these debts to your current bank eg. credit card, mortgage to the bank in which your income enters?
3) Have you asked for a mortgage holiday? 
4) Would you consider a debt management plan?
5) Where any of these issues picked up pre sale?

As you SOA demonstrates you are -£757. 26.  So if your business takes back up again how much of this deficit does it cover.   If its all of it then you may need a temp arrangement until such time.  If you approach Step change the first thing they may suggest is opening another account and having your pay into that account. Then approaching Credit Cards etc about taking a lower payment for a few months.
Best of Luck!  

Beeboo23

Happy_Sloth said:

PurpleFairy26 said:

Well done for posting your SOA and getting a thread started on here. Some folks with more knowledge than me will be along soon but in the meantime can you provide some further info so we know the details:

you say 4 adults live in the house but only 2 incomes?
you have £400 for child related costs but show no dependants
have you made all payments up to now? 

Is this what you think you spend or did you go through bank statements to get the figures?
what is the APR on the debts? 

Are you in debt with your electric bill?
business expense - shouldn’t this be included with your business accounts?

Yes we have 2 dependant Young Adults in the house who are in university,  They are currently home but will be going back in September.  The £400 child related costs is actually the money we give them to top up their Student loans (£200 each) to help pay for accommodation/food etc (We aren't paying it right now cause they are home, but I put it in because when they go back i'll need to find it!)   We were higher earners last year so they both get minimum student loans, one it just about covers accommodation and the other it doesn't so we need to top up his accommodation and then give him money to live off. 

I use the yolt app so getting the figures was pretty easy  

The electric bill is a nightmare! we keep reducing it and then they put it back up...we aren't in debt with it... but it will go very high over the winter.   we pay combined gas/electric so I just took the figure we pay and guessed how much was gas v's electric if might be more gas tbh.  The house is a big Edwardian it costs a fortune to heat during the winter,  none of the heating is efficient and i'm sure the heat just goes out of the windows etc.  So I know we pay over the odd's. making the building alittle bit more thermal efficient is on the list of things to do but it doesn't even have radiators in every room so some rooms are heated with electric fires.    It';s a weird building heat wise … it's cold inside even in the summer we've been known to have a BBQ in the sunshine and come inside and stick the fire on because the living room is freezing. 

The business expenses.... accountancy fee is normally paid by the business but my business has ran out of cash so i'm currently pumping money into it just to keep it afloat.  But most of that is my Income protection insurance (about £100) … which ironically is supposed to cover me if I can't earn money in my business. It would cover my if I caught covid and was too sick to work but doesn't cover me for the crap related to no-one wanting my services because of covid.  That is a bill I have always paid, because my accountant said that it wasn't an allowable business expense for the business to pay for. 

Your kids can do a current year assessment. I know because I had to do the same at uni. They can apply to student finance to have their loans based on what you’re making this year and can potentially get a higher loan amount saving you £400/month. 
Also I know uni is hard and it’s nice to help where you can but tell them to get jobs and support themselves. I had to, they’ll live. 

https://media.slc.co.uk/sfe/currentyearincome/index.html