How I am going to clear all my debts

Retireby40

I worked for BT in the past who had a similar share scheme. You could withdraw whatever you put in at any point but you did pay tax on it.

You wont be able to withdraw without paying tax. But right now tax isnt your problem. You have debts which you should be clearing first.

Theres nothing to stop you putting £200 a month in shares and £300 on debt.

I think other members of your workforce have told you how some people got rich many rich ago through shares and you thought let's lump as much as I can in it. It happened in BT 20 years ago where people had recieved 10-15 times what they had invested. Some where even able to retire early. I would worry about your short term future first then worry about shares later. 

enthusiasticsaver

We did SAYE on a high street bank I worked for and we did it for my husbands PLC.  The advantage to these workplace investment schemes are usually the money is deducted from gross salary so you save on tax and NI providing the money is saved for a period of time - usually 3-5 years.  If you opt out early you have to pay tax and NI because you will not have paid it on that £500 per month since you started investing.  The other advantage is that the share price is usually locked in at the beginning and IF the share price rises you get the shares at a discounted rate.  What happens if the share price falls I guess is the employer guarantee you will not lose money.  However I do not think this applies with banks if they are nationalised or need government support as Lloyds share prices fell off a cliff during the banking crisis.  Obviously anyone who invested in Northern Rock prior to 2008 would have lost everything so it is important you know what real guarantees you have. 

Good that the Likely Loans is to be paid off from overtime as the interest rate on that is crippling.  What is the situation with your brother and friend in paying off debts you took out for them?  For future reference I would never recommend anyone do this.  Many people on here have regretted it. I think maybe an examination of your financial strategy would be useful as your credit record now seems to be shot due to borrowing money for other people and investing a disproportionate percentage of your income (which is something which should only be done once all the sound building blocks of your finance strategy are in place.) I would consider sound finances to be that you have little to no debt (and any debt should be at 0%),  an emergency savings account ideally with 3-6 months expenses in it, you are living within budget and have a workplace pension.  Now you have some of these but the debt seems to be taking second place to a SAYE scheme which is really for people who already have all their financial ducks in a row.  

sim2335

enthusiasticsaver said:

We did SAYE on a high street bank I worked for and we did it for my husbands PLC.  The advantage to these workplace investment schemes are usually the money is deducted from gross salary so you save on tax and NI providing the money is saved for a period of time - usually 3-5 years.  If you opt out early you have to pay tax and NI because you will not have paid it on that £500 per month since you started investing.  The other advantage is that the share price is usually locked in at the beginning and IF the share price rises you get the shares at a discounted rate.  What happens if the share price falls I guess is the employer guarantee you will not lose money.  However I do not think this applies with banks if they are nationalised or need government support as Lloyds share prices fell off a cliff during the banking crisis.  Obviously anyone who invested in Northern Rock prior to 2008 would have lost everything so it is important you know what real guarantees you have. 

Good that the Likely Loans is to be paid off from overtime as the interest rate on that is crippling.  What is the situation with your brother and friend in paying off debts you took out for them?  For future reference I would never recommend anyone do this.  Many people on here have regretted it. I think maybe an examination of your financial strategy would be useful as your credit record now seems to be shot due to borrowing money for other people and investing a disproportionate percentage of your income (which is something which should only be done once all the sound building blocks of your finance strategy are in place.) I would consider sound finances to be that you have little to no debt (and any debt should be at 0%),  an emergency savings account ideally with 3-6 months expenses in it, you are living within budget and have a workplace pension.  Now you have some of these but the debt seems to be taking second place to a SAYE scheme which is really for people who already have all their financial ducks in a row.  

If share price goes down we at the minimum get amour money back so you can’t lose, plus that would be a lump sum anway.

So my friend is gona pay me back 110 a month from December he says if he’s loan increase doesn’t go through

My brother will try pay 200 a month and any extras through bonus at work or  pay.

monetxchange

I know you want to invest in the share scheme, but you really can't afford to at the moment. Draw a line under it and go back in the future. The reason you're in debt is because you can't make ends meet because you're investing a third of your take home pay every month and it's leaving you short. It's no use getting a pay out in five years if you've gone completely insolvent in the mean time.

I'm sorry you've had people that have taken advantage of you financially, but it's definitely worth putting in some time to become a bit more savvy about your money and not just blithely stick with things because someone has told you they're a good thing. Like others have said, if your employer was to go belly up tomorrow I doubt you'd be top of their list for making sure you got your shares back. 

sim2335

I’m not completely insolvent all debt will be cleared end of this year barring nationwide which will be paid of slowley.

Payout  will be in just over 2 years, it’s extremely unlikely anything will happen and even if it does the economy would collapse so the government won’t let it.

monetxchange

It's not about the economy collapsing. If your bank went under, their employee shares wouldn't be their priority. Governments all made up of ex bankers that look after their own. Shares will only increase when they've been traded on the market by your bank to make a profit for themselves. They're not offering this scheme out of the goodness of their hearts.

Anyway, that's besides the point. I'm not saying this is a bad idea at all, just that it's a bad idea for you right now as your income is too low to live on clearly as you've ran up debt. I think I posted in your previous thread about having someone to look out for your financial interests as you've been taken advantage of before. Did you have a think about this?

sim2335

I thought it was goodness of their heart how navie I was.

My income is more then enough the only reason for the debt is people have took advantage of me.
other then nationdwide all debt will be cleared end of this year, even on this salary due to overtime 

my mum can look after it but at the momment no point cos I work out how much I need for month rest all goes one debt.

[Deleted User]

sim2335 said:

I thought it was goodness of their heart how navie I was.

My income is more then enough the only reason for the debt is people have took advantage of me.
other then nationdwide all debt will be cleared end of this year, even on this salary due to overtime 

my mum can look after it but at the momment no point cos I work out how much I need for month rest all goes one debt.

Why at the age of 33 would your mum be looking after your money?

Edit:  That possibly sounds a bit harsher than I intended but if you're serious about buying your own home one day then you need to get a handle on your finances and not be reliant on your mum to look after your money for you.

vacheron

andys15 said:

So if you cash them before 3 years then would you pay tax on them?

In my work I can cash them out straight away but pay tax. I have to wait 5 years for them to be tax free, but the money I buy them with are paid pre tax 

Sounds to me like a SAYE scheme where the OP is saving to buy shares at the end of a 3 year period, so if the OP "cashes out" they will receive all of their cash contributions back, but will miss out on the chance to make a potentially tidy profit at the end of the 3 year scheme. 

som2335, is my understanding correct? If so, how far into the scheme are you currently (When does it mature)?

monetxchange

sim2335 said:

I thought it was goodness of their heart how navie I was.

My income is more then enough the only reason for the debt is people have took advantage of me.
other then nationdwide all debt will be cleared end of this year, even on this salary due to overtime 

my mum can look after it but at the momment no point cos I work out how much I need for month rest all goes one debt.

It's not naviety, it's just such a long journey to understanding finances. Like Martin Lewis himself says, this stuff should be taught in schools, and many of us leave clueless!

Nobody is intending to sound harsh here. I think we all just want to see you make a good go of it and get this sorted. Up to you what you do re your mum, but I do think it's important to have someone like her to run it by every time someone tries to loan money off you etc in the future. You're obviously very generous and there are unfortunately a lot of people that take advantage of that.