A house of cards - help

Squiffy

Lopo wrote:

By the sounds of things, a £1500 limit would imply you have what is known as a "direct share buying scheme or Employee share plan", they have many differing other names too names but function the same.

Actually it is very different to that.

It is a 'leveraged' share scheme. So put in about £1500 (2.5% of my annual salary) to acquire options of the shares at a price about 9 euros.

A merchant bank then put in a further nine times my investment, giving a total of £15000. Whatever the share price growth from my option price, I get 60% of the total returns plus my original investment. My original investment is protected even if the price falls below the option price.

If the price doubles, the fund will have increased by £15000 of which I get 60% = £9000! The potential returns are fantastic.

Currently the shares ARE at double their option price, and likely to be a fair bit higher in 3 years.

I definitely, definitely want to avoid cashing this in early at all costs! If I do, I can only get the original stake back.

Regarding Sky... You are probably right. We should cancel it.

Becles

Cancel Sky, but sound very indecisive on the phone. They may offer some free or low price months to keep your business, so it may worth taking advantage of that if you can afford it.

It would also keep it going over summer hols to keep the little ones amused if the weather is bad!

Squiffy

Oh my god!

I got my letter today confirming amounts for redundancy and PILON about two minutes ago!

And it is even BETTER than I expected. It does include holidays up to the leaving date, so that is good. But it also contains an element of compensation for loss of pension contributions and health cover during my notice period which I didn't expect.

The total amount is going to be £29,786 so it all fits within the £30k tax free allowance too!

Of course I still have to find a new job yet, but this is absolutely brilliant news.

Assuming a decent job can be found quickly, this removes a huge chunk of our debts.

nelly_2

nice one mate

mikea_2

I've just been catching up with this thread and whilst I may have missed it, is the mortgage on an interest only or repayment basis?

If on a repayment basis, you could ask the lender to switch to interest only payments whilst you are clearing other debts. This could save up to £300+ each month>

Apologies if already covered!

Squiffy

It is a repayment mortgage. I'm going to look at how I could extend the term back up to 25 years. When our unsecured debts are settled, we want to put our efforts into reducing the mortgage in a similar way so the few years while we are paying the mortgage at a slower rate should be made up for.

I never want to be in this sort of position again.

bargainqueen_2

You are doing so well though Squiffy, a big CHEERS to you! It looks like things are going up, up, up, so stick with it and soon you won't have to be in the position anymore. I am inspired by your courage.

Stevenj214

a little point, but it all helps...

if you have been in your sky contract for over 12 months, you can cancel your subscription and you would still receive over 100 free to air channels. regarding sky+, you still have to pay £10pm subscription else it will only work like a standard set top box (ie no recording features at all)

KK

Hi - I've been reading your postings and the replies with interest. I think you have been given some very good advice and admire you a) for telling your wife and am so glad she is being supportive and b) admire you for biting the bullet straight away and tackling the problem head on.

Two things that occurred to me whilst reading this. You could temporarily extend your mortgage term back to 25 or even 30 years, and then renegotiate when your debts are paid off or you could pay the interest only for a while until you are more sorted. We did this for 6 months last year when my husband set up on his own and it really helped when he couldn't afford to pay himself much. Amazingly we are with First Direct and we had only had the mortgage with them a couple of months! I was so chuffed that they let us and I still can't believe we had the nerve to ask them. We have banked with them for 15 years though.

Are there any insurances, savings plans etc that you could temporarily freeze until things get better? Subscriptions, memberships to clubs, etc that could be suspended.

I don't know how old your children are, but maybe economies could be made there - you mention nappies - do you use washable nappies? What about food for packed lunches etc? Could savings be made there? How much food do you buy that is ready made? Could you save money by cooking more? these are all small things, but I know when my husband and I have had to pull our horns in, we are surprised by what we can economise on. Local libraries are a brilliant source of DVDs, audio cassettes, free use of computers and internet, plus of course books (the latest novels can be ordered for about 80p each), and CDs to entertain kids.

Are you anticipating going straight to another job after you leave your current one? If not, is it possible to use your PILON to immediately pay off your debts and then you won't have any savings, so that if you have to claim jobseekers allowance you won't have any 'savings' on which you are supposed to draw. My friend'shusband was made redundant for the 2nd time in a year a couple of months ago and because he didn't spend his last lot of (substantial) redundancy but has saved it, he is being penalised by only getting £59 pounds per week allowance. They areconsidering spending all their redundancy on a big expensive car just because they can. He feels he is being punished for doing all the right things, like having savings, pensions etc, whereas if he had been extravagant and spent all his money he could get more benefit. He has 3 young children and a wife to support and has had to now accept a job that is £800 per month less without the perks he previously had.

Best of luck and well done for being brave enough to post on here. It's hard to havetocut back and economise, expecially if you have got used to a 'lifestyle' - it's easier to be poorer in the summer I think...

As long as you hve analysed all your outgoings and feel satisfied that you have trimmed everything back to the bone then you can do no more. Best of luck with finding a new position.

Rave

Have read this thread right through from the link in the tips email. Well done with your great progress so far .

Sorry if this is teaching granny to suck eggs, but: if your last day at work is the 30th June then get down the the job centre on 1st July, you should be entitled to Contribution based JSA. At the same time apply to the council for council tax relief, as there should be an automatic 25% reduction if only one person in the house is working (as I understand it).