Debt Advice

Fellalis89

Thank you NeverendingDMP. I have edited my excel to reflect the additional amounts.

Very true! I will look at reducing the capital one funding and see if I can reduce that and put it elsewhere. 

Billing	Amount	End Date	Debt	Annual Rate
TV Licence	£13.37
Water	£28.78
Gym	£39.00	Jul-22
Gas and Electric	£137.00
Council Tax	£96.00
Loan Admiral	£321.22		£9,479	13.09%
Mortgage	£353.82
Account Fee	£17.00
DWP	£10.00		£139
Loan Lloyds	£152.95		£2,710	22.30%
Capital One CC	£50.00		£800	0%
Virgin Media	£36.30
Pet Insurance	£14.25
Amazon	£7.99		£6,467	7.90%
Car Finance	£140.59	Sep-22	£255
Sofa Finance	£42.52		£2,933	23.29%
Virgin CC	£87.52
Phone Bill	£10.00		£4,572	20.93%
MBNA CC	£50.00		£26,978
Petrol	£400.00
Clothing	£5.00
Gifts	£10.00
Food	£100.00
Outgoings	£2,123.31
Wages	2231.99
Left	£108.68

kimwp

Fellalis89 said:

fatbelly said:

As above we need to dig into why you write ' I cannot manage anymore. Monthly I have minimal money left over and it has affected my mental health more and more every day '

Yet your spreadsheet shows 'Surplus £206.87'

You might need to post the full soa 

The reason I said that can be shown below in last month's outgoings and wages. As you can see I had a surplus of £78.83 and I still had to get a month's shopping and petrol from this. And this was a good month. There have been months where I have only had a £20 surplus, so I've had to use my credit cards to pay for basics. It didn't need quoting about how it has affected me, a comment to say your spreadsheet reflects a surplus would have been sufficient.  

As I have mentioned to RosaBernicia, the SOA is where I am heading and I am trying to reflect my new salary, as my old will no longer be relevant, as well as seek advice and guidance on my next steps.

Billing	Amount
TV Licence	£13.37
Water	£28.78
Gym	£39.00
Gas and Electric	£91.00
Council Tax	£92.00
Loan Admiral	£321.22
Mortgage	£324.29
Account Fee	£17.00
DWP	£10.00
Loan Lloyds	£152.95
Money Owed	£20.00
Virgin Media	£36.30
Car Finance	£140.59
Pet Insurance	£12.73
Sofa Finance	£42.52
Virgin CC	£89.96
Phone Bill	£40.54
Apple Music	£9.99
MBNA CC	£100.61
Amazon	£7.99
Outgoings	£1,587.30
WAGES	£1,666.13
TOTAL REMAINING	£78.83

You wrote a message that implied you were in distress, fatbelly is trying to help by trying to understand why you are distressed.

It would be easier if you put your SOA in the Lemonfool SOA format that we are used to seeing here, at the moment, you've mixed debt payments in with utility bills, in with insurance.

NeverendingDMP

The thing that strikes from your excel and your soa is you have direct debits/debt repayments going out to lots of different people and it can get confusing to know what to pay to who to get the debts down.

Remortgaging to include this debt still wouldn't cover the debt and would land you with the worst kind of debt to have in an emergency so I'm not sure it's the best idea for you.

A dmp could be done with the help of Christians against poverty, stepchange etc or by yourself if you feel okay to do so, agencies like stepchange will help you streamline it to one payment which administratively speaking should reduce your stress levels.

With regards to dmp and mortgages, I am with a high street bank for my mortgage and when our fix was up mid dmp I just renewed online for another 5 years, same bank, similar rate for the next fix. No big application just 20 minutes of my time. With the choice 5 or 10 years perhaps look at what you are tied into, will you want to move, how many years you have to go etc and decide from that as the rates you were offered seem pretty similar.
Good luck with it all

compassionateadvisor

fatbelly said:

As above we need to dig into why you write ' I cannot manage anymore. Monthly I have minimal money left over and it has affected my mental health more and more every day '

Yet your spreadsheet shows 'Surplus £206.87'

You might need to post the full soa 

Fellalis89 has expressed the way they feel based on the pressure of debt in general. "Surplus" which, let's face it, appears not to be surplus considering clothes, any medicine, toiletries, other everyday household or life emergencies haven't been taken into account, wouldn't last very long for anyone... I don't think you need to "dig" into why some one feels the way they do about their situation especially with -£21k hanging over them. For a support and help group, your comment wasn't particularly either of those things in this instance. Maybe we should dig into why you feel it acceptable to question how someone else feels about their own situation?. I think you're very lucky to be someone who would feel no mental strain or pressure from owing money if that were the case... I don't know anyone who wouldn't feel a level of distress at owing £21k, or for that matter, welcomes debt because they have a bit of money lying around that they don't want 🙄 Congratulations to you for being mentally stronger than others.
I would suggest to fellais89  That you listen to the help and advice offered to you and ignore any ignorant, uneducated and irelivant opinions offered on YOUR own situation.
Good luck Fellais89, I hope it works out for you and you can resolve your situation so you can sleep easier at night.

fatbelly

OP - are you getting help with your mental health issues?

On those debts, you should direct your surplus to the debt that has the highest interest. In your case the Virgin credit card.

The Lloyds loan is also high but it may be easier to concentrate on the card

It's a long haul but do-able, and as a homeowner you want to avoid insolvency if you can. 

Plus - with the gym and the car finance finishing this year things will soon look better

kimwp

compassionateadvisor said:

fatbelly said:

As above we need to dig into why you write ' I cannot manage anymore. Monthly I have minimal money left over and it has affected my mental health more and more every day '

Yet your spreadsheet shows 'Surplus £206.87'

You might need to post the full soa 

Fellalis89 has expressed the way they feel based on the pressure of debt in general. "Surplus" which, let's face it, appears not to be surplus considering clothes, any medicine, toiletries, other everyday household or life emergencies haven't been taken into account, wouldn't last very long for anyone... I don't think you need to "dig" into why some one feels the way they do about their situation especially with -£21k hanging over them. For a support and help group, your comment wasn't particularly either of those things in this instance. Maybe we should dig into why you feel it acceptable to question how someone else feels about their own situation?. I think you're very lucky to be someone who would feel no mental strain or pressure from owing money if that were the case... I don't know anyone who wouldn't feel a level of distress at owing £21k, or for that matter, welcomes debt because they have a bit of money lying around that they don't want 🙄 Congratulations to you for being mentally stronger than others.
I would suggest to fellais89  That you listen to the help and advice offered to you and ignore any ignorant, uneducated and irelivant opinions offered on YOUR own situation.
Good luck Fellais89, I hope it works out for you and you can resolve your situation so you can sleep easier at night.

I think you have the wrong end of the stick here.  I can't speak for fatbelly, but I think their point was that more detail of the numbers was needed to understand why the OP didn't have money at the end of the month. Not digging into why the OP was mentally struggling.

Rob5342

NeverendingDMP said:

With regards to dmp and mortgages, I am with a high street bank for my mortgage and when our fix was up mid dmp I just renewed online for another 5 years, same bank, similar rate for the next fix. No big application just 20 minutes of my time. With the choice 5 or 10 years perhaps look at what you are tied into, will you want to move, how many years you have to go etc and decide from that as the rates you were offered seem pretty similar.

I'm on a DMP and It was the same for me. It took about 10 minutes to choose from a list my current lender gave me when I logged into internet banking, and then I was given the renweal with no credit check. Moving to a different lender would have been far more difficult with defaults, but from looking on Money Supermarket I'd only have saved £15 a month. 

RosaBernicia

kimwp said:

I think you have the wrong end of the stick here.  I can't speak for fatbelly, but I think their point was that more detail of the numbers was needed to understand why the OP didn't have money at the end of the month. Not digging into why the OP was mentally struggling.

That was my impression as well. 

RosaBernicia

I agree with NeverendingDMP, the more you can make your figures accurate the easier it will be to understand what money you have available for debt payments and decide on your options.  Even if it's not possible to be completely accurate while you settle into your new job, you'll be able to make it better and better. 

Ebe_Scrooge

RosaBernicia said:

I agree with NeverendingDMP, the more you can make your figures accurate the easier it will be to understand what money you have available for debt payments and decide on your options.  Even if it's not possible to be completely accurate while you settle into your new job, you'll be able to make it better and better. 

Seconded.  OP, no-one here is judging you, it's more a case of asking for more precise information in order to be able to offer constructive advice.  On the face of it, there are a few things that stand out to me:

Account Fee: I assume you mean bank account?  OK, it's not a huge amount, but why are you paying a fee at all?  Unless you get some tangible benefit from paying the fee, switch to a standard no-fee account.

You have nothing in there for car maintenance, repairs, MOT, tax, insurance, etc.  Is this all covered by the finance package?  If not, you'll need to budget for this - it can work out to be quite a hefty chunk each year.

Apple music & Amazon - do you need these, do you use them enough to justify the cost, could you do without them?

You've got nothing in there for Buildings/Contents insurance - again, this needs to be budgeted for (or is this why you pay the account fee?)

It may turn out that a DMP could well be the best way forwards.  But you really do need to fill out a proper SOA using the template provided - apart from anything else, it focusses your mind and makes sure that nothing is missed off.  Once you've got an accurate picture of your income and outgoings - even though I appreciate your income will be changing shortly - you can see what you're really spending money on, where savings can be made, and decide what is the most sensible option to resolve things.