About to turn 30 years old and have 60K of debt!!!

Davehal7

TheAble said:

Yes, you're currently £205 short. As ES points out you'll still be paying £100 as a minimum on that Halifax card. Even with the overdraft paid off you're still going to be short overall - in fact even more so: I make it around £250. And coming down the line you're going to have a higher mortgage payment and higher gas/elec bills.

By taking the interest-only mortgage holiday, ok it frees up a bit of money temporarily but what you're effectively doing is paying off non-priority debt instead of your mortgage. 

I'm not really sure what the answer is but taking out yet another loan doesn't feel like a good idea to me.

Ok I have applied for 6 months interest only under the charter so the only outstanding thing to decide in the short term is do i get the 15K (or higher but it would be higher APR) and do as i suggested above or do i solely get a 5K loan which will also be at higher APR

I'm still leaning towards the first option to be honesty 

Grumpelstiltskin

Do you still spend on cigarettes?
Honestly if you do you might just as well smoke £5 notes the amount cigarettes  cost now.
Please stop now you may need to get help, it is out there.

Martico

A small point that might help a mental shift for you: a couple of times you've talked about taking out a loan to pay off the debt. It might help to start rephrasing this to "taking out a loan to move the debt" if you end up going down that route.

The only way to pay off the debt (defaults and DMPs aside) is to pay off the debt.

enthusiasticsaver

One thing to bear in mind as well is if you are applying for 6 months interest only on your mortgage now does this mean that this option will be off the table when your mortgage does go up next year or is it then the plan to do a DMP? 

enthusiasticsaver

@Martico makes a good point.  

Taking out debt consolidation loans is not repaying the debt just moving it. 

fatbelly

I think it's a case of 'review options when the dust settles'. If you go back to sourcrates' first post those will still be the options you choose from, and with less surplus income, an IVA starts to look more attractive.

I would hope for some tightening of the rules on IVAs but it seems a long way down the list of the government's priorities

littleteapot

Davehal7 said:

The main root cause was living outside of our means from luxury food shopping to lots of alcohol and cigarettes, then the other things where my car and house deposit , court costs to get custody of Wife child from previous relationship 

So some things have changed and others were just the way it is, further improvements would be to budget better for food and remove alcohol altogether 

I'll second giving up alcohol (and cigarettes if possible) as a very good way to reduce outgoings.

I never used to think anything of it as I 'only' drank about half a bottle of wine each night. But I decided to try cutting it out completely a couple of months ago and I noticed  that I actually had about £100 more in my account at the end of each month. So diligently I did the maths and sure enough half a bottle of cheap wine per day works out between £90 and £100 per month!

In addition to that I'm not suffering with anxiety so much now, so it's been a winner for mental health as well as pocket.

I gave up smoking over 12 years ago. I dread to think what that costs nowadays but I guess that will be a lot more than £100 per month.

Stateofart

enthusiasticsaver said:

Personally I don’t think you can afford to borrow another £5k for the car balloon.

I agree.  Borrowing more is not the answer.  Get a cheaper and more economical car.

Also, I know it's not a particularly popular view but I see a lot of younger people panicing and locking in big mortgages for a long long time.  There's already an article in the news about people possibly regretting that decision.  You see, you're not used to rates moving, and it's my prediction they'll be coming down again next year.  I think ride the standard variable when it comes and lock in later.