I am terrified

Alayne_

Grumpelstiltskin said:

You need the interest rates on your debts.

You are showing £50 in an emergency fund and yet not showing any savings.

No council tax?

No water rates? 

Which country do you live in?

Are you claiming mileage from your job?

How many people are we looking at, are you on your own?

Just a  few questions.

Emergency fund I would like to set up, don’t have any saving just yet. 

No council tax, no water rates, no other bills as I live in a share-house and everything is included in rent.

i can’t claim mileage from my job. 

It is just me, I’m on my own. 

Brie

Well done for getting started on this - it may be bumpy for a while but it will get better (well it did for me and many others around here!!)

So here's the way to look at things....there are priority debts and non priority.

Priority debts are anything that are necessary to live.  Your rent, council tax, gas, electric, water, food and I would include your car at this point as that gets you to work.

Non priority are those loans and credit cards.  Phone contract (can you switch to a PAYG or monthly contract sim?)

Now may be the time to see if you can get a new, completely unrelated card that you can use and pay in full each month so there's no interest and no actual debt ongoing on it.

Re work your SOA. 

You state above that you have a Barclaycard but it's not noted on there.

You don't have anything listed for TV licence or broadband.  Possibly you don't have a TV or internet but if you do and if you do watch live TV you need to ensure this is paid as well.  If you're not watching live TV or using iPlayer then a TV licence isn't needed.  Make sure you're not sneaking a peak on your laptop or phone....

Gas and electric included in the rent?

If you get some of these things listed properly then if/when you do go to StepChange (or NationalDebtline or CAB or Community Money Advice or Christians Against Poverty) it will make it very easy for them to kickstart your case for you.  At that point you can consider a DMP, token payments, Debt Relief Order etc.  Bankruptcy will be out as the level of debt doesn't warrant it (& it's expensive too!) and IVAs are difficult to maintain so you would have to be incredibly sure if you wanted to go down that route. (I don't like them so don't recommend them but that's me).

Don't worry about people pounding on the door or threatening to take away your sofa - it's not going to happen as long as you keep engaging with your creditors in some fashion yourself or via one of the debt advice agencies above.

Rob5342

Brie said:

Now may be the time to see if you can get a new, completely unrelated card that you can use and pay in full each month so there's no interest and no actual debt ongoing on it.

I wouldn't advise that. You need to start living without credit and build up some savings to cover any expenses. You can do this while you are waiting for defaults.

sourcrates

You should change the title of this thread to "I am no longer terrified" put a more positive swing in your step.

You have absolutely nothing to be terrified about, if the money isn`t there to pay the non essential bills then you don`t pay them, its as simple as that, people think the world comes to an end if they don`t pay there non priority debts, well, it doesn't, life goes on, and its time for you to re-take control of things.

Get your priorities in order, the non essential stuff can wait for now, they will bleat on about why you haven`t paid them, that`s because that`s about the only re-course they have, debt collection takes many months, even years, so nothing is going to happen quickly.

Save a good emergency fund, swop banks, see how the land lies in 6 months time.

Alayne_

Thank you all so much.

My plan for now is to get a new account and move my wages to this one. As my work is slow with processing those things, next months I will not pay any not essential debt besides HsBC (just in case they would freeze my account).

It still feels scary not to pay other debt but It needs to be done. 

When I have an emergency fund I will set up DMP. Step change website showed I would be paying about 250 a month for it which feels like a such relief… 

Grumpelstiltskin

Once you have set another bank account up and moved manually your vital direct debits you will find things will move slowly.

Keep posting on here with any queries you have, and don't speak to your creditors at all.

Rob5342

It does feel scary at first, but you soon come to realise that you are the one im control and then you begin to feel like you are on top of everything. 

ManyWays

Other Insurance

73

This seems a large amount, can you share what it is for? 

Alayne_

Car insurance, I only got two years of no claims and driving licence for two years… 

pelirocco

Alayne_ said:

Thank you all so much.

My plan for now is to get a new account and move my wages to this one. As my work is slow with processing those things, next months I will not pay any not essential debt besides HsBC (just in case they would freeze my account).

It still feels scary not to pay other debt but It needs to be done. 

When I have an emergency fund I will set up DMP. Step change website showed I would be paying about 250 a month for it which feels like a such relief… 

You can also manage a DMP your self