In desperate need of help and guidance please!

Headisspinning18

Hi all, 

So I have spent weeks reading through threads on here and learning as much as possible to try and help me figure out the best solution to my ever growing debt. 

I’m in my early 40’s and seriously cannot remember a time in my life yet where I’ve not had some form of debt or an actual decent credit rating. It seems as soon as I hit 18 the debt started and it’s been relentless ever since. I know this is all my own doing and I need to work on the reasons behind this but aside from that I need to deal with the practicalities in the here and now. 

I’ve posted an SOA below, hopefully this will look correct. Quick explanation, I live with my husband and two teenage children. Last year my husband and I went through a very rocky patch and our finances changed dramatically in that we stopped sharing a bank account and pooling our money and now we both pay 50/50 of the household bills. I can’t include his salary etc because I genuinely don’t know what this is anymore, all I know is that we both pay the same amount each month to the household bills, food etc. The SOA shows my earnings only and my half of the bills. The debt is solely mine, this has been mainly run up in the last 12 months due to me trying to keep up with payments that are just beyond my means. 

My payments on all four credit cards are due this week, in fact I have now officially missed my first payment on my Aqua card and the others will follow within days. After reading the advice on here, I plan to wait for them to all default and then look to agree payment plans with whoever I need to when they are chased. I feel so guilty doing this, like I’m some sort of thief. It’s really bothering me but I just can’t keep living off credit cards and paying relentless interest. I really need this to be a final push to get myself out of this cycle. 

I guess at the moment I’m just looking for a bit of support and reassurance that I am doing the right thing. I don’t have anyone I can discuss this with and have lived on a huge emotional rollercoaster this year in a number of ways so feel exceptionally vulnerable. 

I’m not convinced that my ‘marriage’ will last moving forward so I need to be very careful as I just cannot allow myself to end up with CCJ’s as I need to be able to get a rental property for me and my kids should the relationship continue to break down. 

If anyone out there is able to offer any advice and is happy to answer the million questions I’m likely to have, I would be eternally grateful! 

Thank you so much in advance! 

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information[/b]

Number of adults in household........... 2

Number of children in household......... 2

Number of cars owned.................... 1[b]

Monthly Income Details[/b]

Monthly income after tax................ 1709

Partners monthly income after tax....... 0

Benefits................................ 0

Other income............................ 0[b]

Total monthly income.................... 1709[/b][b]

Monthly Expense Details[/b]

Mortgage................................ 0

Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0

Rent.................................... 625

Management charge (leasehold property).. 0

Council tax............................. 115

Electricity............................. 45

Gas..................................... 40

Oil..................................... 0

Water rates............................. 33

Telephone (land line)................... 0

Mobile phone............................ 25

TV Licence.............................. 15

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 38

Internet Services....................... 30

Groceries etc. ......................... 225

Clothing................................ 30

Petrol/diesel........................... 50

Road tax................................ 10

Car Insurance........................... 66

Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 30

Car parking............................. 0

Other travel............................ 0

Childcare/nursery....................... 0

Other child related expenses............ 43

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 12

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 20

Buildings insurance..................... 0

Contents insurance...................... 18

Life assurance ......................... 0

Other insurance......................... 0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 30

Haircuts................................ 30

Entertainment........................... 75

Holiday................................. 50

Emergency fund.......................... 25[b]

Total monthly expenses.................. 1680[/b]

[b]

Assets[/b]

Cash.................................... 0

House value (Gross)..................... 0

Shares and bonds........................ 0

Car(s).................................. 3000

Other assets............................ 0[b]

Total Assets............................ 3000[/b]

[b]

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts[/b]

[b]Unsecured Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Aqua CC........................3700......150.......37.2

118 Credit Card................3000......195.......41.2

Zable Credit Card..............1300......78........38.4

Jaja Credit Card...............1400......122.......29.85[b]

Total unsecured debts..........9400......545.......-  [/b]

[b]

Monthly Budget Summary[/b]

Total monthly income.................... 1,709

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,680

Available for debt repayments........... 29

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 545[b]

Amount short for making debt repayments. -516[/b]

[b]Personal Balance Sheet Summary[/b]

Total assets (things you own)........... 3,000

Total HP & Secured debt................. -0

Total Unsecured debt.................... -9,400[b]

Net Assets.............................. -6,400[/b]

RAS

The starting point is that you paying 50% of the bills may or may not be reasonable.

Why are you not getting Child Benefit?

Your husband needs to share details of his salary with you. And then you pay the bills pro rata. This is what any debt charity or insolvency practitioner would do. Anything else is financial abuse.

You do not have enough posts to be allowed to edit your SOA, but people will need to know if you are paying all, half, or another percentage of the debt. Maybe post a response to this and a couple of clarifications in response to start upping your post count.

Do you and your husband share any accounts?

Right now, check the banking groups associated with your creditors and find one to whom you owe nothing. Then set up a new basic bank account with a bank with whom you have no connection. 

I'd also suggest you start checking what benefits you could claim if your husband left your current home and maybe talk to Women's Aid.

sourcrates

In the grand scheme of things your debt is not that big, and remember, your creditors magicked up this money out of thin air in the first place, its just numbers on a spreadsheet, so no guilt, please.

I get the fact that you split the bills 50/50, but with only £29 disposable income, debt management isn`t going to help you here, as you have nothing to offer anyone.

There`s really nothing in your budget you can cut, that will make any significant difference.

Some of your lenders are sub prime, maybe file affordability complaints if you thing that might apply to you.

You might be eligible for a DRO, but that will depend on husband/partner and how involved he wants to get in this.

ManyWays

Can you list which of the expenses you have "halved" and which you havn't.

Your best guess - does he earn the same, more or a lot more than you? 

Headisspinning18

Thank you for the replies. Sorry, I may have rushed a couple of things and made a bit of an error. I do get child benefit and that’s included in my income, so this is my wage and the CB for two children. 

So far I’ve opened an account with Nationwide and I’m hopeful they aren’t linked to any of my creditors, my wages are paid into this account. 

The majority of what’s listed on the SOA is my 50% although I have realised I’ve put the full amount for a few things such as TV licence, pet insurance, TV and internet. In all I probably have around £100 left over to put towards debts after all bills are paid which just isn’t touching the sides and the debt is just increasing. 

My payments with Aqua and 118 are now late and I’ve had a text and an email from them both. The Zable payment is due tomorrow. 

Is it a good idea to contact the companies and tell them that I don’t intend to keep up with repayments due to circumstances or is it best just to stay silent and wait for them to default? 

Thanks again! 

Headisspinning18

sourcrates said:

In the grand scheme of things your debt is not that big, and remember, your creditors magicked up this money out of thin air in the first place, its just numbers on a spreadsheet, so no guilt, please.

I get the fact that you split the bills 50/50, but with only £29 disposable income, debt management isn`t going to help you here, as you have nothing to offer anyone.

There`s really nothing in your budget you can cut, that will make any significant difference.

Some of your lenders are sub prime, maybe file affordability complaints if you thing that might apply to you.

You might be eligible for a DRO, but that will depend on husband/partner and how involved he wants to get in this.

Thank you for this. I am really troubling myself with how terrible I feel about not repaying what I owe. But I need to realise that I’ve paid a substantial amount of interest to all of these companies over a period of time. I do also need to investigate affordability complaints as 118 and Aqua continued to increase my credit limit despite no increase in my income or me ever paying more than the minimum payment each month. 

RAS

You still haven't given us a clue about your partner's income. 

The big question is whether it is reasonable for you to pay half the family expenditure.

Headisspinning18

It’s substantially more than mine, most likely double I expect. 

It’s totally not reasonable I don’t believe but after 12 months of trying to argue it I don’t feel I have a lot of choice. I guess I’m just trying to keep everything as straightforward as possible, especially for the kids, but silently living in a constant whirlwind of anger and stress about the money I owe and not having hardly a penny to myself. 

RAS

OK, I'd suggest that you stop paying all you consumer credit bills now. With those sort of rates, even if the debt increases a bit, once the debt is defaulted interest and fees are halted. It's pretty much impossible to clear debts with those rates without a decent payment.

Open an instant access ISA and put £500+ per month into that. You need an emergency fund as you could find yourself having to pay the entire family's bills sometime. You also need some funds to cover stuff like the car failing etc.

If you don't need it, then it becomes a fighting fund to cover reduced settlements in a few years. I'd suggest opening on line from a work computer if possible.

As before:
Please go to turn2us and learn what benefits you could claim if everything goes down the pan. You may not need it now but better to have some idea of the process and options.
Please speak to Women's Aid about financial abuse.
And read up here about affordability claims. You've got some fairly high sums from very high interest lenders. If they've increased those limits over time you might get the interest repaid.

MEM62

Headisspinning18 said:

It’s substantially more than mine, most likely double I expect. 

It’s totally not reasonable I don’t believe but after 12 months of trying to argue it I don’t feel I have a lot of choice. I guess I’m just trying to keep everything as straightforward as possible, especially for the kids, but silently living in a constant whirlwind of anger and stress about the money I owe and not having hardly a penny to myself. 

This is not a marriage.  It is a partnership in which one party values money more than the wellbeing of the other.  Is there no way to get him to see things differently?    

katsu

Can you talk with your husband about the household expenses and that you can barely afford to pay half of all the bills? 

Maybe you and he can find a way to adjust it to say 60-40 so you can meet your expenses. 

Your husband needs to know that you can't go on incurring debts and that things will change now as you stop paying debts you can't afford.