DFW Newbie...Please Help!!

hoveboy

After watching Martin on the sofa with Lorraine for many a morning before work, I decided it was time to "lay it all bare" for everyone to see!!:o

Basically, we are a couple who own and run a retail shop.
I am the only one who works in the business, my partner now works for another company as the business couldnt support two wages.

We have both worked very hard for the past 3 years to build the business to what it is today. (Turnover started at £26k and is now projected to hit £165k this year end). The issue that we have are the debts we incurred from our first business venture 6 years ago, also a retail concern, that did rather less well and left us with massive debts.
Partly to blame are the RBS, who convinced us 'business newbies' to purchase the freehold of that first business (a fast food takeaway) as well as the leasehold. The loan repayments absolutely crippled us!! :eek:
And despite propping up the finances etc with our cards and loans, we realised all too late that we were doomed to fail. We were guilty, I suppose, of 'doing the right thing' and paying our creditors, instead of taking the easy option and going bankrupt!?! Also, our pride was a major factor here in not wanting to be social lepers (it's a very 'small' town!!).

I even had to re-mortgage my elderly mothers house to pay off the mounting debts!! So now on top of all the cards and loans, we also have a mortgage to pay!! We finally got rid of the whole business just over 2 years ago now, but the damage caused has been horrendous.

We feel so crap that we have worked so very hard and not done anything wrong to anybody, yet we seem to be failing miserably. The only heartening thing is that the new business seems to be going from strength to strength and hopefully will continue to grow in 2008.
I have decided not to include any of the current business costs/charges etc as this seems to be doing very well and doesnt need help. Also, because the business is attached to our home (flat above), we also take advantage of shared utilities etc which makes things easier for us.

Just all of our personal SOA's:

So here goes:

INCOME:
After Tax and NI
My wages/dividends: £1300 a month
My partners wages: £1100 a month (varies depending on commission)

Outgoings/Debt:

Mortgage: 670.70 a month. Fixed rate till feb 2008 and being assessed by an IMA now. Awaiting new mortgage....£122,250

House ins: £19.36 pm (RSA)
M. Phones (2): £75 pm (O2)
Life ins (2): £48.34 pm (NU)
Car ins: £ 53.05 pm (DL)
TV/Broadband/Phone: £95 pm (Virgin)
TV Lic: £23.22pm
Council Tax: £70.83pm
Gas/Electric/Water: paid for by business as accom is over shop

RBS Royalties Gold Overdraft: -£2926.86 (15.65%)
RBS Card: £7034.41 (12.88%) cmp £170
Lloyds TSB Card: £6719.69 (15.6%) cmp £125
MBNA Card: £10,119.11 (29.9%) cmp £250
Cap One Card: £1385.68 (15.36%) cmp £50
Egg Card: £6714.63 (26.9%) cmp £150
Egg Loan: £10,344.04 (7.66% fixed) cmp £238.38
John Lewis Card: £850 (19.9%) cmp £50

Petrol/Shopping: £120 week
Cigarettes (partner!!): £15 week
Car Tax: £115 pa

Cant think of anything else to put down, except that the mortgage part of the debt is non-negotiable as this is my mums house and she still lives there! We are happy to cope with that part of our debt ongoing, as mum is now 72 and I dont want to involve her any further. She has done enough for us already and I dont wnat to see her lose her house because of our debt!!

Thanks in kind anticipation of help from the experts!!!:D

Gosh that feels better!!

Stuart

tesuhoha

hoveboy wrote: »

After watching Martin on the sofa with Lorraine for many a morning before work, I decided it was time to "lay it all bare" for everyone to see!!:o

Basically, we are a couple who own and run a retail shop.
I am the only one who works in the business, my partner now works for another company as the business couldnt support two wages.

We have both worked very hard for the past 3 years to build the business to what it is today. (Turnover started at £26k and is now projected to hit £165k this year end). The issue that we have are the debts we incurred from our first business venture 6 years ago, also a retail concern, that did rather less well and left us with massive debts.
Partly to blame are the RBS, who convinced us 'business newbies' to purchase the freehold of that first business (a fast food takeaway) as well as the leasehold. The loan repayments absolutely crippled us!! :eek:
And despite propping up the finances etc with our cards and loans, we realised all too late that we were doomed to fail. We were guilty, I suppose, of 'doing the right thing' and paying our creditors, instead of taking the easy option and going bankrupt!?! Also, our pride was a major factor here in not wanting to be social lepers (it's a very 'small' town!!).

I even had to re-mortgage my elderly mothers house to pay off the mounting debts!! So now on top of all the cards and loans, we also have a mortgage to pay!! We finally got rid of the whole business just over 2 years ago now, but the damage caused has been horrendous.

We feel so crap that we have worked so very hard and not done anything wrong to anybody, yet we seem to be failing miserably. The only heartening thing is that the new business seems to be going from strength to strength and hopefully will continue to grow in 2008.
I have decided not to include any of the current business costs/charges etc as this seems to be doing very well and doesnt need help. Also, because the business is attached to our home (flat above), we also take advantage of shared utilities etc which makes things easier for us.

Just all of our personal SOA's:

So here goes:

INCOME:
After Tax and NI
My wages/dividends: £1300 a month
My partners wages: £1100 a month (varies depending on commission)

Outgoings/Debt:

Mortgage: 670.70 a month. Fixed rate till feb 2008 and being assessed by an IMA now. Awaiting new mortgage....£122,250

House ins: £19.36 pm (RSA)
M. Phones (2): £75 pm (O2)
Life ins (2): £48.34 pm (NU)
Car ins: £ 53.05 pm (DL)
TV/Broadband/Phone: £95 pm (Virgin)
TV Lic: £23.22pm
Council Tax: £70.83pm
Gas/Electric/Water: paid for by business as accom is over shop

RBS Royalties Gold Overdraft: -£2926.86 (15.65%)
RBS Card: £7034.41 (12.88%) cmp £170
Lloyds TSB Card: £6719.69 (15.6%) cmp £125
MBNA Card: £10,119.11 (29.9%) cmp £250
Cap One Card: £1385.68 (15.36%) cmp £50
Egg Card: £6714.63 (26.9%) cmp £150
Egg Loan: £10,344.04 (7.66% fixed) cmp £238.38
John Lewis Card: £850 (19.9%) cmp £50

Petrol/Shopping: £120 week
Cigarettes (partner!!): £15 week
Car Tax: £115 pa

Cant think of anything else to put down, except that the mortgage part of the debt is non-negotiable as this is my mums house and she still lives there! We are happy to cope with that part of our debt ongoing, as mum is now 72 and I dont want to involve her any further. She has done enough for us already and I dont wnat to see her lose her house because of our debt!!

Thanks in kind anticipation of help from the experts!!!:D

Gosh that feels better!!

Stuart

Im not very good at this but the one thing that really strikes me is your high interest rates on all your debt. Is there any possibility of transferring some of it to 0% deals, or a lower rate life of balance. That way you would see it going down a bit quicker as you pay it and will not have crippling interest lumped onto the debt each month.

tesuhoha

There are lots of cc deals on this site, the main one, not the forum. Have a look at that. I would certainly get rid of the 29.9% MBNA. How is your credit rating. Have a look at what Martin suggests about balance transfers.

misspoppy

Hi

I think you need to be realistic and £95 for tv and telephone is way way too high, you have to cut back on this and the mobiles are high too, do you really need them ask the provider to lower the tarrif and don't use them unless you have to.

Your life insurance is also very high shop around and see if you can get it cheaper and check you don't have two policies as you cannot claim on both and this could be a case of miss selling.

Good luck

hoveboy

thanks for these tips, will try shop around a little to get better deals.
FYI, life insurance is for two seperate life policies added together. As aI am so much older than my partner, mine is nearly double!!
After reading about other peoples dealings with MBNA when it comes to re-negotiating, I am a little nervous about switching, but will try and do some balance transfers to other cards (if there is any room left!).
My credit history is a little dented with having a couple of late payments on my accounts in the last year.

dawn64

That for mobile phones is way to high,,also if you dont mind me asking,,how come your council tax bill is low,,i live in an Aband and pay over £100.OO P/month.I wish you and your partner all the very best of luck.

fc123

Hi Hoveboy....we could be fellow retailers in the same area...just making assumptions from your username....anyway........................................................................................................you say that thebusiness costs are fine...however we spent last year going through all of ours................................................................our waste provider was charging us treble what they charge new customers...........sorted that out,(Sorry, I have to dot dot dot as my posts aren't paragraphing etc properly tonight) also we are with EDF energy who are charging us double to what next door pay, we went through all our stockists and were ruthless in getting rid of the ones tha didn't have a 70% sell through (at full price) even though those goods made the store interesting......................................................................................on £165k you should expect to generate 20% profit if you are running things on your own with a small ammount of P/T help but it depends on your margins..................................the hardest thing we did was to raise our mark up.....but from an average of 2.7 we now mainly mark up X 4 (with 75% sell through at full price) it has made things easier................I don't know if any of the above is helpful...only posted as we have been indie retailers for 20 yrs and I can't remember it being so hard....since NR in Sept!