Consumer Choice

johnston818

Household Information[/b]
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 0[b]

Monthly Income Details[/b]
Monthly income after tax................ 1800
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0[b]
Total monthly income.................... 1800[/b][b]

Monthly Expense Details[/b]
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 550
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 180
Electricity............................. 87.5
Gas..................................... 87.5
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 38
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 30
Internet Services....................... 15
Groceries etc. ......................... 40
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 15
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 30
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0[b]
Total monthly expenses.................. 1105[/b]
[b]

Assets[/b]
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0[b]
Total Assets............................ 0[/b]
[b]
No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts[/b]

[b]Unsecured Debts[/b]
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Credit Card 1..................3200......92........0
Paypal.........................2150......79........23.9
Credit Card 2..................4800......48........0
Loan 2.........................8000......175.......0
Loan 1.........................14000.....305.......0
Credit Card 4..................3200......96........0
Credit Card 3..................3200......32........0[b]
Total unsecured debts..........38550.....827.......- [/b]

[b]
Monthly Budget Summary[/b]
Total monthly income.................... 1,800
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,105
Available for debt repayments........... 695
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 827[b]
Amount short for making debt repayments. -132[/b]

[b]Personal Balance Sheet Summary[/b]
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -38,550[b]
Net Assets.............................. -38,550[/b]

RAS

Just checking you are not in Scotland?

Even if your debts are personal, most of the consumer debt advisors don't touch the self employed.

You do realise that there is absolutely no need to use any charity or commercial debt advisor to run a DMP, you can just do it yourself. As many on this forum do?

The complication is that any debt solution will affect your personal credit rating. You need to talk to business debtline, and then your partner, so you understand what your the implications are for your business as well as you personally.

johnston818

yeah im in Scotland

johnston818

Interested to know more about running a DMP yourself

not worried about my credit rating,the business is shared with me and my father and i dont want it to affect it in anyway or him to know

Its all new a scary for me as ive buried my head in the sand too long but ive said that this is year year i sort it finally but im just a bit lost where to start

itsthelittlethings

Your SOA looks totally unrealistic I'm afraid. You're clearly spending a lot more than that and not having that surplus to run up that amount of debt.

I can see you've put no benefits - do you not get child benefit? And does your partner not work, or have you not taken their income into account and split the household costs?

johnston818

its all old debts thats accumulated when i was working in a different job and iv been living hand over fist for years but hit a point where i cant go on

partner works but doesnt know the extent of debt, i want to have a solution before confessing tbh

no child benefits as partner was taxed too much on them due to her income

split the household costs, shes earns well and pays all the shopping every week, kids stuff etc

its embarrassing to come out with this

sourcrates

Morning, there are lots of supposed "debt advisors" on the internet, so you must be careful who you take advice from, as by far the majority of these companies are out to sell you something, in this case a debt solution, that you really do not need to pay for.

National Debtline are a reputable source of advice, Stepchange and PayPlan, are creditor funded, but still give impartial advice, there is also CAB, again, another trustworthy source, there may be one or two others out there that are consumer orientated, but the vast majority are private debt management companies, or lead generators to those companies, that are looking to sell you a debt product, such as a DMP or an IVA, so you must be wary.

I believe only PayPlan will deal with the self employed.

As for Consumers choice, they appear to be a jack of all trades, and as I suspected, simply a lead generator, see this from their website:

"Consumerschoice.co.uk is an independent website, created to put consumers in touch with FCA-authorised debt management companies and Insolvency Practitioners in the UK. We are a lead generator only, we do not provide debt advice or debt solutions. Our service is 100% free to consumers".

If debt management is what you want, and you are self employed, does it not make sense to manage your debt yourself as well?

Its very easy to do, a first step is to allow all your unsecured, non essential debt to default, you do this by non payment, and use those payments to build an emergency fund, which you will need.

Defaulting can take a while, and all kinds of letters etc will drop on your doormat, its best to stay radio silent and just allow the default process to complete, once everything has defaulted, all interest is stopped, so the next time you are written too after that, you can work out your budget, set aside enough to live on, and split the rest between your creditors.

That is the process in a nutshell, more detail can be explained later on, but that is the basic principle, anyone can do it, and its far from difficult.

RAS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81875500#Comment_81875500

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81875494#Comment_81875494

OK, Scottish law can be very different to English law. So please go back to your first post and edit it to include (living in Scotland)

ManyWays

From the footer in their website:

"created to put consumers in touch with FCA-authorised debt management companies and Insolvency Practitioners"

This means that they are NOT authorised as debt advisers. Why talk to someone that is not a proper debt adviser? Much better to get advice from Business Debtline https://businessdebtline.org/
who will give you advice covering the business and your personal debts.

Also the "FCA authorised debt management companies" they refer you to will be the ones that charge a monthly fee. You should avoid these. If you do need a DMP, then your best bet is Payplan as they deal with the self employed and do NOT charge a fee.