In dire need of help, time to take control of debt

Grumpelstiltskin

£300 for public transport fares in London? I thought with an Oyster card fares were reasonable.

orangebees22

it’s probably closer to £200 on average but some months I travel on the train to other parts of England to visit family. Sadly also wouldn’t consider transport fares to be reasonable in London

Naomim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82082508#Comment_82082508

MrM and I travel 5 days a week between us from Zone 5 to Zone 1. We pay £15.60 a day.

I understand you say you had an issue with shopping and I assume clothes was definitely part of that. I'd be looking at least trying to sell some of it on Vinted or eBay.

You also say that the £850 to the joint covers some meals out but you have another £200 in the eating out category. This can be cut back. If you are working in town every day, are you buying lunches/meal deals and coffees? I suggest bringing in lunch at least 3-4 days a week. Even a basic Tesco meal deal is £3.50 or so, this could give you a saving of at least £50 a month.

You really are just going to have to bite the bullet and cut back. That doesn't mean have zero social life and live on beans on toast, just cut your cloth accordingly.

Good luck!

orangebees22

Appreciate all the advice regarding my spending, which I will definitely be cutting back on. However is this all I should do?

I'm conscious that I currently have no savings and most of my credit cards are not interest free, so i'm wondering if I need to have some sort of formal arrangement to clear my debt. I'm currently paying around £1k on credit cards a month (only minimum payments) and some are gaining interest fees very quickly.

ManyWays

The problem is at the minute ive got some BNPL’s that require me to pay that amount on the clothing until they’re over.

These should be in the debts list, are they?
It is the regular £300 for clothes that look, to be blunt, excessive. Reduce that to £40. Indeed If you have bought a lot of clothes in the past, you pay be able to reduce that to say £10 for a year.

Could you also sell some old clothes?

Could your breakdown the £850 into rough categories?

orangebees22

I do think I know where to cut back, and it is mainly the clothing which is very very excessive. The BNPL is covered in the PayPal & Klarna sections.

The £850 is mainly groceries, dog bills, joint eating out, nights out etc.

However until the savings build up enough from me cutting back, this does not help the existing debt situation I’m in. I’m wondering how to deal with the debt right now before the interest on the credit cards gets excessive. Is a DMP not right for me?

Naomim

You've listed all your cc debt at 0% interest. Is that currently correct?

I'm no expert but I think your debt could be cleared with a DMP.

It may be best to go on the Stepchange website and get your SOA in there and work on a budget that's affordable.

I'll leave it to more knowledgeable forumites to answer the best way to do this.

Naomim

Smudgeismydog

Your SOA shows all your credit cards on 0%, but in your opening post you noted @£12k was interest free, and the rest is interest bearing. You have also not referenced the interest rates on the loans. One option is to default them all, to allow the interest to stop accruing, and then set up affordable payments. Alternatively, you can either prioritise the highest interest bearing accounts first, throwing everything at them, or focus on the smallest debts to reduce the number.

You absolutely do need an emergency fund, as you need to stop using credit, so yes, some money should be going here.

I do think you understand to achieve this, your lifestyle has to change quite drastically, and this process is going to take time.

ManyWays

The £850 is mainly groceries, dog bills, joint eating out, nights out etc.
thats sounds fine for two of you. But it is actually twice that, isn't it?

Which is high. Could you look at dramatic cuts for a couple of months to let you clear the BNPL before the interest is added?

and then longer term reducing by a third?

You also have 100 in for your groceries and 200 for nights out…

The problem at the moment is that all we can see is a LOT of overspending. It is hard to tell what you real situation is underneath this all.

MEM62

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080789#Comment_82080789

@sourcrates Wow! I cannot imagine how life changing that must have been.