Newbie Seeks Advice

WebMerry

Evening all,

I’ve been reading the forum for a while now, picking up good bits of advice and following plans and suggestions aimed at others with the hope that something good would come of it. It’s a slow process though huh?

16 months ago my ex-wife and I separated and we agreed that she would stay in the house with the kids and would ‘buy-me-out’ of my ownership of it once the final divorce papers were signed. This came around in November and her financial situation meant that she’d have to sell the house to finance the payment which neither of us wanted as it meant she’d have to move away with our two wonderful children. We agreed that she wouldn’t take any child maintenance payments from me and that I wouldn’t take a lump sum payment for the house from her. Only problem is I’d built up a ‘mountain’ of debt; setting up my new home, legal fees, rent while I was finding a place, all on top of an already stretched financial situation.

Well, two months later and I’m faced with the SOA below, the spare cash at the end of the month goes on groceries. I can’t get other credit cards as my credit rating’s pretty shot so I can’t play the switching game, I tried to ask for a ‘payment holiday’ and they weren’t interested. I’ve joined a couple of on-line survey sites but that’s a drop in the ocean at the moment. I’ve contacted CCCS today and I’m awaiting my ‘pack’ but their main suggestion after the questionnaire was to reduce my petrol bill – I wish I could but with the prices going up and my work not getting any nearer…

I have a very understanding partner now but she’s a little worried about things and probably rightly so. Anything new I can try I’m willing to.


IncomeWages £ 1,820.00
Expenses
Joint Account £ 670.00
Bridging Loan £ 188.86
Life Assurance £ 15.60
Sofa Repayments £ 34.47
Mobile Phone £ 40.00
Work; Petrol £ 160.00 Union fees £ 14.70
Credit Cards; Marbles 15.9% £ 145.00 HSBC 18.9% £ 190.00 Virgin 2.5% mthly £ 245.00
Leisure Ent Etc; Gym Fees £ 41.25 Healthcare £ 9.62
Total Expenditure £ 1,754.50
Residual £ 65.50

consultant31

Hi,
I'm sorry about your situation and hope you soon see light at the end of the tunnel. There will be cleverer folk than me along any time who can give you more help, but I noticed your gym fees and the healthcare, which I think you should suspend until you get more financially stable. You can run in the streets for free meanwhile

You haven't put anything down for food, car maintainance, tv licence, gas & electric etc and without all the details it will be hard to help you properly.

MissEyre

Hi, welcome!


IncomeWages £ 1,820.00 This is a good salary-can you work any overtime just to help the squeeze at the moment?
Expenses
Joint Account £ 670.00
Bridging Loan £ 188.86
Life Assurance £ 15.60 Can you suspend this for now?
Sofa Repayments £ 34.47
Mobile Phone £ 40.00 Can you reduce this?
Work; Petrol £ 160.00 Union fees £ 14.70 Can you cancel your union membership for now?
Credit Cards; Marbles 15.9% £ 145.00 HSBC 18.9% £ 190.00 Virgin 2.5% mthly £ 245.00
Leisure Ent Etc; Gym Fees £ 41.25 Healthcare £ 9.62 Can you cancel both of these for now?
Total Expenditure £ 1,754.50
Residual £ 65.50 [/quote]

Mandoo_2

Hello Webmerry,
I don't have much advice for you I'm afraid but welcome to the forum. You will find a lot of useful advice on here and a lot of support from
other users. As consultant31 said, one of the things I would suggest is to look into things like Gym membership and union fees. Are these things you could do within in the short term until you can get yourself sorted with CCCS.
Also, make sure you budget for grocerys so that you have enough for food and essentials.
I am on a DMP with CCCS and have found them to be really good. They are always happy to give solid advice if you give them a call.

GirlRacer_2

Hi Webmerry, welcome aboard. I'm not very good at these SOA's and hopefully somebody with much more knowledge will be along shortly. Is there any way you could change your credit cards to ones that have 0% balance transfer, at least then whatever you pay will come off the balance.

Also with your mobile phone, are you able to chage to the very lowest tariff? You may not be able to cancel the phone if your tied into a contract but they do often allow you to reduce the payment.

As I said, hopefully someone will be alon g shortly and they'll be full of wonderful ideas.

MissEyre

Hi,

It looks like there are some savings to be made, but it is tight, and as consultant says, you are missing some key information at the moment-have you got the figures for your gas, electric, water, landline/broadband, TV licence, council tax and food available? Also everything to do with your car other than the petrol, haircuts, birthdays, holidays, clothes etc.

Don't panic!

WebMerry

Thanks for the advice so far guys and girls.

I'm tied into the gym at the moment but it's first on the list of things to go and my partner thinks I might be covered on her work Health Insurance so that's being taken care of as well.

As a teacher I work loads of overtime but don't get paid for any of it! Similarly I can't cancel the union fees sadly it's a must in the profession these days.

Other things I missed off all jointly paid for...
Mortgage £850.00 Gas £30.00 Electricity £30.00 Water £80.00 Sky (phone, tv, internet) £30.00 - being reduce by disconnecting the channels we don't watch - Council Tax £135.00 TV Licence £11.00

Surfbabe

Your water bill is high at £80 a month. Can you run a cheaper a car so you don;t use so much petrol?

NOt to up on these SOA but they spring to mind straight away.

Good luck

chevalier

I was going to say the same about the water, if there are more bedrooms in your house than there are occupants, then you probably benefit from a water meter.
Other than that you can get hippos for your cisterns that save a litre a flush, from you local water company, I think, for free.
You could ask for the council tax to be over 12 months not 10 as that would spread it more.

Could you get a part time job eg private tutor, ou lecturer, or even something not teaching related? Needs must and all that. Someone on another thread was saying that she got extra money for doing play ground duty (though it sounded horrid), could you do this?

chev