£32000 in debt and rising. My story of woe....

subflow

Hello, my names xx and I'm serioulsy in debt! Can I sit down now?

First time poster, and glad I discovered this forum, and moreso the HSBC and debt thread.

As I'm sure I'm far from alone here, I've inadvertantly somehow run up just over £30k worth of debt, and I feel crippled by it.

We were relatively debt free only 5 years ago, but getting carried away with our wedding spending, then taking a 7 month sabbatical to travel the world really cost a great deal of money. Not only that, we got pregnant whilst away, so we've now lost half of our income.

I took on the debts, I signed the papers, I thought I could manage it. My fault, my problem.

The vast majority of the debt is with HSBC. Obvioulsy not helped by them charging over £200 each month in charges and interest.

I thought I would do the right thing by going down there, in complete honesty, with all my finances, incomings, outgoings, shortfalls etc and seeing what could be done. I certainly think on my income (£2000 takehome, although mortgage is £1100 alone, debt repayments are nearly £800 a month), that perhaps something could be done, some kind of debt restructuring and advice, we could get back on track.

They weren't in the slightest bit interested. Didn't take one look at my finances. Basically, just looked at me like I was as an idiot and kept repeating 'consolidation loan consolidation loan'. Seems like throwing more money at the problem wasn't really the answer to me. They said to me they weren't debt counsellers (which I know) and it's down to me to sort out. Or ring the in-house HSBC debt team. Which I was about to do.

I get the feeling that by doing so, I would have been convinced to take out a 'management loan' as detailed in this thread. In desperation I probably would have done. May well have dodged a bullet.

I have now called CCCS, and have my interview with them on Tuesday, so fingers crossed.

This debt dominates my life. Bills and debt take up my entire wages, and there is nothing left in the pot for ourselves. If I could just reduce the outgoings, things would look a bit better. £200 a month goes to an AA loan, and they were particularly rude when I called and confessed I was struggling. They got very uppity, said it was me who signed the contract, and if I didn't pay I'd go into arrears and then 'further measures' would be taken to retrieve the money.

I've read in a lot of places that the first thing you should do when in trouble is own up and talk to the people who you owe money to. This advice simply doesn't seem to work it would seem.

So, the baby's head is fully engaged, we're in week 38, and all I can think about is how I'm going to cover the debt repayments this month. I can't sleep and every day it breaks me up inside, and I don't want to live like this anymore.

I've never felt worse than I do right now, facing the prospect I may not be able to support my wife and new (first) baby. There must be a way to get things sorted. I'm not a frivolous spender, I keep a spreadsheet of every penny in and out, and every bill gets paid on time every time, to keep my credit file as shiny as possible. My wife being fully aware of the situation has carried on working till she's 37 weeks pregnant to do her bit as much as possible, but now she's finished work, the numbers simply don't add up anymore.

Well enough about me,,,,I just feel a little better for sharing!

Merlot

Hello Subflow and welcome to DFW.

Can you post an SOA (incomings and outgoings), including your APR's and we will see if we can reduce them, I know you have an appointment with the CCCS, but we will see if we can help in the meantime.

Merlot

catlover1_2

Hi and welcome .... sorry can't offer any real help but just wanted to say well done for posting .. .the people on here are great:j and will give you loads of help.

Could you possibly post an SOA (statement of affairs - Incpme and outgoings) then people can have a look through and come up with some constructive suggestions.

xxx

silvercar

subflow, you remind me so much of friends 20 years ago. Sold their house, Big wedding, jumped on a plane to Australia for a year not a care in the world. Arrived back a year later with a 2 month old in tow, no home, no money and no job. Wind forward to the present day and they have a nice home, good jobs and five kids.

Hope it all works out in the short term; I'm sure in the long term you will be fine and will look back on this as a financial blip on your successful path through life.

stebiz

Hi Subflow. Welcome to the forum mate. Can you try and enlighten us as to what the debt consists of. Is it cards, loans, overdraft? Plus a full I&E. Do you own your own house??

Stebiz

Gemmzie

First thing is to look at how your finances will be after the baby is born as it's so soon. Apply for Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit immediately. https://www.entitledto.co.uk should give you a rough idea of how much that will be.
CCCS will get you to design a budget, or an SOA as we call it. So if you want a hand then you can always post it up on here and we'll help.

Good luck

Seaxwyn

Hi subflow, congratulations on the impending arrival.

well done for posting, things will get better from this point on.

First off, make sure you get child benefit and child tax credit sorted asap.

Can you put your mortgage onto interest-only for a while until you get things sorted (sorry if you've already done this).

Have you got anything you can sell to raise cash to make a dent in the most pressing debts?

The CCCS appointment should be really helpful - meanwhile if you want to post up your SOA people here are brilliant at spotting the places where you can shave a few £££ off your monthly outgoings.

Good luck

mummytofour

Please please get onto cccs get your life back under control you are far too good to allow debt consume your life and that of your family a moment longer, get the help you need.

subflow

Fantastic feedback in such a short space of time.

The debt:

HSBC Cred Card (me) - £6300
HSBC Cred Card (wife) - £7000
HSBC Overdraft - £1500
HSBC Loan - £1728 (12 x £144 payments remaining)
AA Loan - £7308 (36 x £203 payments remaining)
Northern Rock Loan - £9009 (91 x £91 payments remaining)
Parents - £5500 (borrowed for legal fees and stamp to buy new house, moved 1 month ago)

=£40000

Income = £2000 (my takehome pay)

As many child related benefits as possible now applied for, will wait and see what that all totals. Will check everything with entitledto.co.uk

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage = £1100
BT = £30 (internet connetion/phone - needed for work)
Mobile Phones = £80 (I know this is high, but unfortunately 7 months into an 18 month contract)
Gas & Electric = £45 approx
Council Tax = £100 (seems right, have checked banding section here)
Water = £45
Life Cover = £61
AA Loan = £203
HSBC Loan = £144
Northern Rock Loan = £91
Credit Cards x 2 = £350
Bankcharges = £130 (as outgoings are higher than income, I go overdrawn each month, and HSBC helpfully levies these. I have put in my application to have them refunded but they're on hold like everyone else's!)
Food = ??? (whatever money we can scrape together when everything else paid)
Disposable = £haha, seriously now....

Other
£600 per annum - property maintenance
£140 TV License

We don't smoke, don't have a car, don't eat out, use a website called www.1click2cook.co.uk for our food (which incidentally, I highly recommend to everyone on this forum if it's not already been done. Healthy eating on low budgets.) I walk a couple of miles to work to save transport costs.

So you can see there's not really much fat to trim. It's just the debt outgoings that are killing me.

I believe one of the things CCCS may advise me to do is open a bank account elsewhere, so all these things are separate, which sounds like a solid idea, but problem in the short term is that I've recently moved house, and my local govt take several months to update electoral role, which is a slap round the credit rating until sorted.

Putting the mortgage on interest only for now sounds like an idea, however I don't know how that would work being on a fixed rate deal at present.

I also recently applied for a Virgin credit card to balance transfer, so I wasn't paying so much interest. Ironically I passed the credit scoring, but they decided not to give me a card as they felt I had too much debt.

For the most pressing debts, I have 1 idea that could see me through. I own the freehold on my old property, and may be able to generate around £4000 by selling that. Could keep the wolf from the door if I can do that quite quickly.

Nothing around the house that can be sold - had a big car boot fundraiser before going travelling!

MissKJ

Spare room? Lodger? You can receive £370 per month and pay no tax. At least you would have food money. not ideal I know. If your lovely wife knows of all the issues, she must be worried too. perhaps she could do somehting child friendly when your nipper has settle down a little. Avon? Puch the pram around whilst doing the rounds? Child minding? Once you get used to one, more make no differnce really. Anyother ways to boost your income? better job, promotion?

catlover1_2

subflow wrote: »

Fantastic feedback in such a short space of time.

The debt:

HSBC Cred Card (me) - £6300 APR???
HSBC Cred Card (wife) - £7000
HSBC Overdraft - £1500
HSBC Loan - £1728 (12 x £144 payments remaining)
AA Loan - £7308 (36 x £203 payments remaining)
Northern Rock Loan - £9009 (91 x £91 payments remaining)
Parents - £5500 (borrowed for legal fees and stamp to buy new house, moved 1 month ago)

=£40000

Income = £2000 (my takehome pay)

As many child related benefits as possible now applied for, will wait and see what that all totals. Will check everything with entitledto.co.uk

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage = £1100 As someone else said you might be able to switch to interest only
BT = £30 (internet connetion/phone - needed for work) Maybe you could get the cheaper ... I use BT landline 18185 override for most calls and Sky broadband basic oprion so my rental is £10.50 for BT and about £2.00 for calls plus Then the broadband but I think Martin suggests some other cheap options other then Sky.
Mobile Phones = £80 (I know this is high, but unfortunately 7 months into an 18 month contract) They might allow you to reduce the plan level if you call them
Gas & Electric = £45 approx
Council Tax = £100 (seems right, have checked banding section here) You can pay this over 12 months ... don't forget if you pay in 10 now you won't have this in Feb and March
Water = £45 This seems very high could you get a water meter ... I £8.00 and am in credit
Life Cover = £61 Can you shop arround for a better price try Quidco
AA Loan = £203
HSBC Loan = £144
Northern Rock Loan = £91
Credit Cards x 2 = £350
Bankcharges = £130 (as outgoings are higher than income, I go overdrawn each month, and HSBC helpfully levies these. I have put in my application to have them refunded but they're on hold like everyone else's!)
Food = ??? (whatever money we can scrape together when everything else paid)
Disposable = £haha, seriously now....

Other
£600 per annum - property maintenance
£140 TV License

We don't smoke, don't have a car, don't eat out, use a website called www.1click2cook.co.uk (I just looked at the and it seems to cost 11.99 per month if you head over to the old style boards they will help for free!!!)for our food (which incidentally, I highly recommend to everyone on this forum if it's not already been done. Healthy eating on low budgets.) I walk a couple of miles to work to save transport costs.

So you can see there's not really much fat to trim. It's just the debt outgoings that are killing me.

I believe one of the things CCCS may advise me to do is open a bank account elsewhere, so all these things are separate, which sounds like a solid idea, but problem in the short term is that I've recently moved house, and my local govt take several months to update electoral role, which is a slap round the credit rating until sorted.

Putting the mortgage on interest only for now sounds like an idea, however I don't know how that would work being on a fixed rate deal at present.

I also recently applied for a Virgin credit card to balance transfer, so I wasn't paying so much interest. Ironically I passed the credit scoring, but they decided not to give me a card as they felt I had too much debt.

For the most pressing debts, I have 1 idea that could see me through. I own the freehold on my old property, and may be able to generate around £4000 by selling that. Could keep the wolf from the door if I can do that quite quickly.

Nothing around the house that can be sold - had a big car boot fundraiser before going travelling!

Hope this is some help

xx