21 and in a mess! please help

rosemahairy

hi
dont stress i am 24 same boat digging out of the hole slowly. i recommend going to Citizens advice they are free and will contact your creditors for you and make arrangements to freeze interest and charges so you can get back on your feet. a consolidation loan is a last resort seriously. i am now with a company called gregory pennington who are great they sort all my finances and have got all my interest and charges frozen ( lot has been written off thanks to them too) they charge 25 a month for their services in my opinion its worth it but citizens advice do same job for free. you need to sort an arrangement with your creditors if its over a certain amount an iva but mines just a money management programme. there is advice on this site for setting it up dont consolidate will make it worse follow the steps on this site, contact your creditors and make arrangements. if i can help further contact me same boat and all that

hooty2001uk

Hello all, Well some good news...I am so so so so so HAPPY

I finished work today and went straight to ALDI to do my shop.. I spent £32.13 and this food has to last me right to the end of the month

then I came home and sat down with my m8 Nat and we went through my "mess" and got most of it sorted..
I rung and cancelled some pointless mobile phone insurance policy and a payment protection for my car so that saves me a further £20 a month..
I rung "PRIVILIDGE" my car insure'rs where I had missed 2 payments and wanted the full amount for the policy (£560) owed by this friday (tomorrow), but they have given me one last chance to continue to pay my monthly installments...YAY!!
I then rung HSBC who have requested my overdraft back of £1000 by 22nd Feb and have come up with a payment plan where I pay £110 for 10 months which includes £150 bank charges due tomorrow..YAY!!
I didnt realise I am fully up 2 date with my welcome and HSBC loan...woo hoo!

There is light at the end of the tunnel...I would like 2 say a big thank you to everyone for there support and to "NAT"...I know I still have debt but I am proud and Happy to be dealing with it.. xx :beer:

Sue-UU

So very many congratulations Andrew! I can't tell you just how thrilled I was to read all that. I can well imagine just how elated you must be after working so hard with Nat to secure you're well-lit tunnel. No looking back now Andrew....and don't get tempted - until you're debt free again!

It's great to know that firms like Privilege and HSBC listened to you and helped you, I'm truly delighted, what a difference in you tonight after the first time here! Very well done indeed!

All the VERY best for a very good financial future.:D

Sue.

hooty2001uk

Thanks Sue means alot..seriously!!

If it wasnt for people like you guys to give me the hope and spirit, I prob really wouldnt of lasted!!

Will keep u updated xx

Grass_Stained_Feet

Hi there,

I don't know too much about how to best make use of the services available to cope with your debt-I'm best leaving that to the experts, but I do know a thing or 2 about not spending money!

I was a student for 4 years, living off £4000 a year (no help from rents) I paid £250 rent NOT including bills, so more or less what you are paying. Now you are on £17,000 a year, so please don't worry. I understand the immediate debts you are in must be daunting but you will be ok.

There were times at the end of a term when I had literally next to nothing to live on (one of my friends from home even suprised me with a tesco delivery becasue I couldn't afford to eat!) I tried applying for hardship loans but they said my 'income' was too high...???? But don't get me started on that!

Looks like you have done the first major steps already, good on you, getting rid of the stuff you don't need is the main thing....

I'll reiterate the above when I say cancel the sky (you dont need it) and cancel the mag (sorry! But you will easily get used to not having this stuff, there is no way I could have even considered it as a student!) Although I don't know if you have to wait a certain amount of time to cancel, but when you can, do it!

Phone contract-that is way too high. I have started saving properly again so was going to do as suggested above and go Pay as you go....I rang up to cancel when my contract was out and they wouldnt have any of it, offering me deal after deal, I was like NO I want to cancel, so it was cancelled....a couple of days later i got a phone call from them. 'We really want to keep your custom, we can offer you 600mins and 100texts for £5 a month' me '....' 'ok, you have deal' It's suprising what they will do to keep you. Try it, if it doesn't work, then I'd suggest getting a PAYG deal, where you get free texts etc.....I was PAYG all the way through uni.

Car-I know you cant get rid of it, so don't, but how much is your car actually worth? Could you sell and invest in something cheaper (instant money-to pay off your loan) my car cost me £350 at auction, and costs £300 to insure, as a starter driver. Mine's a 1993 polo and runs like the wind I know it doesn't sound ideal, and it's a pain paying a loan of for something you don't actually own anymore, but I do think it would be worth it....If you are worried about work-you need a decent car for it, they can't force you to have one, maybe they'll even get you one!

Food-Nice to see you have started on this one. I used to buy in bulk, biggest packet of pasta I could find, bags of frozen sausages....lol and you used to open my cupboard and you wouldn't beable to tell anything from everything else because the blue and white stripes just merged into one another (tesco value :P)

The rest-you are obviously spending money on something else...but don't buy anything you don't need. No new clothes, no new trainers, no new jackets, no sky, no magazines,no tony and guy hair cuts.... I'm trying to think what else boys spend money on here....but you get the picture, you will be incredibly suprised at how easy it is once you are used to it. And when you do buy something new (as a treat), you will be the most excitable person in the world! lol.

As for ebay-I don't really get it to be honest, but, I would suggest looking through your wardrobe (probably more productive if you are a USC boy rather than a primark one) and chuck in a pile anything you haven't worn in the past 6 months (bar shorts, because that is understandable, but if you didnt wear them last summer, they go in the pile) then look through that and ebay anything that might get you some cash, it also helps declutter everything in general, and bring the clothes you like to the top, so you know you have them and don't need any more! If you do NEED new clothes, try ebaying a brand spelt slightly wrongly, you can find soe bargains....but only if you need to! Don't sell your laptop and camera, that'll just depress you....they are things you use, its the things you dont use, and think, i mihgt use that one day, that you should sell.

Spending-I would suggest spending on experience rather than materialistic things. Having no money can be very depressing, so I wouldn't suggest not spending anything on experience, don't feel guilty for going to the cinema/out on the town/going to see the footy (or whatever you do) every now and then, because the money you save on buying phyical things will make up for it and you can still save. obviously, dont over do it and try and not to spend too much.

I suggest as soon as you get your paypackets, get rid off all the money you dont need for the essentials as soon as. I don't know how you pay your loans back but just pay off as much as you can at the beginning of the month, then you have no choice but to survive for the rest of it. If you can manage to pay back more than is asked from you, do it.

When I left uni and got my first pay packet, I was completely clueless, I had 1000 and I was getting another 1000 in a months time, I didn't know what to do with it, I paid my rent, and I had 750 left...for 4 weeks, I was like woah....I can actually buy something, it was the weirdest thing ever, as like I said you get so used to it.

Uni is wicked, you should definately go, but go when the debt is gone. By then you will be so used to saving you'll fly through it!!

Hope this essay has been of help and not tooo boring.

jubi_2

be very careful of this the interest is very high and you may not be able to get out of it if things improve.

RAS

jubi wrote: »

be very careful of this the interest is very high and you may not be able to get out of it if things improve.

Jubi

The interest on what is very high?

Sagaris

RAS wrote: »

Jubi

The interest on what is very high?

A managed loan? Just a guess, but I'm sure I've seen other threads on here where the interest charges on them was huge.

hooty2001uk

Thanks again everyone...I dont find any post boring at all..
Well another update from me.. The Sky is going as of 25th March asthen my 12months contract is finished! Woo hoo.. Its not even my SKY I took it out in my name when i lived with my mate..and i moved out and continued to pay the sky and she gves me the money.
I have not gone with the managed loan, spoke to HSBC and they aregoing to deduct £110 from my account everymonth for my o/d for 10months.. What do u guys think on me opening a new basic bank account with someone else and just set up a standing order for te £110 o/d and my HSBC loan payment??

xx

masterkay

Hi,

You say your car is nothing fancy but it's under 4 years old. You could sell it and buy and old banger to get around and use the money from the sale to put towards your debts. Insurance should be cheaper as it will be worth less.

I say stop holding onto the car, you cannot afford a 2004 car.