Debt Angel. Advice? experiences?

Phoenixx73

ok completed the SOA. and it is as follows

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1,772
Partners salary - £430.00


Total - £2,202.00

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage/Rent - £650
Council Tax - £60
Gas - £104 (including electric)
TV License - £13.20
Virgin Media £80.00 (incl phone and internet)
Food - £260
Car Insurance - £35.00
Petrol - £50
Brighthouse £208
Capitol One £50
Catalogues £30 (all totaled)
Welcome Finance £150.80
Nursery Fees (not covered by grants) £354.00
Provident £100


Total: £2145.00

a couple of notes. due to our daughter having learning difficulties we are in the process of applying for extra grants which will bring the nursery totals down significantly. Also I am on incapacity benefit therefore all benefits I recieve have been added into the income total as have my partners.

hope this is of use.

Phoenixx73

A quick bump as this board seems very busy tonight.

RAS

Hi

We really need to know the APRs on this CCs/loans. For the CCs, your limits and minimum payments and for your loans, total outstanding value and how many more payments to make.

How many in your household?

if you have a car, you need to add tax, MOT and repairs. With respect to your duaghter, if she is over 2, can you get a disabled parking badge? Would you be eligible for any sort of mobility allowance for her?

Also check www.entitledto.com

And do you buy clothes, go on holiday, buy presents etc?

Have you joined your local group of www.freecycle.org - like e-bay but the stuff is free?

Phoenixx73

I don't believe that we are entitled to a disabled parking badge as she is not physicaly impared. (she has speech problems and we are currently in the process of claiming DLA for that) There are currently 5 in the household (very soon to be 6) and clothes/presents etc are what the catalogues and capitol one card are for. As for the tax for the car. we buy it 6 monthly and budget for weeks in advance to cover it. I@ll get back to you on the APR fopr the capitol one card and the loan, although I can give you the overall figures for the loan

£2k loan over 2 years total repayable £3,700.

As for capitol one without digging through a drawer full of paperwork I can't tell you, but I DO know it is their "Bad credit" card if that helps you at all.

Holidays?? Forget it! havent had one of those since 2 years ago and that one was provided by my mother.

Quick edit: My partner just signed up for freecycle. The Cap 1 card is in her name and she is franticly trying to find the required APR's for me to post here. Also my partner is currently on SMP from work awaiting the birth of our 4th child so the entitled to calculator didn't like that and froze

Phoenixx73

I have just found out that my partner has made an initial payment of £200 via debit card to them!! :O

I told her to immediatly call them and request that anything active be cancelled and the money refunded, I also told her to ring the bank to see what they could do to recovere the money. As yo can imagine 200 quid is a huge chunk to us!

I just hope that this company plays fair with us and refunds the cash without quibble. If not, I will be picking all of your brains to figure out how we can get this money back.

Now we have to go through the process of getting a payment extention for this month from Welcome so that the refund can be put into our account for them to withdraw.

My head hurts now.

RAS

Hi

I hope so too. If not done immediately, contact the Financial Ombudsman and your local Trading Standards. For a debt company to take on a client within three hours with the amount of information that you have to hand is unbelieveable.

Also penguin83, debt doctor and all the CCCS staff (CCCS_ Matthew, Sarah and Alan ) would help you if you pm them.

Phoenixx73

Thanks RAS... always good to know there is a small army here willing to fight the good fight I'll be watching this very closely and fortunatly one thing my psrtner DID do was convince the agent to call back tomorrow and explain everything to me. This will give me the chance to give them a good grilling and request the refund myself. Any info which I can use as weapons when dealing with them over the phone will be a huge asset.

dancingfairy

Hi. Well done on posting the SOA, here are my thoughts:


Mortgage/Rent - £650
Council Tax - £60 - this seems cheap! - can you pay over 12 months instead of 10 to be able to budget better?
Gas - £104 (including electric) -this really does seem high. I would have a look at switching possibly (depending on how long you are staying in current house) and get everyone to turn mobiles off when charging/turn lights off when not needed/turn t.v off stanbby/use energy saving bulbs etc.
TV License - £13.20
Virgin Media £80.00 (incl phone and internet) - this is huge - what package are you paying for - you should be able to get this cheaper I would have thought.
Food - £260 - wow this is cheap - is this for all 5 of you?
Car Insurance - £35.00
Petrol - £50 h
Brighthouse £208 -is this a debt?
Capitol One £50
Catalogues £30 (all totaled)
Welcome Finance £150.80
Nursery Fees (not covered by grants) £354.00 this really is taking up a huge slice of your income - will your daughter need so much when your partner is not at work? can you get pre-tax vouchers from your work- this saves you paying tax on your childcare and you get taxed after childcare is taken out of your pay.
Provident £100 this has got to be a high APR? Total owed?

This leaves you with approx £50 a month - you need to find out what this is going on - keep a spending diary to find out.
How much is owed to the various people - and can you find the APR's.
Also what about having a good old ebay/car booting session.

Hope my comments give you a bit to think about for now. I would not consider a dmp at the mo. personally as you appear to be making the min repayments. If you can find a bit extra - part time job/mystery shopping/internet surveys/car booting etc- that would really help you out.

debt_doctor

Hi, you should go to a debt charity without delay, do not deal with this company or pay them any more money. Sadly it is extremely difficult to get a refund on an authorised debit card transaction, as it is considered electronic cash.

Let us know what happens

Best

DD

Phoenixx73

dancingfairy wrote: »

Hi. Well done on posting the SOA, here are my thoughts:


Mortgage/Rent - £650
Council Tax - £60 - this seems cheap! - can you pay over 12 months instead of 10 to be able to budget better?
Unfortunatly this is the cause of our only CCJ and this is the cost of the repayment plan agreed with the council.
Gas - £104 (including electric) -this really does seem high. I would have a look at switching possibly (depending on how long you are staying in current house) and get everyone to turn mobiles off when charging/turn lights off when not needed/turn t.v off stanbby/use energy saving bulbs etc.
We are doing what we can as far as conservation goes and are awaiting Martin to give the word for a switch.
TV License - £13.20
Virgin Media £80.00 (incl phone and internet) - this is huge - what package are you paying for - you should be able to get this cheaper I would have thought.
This price is admittedly incorrect, the number used was the total of last months bill which included more mobile calls than usual and a couple of PPV sports events
Food - £260 - wow this is cheap - is this for all 5 of you?
Indeed it is! over the years the OH has become quite the expert at bargain hunting and stockpiling when things are on offer.
Car Insurance - £35.00
Petrol - £50 h
Brighthouse £208 -is this a debt? No this number is our monthly repayments, it comprises of beds, a TV, the computer I am using now (lifeline) and a washing machine. at the time it was our only option to kit out an empty property after having spent all savings on bonds and deposits (we had to do a quick move after the relationship with the people we were staying with previously took a downhill turn)
Capitol One £50
Catalogues £30 (all totaled)
Welcome Finance £150.80
Nursery Fees (not covered by grants) £354.00 this really is taking up a huge slice of your income - will your daughter need so much when your partner is not at work? can you get pre-tax vouchers from your work- this saves you paying tax on your childcare and you get taxed after childcare is taken out of your pay.
We are currently claiming CTC which is covering the costs for both of my daughters and are in the process as i said of claiming DLA among other benefits and grants for my oldest daughter which will reduce this ammount greatly. This is the single biggest expenditure we have but concidering the help we are getting via our nursery (that we had tried to obtain on the NHS but were blocked at all turns) I feel that as far as her problems are concerned this is cheap at half the cost.
Provident £100 this has got to be a high APR? Total owed? Total outstanding is £725 (origionaly a £500 loan)

This leaves you with approx £50 a month - you need to find out what this is going on - keep a spending diary to find out.
How much is owed to the various people - and can you find the APR's.
Also what about having a good old ebay/car booting session.

Hope my comments give you a bit to think about for now. I would not consider a dmp at the mo. personally as you appear to be making the min repayments. If you can find a bit extra - part time job/mystery shopping/internet surveys/car booting etc- that would really help you out.

We try to pay OVER the minimum repayments on most things (Capitol One being the biggest example where the min repayment is £25 but we pay £50)

A side note. The OH is currently on Maternity leave so her income is at £112 as she has passed the first 6 weeks of SMP. She is intending to go back to work again so of course the income will rise again back to it's previous level. We knew it was going to be a case of belt tightening which wasnt a problem and we just need to ride out the next few months before we return to the usual income.

Right now our single biggest concern is a bigger house (which was the intention of the loan, paying off Welcome was a side concern as we were hoping for a lower APR etc.)