help needed! posting my soa again after burying head in sand for months!

thepinkladez_2

Thnak you everyone for your continuing suggestions everything is very helpful.
Hi dancingfairy i just wanted to comment on some of your points:

dancingfairy wrote: »

Here's my twopenth worth:
husbands wage £1700 4 weekly £1841.66 monthly
my wage £300
child benefit £78.00
child tax credit £43.00
Total = £2262.66

Outgoings
mortgage £718.00
water £50.00
gas & elec £87.00 have you switched ever? No but i will have a look at this tomorrow.
tv lic £12.00
concil tax £99.00 - is this over 12 months? if not spread to 12 months. yes over 12 months already.
buildings & contents £13.00
life ins £12.00
car insurance (for 2 cars) £27.50 a month
road tax (for 2 cars) £25.00 a month
sky £19.00 - it's gotta go will cancel sky tomorrow or see if we can have freeviewill
childcare £150.00 - is this childcare vouchers? you should be able to get some from your work which makes childcare cheaper- it comes out of your wages before tax. i dont think either mine or my husbands work do these vouchers?neither have offered these, then maybe they dont i will investigate!
food toiletries etc £280.00 - have a look see if you can cut this down at all - see MOney Saving Old Style board. We generally spend £50 to £60 a week for three of us and cat. goes up to nearer £70 maybe once a month when i get nappies, catfood, washing powder etc as i buy the big ones (thought these worked out cheaper).
clothing and footwear £43.00 - do you really spend this much a month? NO,NO,NO on second thoughts i dont really spend this a month! I have looked at this and would probably only spend on a bad month!ie shoes etc for my daughter. BUT THIS IS THE FIGURE CCCS GAVE ME ORIGINALLY TO PUT IN MY BUDGET??
child activities £30
mobile/home phone £100 you could split this down for us -how much for each mobile, how much for landline rental, how much for landline calles etc. will pull this all out, as i cant believe we waste soo much money here!
fuel and parking £90
Vehicle spares and servicing £10
Hairdressing £3
Sports, hobbies and entertainment £20 Sundries/emergencies £15
Total =£1784.50
according to my adding up without sky.

You have some options here you can:
a) ask for a repayment holiday on your mortgage and repay some of you debts- you must,must use this to pay your debts off and also cut down where we have suggested as well. This is only for a few months at most.
or
b) go on a DMP/IVA - I would phone CCCS and see what they suggest as you obviously can't go on like you are.

I think you need a spending diary as well to identify exactly where the money is going. Good Luck

thepinkladez_2

masterkay wrote: »

Why are you giving us guidelines on the net? We need to know what you are actually spending as do you to get an accurate view of your finances and how you got here and by how much is it getting worse each month. Then we take it apart and suggest a revised SOA to reduce costs. There's no point to you quoting figures from the net that you think you spend.

Consider a spending diary to get an accurate view of what you are really spending rather than guessing.

Hi sorry about that. I do understand what you are saying completly but when i spoke to cccs the first time round last year they told me i should put these figures in my budget when i had originally put them as 0? but i figure that keeping a spending diary would give me a much more accurate idea rather than a national statistic!!

thepinkladez_2

Thank you for you help added some comments below:

albertross wrote: »

Is your £300 wage monthly, if so, what is

£300
- 150 childcare
- cost of running second car £186 (petrol £60/parking £30/servicing £20/tax 13/insurance 13/depreciation £50)
- £10 additional work costs, clothing, lunch etc.
- £80 (cars value thrown at the high apr debts, storecards etc)?

= -£126 (there are guestimates in there, but it gives you an idea)

Are there any jobs nearer home? No there is no jobs nearer as this is the nearest big town. My husband wouldn't be able to get a job closer to home either as there are no jobs locally in that area. so we have to have the cars i can see no way round it as public transport is non existant.

You need to list the apr's, otherwise you don't know where the waste is. Will find all the apr's (didn't think of that!)

1700 for the car would clear

next 30
capital one 10
barclaycard 5
ge capital 10
egg card2 20
300 off od, or another high apr debt, say £5

that's £80/month saved in one go.

PS Don't save if you have debts accruing interest, it just throws money down the drain. Pay off the high apr debt with it, and use the CC/OD only when you need to do the spending. Stop using any form of storecard, the apr's are evil.

A foreign holiday isn't going to make the situation any better,will not going on a holiday anytime soon unless someone else is paying! if your previous 32k debt estimate in October was correct, then your non mortgage debts have gone up by £6750 to £38750 in 4 months, something has to give if you want to sort this out Please don't go on original post as i really don't think it was very accurate, i was still in denial ( very very stupid, i know).

thepinkladez_2

affordmylife wrote: »

albertross - i was thinking the same thing.

i you are only earning £300 per month and paying out £150 in childcare plus traveling expenses etc it really is not worth you bothering.

you energies would be better used working out cheaper ways to cook and provide entertainment for your family from home.

if your work is something that you are hoping to increase the hours/money soon then obviously you should hang in there.

I understand what you are saying but the plan is that now that our daughter is at nursery 3 sessions i can up my hours and once she is full time (hopefully at the local state nursery (as its free!) come september) i will be able to do even more hours.also as its retail i am thinking in the long run things will work out better if i do eventualy have another child as i can almost work hours that suit me ie: if better financially maybe just a few hours to get me out the house!

thepinkladez_2

bountiful wrote: »

Hang on in there and keep at it until you get your SOA right! Comments all useful. There is an easy on-line spending diary at www.spendingdiary.com. I keep a notebook in my bag and my receipts and jot stuff down as I spend, then enter it into spendingdiary.com and it works out totals and stuff - works for me.
Well done for starting again with this!

thank you for your support will def look at the spending diary. think its something that can seriously help, as i have basically used what cccs said to put in some areas, and to be honest i actually think they are less but i could be complently wrong ( i'm not very good with money am i!;) )

thepinkladez_2

hi all just wanted to add a little update feel if i keep writing i will not back out of this again and go into hiding! contacted my mortgage company today as had been suggested to see if we could take a mortgage holiday. Unfortunately this is not a option on our mortgage at the moment i think its because we got a fixed package type deal when we got it 2 years ago.
I also enquired into changing to paying interest only or a little while (as we have always paid repayment with our mortgages) the girl said she would send a letter with all the details of payments and inpact etc in the post. Not sure really if this will be a good idea, have no idea how much cheaper our actual payments would be and whether its a good option i will wait to get the letter then talk to cccs about this option. In the mean time anyone ever done this?is this a good/bad idea??all thoughts much appreciated.

CCCS_Alan

Hi Thepinkladez

Some good ideas of how to improve your spending have been suggested for you so hopefully this will start the ball rolling.

You mentioned your overdraft you use each month. I would suggest moving your money away from your creditor and opening a new Basic bank account. Use the following link Basic Bank Accounts, and in the Basic bank accounts section click on publications it will provide you with a list of accounts and what benefits the account offers. This means you can control payments to your creditors either by a SO or using payment slips, don’t provide creditors with your new bank details for DD as they could always change the amount you pay.
Be sure that the account has no connection to any of your existing creditors though.

With changing to interest only you would be able to free up some more money to help clear your debts, but you would not be paying any more off on your house. If you don’t have a lot of equity in the property could you sell and reduce your housing costs by renting to free up some more money. Even move to location more central to work to reduce costs overall.
If you have equity in the property selling and offering Full and Final payments to your creditors could be another option open to you.

You mentioned coming back for a review with CCCS. If you had a appointment or contact with us in the last 6 months we can use your original budget to conduct the review on. If we have not had any contact for 6 months we would have to take your information down again with a full first appointment. If this is the case you might want to try our online advice facility called Debt Remedy where you can complete a financial statement and be provided with advice on the best way to deal with your situation.

Good luck and keep us informed on how things are going

CCCS_Alan

thepinkladez_2

thank you alan for your advice.

i plucked up the courage to call cccs this morning and i am soo glad i did. I didn't enjoy my last encouter with cccs, but i this was purely down to the individual i spoke to, looking back i should have simply called back and asked to speak to someone else!todays experience was fantastic i didn't feel judged or stupid i was given plenty of advice and a plan to move forward (so anyone out there that hasn't called these guys as they feel afraid then don't they are really helpful, and very friendly!)
cccs have suggested two routes really:
1. to sell our property -we are considering this, but are not sure if its the best option.Its the quickest solution to clear debt but we will end up back at square one and im not sure if i can 100% say that we would save the additional money we would then have each month for a deposit to buy again, or slip up again. Obviously we need to deal with our silly spending habbits first before being ble to have that debt free freedom again!i hope that makes sense!
2. dmp- this will take a long time (7 years) to repay but would be the safest option?we woud still have our home that hopefully will still be rising in price!

we also discussed a iva although cccs said this is a cheaper and qicker option than a dmp , i am very scared about the risk of being made bankrupt if something goes wrong. Im not sure how likey something going wrong would be?the cccs did think a dmp would be the most suitable option but has suggested i think about everything and read through the info pack first .

I sound a little bit mad here, but i really do feel very happy that i have took this step today!:j

bountiful

WELL DONE !

thepinkladez_2

bountiful wrote: »

WELL DONE !

thank you!! just gotta sit down and work out the options!will report back tomorrow (got to keep writing on here so i dont bury my head again!):rotfl: