I have not paid my credit cards since November

Marru

HI,

I am so glad to hear that things are getting better. You might be able to do some one to one tutoring or create a study group or educaional play group or provide wrap around care with added bonus of home work support. Just a thought.

Do keep up the good work on getting the finances back on track. There are some great challenges on these forums that might help you with budgeting to spend less or to up income or pay debt off, I have made a post with a list of challenges. I have found these really inspiring and the people in these threads are fantastic.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=8948747#post8948747

All the best,

Marru

Raquela

Hi there, I just wanted to suggest a possible job that you might not have thought of - do you live near a University or college? My university always needs people to shelve books, and quite actively look for people to work during school time, and are happy for people to work term time only. I do it as it fits in wtih my uni work, and it pays ok (over £6 an hour). I'm sure other universities want this as well - my job wasn't actually advertised; I applied for a proper library job (which you could also look into - just check out the 'vacancies' page for the university website. some of these may be term-time friendly hours), but couldn't work any of the hours, so they just offered me the shelving work.

RE your house. This is very basic, and may not be entirely correct (as I said, I'm still a student!), but the ownership in your house is basically split between the legal ownership, and the beneficial ownership. Now, at the moment, your partner has sole legal ownership. If there is nothign to indicate that the beneficial ownership is to be for both of you, it will be assumed that he has the beneficial ownership too. Therefore, it would be very wise to draw up a document between the two of you which states that although he enjoys the legal ownership, the intention between the two of you is that he owns the house for both of you and intends you to have a share of the house. In this kind of instance it is generally presumed that ownership will be shared equally; if he doesn't want this, then you should agree between the two of you exactly what the share should be.

I would definitely recommend getting him to sort out a DIY will sooner rather than later, and to provide for what is to happen to the house in the event of his death (morbid I know, but it's very definitely best sorted out so that if the worst does happen you don't have to worry).

If you want safe legal protection, you can arrange for an entry on the title register for your house to show that you have an interest in the house; for this you would need to consult a lawyer, or maybe the CAB can help. This would then bind any future purchasers, just in case everything went sour and your partner tried to sell the house.

I hope that's some help! The CAB can probably advise more clearly; it's a while since I did land law!

rainbowbrite_2

albertross wrote: »

The Life assurance policies are costing you about £900-£1000/pa if you take into account the fact you are borrowing at 25-27% (+ late payment charges) to fund them. Are they necessary?

The majority of those are for the kids,2 x £25 a month,they are long term investment policies which have a life insured value also.I have been paying them since each of the kids were born so dont want to cash them in early.
The HSA is usefull and pays for itself a few times over because I need to see a chiropractor bi-monthly and get half the costs of that back as well as a % of optical and dental costs.
My american life insurance one I could stop but I would get nothing back,whereas if I can keep paying it for just another 4 years and dont make a claim I get back all of my payments in a lump sum.My reasoning is that it gives me extra peace of mind and if I dont use it them it will end up costing me nothing.
The only actual straightforward life insurance we have are 2 little policies with M&S at £6 each a month.They will just cover our debts and pay off the mortgage if the worst should happen to either one of us.
So yes,I could save money there but its not really something I would be comfortable cutting back on.

rainbowbrite_2

My partner is talking to MBNA trying to get a longer term on the 0% deal and will move my debt onto that within days.It will give us some time at least to get things sorted,increase income and hopefully reduce our outgoings so that we will pay off some additional debt too.Fingers crossed.

rainbowbrite_2

rainbowbrite wrote: »

Thanks for taking the time to read all this and for replying dawnybabes.
I am glad we talked too.We actually very quickly ended up shouting at each other,it all got a bit silly with us blaming each other for the mess ,quizing each other on what they did with their money, but we calmed down and went through it all on paper.
He brought up money I asked him for or borrowed off him for this that and the other,I still owe him £450.So I said if he wanted to play it like that I would add up all the birthdays and xmases,kids clothes and groceries I had paid for on my own over the years and bill him for half.He decided to forget the outstanding £450(I have been paying him back bit by bit,£100 last month and £50 this month already)even though I dont think I should have too as everything I borrowed off him was for what I consider joint stuff like birthdays and vet bills etc.I think he is beginning to see the problem as ours rather than mine though.

Quoting myself:o
He just asked me for £50 towards what I owe him?I thought we were getting somewhere but maybe not.
He also asked me for my CC totals and he is willing to do a bt for the lot at 0%,only thing is he wants me to set up a monthly payment to him of £250 to cover the payments on the £10,000 at 0% until its cleared and will revise my repayments to him if he cant get another 0% deal after the term ends.My H2B is beginning to sound like my bank manager:eek:
£250 a month isn,t much less than I pay now.I dont know how I will manage it.

Marru

Hi,

Have sent you a pm.

Marru

rainbowbrite_2

An absolute nightmare!!!I am totally at my wits end and dont know what to do next.He did the BT,s but they are not at the rate he or I was expecting.He has 4.9% for 6 months and there are fees of over £400.The minimum monthly repayment is even higher than my 2 cc bills that were combined.
I have accused him of being extremely stupid and am so angry that he has made this big mistake.I cannot afford to give him the money for this.Rather than make things easier he has made them worse and now I have to find £420 this month,I am not sure exactly how the fees are payable.What a nightmare!!!

In_Search_Of_Me

As others have said I do think you should ring cccs. Lots of people have formal DMP's and its worth looking into. Meanwhile can the BT's be cancelled? What happened to jointly tackling debt?

rainbowbrite_2

He wont discuss debt management at all.This balance transfer deal was his solution to our debt crisis.It was supposed to make things better,take the interest to 0% and reduce the payments slightly.It has had the opposite effect.Okay the interest rate is much lower but I cannot manage the increased repayments.
All the debt is now in his name so I cannot go to cccs.I am stuck now as he doesnt like moving debt around and it took lots of conversations,or nagging,to get him to agree to move my £10,00 to one of his 0% deals.Now that its all messed up and not at 0% he has managed to make a bad situation worse and I am lost as to what to do now.
I would prefer the BTs to be cancelled if thats possible.Does anyone know if credit card companies do that?

RAS

Do not know about that, but can you get it through his head that it is possible to go and get advice about how to handle your debts from one of the debt charities, which does not force you to take out a debt managment plan or any such with them, just to get information and advice?