Advice for clearing relatively small debt!

TheBlueSaint

First of all hello, excellent forum and hopefully will help me in my quest to become debt free.

Now my debt is not a lot, but it's growing...for the moment I'm using approximate figures as I don't have all my paper work to hand.

I have an overdraft of £1150 and two credit card accounts that I've let slip into the hands of debt collectors.

Combine all 3 of my debts and I'm talking about £3500

The debt collectors have both written to me and they want the money up front, which I'm hoping they know realistically there is no chance of that happening.

That's why I'm on here, what's the first step? I want to start paying this off, but can't afford to pay huge amounts each month as I still have to live.

I've downloaded the budget spreadsheet but finding it hard to get accurate values for what I've spent in the past.

New job on Monday, new start and here's to a debt free me! :beer:

Karmacat

Welcome to mse!

Its understandable that its hard to be accurate - don't worry about it! The point is to get started on a budget, you can refine it as you take more notice of what you're spending, and you will, believe me, in your journey to be debt free! Do what you can on the budget, or post it on this thread you've just started - it can be updated then whenever you're logged in, just click on the "Edit" button at bottom right of your post. This *is* the first step, a budget - it can show you (and us!) where you've got the slack to cut down - people do an soa (Statement of Affairs, much the same thing, outlined in the sticky at the top of this board) and don't realise they're still getting a sky package they don't use, for instance, or simply don't realise that there's a cheaper way of carrying on what they're doing, and need to continue to do. So keep going on the budget/soa, and post the results up on here.

You're doing really well to tackle it at this stage before it gets really out of hand. Of course, if it is still going up, its cos you're living beyond your means, and long term that doesn't hold water. People on here will help as much as they can.

Good luck, and keep posting!

skintas_2

join loyalty schemes, see if you can get a better deal on any insurance policies, tart your credit cards......... change gas/electric suppilers... find small thing to put on ebay or amazon. try and pay of the debt with the highest interst first good luck

TheBlueSaint

Thanks for the speedy reply guys!

I'm going to sit down this evening and try and do as detailed a budget as possible.

Skintas, thanks but most of that stuff doesn't apply to me yet as I'm still living at home...which has it's advantages if I want this debt cleared asap! :j

taxi73

Hi and welcome..thats the hardest step done..coming here!!...look forward to seeing your SOA and hopefully we can all help you

TheBlueSaint

Does anyone have a link for a SOA? I can only see the budge excel spreadsheet?

TheBlueSaint

I get my first wage on 31st of this month and will look to put some of it towards my debt, although it's difficult when I've not been working for so long as I need some new stuff etc...I'll need to manage!

Having a bit of trouble here...the reason I've got into debt is I'm quite unorganised and tend not to read contracts. For this reason I don't know the APR etc... of my debts and I'm certain the CAB will want to know this before they can give me any useful advice?

As my credit rating was already poor, I'm certain it would have been the basic high apr cards that I'm on and they are with CapitalOne and Barclaycard, can anyone tell me if they regularly change their APRs or if I can get these from their websites? My overdraft of just under £1400 is with Abbey and it's a standard current account...again I'm not sure but that should be easier to find out.

My employer offer a season ticket loan for my transport, I'm going to take them up on it, £560 for a years travel by train, bus or underground and it comes out of my salary in 10 monthly interest free payments...can't complain.

Finally, got a new account with just a cash card from RBS, should prevent me going overdrawn and incurring charges as I will not be purchasing anything from the net anymore...well not with my card anyway.

poorandindenial

Here is a thingy to help you put together your SOA, then you can paste from there to here.

Click Here

If you call your creditors they will be able to tell you the APRs. APRs tend to creep northwards.

I do the season ticket loan scheme at my work and it saves my end of the month 'can I afford to get to work' panic (as well as saving me money)

TheBlueSaint

poorandindenial wrote: »

Here is a thingy to help you put together your SOA, then you can paste from there to here.

Click Here

If you call your creditors they will be able to tell you the APRs. APRs tend to creep northwards.

I do the season ticket loan scheme at my work and it saves my end of the month 'can I afford to get to work' panic (as well as saving me money)

Thanks for that, I've had the ST loan from a previous employer and found the biggest benefit is I no longer lifted a tenner for the bus and had change in my pocket all day gagging to be spent.

TheBlueSaint

Here's my SOA before I've got all my APRs.

Monthly income: £920
Other income: £20

Total: £940

Average Monthly Spending

Rent: £100
Mobile: £20
Drinking/Socialising: £150
Clothing: £150
Haircuts: £20
Travel: £50

April Specific Spending:

Birthday Presents: £65
Money owed to brother: £80
Money owed to friends: £185

These amounts are just off the top of my head, I plan to record my spending to the nearest penny over the next month to get a more accurate outlook.

Average Month: + £450
April Specific: + £120

Hope that all makes some sort of sense...basically as this is my first pay things are tighter than they will be as I'm paying back personal friends and family.

Can anyone guide me to the online money tracker thing?

poorandindenial

Hello

I have put in some comments in red

TheBlueSaint wrote: »

Here's my SOA before I've got all my APRs.

Monthly income: £920
Other income: £20

Total: £940

Average Monthly Spending

Rent: £100 (does this include all bills or do you need to add these seperately)
Mobile: £20 (is this contract or PAYG; if contract how much do you actually use it - might save a small amount by going PAYG)
Drinking/Socialising: £150 (you can trim this?? I now have to avoid rounds and go it solo at the bar - amazing how much you save and you get oer the embarassment pretty quickly)
Clothing: £150 (got to go, need to budget something for it but you don't need £150 per month - trust me I used to spend £400-500 a month on this and now spend almost nothing - downgrade your brands when you buy things that you NEED)
Haircuts: £20
Travel: £50 (is this the travel that will be sorted by travelcard loan??)

April Specific Spending:

Birthday Presents: £65 (how many birthdays and who for)
Money owed to brother: £80
Money owed to friends: £185

These amounts are just off the top of my head, I plan to record my spending to the nearest penny over the next month to get a more accurate outlook.

Are these the amounts thatyou spend and don't know what you spend on??
Average Month: + £450
April Specific: + £120

Hope that all makes some sort of sense...basically as this is my first pay things are tighter than they will be as I'm paying back personal friends and family.

Can anyone guide me to the online money tracker thing?

I will look out the spending diary and post a link in a few seconds.

I think you can easily shave a fair bit off of here and not really notice the difference. Do you have any food costs at all (including lunch at work etc), toiletries, other odd things that crop up.