feel like i cant get out of this hole im in

Butterfliesarepretty

hungryanteater wrote: »

thanks newmoneysaver......situation is as follows:

mortgage - £566.00 per month INTEREST ONLY (var rate at mo due to Northern Rock advising me to look elsewhere for deals - looks like im gonna have to go back to them)

Gas/Elec - paying back old bills at £100 per month - should be up to date by Xmas - switch to scottish power and create your bill online.

payplan - £100 per month (incl. all old cred card/student loan debt)

council tax - £70 per month PLUS £100 old debt p/mth between now and October - do you live alone? check you have 25% discount

mobile phone - £30 per month just signed new deal for this. cant go anywhere else due to bad credit and provider wont quote me any lower. Only use your mobile for short calls or texts, switch to o2 pay as you go and get 10% back on your £10 or more topups a month.

water - £11.19 per month starting April

Bank Account Charge - £12 per month not looked into cancelling this as i have overdraft with bank at moment, not sure if they can do it. know i should but not done as yet change banks if necessary

home phone + basic cable package - £10 per month owe £38 in back debt to be repaid instantly Get rid of cable or satellite you do notreally need it. Use freeview instead and just pay your tv licence.

broadband - £25 per month owe £50 in back debt to be paid ASAP If you have o2 pay as you go mobile your broadband with them will be £12.50 or £7.50 depending on how often you top up your phone. I have just joined o2 and the internet is available all the time, never goes down.

food shopping - £80-100 per month

food at work - £15 per month generally come home for lunch to save money but cant get away all the time. Take your lunch to work from home. Sandwiches salads etc

smokes - £35 per month dont smoke as much as i used to, but cant quit just yet....too stressed Give up and get help with nhs. Smoking stresses your body out more due to the toxins it has to cope with.

prescriptions - £7 per month. What are these for?

drinks - £20 per month a bottle of wine a week. Get a cheaper bottle of wine, or drink herbal wine.

Salary takehome is £1220 per calendar month

been reviewing my statements and i am quite rubbish with my money but always seem to have something crop up on a monthly basis, dentist, additional prescriptions, travel through work that any surplus is eaten up and then some.

help would be hugely appreciated thanks!!

I have a spare free sim card from o2 if you want it. Its all wrapped up, it was the offer o2 had on sending you four free sim cards. I have been with o2 for more than 2 years and get loads of free texts each month. Pm me if you would like it.

Karmacat

hungryanteater wrote: »

mortgage - £566.00 per month INTEREST ONLY (var rate at mo due to Northern Rock advising me to look elsewhere for deals - looks like im gonna have to go back to them)

Gas/Elec - paying back old bills at £100 per month - should be up to date by Xmas

payplan - £100 per month (incl. all old cred card/student loan debt)

council tax - £70 per month PLUS £100 old debt p/mth between now and October

Okay, at least this one is due to finish this year. Not long now, that will give you a bit of leeway.

mobile phone - £30 per month just signed new deal for this. cant go anywhere else due to bad credit and provider wont quote me any lower.

Ouch, ouch, ouch, what a shame this was before your lightbulb moment! How long till you can cancel?

water - £11.19 per month starting April

Well done you,thats pretty good!

Bank Account Charge - £12 per month not looked into cancelling this as i have overdraft with bank at moment, not sure if they can do it. know i should but not done as yet

Well, you're right, this is the easiest £12 to save. You *have* to do this!

home phone + basic cable package - £10 per month owe £38 in back debt to be repaid instantly

broadband - £25 per month owe £50 in back debt to be paid ASAP

Thats an expensive broadband package - can you get it cheaper with your cable/phone provider?

food shopping - £80-100 per month

Again, not bad, actually; since you're already doing fairly well there, there might be more savings you can make. Hop over to the Moneysaving Old Style board, on here, to check out the possibilities.

food at work - £15 per month generally come home for lunch to save money but cant get away all the tim

Ah. If you're counting this separately, your food bill goes up quite a lot. You need to be organised enough to either get home every day, or take food with you that you've prepared at home.

smokes - £35 per month dont smoke as much as i used to, but cant quit just yet....too stressed

We do understand! But it is a lot of money.... can you switch to rollups? Do you chain smoke? There's a thread on here about giving up... check it out, they *will* understand, they're smokers too!

prescriptions - £7 per month

Sorry to hear you're in such constant need of a prescription. Is this the cheapest way of getting them, can't you bulk buy prescriptions?

drinks - £20 per month a bottle of wine a week

A cheaper bottle of wine is indicated!

Salary takehome is £1220 per calendar month

been reviewing my statements and i am quite rubbish with my money but always seem to have something crop up on a monthly basis, dentist, additional prescriptions, travel through work that any surplus is eaten up and then some.

help would be hugely appreciated thanks!!

Okay, you don't have that much leeway, and as you say, there's other stuff as well - haircuts, etc. Here are some things to think about:
- a lodger. I know you say your house is tiny, but for six months, it could be do-able. And even if you charge a bit below the going rate to get someone in quick, it could get you some handy tax free cash.
- a second job, e.g. in a bar - good atmosphere, you're not the one spending money.
- sell stuff on ebay or amazon.
- overtime at work.
- basically, check out the Boost Your Income board, on this site, to see what else you could do to raise some extra dosh. Its possible, it really is.

Karmacat

Just seen your post on reclaiming bank charges - absolutely, go for it, its just a question of getting the information and using the template letters that Martin has available on the main site.

hungryanteater

hungryanteater wrote: »

thanks newmoneysaver......situation is as follows:

mortgage - £566.00 per month INTEREST ONLY (var rate at mo due to Northern Rock advising me to look elsewhere for deals - looks like im gonna have to go back to them)

Gas/Elec - paying back old bills at £100 per month - should be up to date by Xmas
cant move supplier until the debt is cleared. as far as i know, all utiltiy companies are like this.

payplan - £100 per month (incl. all old cred card/student loan debt)

council tax - £70 per month PLUS £100 old debt p/mth between now and October
get my 25% and yes, it is 70p/m and 100 p/m each month til Oct.

mobile phone - £30 per month just signed new deal for this. cant go anywhere else due to bad credit and provider wont quote me any lower.
have to wait for at least 12 months now before i can cancel, but i use my mobile for ALL my calls - free mins etc so what i really need to do is reduce mthly payments.....

water - £11.19 per month starting April
small house, small bill

Bank Account Charge - £12 per month not looked into cancelling this as i have overdraft with bank at moment, not sure if they can do it. know i should but not done as yet
will look into this, but know i will get a hard time off my bank.

home phone + basic cable package - £10 per month owe £38 in back debt to be repaid instantly
only have a home phone so my friends in Oz can call me (mega exp. to call a mob from there) - dont watch tv really and the 10 is for the phone, i negotiated with virgin media when they dropped sky one. tend to watch internet tv instead

broadband - £25 per month owe £50 in back debt to be paid ASAP
see internet tv above, but also work from home (unpaid unfortunatley) so need stabel connection. is also with Virgin. have paid this amount since 2004 and seen speeds steadily increase, not spoken to them about other deals. now on my TO DO list

food shopping - £80-100 per month
try to keep this at the bottom end where possible ut dont drive so am limited to my local supermarket - sainsbury and we all know they are not cheap

food at work - £15 per month generally come home for lunch to save money but cant get away all the time
i do sometimes take sarnies in , but also im a bit rubbish and forget a lot

smokes - £35 per month dont smoke as much as i used to, but cant quit just yet....too stressed
that is roll ups and cheap tobacco. cant squeeze this much further without quitting

prescriptions - £7 per month
its 1 prescription once a month - will the prepay work on this basis?

drinks - £20 per month a bottle of wine a week

tv licence - £12 per month (ish)

Salary takehome is £1220 per calendar month

used to have a l;odger when i first bought but he's gone now. i know its a good idea, but due to the size of the house, it needs to be someone i know (that and i get anxiety quite bad, so friends only and they all settled at th emo)
dont get paid overtime and despite my best efforts, my boss is what you would call stingy and tight and doesnt like giving pay rises. i am still trying, trust me.
second job would be taxed at 25% but if i could find one CIH, that could work.
got nowt to sell on ebay, i exchange and trade (books, dvds, games) so i rarely pay full price anyway - good idea though
oh, and i spend £0 on home phone calls, it is purely there to recieve calls (mainly telesales ones, but thats by the by)

want to say thanks for all the good ideas so far, am building a list of things i need to do

ltm07

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

If I were in your situation I would seriously consider selling the house and downsizing. Do you have any equity? If so you could use it to pay off your debt and rent, or you could could get a smaller place and cut down your outgoings, using the equity as deposit.
It would be worth speaking to an independant financial adviser on the mortgage front as the high street lenders will just reject you, especially with a bad rating at the credit crunch at the moment.

Selling & downsizing not a bad idea,but selling to rent is worse than consolidating in my opinion.

Karmacat

Okay, good on you, hungryanteater, you're taking the suggestions on board. Sorry you have anxiety to this extent.... you've got some things to work through, and there are other, littler ways to make money - you'll see people refer to "doing a survey" - signing up for a survey site, and getting paid for a survey, literally. It isn't much, but come Christmas it could mean that you could give out, say, Amazon vouchers to someone, that sort of thing. Anyway, first things first, get your outgoings down. Oh, for ebay etc, sometimes people give things away on freecycle that they don't mind if you resell. Its a bit of a hot potato, but if someone offers on that basis, nowt wrong with taking it up, IMHO. See how you go with what you've got, anyway.

zubzubuk

Hi there,

First thing I would have to say is that if your girlfriend is in secure accomodation and you are facing difficulties it would be unwise (ok so totally crazy) for her to move in with you. If she gives it up she would struggle to get back on the waiting list.

I don't know where you live or what rents are like in your area but could you not move in with your girlfriend and rent out the two rooms seperately as a house share? It isn't hard to do and manage yourself. You can buy DIY letting kits from places like Amazon. I have used the LawPack one several times (currently £6.49 on Amazon) and they have all the forms everything you need from rooms to whole house. There is also a government information page here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/BuyingAndSellingYourHome/LettingYourHome/index.htm
which tells you everything you need to know and what you can offset against the income as allowable expenses so you may not need to pay tax on the income if you can balance it out or show a loss.

That page also has info about letting a room in your home. You would need to get a landlords certificate each year to show your boiler is this safe. Many years back I took out an accompanying central heating maintenance plan (allowable expense) with British gas which included the landlords certificate and was cost effective as tennant could go straight to them if problems.

Being cheeky like if your place has heating/insulation woes take in an eligible tennant and point them to the warmfront grant scheme to improve your property!


You say that you have a PayPlan arrangement (PayPlan is a free debt management service for those like myself who had to look it up!) but when I went through http://www.cccs.co.uk/ (similar free service) they recommended 6 monthly reviews. It was so easy, you ring and make a telephone appointment for set time/day when you have literally everything to hand and they do it all over the phone and send you out a budget and letters for all your creditors. it would certainly do no harm to have a review.

How are you paying your gas/electric? If you go duel fuel, monthly direct debit then they should recalculate so your existing debt is spread over the year. I also don't think they can stop you changing supplier if the new one wants you in which case your old debt would be a lower priority one and could be included in your debt payment plan.

If you are talking of moving in with your girlfriend then you could set yourself a challenge to sell off your unwanted double ups in the local paper to clear some of those debts.

It is a shame you rushed into your mobile phone deal as Virgin media have a great deal for existing customers of a £10 per month sim card (can use exiting virgin sim). You pay the £10 separate from your other bills by direct debit and get 300 minutes and 300 text with any unuseds being carried over for one month. If you have a sim they can set it up within half an hour.

Another tip to keep your Virgin Media bill down (saved me £10-£20 per month) is to store regularly used 0870/0845 etc. alternative numbers on your mobile so they are handy but dial them on your landline. You will be surprised how these non-free calls add up when you can get the alternative free (on Virgin media) geographical ones from http://www.saynoto0870.com/ (thank you Martin :money: )

I know you are despondent and think there is no way out at the moment but you are in good company here and being proactive in tackling the problem is a great start.

The only other thing I can think of which helped me was Martin's:money: advice about trying shops own brands, OK so the loo roll can be basic but you do get used to it! Try shopping online so you can budget better. It doesn't have to cost, I can't remember when I last paid for delivery as I use these sites each week to find a voucher code for Tesco:

http://www.pricedash.com/DiscountCodes.aspx?R=Tesco
http://www.hotukdeals.com/?mf=27
http://tescovouchercodes.blogspot.com/
http://www.shoppingcodes.co.uk/tesco_voucher_codes.asp

Depending how much you shop though it may pay to do fortnightly or monthly though. With 5 children I used to spend £180-£200 a week but with Martin's tips :money: got it down to £110-£120 (includes nappies, milk everything) pre-inflation this year - and now £130-£150.

Good luck and please let us know how you get on.

Z