asked a thousand times I am sure - I am a newbie and in the ***t

4littleone

Hi,

just looking at your SOA....

Is the £300 per month car tax actually £30? In which case you have less outgoings each month than you thought.

Also, you have a caravan. Is it worth more than the loan, ie could you sell it? If not, is it something you could get an income from by renting it out?

Do you e-bay things at the moment? You could have a look at what you have around the house and ebay like mad to get some extra income there.

Also, i'd try www.whatsthecost.co.uk

It has a snowball calculataor on there, enter all your debts and their aprs and what you have available each month to pay, it then gives you a debt free date. It helps you focus on which debts could be paid off first and it's nice to see the debt free date decreasing as well.

depressed_of_lincolnshire

300 per month for car tax, I couldnt possibly let the Ferrari, Aston, Range Rover or Prius go......

No it should have been £30.

My income isnt fixed either, If I had six good months I could dig out quickly.

4littleone

:rotfl: at the ferrari etc!

What about the caravan then?

SWMBO

if you don't mind me asking. what do you do?

4littleone

Is that to me or depressedof lincolnshire?

SWMBO

sorry, ..meant to refer to :

" My income isnt fixed either, If I had six good months I could dig out quickly." by depressedof lincolnshire...

depressed_of_lincolnshire

I dont really want to answer that due to the fact that so much information has been given out I think that may give my identity out to someone who may know me.

The caravan. We use it when we can. It isnt expensive a weekend might cost £80 inc petrol and everything. Our summer hols a maximum of £500-£600. If I sold the caravan it would mean no entertainment. I really want to keep it. I know its £220 a month I cant afford but surely you must be able to trade something off.

The new business we have started could be our saviour and I havent included that in the SOA because that would be guesswork. I will say though that 7k of the debt in the SOA is costs of setting that up and I suppose if it didnt work we realistically would get 5k back. Thats the not the way I want to think though. One thing is for sure if it does carry on and go well I am not touching the spoils. Paying off debts is the first priority!

Also I would like to thank everyone for their kind supportive comments so far. It has been a release to let it out and look at it on paper and reading other peoples debts you realise that you are not alone and in some cases I could be classed as an amateur. This is it now. Time to grow up and take the reins and give it back to the blood sucking leeches that have feasted so long on my finances. (Conjures up a picture Rambo clipping on numerous weapons) No more bl**dy credit cards (made by the devil!)

Ok here's the science questions:

To become a CC Tart surely they are not going to let you take a new card out if they know you are already in debt? Do you bend the truth on application? I have done it once but never changed again after the period lapsed (Lazy) and yes I did destroy the card when I received it.

Mortgage: I have been with the same lender for 20 years (Albeit they have changed hands numerous times) I realise I have been a fool. But again if I am in debt and my outgoings are so high they are not going to lend me so am I not stuck?

Ladies and gentlemen I feel cleansed no give it to me straight.....

Treading_Water

Hi there
Can you bear to sell the caravan?
A few years ago after lots of deliberation we sold our caravan. We took into account the fact that we were only using it once or twice a year, alongside storage costs, annual repairs and depreciation, and the costs of running a vehicle big enough to tow it and decided that we could still have a good holiday every year and still be in pocket!
(We then bought a tent, which I know isn't everybodys cup of tea, although it is a large luxury one - bought 2nd hand from ebay.)
You could sell it for a year or 2, and buy another when things are looking better.

Treading_Water

We stayed with the same mortgage lender for years - although several times I went and spoke to them about remortgaging to take advantage of better rates and to consolidate. They always tried to sell us more loans, so eventually we remortaged with a 2 year fixed rate deal. Therefore we were able to consolidate all the little loans we had been sold and be better off in rates and repayments. I wouldn't think twice now about remortgaging at the end of the 2 year peiod.
As for credit cards, there are always companies that will transfer your existing cards with a 0% period in the hope that when you get to the end of the period you will just stay with them so they get there money back (exactly what you have done with your current credit card). Also if you have a couple of cards running you can play one off against the other and I regularly find that if I transfer from one to another I very quickly get offers on the zero balance card if I want to transfer back. You have to play them at there own game. As Martin often says - they are in business to make money from you, whatever (legal) way they can.

Robflh

Hi depressed of lincolnshire

A second endowment to cover the short fall of the first endowment will, most provably, still leave you with a short fall.

A better option may have been to surrender/sell the original endowment and use that money to pay a lump sum off the mortgage. The reaming amount would then be taken care of with a normal repayment mortgage over the remaining number of years that the original mortgage was for.

Example: A £54,000 endowment mortgage. The surrender value for the endowment is £14,000 and the 25-year mortgage has been running for 10 years. 54K minus 12K leaves 42K therefore the new repayment mortgage will be for 42K over 15 years.

There is an alternative to this. A new 25-year repayment mortgage for 54K will leave 12K that can be used to pay off the debts. This can be varied, 5k for debts and 7k off the mortgage. You could even end up paying less then you are now.

NOTE: this will cost you a lot because of all the extra interest you will be paying.

However, even now with only four years left on the mortgage, this or a variation of it maybe all you need to do. Once the business takes off, money will not be the problem it is at the moment.

You need to see a financial advisor for this and you can do that through your nearest CAB. They would need to know what the surrender value would be for both of the endowments (the value of them can be included in your assets) and a current forecast for how much they will be worth when they mature.

Talk to a few companies and find out how much you would get for the endowments if you sold them. Most of them have an online form that you can fill out and they will then get back to you. That normally appends within a couple of weeks but do not wait that long to see a financial advisor.

In the mean time, can you expand the loans and credit cards?

For loans, how much was the original debt, what are the payments, how many more payments and what is the APR.

For credit cards, what is the credit limit, monthly payment, and the APR.

On your SOA you have internet services, Sat/Cable and landline. To get the best price, all of these should be with one provider. That may also include the mobile phone/s.

Gas and Electric should also be with one provider and check to make sure the one you have is the cheapest.