Drowning Help!!!!!

anniecd1

I have MS and can no longer work and we had to move to a new house. It has turned out to be more expensive than I realised.
I am drowning in bills and struggling to make my monthly payments and the letters and phone calls demanding payment are stressing me out. I'm not sure what to do first.
Please help!

Cleosmum

Make sure you are getting all the help you are entitled to https://www.entitledto.com. Do you get housing benefit? Council tax benefit? Disability benefits? Income support/incapacity benefit?

Why not post a statement of affairs up and we can see if there are any areas in which you can save money?

Ephemera

First... make a list of all your living expenses, and work out if you can manage your day-to-day bills. Then look at your debts, sort out the really important ones (like mortgage, power, etc, secured loans) and then the not so important ones (unsecured loans, etc.)
Once you have it all on paper it does start to make more sense.
There are also lots of debt help people around - local churches may offer debt counselling and can help you budget and teach you how to deal with creditors. They will empower you and help you to get on top of it all if you are finding it difficult.
You could try posting an SOA (Statement of Affairs) on here and asking others to assess it for you...and Martin has lots of useful help for things such as budgeting.

Ephemera

http://http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan

Try those two first... and you're among friends here.

poorandindenial

Hi Annie

Well done for posting, sorry to hear you are going through a rough time.

The first thing you need to do is work out exactly what your situation looks like. To do this you could put together a statement of affairs using this tool http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html to make sure yo don't forget odd bits and pieces.

If you feel up to it you could post your SOA on here and people will be able to give advice about how to reduce the costs of things and also how to handle the debts you have, there are also whizzes that will be able to see if you are getting the benefits you are entitled to. It might be worth getting the support of an MS charity to go over and DLA etc forms you complete as they will know the best way to put things to make sure you get everything you are entitled to.

It is probably worth also putting your info from your SOA into the dbt remedy tool on the CCCS website to see what your options are, it will only give an indication, you can then have a telephone appointment with an advisor who can run through things with you. Here is a list of links to all the debt charities, not just CCCS, none of these people will charge you for their help.

Good luck with everything.

anniecd1

Thanks everyone.
I have done a SOA and it shows that I have enough funds for my debts but it never works out like that, so I am going to keep a diary so that i know exactly where my money is going. Good idea?
I have several accounts with Home Shopping Direct, who are not patient or helpful at all. I never signed an agreement with any of them, can they enforce the debts?

chez000

Is home shopping direct a catalogue?
How long have you been with them?, if its before April 2007 then it would not be covered by 2006 consumer credit act but by the 1974 CC act.

Therefore if you have never signed an agreement then the agreement is not enforcable except through court.

However if you took the catalogue out after april 2007 then, even if you didnt sign the agreement will be enforcable even if unsigned .

Not 100 % on what the newest CC act changed but think its to do with having acted in a way that implies a signed agreement e.g youve ordered things and have been making payments

Cleosmum

A spending diary is a great idea, you should be able to find out where its all going.