Joint account overdraft

Frankie_B_2

Hello there

I am very new here and I was hoping for some good advice - there seems to be plenty going around!

My partner and I have got individual loans which we are paying off each month without fail. We both accrued different levels of debt for different reasons (health problems, break up of previous relationship) but we are working towards becoming debt free.

The only account that is not improving is our joint one. We have a current account where all our bills are paid from. It has an o/d limit of £2,750 and at the moment a balance of -£2,261. We pay £400 into it every month and our outgoings from it are as follows:

monthly
rent 307
council tax 71
telewest (phone/basic cable/broadband) 65
tv license 11
powergen (electricity/gas) 38
overdraft charges 20 (approx)
total 512 plus food, entertainment and petrol


annually
card protection plan 20
Which magazine 75
car insurance 340
car tax 165
home insurance 130
total 730

We don't know how this account will ever improve as at the moment, neither of us can pay much more into it. Would it be a good idea to take a loan out to pay this overdraft off or would you be able to suggest another way? Anything would be very much appreciated!

Things become so much more complicated when they are joint, don't they?

Many thanks for any replies

mountainofdebt

I think you have answered the question yourself.

If you pay £400 (I'm assuming that this figure is total and not each) and spending at least £512+ from it then it's not going to improve is it? Even if you each pay £400 into the account, then by your figures you've only got £227 to pay for food etc before you start getting into a worse situation than just standing still.

Hubby had an overdraft and in order to clear that we were paying in a £100 per month plus what ever the interest charges were for that particular month. Whilst we were being to clear the debt, we were still paying the overdraft at something like 16%. So we got ourselves a texacocard and transferred his overdraft onto that so whilst we are still paying the £100 plus the interest charges, the debt is only attracting interest at 3.9%.

I (personally) don't think that you will be able to clear this debt without looking at your finances jointly and looking at your spending both from the joint account and your individual accounts.

skintchick

I agree. I think you need to post ALL debts and outgoings, plus your wages, so we can see how you could juggle things

Frankie_B_2

Thanks for your replies.

We each pay £400 into the joint account, sorry I didn't make that clear. We only use that account for the things I listed plus food and entertainment which consists of one evening out a week to either a pizza place or to the cinema.

We both make odd payments of £100 - £150 into the account but not every month. We did discuss raising the monthly amount we pay in to the account to £500 each but I already pay £1100 of my £1800 income in loans and I can't see how to squeeze another £100 out.

Since I 'saw the light' and started recording everything I spend and started making progress with paying my debts of, we have both been very frugal with our spending as we do want to get rid of the debts and buy a house etc

I know we are not in a good position