Hello, I'm new and need some advice :)

LEWKI

Thank you all for the advice.
YOU ARE FORTUNATE TO BE IN A GOOD FINANCIAL POSITION, IN COMPARISON TO SOME PEOPLE ON HERE - TAKE ALL THE SENSIBLE ADVICE AND YOU WILL BE SORTED IN NO TIME - BEST OF LUCK TO YOU BOTH!

babyharry, I agree, right now we are fortunate. We do have an excellent income and I am very lucky to have a brilliant family. I do not take this for granted. I have spent time reading peoples threads and I know that if I lost my job for example, we would soon be in a very difficult position. I have friends who are in massive debt but just keep adding this to their mortgage every couple of years, some even having to move to interest only to make ends meet. I have never had savings, I have been in debt since uni days, I look at all the money I spend on servicing my debt and think how this could be better used. I will keep a spending diary, starting next week. I just wish it would stop raining so that we could get the clothes on the line!!
PS - daughter wants to have her own vegtable patch in the garden - I will start preparing. We already have a plum and apple tree, rhubarb and gooseberry bushes. Flower border will make way for pots next year!!

Thank you all again for your advice, I will keep you posted and good luck to everyone else that wants to get rid of the burden. I guess that if we are talking about it here, at least we are facing our issues and we can work on resolving them. Thank you

Karmacat

Good for you, Lewki. You sound like you have a lovely family - do change this into your diary, and let us know how you get on. The growing thing - salad veg can make quite a difference to the budget, even if you haven't previously bought bagged salads - think of the price of even ordinary lettuces! Hop over to the greenfingered board - or the BBC has a gardening section. Even books out of the library will help.

alohahawaii

LEWKI wrote: »

Thanks waddy. I guess the OD will be the highest, but it would be great to clear 1 or 2 of the debts with it. I could use the 4k to clear the Barclaycard and SL and put 1k towards the od. I know I am not supposed to as these are the cheapest apr but it would free up £150/month to go to other debt and it would feel great!

Its strange but I have never seen the OD as debt! Stupid I know

I know what you mean! i used to live in mine and think it was my own money. I think you should use your savings to pay off the credit card first then cancel it for a few months till you are out of debt or trust yourself to not use it unless you know you can pay it off straight away.

If the student loan is 0% i'd leave it as there's not long to go

next i'd move on to the overdraft pay some towards it, try not to use it. then after a month maybe two lower it. you want it to be £100 just incase anythign comes out that you've forgotten about and with your wages you should be quids in not paying the banks interest

- i used the have the above two and this is how i dealt with it

you're not making anything from having the savings so you might as well stop the banks making money out of you.

regarding the loan, you need to find out if paying it off early will save you money. if you're going to pay the same amount of interest anyway you then have to decide if you want to keep the savings incase something happends and then there will be no risk of having to get another loan if something unexpected happens. or pay it off and have it over with quicker.

- i know the above as i used to work for a bank and people paying lump sums off their loans assumed they'd pay less interest when that wasnt the case.

hope this helps - i do know this was posted a while back.

LEWKI

Thanks Alo. yes I did post a while back, so here is a quick update on the debt

I have transferred everything to 0% Virgin CC this month. This is the only debt I have. It has cost me £300 in charges, but I will pay 0% interest for 15 months. Through new budgets, we should be able to clear the balance within 12.

My next positive step was to stop the smoking which I did on the 2nd June
Final positive step was that I have halved my car insurance bill!!

WorkingHardDFW

Well done to you both you sound like you have made some really positive changes

Keep up the good work:T