Any fresh ideas?

Why_oh_why

I have just fallen off the rope that I have been clinging to for the past 3 years. Would really appreciate 'a fresh set of eyes'. We got paid last Friday and all of our money is gone - my £80 'spending money' has had to be transferred to go towards mortgage payments. Now desperately ebaying but am desperately running out of things to sell.

Incoming:

Husband £930
Me £670
Total £1600

(This varies slightly each month, figures are nett. We have council tax arrears that are currently being deducted from hubbies salary, about 5 or 6 months left at £100 ish a month)

Outgoings:

Mortgage £900 (this includes arrear payments, we have about 5 or 6 months of increased payments, usually mortgage payment is £660)
Secured loan £499 (this includes an extra £70 per month - for 4 years - from a suspended order)

Council tax £124
Electric £45 (electric key)
Gas £28
Building/Contents Insurance £31.38
Car Insurance £19.06
Pet Insurance £11.16
Water £40
Debts/CCJ Payments £70
TV Licence £22
Sky £45
AOL £24.99
Phone £60
Husbands Mobile £15
Total £535.59

Debts
Debenhams Store card £1900
Marks & Spencer store card £800
Next £400
Yorkshire Bank credit card £10,000 CCJ
Barclaycard £4,000
Capital One credit card £400
Lloyds Bank overdraft £2500
Lloyds Bank loan £6000
B&Q £3000
Yorkshire Bank overdraft £3000
Water £400 CCJ

These are rough figures as we have been paying £50 for Yorkshire Bank credit card, £10 for Water and £1 for all the others for the past 3 years.

Husband cannot get rid of his mobile as he has to use it for work (he gets paid £13 from work)

Sky - I know, I know we should stop this, but I never leave the house and am really dependent on this.

I haven't included food - we are currently scraping together about £10 a week for food (would love to have about £20-30 so we can actually eat some fruit and veg for once).

I also haven't include the bank charges that Halifax keep throwing at us for refused direct debits. These are roughly £100-£200 a month at the moment.

As I said, I am frantically ebaying - managed to raise about £300 from ebay last month which just about saw us through - not that any bills/debts got paid.

So, this month, we now have no money left, so yet again bills/debts wont get paid and we don't have any money for food/electricity (which is a disaster as I work from home and really need electric for my laptop).

It is the usual situation of we got into debt, consolidated and then just repeated the debts. I am not looking to blame anyone/company as this is all totally our fault but I am desperate, trying but things are just getting worse and worse.

Hubbie recently started a new job, basic salary and car are both an improvement on his previous job - he has been told that he should average £40,000 a year but he is still learning and therefore not yet meeting targets. Hopefully this will change soon but can't rely on the extra money until it is actually being earned.

We did consider selling the house but can't really see how we can afford to move (we would have to go into rented accommodation), car would need to be MOT and taxed, deposits, van hire etc. etc.

I am now wondering whether it would be possible to remortgage - just had the house valued and were told we could get about £135,000 - this would cover the value of the current mortgage (£80,000) and secured loan (£46,000). However really don't know whether any bank would have anything to do with us.

I am so bogged down with it all now, I just can't think straight and would really love any opinions.

Thanks

LilMissEmmylou

Hey - i thought the electricity at my house was high at £40 (OH has a massive computer up the stairs that eats the stuff). Is there anyway you can cut this? Not using a dishwasher? full loads in the washing machine only etc?

As its summer could you cut the gas bill down at all for a while by layering on clothes if ur cold etc?

Also why is the TV licence £22? should this not be £11ish?

I know you say you really dont want to give up sky but in all honesty £45 a month could go towards bills that need to be paid off or double ur food budget so u eat better? Even if you reduced it to a minimum package it would save u a lot? Could you also not combine your sky tv with sky broadband? would work out less than AOhell

Also could the phone bill be reduced at all from £60? it seems very high tbh.

Hopefully others will come along to give you great advice on the debts though as ima bit useless with that sorry

Merlot

I going to be honest, you are in need of professional advice, phone the CCCS now or another debt charity.

The mortgage is far too high, my recommendation is to sell the house if you can and rent somewhere and pay the debts off.

You are getting close to losing your home if you carry on like this for a few more months, and if you have missed payments on debts etc, you will find it hard to get a remortgage, and do not consolidate the debt, but consider selling your home.

Please please phone the cccs now.

I'm not trying to frighten you, but you cannot carry on with these high outgoings such as the mortgage for any length of time.

Merlot.x.

poppyg_2

Hi I agree that you need some professional help if you aren't already getting it, it's not realistic that you can carry on the way you're going

Am sure with their help you could get onto perhaps a debt management plan - try the CCCS online debt remedy on www.cccs.co.uk and see what that comes up with

I definitely think you need to review SKY, freeview has a lot of the channels that SKY has or like someone else suggested try and get a cheaper package if you don't think you can do without it

Best of all try not to panic, you have come to the right place x

Merlot

poppy, thanks for adding the link to CCCS, I couldn't get the link to work for me.

GeorgeUK

If you are struggling, then i think sky should be the first thing to go. Can you get the extra freeview channels?
Internet + phone. Are these on a package? Can you search for cheaper?
Council tax - If paying over 10 months, can you ask to pay over 12?

If you are currently getting charged interest on all those debts, it must be crippling you. I would suggest contacting one of the free debt charities such as CCCS to discuss the possibility of a DMP. It will mess up your credit score for a few years, but i'm guessing this is currently not looking too good?
Or are you already on a DMP? CCCS would probably be able to get the interest stopped if they are still charging. I think they have an online for that you can fill in for an idea of what may be your best option.

Your priorities right now are the basics. Secured loan, mortgage and anything to do with the house. Then household bills so that you can still use the utilities.

(Taken from Fermi's signature)

Professional, free and impartial advice on debt problems can be obtained from several charitable and 'not for profit' organisations. They never make a penny from the advice they give, which means it will be given with only your best interests at heart. You can contact:

Your local CAB Office and ask to speak to a 'money advisor'
The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) - Tel: 0800 138 1111
National Debtline - Tel: 0808 808 4000
Payplan - Tel: 0800 917 7823

MrsTinks

Call CCCS NOW... don't put this off till tomorrow - or CAB or payplan etc You need to get them to look at everything for you.
At the moment you haven't from my claculations got enough to pay your priority bills (these being food, electricity, water, heating, mortgage and council tax).
Ultimately you need to either lower your outgoings or increase your income. Is there any way for you to get a second job? Maybe working at Tesco or Asda in the evenings or night shifts?
Sky... You can't afford £10 a week on feeding yourselves but you can justify Sky because you watch it all day? Sorry but you need to look at your priorities!
It's also the first thing any DMP will tell you to remove. Right now unless you do something pretty drastic you are going to loose your home either involuntarily or by selling it. Personally I would prefer to sell it myself and get the most money from it... But I am NOT an expert - please go see one of the debt charities and ask their advice before your debtors get fed up and try to get you made bankrupt...

Merlot

why oh why, do come on here and post and let us know what your thoughts are on the above, I know what you are reading isn't pleasant, but we really do want to help.

Ian_Griffiths_Halifax

Why oh why, ask your Mortgage lender if they with 'Capitalise' your arrears. This means they would add any outstanding arrears to the balance and you would pay them off over the term of the mortgage.

Then ask them if you can change to an Interest Only mortgage. At 7% your payments would only be £467 and may buy you the time until your Husbands income increases.

Above everything else, make sure that the mortgage and very very importantly, the secured loan payments are made. The secured loan company is more likely, in my experience, to go for a repossession than the mortgage lender.

What do you do for a living? If you work from home and need your laptop and yet bring in £670 per month, I can only assume this is part time work. Can you do more hours or go out to work instead. Should you be watching SKY when you could be working? I'm not having a go at you lifestyle, just asking the questions which might hold the key to the answers.

If you work from home because you look after your kid/s, could you look after somebody elses and earn some more money?

Good luck.

Why_oh_why

Thanks for all the comments. From writing everything down and reading the replies I think we are finally facing the fact that our best option is to try and sell and then rent somewhere (with the hope that hubbie does start earning what is expected, so we can look at getting back on the property ladder in a year or two - if this doesn't happen then we might land up renting for the rest of our lives but at least we wont be worrying about how to eat each month).

If we get near to the £135,000 this means that we can get the mortgage and secured loan paid off and then look at sorting our unsecured debts. With the current agreements we have for the unsecured debts I am not quite so concerned about having to take them to another property.

Just then need to find the money to move.

Other major concern is that our garden is a complete jungle at the moment but my parents are willing to come and help, and hopefully hubbies parents will also be able to do a bit. We have loads of plants and bark lying around so we shouldn't have to spend any money getting it looking nice.

Just hope it doesn't take too long!!!

My hours have been reduced in the last few months, but they seem to be getting back to a full time position, so that should give us a bit extra.

Why_oh_why

We have managed to reduce electricity a bit over the last few months, not using so many lights, stopped using the tumble dryer etc.

Will also have a look at changing tv, phone etc. whilst we are hopefully waiting to move.