Your advice and thoughts are needed please...

Poosmate

Hi Merlot, Ruby has already adressed some of the issues you have raised and is starting to think differently about things. Yay! You could be right about the IFA but we live and learn hey?

It's early days for her yet but with our help and support she'll get there.

Keep posting.

Poo

Merlot

The life assurances are far too high, did your IFA do these for you? You could get them far cheaper using Quidco and you can get cashback too.

We had all the insurances that you had, including a whole load of debt too, I had to make the decision, what was important at that point, insurance for the "what if" or keeping the roof over mine and the childrens head. I am not saying keep your home on interest only indefinately but for a short while to get this debts down. Is your mortgage on a fixed rate? If so, you could struggle to get another in this current climate with the amount of debt you have, yoour priority is to reduce the debt before the fix rate ends.

These are just my thoughts, and I hope they kind of make sense from someone who has been in a similar situation.

Merlot.x.

rubydoiwannabee

You are right about priorities and I understand, I think I would feel more comfortable swapping to int only for a while and keeping the life cover going so that we had LIFE cover rather than non what so ever. I am having second thoughts though about the fridge and mortgage protection insurance.

I pay my dads tiny life assurance policy because he cannot, so I wont stop that.

We don't have an IFA currently but the term assurances were sold by one and we have increased sum assureds as the mortgage has increased, haven't considered switching life !!! (in fact didn't realise you could!!) so will look into that.

We are on a fixed rate for two more years and I take your point about another deal. I do very much appreciate your thoughts and experience.

Even if it is hard to hear......:o

rubydoiwannabee

Poosmate wrote: »

Hi Merlot, Ruby has already adressed some of the issues you have raised and is starting to think differently about things. Yay! You could be right about the IFA but we live and learn hey?

It's early days for her yet but with our help and support she'll get there.

Keep posting.

Poo

Thanks ever so
x

Quietgirl

Poosmate wrote: »

Hi Ruby

Congratulations on having your LBM before it's too late.

I am in a similar situation to you in that I am doing my own DAP (Debts Action Plan). I had my LBM in March. I've really cut back on everything (I live alone so that's easy really). I visit this site every day to keep me on the straight and narrow.

I've created a spreadsheet listing each of my debts, balance, interest added, payments made and new balance. Up till March I was only paying minimum payments on 1 of the CC's and over on the other (Der! the one with lower interest!) and I wasn't even paying anything towards my mortgage current account O/D because the interest was so low on it! It reached critical point when I realised the interest that would be added in April would put it over it's limit so I knew I had to do something. For that month I put in £20 (enough to cover the interest and a little bit extra).

I also routed around and gathered together every penny I could lay my hand on that was in this acct or that acct and managed to scrape together about £200 (including a cheque I'd got for a christmas pressie). I paid £50 into the mortgage current acct to give me a couple of months breathing space, created my spreadsheet and devised a plan of action.

I now know who needs paying what and when and am constantly playing with the figures to see if I can pay less to one to over pay a higer interest other. I've also managed not to dip in to my savings so I am building a pot out of which I can pay car tax and insurance when it's due instead of putting it on the CC. Hopefully I have broken the cycle. A lot of my annual bills were put on my CC as I just didn't think I had the money to budget for them. I am budgeting very hard now as it is the only way to break the cycle.

I've only managed to pay about £163 off my debt within the last few months but there have been a few nasty payments added on to the debts over the last few months. Hopefully they are the last and I can concentrate on reducing the debt.

The snowball calc told me that I'll be debt free in Mar 2016! lol. That is based on paying £150 per month towards the debt (incl interest). It's not going to be that long though because:-

a) I (hopefully) will be earning more next year than this and the year after etc.
b) Will hopefully be able to cut some food costs down by growing my own.
c) Will reduce the payment on my low life of balance card rather than pay the current minimum and use that to pay extra off the higher interest card.
d) With a good credit record transfer some of the debt to 0% interest. (Must apply)
e) Have at least 50% equity so am toying with idea of remortgaging hence giving me more disposable income.

These are just a few of my plans. I would give yourselves 6 months before you review with a view to going into a DMP only because there is a possibility that until you get into a routine of debt busting it may get a little worse before it gets better. I review my monthly figures almost every day (yes obsessed I know - but it's still early days). I've also set up another spreadsheet with debt totals, payments to each (according to the snowball calc) and last payment month and how many months the snowball reckons it will take me (93 lol). I will review this in 3 months time and take a couple of quid off the low life of balance card payments and add it to the highest interest card and throw the figures through the snowball calc then. This is my 3 monthly review spreadsheet.

Hope this made sense and may be of some help to you.

Thanks

Poo

P.S. I could always get another job if push comes to shove or drink a cheaper coffee than Nescafe (I do still have some areas that i can cut back on).

Just wanted to say have you tried places like Savers, pound shop for your coffee, you can get big jars of Nescafe cheaper than in the supermarkets.

rubydoiwannabee

Hi there, yes we regularly visit the £ shop and buy things, think I will be going more frequently now though.