Please help me - Don't know where else to go?

Kanichen

Does your OH not know about your debt? Surely if you have a secured loan on the property you both live in he has a right to know? If you missed payments and the house was repossessed due to the loan he'd be out on the streets too?

Pixie983

GeorgeUK wrote: »

I think the Barclaycard call is a good idea. Phone them and ask what the current interest rate is for the card (so you have a reference point to judge against others if anything happens(, then ask if they have any balance transfer offers on right now. Hopefully you will be able to transfer. This won't reduce the minumum payments probably but at least you won't be getting as much interest.

The remaining 7k - this is a borderline amount for a loan. Usually the higher the amount, the lower the interest. I'm not sure you will be able to get a good rate for this. I would look at the possibility of getting another 0% card and transferring the money to that.

You can have about 3 credit searches in a 6 month period before your credit score is affected.

The Virgin card may have had a fairly low limit as this is also an MBNA card. It may be possible to get a similar limit on another card.

I would try to clear the MBNA card as soon as possible. Not only would you then be paying less interest but once the card is clear you may be able to transfer again with a 0% or low LOB rate.

Ok, so I called Barclaycard and I do have a rate for life available on balance Transfers at 6.9%. The maximum I can transfer is £4500.

I could apply for another Ccard but what if I don't get a high enough limit to transfer the £7,000 off the MBNA card? Then if I applied for a loan I'd be less likely to be accepted - I am worried about applying for too many things.

Tesco looks about the best personal loan at 8.2% for amounts from £7,500.

Also re the previous post, yes my OH knows about the secured loan it had to be joint in his name as the mortgage was but I make all the payments. He doesn't know about the rest which is my personal debt that I have stupidly racked up all by myself. :mad:

GeorgeUK

It's a tough call pixie, but cards are more flexible than loans to pay off and you really need to be careful of the wording used in the loan ads. I can't remember which bank but there was one last year that advertised loans for one rate and applied them at a different rate.

Crunch the numbers before doing anything else though. Have a look to see what the minimum payments are for the virgin, barclaycard and mbna card, then compare to the mbna being part of a loan. How much can you afford and how much difference is there between the minimum payments - are there any cards that offer 0% with low minimum payments? (I've only hear of MBNA and Virgin)

caramia1812

jenevieve wrote: »

Hi, I've put some suggestions in red, it looks like potentially you could make quite a few savings on various things. However, you haven't put anything in for utilities and council tax?
Good luck

I agree with Jen here. I think back to when I dropped from a household bringing in £4k a month to my meagre salary. You'll have to give up the beauty treatments and "essentials" hun, same with glossy mags and all the rest of what I have come to term as totally unncessary. Forget your vanity for a while - you can still look good on a budget - trust me...I have been there. done that and worn the T-shirt! You WILL get by though! (hugs)

Nargleblast

You say you can make your repayments, but if by doing so it leaves you with insufficient funds to live on then you clearly cannot afford your repayments! When you are having to use credit cards to pay normal household expenses then you have problems. It's good you have managed to get a 0% deal for a while, but you need to stop using your card - cut it up or do as some suggest and keep it in the freezer so you can't use it. Then if you manage to make savings you can work towards getting your debt reduced. If you find the debt situation still unmanageable then don't be afraid to contact one of the debt counselling charities for advice.

TurnaroundSue

Couldn't you just hold back until a decision has been reached on your PPI in 6 weeks time - at least then if you are successful in getting a refund that will help you pay off some the the MBNA and

TurnaroundSue

Couldn't you just hold back until a decision has been reached on your PPI in 6 weeks time - at least then if you are successful in getting a refund that will help you pay off some the the MBNA and then the rest can be transferred onto another low/0% cc - or better still do that now, making minimums on all cc's and then throw as much as you can at MBNA to bring this down quicker. Have you tried playing with the snowball (not sure of the site, but someone more knowledgeable than me will be along shortly with it) this way you can put all the scenarios in and see which one comes up best?

Fire_Fox

Pixie983 wrote: »

Yes I know, no smoking is great! Re my SOA, the satellite TV is with SKY & covers the package for TV/Internet and my landline although I do still pay rental to BT - I'm going to change this to SKY though too, it's cheaper. The buildings insirance covers both Buildings AND Contents. The council tax is £110 per month, Gas and Electricity we have just switched in last few months - it is cheapest we could get. I know my phone bill is quite big but I am locked into a contract with Orange at the moment :mad: .

Non smoker! Have you cut up your cards?

Can you take that Sky package down a level or threaten to leave? Your total spend on telecoms is over £1500 a year! I am also in a contract with Orange but for £12 a month, can you reduce the tariff even if not cancel? Do you really need two mobiles plus a landline for two people? Your energy and water bills are massive for two people, where is this going? You need to take a hard look at your usage patterns.

Silaqui

Hi Pixie,
Just looking at your figures on your SOA - your income =1636.72 take from this the 850 that covers most of the household stuff (I assume including food, bills etc) leave you with £786 for loan repayments and day to day living.
For one month you need to pay your 2 credit cards plus the secured loan which is 225+25+255=505 which should still leave you with £281 to last you the month? (please correct me if I've got the wrong end of the stick) And you don;t even have t buy fags out of that:T

I don't mean this to sound harsh (well I do a little bit ) but I had to say the same thing to myself now so long ago. What the hell are you spending the money on? I have a shoe collection spread across 3 houses because I can't fit them in our flat, at last count I had 276 pairs. Lots of nice make up and posh smellies. But also big debts. I'm earning a good wage for my age and that made me think I had to live a good lifestyle, well that backfired. You MUST MUST MUST start to cut down even if for a couple of months to start with.

You won't run out of make up and smellies within the next month so you don't need any more.
You can manage without beauty treatments - maybe save up your tesco points? Or have a pampering night in with your mates and make your own facepacks and stuff? (we did this a coupld of weeks ago and made a facepack with strawberries and yoghurt that we ended up eating before it got to our skin!)
Try to reduce Sky and your phone bill, often they will allow you to reduce whilst still under contract I know we have done it.
Echoing firefox with the water, gas and electric too, ours is probably half this for 2 people. Groceries too, we spend always less than a hundred so you could easily shave £50 quid off yours.

I'm not going to go on because I feel like I'm nagging, but please do keep posting here. I personally wouldn't consolidate as it didn;t get you far before. Your debts are manageable as long as you keep your spending in check. Good Luck xx

In_Search_Of_Me

how you doing? I really, really think you need to discuss this with your oh...put the shoe on the other foot and imagine that you are him and discover down the line that you hadnt been told? I know its hard but the consequences of being dishonest, living what is effectively a lie and having to cover up, hide bills etc is going to take a huge toll on you in the long run...
Have you rung people like sky, mobile etc to try and reduce packages? You are spending a fair amount on unucessaries that could go off debt. Noone can have your lightbulb moment for you...its one of the few hings we have to do ourself! I think at the moment you are more in panic mode (or ooo S*** where can I get more credit) but from experience I know that nothing will change until you change and I hope that you do it sooner than I did...or for that matter many others have - there comes a point (youre not there yet) when it is too late and you'll risk loosing the house because you cant make payments...PLEASE deal with this now while you can take control rather than the money controlling you. I promise that doing so is liberating...unlike burying your head/delaying with another loan....hugs for you!
ps...also with loans you need tio look at the interest. One of my loans has 8000 interest! Wish I'd registered that when I took it out - could have bought a brand new car with that!!