Can't afford minimum payment -advice please?

[daysmustgetbetter]

I know I'm a idiot
When I moved into my house I had nothing
I got my appliances /sofa from littlewoods
I put them on buy now pay later but now I'm struggling.
I get £1,000 a month
£460 is rent £100 is gas /electric £90 council tax and I pay them £240
I'm left with £110 for food
It's killing me
I've asked if I can set up a payment plan they said no
I honestly don't know what to do
If I don't pay the full amount will they pass me to a debt collection agency ?

Phone Stepchange and get them to help you get this sorted at a level you can handle.

@daysmustgetbetter I haven't read the whole thread, just your posts, so this may have been answered already.

but in answer to your Q "If I don't pay the full amount will they pass me to a debt collection agency ?" - what happens when you owe money is that the creditor has to go to court to get a county court judgment ordering you to pay. A so-called debt collection agency has no authority without that county court judgment [CCJ] and if they hassle you without a CCJ you can tell them to fuck off.

So, back to creditor going to court... they would have to send you a copy of the court claim, and then you can reply to it. You can also go to the court hearing, and ask for the court to order payments which you can afford.

Also @daysmustgetbetter please bear in mind for the future that you can get stuff like sofas and white goods second hand on ebay or gumtree or from charity shops for a song, or get for free on Freecycle.

Your adult children pay for their own food WOW
you pay the full Council Tax, the utilities etc etc

Min payment - which you can't afford is £240 that is £120 from each adult child
which is £40 a week toward Council Tax, utilities etc

where else could your adult working children live for £40 a week ?!!!

I am sorry for the loss of your mum.

Regrettably due to poor money management you do not have the luxury of picking and choosing how you earn essential money. You have debts that need to be paid because you chose to buy brand new, on tick.

Cleaning
Ironing
Babysitting
Bar work
Waiting at tables
Shop work

At present you can't get extra hours doing admin work. Therefore you need to do whatever it takes to make some extra money.

Your DC, if working, need to stump up even a tenner a week towards bills. That's £80 pcm and would help with household essentials.

I am sorry it's tough but you can't pick and chose and you are not entitled to just work 25 hours a week for being picky.

Seek financial advice and also..
Ask each of your children to pay 50 per month.They use your white goods and home and should be contributing to something other than their own food.

Advertise and take in ironing.
Advertise and do cleaning.
Advertise and walk dogs.
Do you have a working with children card? Register with a babysitting agency. You could pick children up from school, take them to club or home?
Advertise and prune roses, take elderly people to do their shopping etc.

Think of making money from your hobbies..
Do you sketch or sew?
Do you have chooks - sell eggs?
Sketch portraits in charcoal from photos or people and pets.
Takeup skirts, trousers, mend and sewon buttons. Some peoplecan not do basic repairs and need to outsource.

Do your kids know what your situation is? Mine would insist on giving me money if they knew I needed it.

At the very least they should be helping out with council tax and bills.

Are you sure you couldn't do some shop work? I didn't understand what your hours meant but a Saturday job would make all the difference and you don't have to have any training at all.

Also would doing care work with adults or children still be triggering?

@2Hot2Handle l would be comparing the interest rate you’re paying against other forms of credit, with the aim of shifting the debt to a lower interest. You need to be savvy with your money, especially in this climate.

first of all you're not an idiot so please don't keep telling yourself that it's only make you feel worse.

Would you be able to check that your wage is at least minimum wage? and
your tax and National Insurance are actually right?

If you work25 hours weekly on minimum wage you should be bringing home bringing home approximately £1128 per calendar month. I know that's 'only' £128 more a month but that Is £1538 per year you didn't realise you had.

Also £128 monthly is half of what you need to be paying.

I've added a couple of images from MSE tax calculator, showing what you should be getting for the amount of hours you're working.

Hope this information's useful; also it'd be worth speaking with a debt help agency because it is surprising what letter from them can do to help make payments more manageable. They may be even able to stop more interest from piling up on the Debt you've already incurred.

Your children need to be making contributions if they're both adults and you're struggling. They can't possibly think it's okay to let you struggle alone so much

@DDDN they charge an Apr of 44.9% typically and it starts from the start of the bnpl period. They calculate it for the 12 month bnpl period plus the chosen repayment period. It's very expensive unless paid off in full before the end of the bnpl period. In fairness to the company they do make this very clear if people bother to read what is on the website and on their order paperwork.

Posters like the OP are so frustrating - no realisation that earning a bit extra would be quite easy for someone who only works part-time - with no caring responsibilities anymore - and yet thinks they are too good for work like cleaning. I assume you clean your own house OP? Get off your bottom and solve your own problems. And yes, charge your adult children, who are earning proper board. The solution is easy. And yes, get to Stepchange and get some budgeting advice - sounds like you need it.

The OP seems to have disappeared from.the thread.

It is incredible that some posters are saying she should be entitled to UC. Why should someone with no caring responsibilities who chooses to work part time (because pub/bar/cleaning work is beneath her) be propped up with benefits?

Part of the reason the OP is in this mess is because she's not charging her adult children rent..... because they want to go on an extended holiday.

The. OP asked for advice. Many people have given it to her - get a second job and charge your kids rent - but she's not listening.

As the pp said, it's incredibly frustrating.

I don’t understand why everyone thinks the OP’s adult children should be contributing to a debt that she got herself into. They didn’t ask her to take out a payment plan she couldn’t afford so why on earth should they be responsible for it?

There’s absolutely no reason for the OP not to get a full time job and pay it off herself. There’s also no reason why she can’t speak to StepChange.

That's not what people are saying at all @FlatWhiteExtraHot

More that if they gave the OP a contribution towards the cost of housing them (extra council tax, utilities at least, plus if they didn't live there, the OP could live in a smaller property with lower rent and bills) she'd be more able to be afford to run the household. Plus they're benefitting from the appliances and sofa the OP bought.

They're working adults, they shouldn't expect to still be supported by their DM so they can spend most of their earnings on fun.

Hiya, OP . . . I know you've said you are only looking for admin/office jobs but my brother, who has a professional qualification, worked as a supermarket shelf stacker in the evenings for a couple of years when he was struggling with his mortgage. He really enjoyed it, it helped him during some tough years and several of his colleagues were in a similar situation. I used to work for the NHS and I know a few colleagues, (one of them was a senior manager with a large family), took second jobs for financial reasons . . . so in my experience, it's not at all uncommon for people to get a second job in the evening in a supermarket, pub, hotel, fast food industry, office cleaning etc.

They're not. They are responsible for paying their way though. As adults should.

That’s obscene. How do they get away with such high interest rates!

Is there any scope to transfer the debt to a credit card? Preferably a zero percent one for the first 12 months…

Is your credit score still good? I’d try using sites with initial soft eligibility checks before applying for one with a hard check.

No one is saying that, we are saying however that as adults they should be contributing to household bills like rent, utilities, etc that they are using and benefiting from. OP says they only buy their own food.

Tough they'll have to contribute towards bills too. Explain you're struggling.

Not the debt, they'll be contributing towards their current bills

It’s actually not unusual here in the real world!

The OP doesn't seem to want to engage in the idea that her adult children should pay their way.

OP you are not teaching your children a good lesson in budgeting.

Do they know your financial difficulties?

Or are you hiding it?

You're earning next to nothing. It's just a bit above the state pension (which is now almost £900 a month.)

You can't expect to run a home for 3 adults on that!

There is no way your children should be saving towards holidays while they are living rent-free and you've got an increasing debt.

You need to clear the debt by a)picking up some more hours if you can doing some other work and b) talking to them and explaining what's going on.

Why are you protecting them from the truth?

@FlatWhiteExtraHot But her adult children use the washing machine, water, fuel, sit on the sofa, and LIVE IN THE HOUSE for which she pays all the rent.

If they moved out into house shares or their own flats, they'd have to pay for everything not just their food.

Why should it be any different just because they are living at home?