Please help me with a plan to get out of my overdraft

[Justmeagain81]

Hi all

Im a single parent, struggling with money despite having a good income! Please can someone help with a budget to get out of my overdraft in next few months?
Current bills:
Student loan 132 (will be paid off by christmas)
Eon 55
Sky 39 (cant further reduce need wifi & only provider inrural area, tv is basic package)
Car 255 (includes services)
Mobile 29
Rent 585
Loan 190 (11,500 left to repay from consolidated joint debt with exh)
Exh 40 (half child benefit)
Gap ins 10
Dvla 12
Gold card 60 (2800 on 0%)
Hcpc 45 every quarter
Car ins 32
Lloyds 10 (930 on 0%)
Gym 67.50 (i know, am tied into contract until march)
Water 20
Council tax 45
Prof fees 26
Tv license 13
Merlin pass 12
Approx 35 per week fuel

I take home 2100 pcm, receive 82 child benefit, no further benefits or tax credits, i have a 2 year old. I pay 200 childcare per month (free hours from april)
Im currently 700 od
HELP!!!

Thank you in advance

Is there any work from hom eyou could do in the evenings and at weekends, just for a few months to mop up the overdraft. I got rid of mine by working two jobs until it was paid off, but I didn;t have a DC at the time.
Depending on your line of work, can you freelance for a few hours?
Can you ask exH if you can hold off sharing the child benefit (it is paid to the mother for a reason) until you are out of debt? That's only £40pcm but that's nearly £500 in a year.

When does your mobile phone contract end?
Are you entitled to any help with childcare?
Why are you handing over half of the child benefit?

Are the credit card/loan payments the minimum? Can you shave those back at all and reduce the OD by the same amount each month? There's no food on your list, how much do you spend and can you cut back there?

When the student loan is repaid, reduce your overdraft by 130 per month.

Hi both
Unfortunately there is no extra work i can do, i work full time nhs, no bank shifts for my area of expertise (im an ahp), i wouldnt be able to take on a second role due to the nature of my full time work.
I cant get help with childcare (earn too much for benefits, no family to help)
My exh is a bully & if i dont send half the child benefit he withholds contact (essentially holds ds to ransom)
I think there is another year on my phone but i will check ....

Looking again, you will be 130 per month better off in December, 200 by march when the gym goes, and 400 better off by April when the free hours start. That's your overdraft gone by June at the latest. Hang in there, don't commit to any avoidable monthly outgoings.

Thanks all, my food shop is around 30 per week, im trying to reduce that

Thank you!! You are right i couldnt see for looking!!

I'm more concerned that your ex withholds contact. Legally he can't do that.

Sadly he does, hes a bully. When i can afford it i will be taking him to court, but for now we have an unformal agreement between us, ds with me 4/7 him 3/7

Haven't added up all the figures yet but could you advertise to offer a lift share for any part of your work journey?

I'm really concerned that Christmas is coming up with so many debts in place. Can you avoid giving presents and just 'give' time to people? Will you be expected to go to the work christmas do or can you avoid it this year (my experience is that's its fine to skip it)? Can you ask eg your mum to do a stocking for your ds? Things will clearly get better in a few months but Christmas could tip it over the edge.

Christmas doesn;t have to be expensive. A stocking with a handful of Poundstore and Tiger presents in it costs about £10. Ask your parents and your ex if they are able and willing to buy anything your DC has set their heart on (within reason). Apart from that, Christmas is all about watching films together, a few twinkly lights and a tree (ask on freecycle for an artifical one or decorations if you can't afford them) carol concerts and craft activities at school and nursery.

I just put your earnings and outgoings into a universal credit calculator and it says you will get just over £200 a month so worth applying.

I would also stop the child benefit to ex and put in a claim for maintenance, fuck him if he messes around with contact, unless you mean he doesn't let you see your child as often.

It would be worth contacting a debt charity like Christians against Poverty or step change who can help get debts rescheduled and make them more affordable.

Also phone Sky and say you are thinking of cancelling. They cancelled my basic TV and put it down significantly.

I also don't pay TV license by never watching live TV and only watching stuff on playback. It means no BBC iplayer but for me that works.

Would you consider getting rid of unnecessary things such as sky tv and car and use the money leftover to work off debts?

Thanks both
Which calculator did you use? Ive just done it & says im not entitled to anything
Unfortunately car is essential (work & collecting ds from ex)
I also need sky for the wifi, aparently i cant cancel the tv & just have wifi
I really do appreciate the advice

It looks to me as if you can transfer a Merlin Pass. Double check that's true and then sell the remaining time? Someone might be interested in buying just a few months for face value (though obviously tricky in the winter)

Do you have a windows laptop? When looking for extra income I looked at sterling medical transcription from a recommendation on here. You still have to buy a small amount of equipment, but I would have had to buy an entire laptop which wasnt worth it. I'm a touch typist though.

As he keeps holding DS to ransom why don't you apply yourself to court for a residency order?

Once that is sorted you could apply for CMS as well keep all the CB.

Surprised you don't get any childcare help via tax credits. Presumably you can't use childcare vouchers either.

Car seems very expensive but presume you can't switch to a cheaper one?

Remember you should also have the 2 month holiday from council tax in Feb and march, unless you're signed up to pay over 12 months. That's a one off 90 quid for the overdraft.

Oof! I've added up the figures now. (I've done a spreadsheet. I like my fun on a Tuesday. If you want the spreadsheet I could try and PM you or something).

You don't have enough to live on. Your debt payments on that £16000 are killing you. The good news is that things improve dramatically as soon as your student loan is paid off.

Right now, without any spending at all apart from your fuel and £30 a week food, you have minus £20 a month to live on. That's not even within shouting distance of sustainable.

The reason it looks SO bad is that I've calculated your fuel and food on paying for a 5 week month - that's what DH and I always did when things were so tight that we were doing a budget by the week to check we could cover the bills going out. So in fact, you do have a tiny amount of wiggle room. But it's the sort of wiggle room that allows you to replace toothpaste, not the sort of wiggle room that allows for any of these bills rising significantly (rent for example).

When are your 0% credit cards/loans ending? What's the risk there?

If you can live literally on oats and rice until the end of January, things improve from there, i.e. the spreadsheet has a positive balance at the end of the month (the positive balance is £11 at the end of January...) But that's still not allowing really for any further discretionary spending at all, which I think is highly unlikely to happen.

But on the positive side, I've remembered that you have 3 days a week without your daughter. You need a private client or two. If you could do even two sessions a month (I'm an AHP too) I reckon you could cover indemnity insurance and give yourself a tiny bit of spending money - perhaps £50 a month. Just enough to mean you might manage without having to increase your debts until your student loan is paid off, your overdraft is paid off, you can get onto a sim-only deal with your phone, your childcare costs start coming down...

Actually you probably don't need indemnity insurance separately, your professional fees should cover it, but check. And you just register as a sole trader I think. A bit of googling should cover it. That's what you need though. If I took private work (I don't) I would probably charge something like £100 for an assessment and £60-80 for a session. I wouldn't underestimate how knackered it will make you and how much extra prep work you'll need to do but I think it could make the difference between surviving and not, this winter.

I do think it's worth approaching stepchange for debt counselling to see if they can negotiate a better deal for you.

Think about your financial goals beyond paying all this debt off. It's going to take a while but at some point you'll be able to start saving, and having a goal in mind could help you do that. You might want to think about income protection insurance as a single parent, but tbh I pay for it and it's really expensive and doesn't cover many situations - I decided that for me it's just worth it as I have no options at all if I fall off my bike and have to recover for year or have a minor head injury that stops me doing my specific job.

DH and I used to have goals of having £400 as a very basic slush fund to cover one major bill at a time, then from that we tried to save for ds (we started by saving £1 a week into a building society account, we increased that steadily until it was £30 a month, grandparents got into increasing this and when he's 18 we'll be handing over something like £5000).

I'd imagine one of these days you'd like to think about buying somewhere - maybe that's your ultimate goal? No harm in having it in mind, it's a way to encourage you to save hard as each of these debts finally gets cleared away.

Do not give your ex child benefit, and he should be paying you maintenance for the extra day.

I would recommend YNAB (You Need A Budget). It's brilliant and transforms finances. I love it so much. Think you get a 34 day free trial - throw yourself into it and see if it helps.