Please help, I am at the end of my tether with my finances and I'm going to lose it all...

[serotoninbutterfly]

Sorry to post such a horrendous thing - I know we are all in the same boat with the cuts but I really need some help/advice.

Every single month we are behind on something... Rent, council tax, electric etc.

I have just received the letter about TC stopping come April.

What on earth am I doing wrong? Why can't I be like normal people and not be in this ridiculous situation?

This month we have £20 left. To last the month. I only got paid yesterday. And have done no food shopping...

What the hell am I meant to do?

OOOOoooo. OK. Breath.

Whatever you do don't get one of those payday loans if you can at all avoid it... they are daylight robbery!

OK my suggestion would be:

1. DONT panic - it makes things worse and stops you thinking clearly.

1a. ACT - it will get worse if you ignore it

1. Work out what your exact monthly income is then your monthly costs (taking into account annual stuff and daily stuff etc) to find out exactly what your deficit is and how much of a pickle it is - or not - it may just be that costs come round sporadically but money doesn't
2. Write down everything your money goes on and see if anything could be cut out / bought cheaper - easier to do this when you have done step 2 and know exactly how much trimming you need to do.
3. Once your costs are known so you know how much the car tax / house insurance / nursery fees etc are as a monthly cost you can put the money aside from monthly wage as it comes in and ring fence it so it is ready waiting when the bill comes in.
4. It takes time to accrue the monthly money pot so see if any family could tide you over until you are on an even keel.
5. If your expenses outweigh your income - you have to figure out what you can cut or horrid debt problems will follow.

As dickens said 'income 20 shillings, expense 19 shillings and sixpence = happiness. income 20 shillings, expense 20 shillings and sixpense = misery
Or similar.

None fo this is particularly pleasant or easy but sticking the head in the sand is worse.

hth

good luck.

p.s you have my sympathy - I know how you feel and it is not nice.

also, speak to people in RL and get some emotional support it will make it seem much easier. :)

Keep a spending diary. Work out what you really need and what you can cut back on. Can you really afford your rent/mortgage, are you over stretched. Do you have any assets you can sell? Do you have monthly commitments you don't need (eg Sky, mobile phone contracts, car hp payments? Do you have a short term liquidity problem or are you really spending more than you earn every month? Do you have high interest payments where you can pay off the debt and make a big saving.

Can you increase your earnings, extra hours or a second job, eBay selling etc.

Moneysavingexpert website is very helpful.

Thank you for replying, I have already done a budget - £300 pm ish over our earnings!

Essentially:
£850 rent (two weeks in arrears and they want to put it back to monthly )
£298 council tax (arrears from earlier in the year, now back in arrears again)
£45 water
£76 gas/electric

£120 petrol (oh and tax due this month too)
£145 car insurance (up for renewal this month)
£97.50 internet/telephone/tv (inc TV license)
£46 mobiles (just cut this from over £100)

£205 childcare (approx 2 afternoons a week - I work shifts)

£150 credit card (owe £4000 ish and in my dads name

£120 for an unpaid Wonga loan, which will be fully repaid next month (I know, shouldnt have touched them with a bargepole but havent used them or any others in 3 months, so thats pretty good)

And thats not including food.

I take home £1029 ish a month.

My partner is a temp and takes home £250ish a week (which pays the rent, and a bit of petrol.

Incomings: ME: £1029.00
Partner: £1000.00
Child Benefit : £81.20
Total: £2110.00

Ougoings: £2152.50

Also owe about £2-3k on unpaid bills from last property when partner lost his job.

HELP! It just makes no sense! What can I actually do? I am taking money out of the pot to feed us, which then makes a DD bounce and I get charged. Then the next month I end up paying double...

I am in a spiral and it is only getting worse!

Breathe. I have no real advice sorry but I've been there and it sucks. From what i see from you outgoings maybe you could lose the mobiles/Internet etc for a few months then restart with one of those few months free deals? Not ideal I know but desperate times call for desperate measures this could pull u back within your earnings ....? Can you car share? Do a couple of extra shifts? Citizens advice bureau?

£850 rent sounds high - where do you live?

your summary ^ £42.00 shortfall.... I haven't added the longer list up to check. That might be do-able to manage.

Can you cycle anywhere to cut car journeys, is your mileage low enough to get a low mileage insurance policy?

Can you chat to citizens advice - they have people who can go into so much more detail.... :)

Can you borrow from a family member interest free to get everything up to date and then pay them back on standing order. Is the credit card on 0%, if not, transfer it if you can. £100 on internet etc is too much, I spend £50 on virgin Internet including a free calls package and tv licence, I could spend less.

Given your debt versus income I'd talk to CAB or a free debt advisor about setting up a repayment plan. I will trash yor credit rating but you really don't need more debt right now. It may reduce interest charges and help you tackle the most expensive/important bills first. £45 for water is too much, I pay £160 a year. Get a water metre fitted.

More than half your income goes on rent and housing, can you move somewhere cheaper? Can you go for a promotion? Update your cv and start applying for better paid jobs. Your DP needs to do the same.

Good luck with dealing with it, admitting it is the hardest part.

Hi butterfly, I know its a horrible situation but you will get through it if you take a deep breath & really look at everything.... every last penny literally!

You should first address the easy things such as car insurance (seems high - any chance of cheaper/3rd party only??) Tv etc (this seems high - what is your package, can you move? cancel movies or sport etc?) A few places do packages now for less than your current spend! Mobiles - £15 per month on vodafone payg gets enough calls, texts and internet for me - can you ditch any contracts and go payg for a while?

The wonga loan needs sorting asap as that will be costing you a fortune in fees. Address that before anything else and you will have more afterwards. Then have a look see if you can get a 0% balance transfer or similiar for the CC (although if its in your dads name that suggests this might not be an option)

Do you have anything that you can sell quickly on e-bay, or even have a clear out and do a car boot? Now its getting warmer people love a good car boot sale!! You can sell dvd's, games and cd's in shops now to get some money back for unused ones. (Think asda and game both do this?)

Finally, can you tell your famiily and close friends that you are in the s**t? I did this and me and the kids ate our tea in so many houses for a while!! It all helps!! You might be suprised at how people will help if they can... so long as they see you addressing the problem (well thats how my parents were!) they are happy to help temporarily!
hth.

Thank you,

I am with Sky and have got an awesome deal with them for TV internet etc. Going to call them and tell them that I cant afford it so need to cancel and see what happens.

Need the mobiles due to work etc and on contract so come with other costs.

Work wont give me extra shifts - I went off with work-related stress due to poor performance due to home problems (finances being a big one) so they basically dont want to put too much on me just now (in other words dont want to reward me being off by increasing my shift allowance etc.) Also wont let me take on another job - wanted to do Betterware but they said no.

CAB have tried to help, but there isn't much they can do as we are not entitled to anything from the government as we earn too much.

I just look at these figures and think WTAF!

I am getting back to the state of wanting to just stop everything - you know, what is the point in trying so hard to make things better when we are in such a shitty position now. I even quit smoking to save money but not seeing any difference (and my blood pressure has plummeted too so feel really ill)

Sorry this is such a rant I am so cross! I just need a couple of months to get back in touch with everything, so that I can pay off the backlog of unpaid bills ( about £250 odd from January as my partner did not get paid over Xmas and we thought he would.)

Your car insurance does seem very high - that's £1740 a year! We pay £1300 for two relatively expensive cars; can you shop around for that when it comes up for renewal?

£87 a month for internet and phone seems far too high too. You should be able halve that I would think by looking around.

I'm sorry, it's crap I've had some tough times in the past and money is the number one thing that will send me into depression. The one thing that jumps out is the car insurances, it looks very high I pay twice that per year so is it your annual amount or monthly?

Ebay?

I know how you feel as we have been there but there are thing you can do. Firstly Mortgage, council tax and food on the table come first, everything else can wait! Second contact The cccs www.cccs.co.uk/ they can give you advice on how to cope with the building debts. As HappyCamel says the money sving expert site is brill and the forums are very supportive forums.moneysavingexpert.com/. Good luck.

Patricia its only one car, and it is that high because my partner had only just passed his test when he got it! We are going to reduce it greatly (hopefully) when the renewal notice comes through.

The Internet/TV/Phone package is an all-inclusive deal with practically full Sky package but I am going to speak to them and cancel it I think, as we rarely watch much live TV. Then I can get a basic line rental/internet deal as we don't use the house phone at all!

Wouldn't it be lovely if you could just take a break from paying bills for a couple of months and then get back into again?

With all due respect - it seems you are paying Sky about £85 per month?? That is not an awesome deal!! call them and tell them you are leaving, they'll soon reduce the charges!

lols at the 'bills holiday' - this used to be a recurring dream of mine!!

Right.

Have done a cccs debt questionnaire thingy.

Am going to call Sky and get that sorted now.

The advice seems to be that I am stretching myself financially too far! According to cccs I am £459 a month over (that includes paying off my debts)

Gah! I need someone who knows what the buggering hell they are doing

I agree about your sky deal - we do tv / Internet / phone through sky and have sports too as DH is obsessed likes it and we only pay £46.

Get on the phone and get it changed!

Why will your TC stop?

I would recommend going to CAB, please pay off your Wonga asap-those loans really scare me. The good thing is that you are both working and therefore can get this thing under control. Best wishes.

Voidka because we earn over the £26k threshold and only have one child. And our childcare costs weren't even partially covered before - we only got the basic family element.

Sky are ripping me off aren't they

If I were you I would be looking at new deals on;

tv/internet/sky - You need to get this down! Its far too much!
Also - do you need sky, would you miss it?
Car ins - check out the post office atm they have a deal with free RAC cover for a year too!

If you have a cc then virgin credit card is doing a balance transfer deal atm with only a 1.99% fee. 6 months interest free on new purchases and 16 months interest free on balance transfers!!!!

Get that wonga thing paid off pronto..thats the priority!

good luckx

oops just realised you have already tried CAB, maybe try moneysavingexpert.com?

do you have childcare vouchers for your childcare costs? they may make a difference - they did for us. worth looking in to if you don't already use them.

We were paying Sky around a hundred quid for phone, tv (with sport but not movies) and broadband. Just left, now paying about 20 a month for phone and broadband from Plusnet and got a recordable freeview box instead.

That car insurance is huge - is renewal due soon? Do shop around and then see if you can go through a cashback site.

Mobiles - have a look at Giffgaff they are very cheap.

Is there any way you could get rid of the car? Work out if it is possible to do things walking/cycling/bus (and how much that would cost?). We did not have a car for a year, and it worked out quite cheap and doable, but don't know if it would be for you.

I just pay 10 a month for my prepaid cheapo mobile. It does the job, and I get enough calls/txts for that. We don't have sky, just freeview.

Dunno really, I think you may have to make some dramatic cuts and then when it is all paid off and you can breath again,. you can start to get things back???

Hi, firstly don't panic - there is room for manovere in your budget - especially as you are dealing with things.

1. Whittle your Sky down to the bear miniumum you actually use/need - even if in a few months when you're on a more even track you add in extras again. You'll feel so much better when your debts are cleared and you can budget for things.

1. Again - make sure you shop around for the car insurance when it's up for renewal, but yes, I would have thought that as your DP builds up no claims that will help.

1. Council Tax - will the arrears for earlier this year be cleared by the end of this Council Tax year? If so, presumably that bill will drop, but also, something to bear in mind when you've cleared the arrears is that lots of councils spread payments over 10 months, but you can request to spread the payments over 12 to help with budgeting - this might help you.

1. Use the moneysavingexpert forums for help/support with cutting your grocery budget etc.

1. Your water bill seems very high for a household of 3 - ours is only £15 per month, we are on a meter though so I don't know if this makes a difference. It might be something worth investigating with your landlord.

1. Once back on the straight and narrow, sit down and work out your new monthly costs, and your annual costs - such as car tax, birthday present spending, christmas present spending etc. so you can see how much per month you should be putting aside each month to cover those costs.

1. Can you have a clear out of old stuff (you'd be suprised how much you can get together from what you might consider rubbish/old) and ebay/car boot to try and get an extra lump sum together to pay off either the Wonga loan, or if this is done a lump of the CC bill - making overpayments even quite small really really helps clear the balance quicker and will reduce the monthly payment which might free up £20 for emergencies.

HTH - good luck :)