45K in debt

[UsedToLoveMorrissey]

Hello, i think i just need to get this off my chest.

We are £45k in debt. All unsecured, and no access to anymore credit and all in husband's name.

I don't work. I used to do well on-line and at craft fairs but that has taken a huge hit and I don't do fairs anymore as they are not worth it now where we live. I am learning to drive so I can get a job within school hours (we live in the middle of nowhere, 5 buses a day, if they bother to show up and times don't suit to get back for DS).

DH has a good job, but we live in Scotland and I think the rate has changed or the pension contributions have because DH is less £70 a month now. I cried when I saw this this morning.

We can make the payments but any spending above our food/petrol/school lunches etc and we end up in our overdraft so by christmas, we are £2k down. My craft sales at xmas pay this off thankfully, and pays for presents but the rest of the year is rubbish. I sell on Etsy so I dont have a website to upkeep, just the cost of listing each item and a small % in commission.

DS has a good job, but with less than £3k a month coming in, and £900 of to go purely on CC and Loans repayments, excluding mortgage and car (which DH needs because of where we live) we are struggling. Our food bill is approx £100 per month. That includes 1 bottle of wine. No smokes. I have coeliac disease so my bread is a bit dearer, but that's only one loaf a week. One pack of GF biscuits, no other biscuits and very little crap.

I'm not a good cook, we eat basic meals that I do cook from scratch. We eat meat once a week (either chicken or mince beef), we eat mostly salads with tuna/roasted veg and rice/baked pots/soups. We don't eat takeways (we live too far our for delivery). I get the shopping delivered from Asda as that works out at about 40p per week with the mid week saver. We go through about 20 eggs a week (DS and DH love them). Sliced Egg on toast is a favourite weekend lunch.

We eat a lot of fruit, which we do buy from M&S as that is so nice. I have found the delivered fruit to be poor quaility.

If I really try, I am sure we could shave about £10 of the shopping. But really, I cant see anywhere else to make the saving.

The issue somes to this: because we are making the payments, we've not missed one, the Debt website Step Change, are recommending a cut in spending accross the board but no debt advice as such because we can repay.

Also, DH has a job which he would lose if he was made bankrupt. We'd love the debt to be paid off, but we have no extra income, and we'd be out on the streets if were chose a debt soloution as we have no savings to get us through DS losing his job.

I'm prepared to accept the advice that we simply have to accept the situation, we can pay the debt, we have a house and food, but we have nothing else. Any clothes, hair cuts, days out takes us further in debt. It's getting us down and we are snipping at each other too. I'm probably about 6mth away from passing my driving test, and will be reliant on getting a part time job to help out. Until then, I'll keep doing surveys. Being a lurker on here, I have recently changed the CC repayments to a set amount, so that should reduce the balance so much quicker. Thank you t the poster who mentioned this trick.

Sorry for the moan. I know we are to a certain extent luckier than so many people but for 2 very unflashy, unshowy people, we sure have wracked up too much debt through poor choices years ago.

I don't see how you could get into such a huge amount of debt with quite a good salary coming in every month. It's the credit card debt which is the biggest burden. Yes the lottery should go but £30 is a tiny amount compared to your income.

I think you should look into extending your mortgage rather than be burdened with this huge credit card debt which will be attracting a gigantic amount of interest. And also messing about with craft fairs isn't really going to provide you with any sort of reasonable income. You need to get a job with a proper wage even it's only part time.

oh and with an IVA the interest is frozen and they (creditors) cant chase you.

I don't see how you could get into such a huge amount of debt with quite a good salary coming in every month.

Lots of people do though.
I had a meeting with a financial advisor and he said that the more money people have the more debt they tend to have as they just think they can pay it off.

The OP said she can't extend the mortgage.

Stop the lottery. £30 per month is £360 per year on nothing.

Sky really is unnecessary as freeview is pretty good. £25 per month is still £300 per year. So there is £660 per year which can be freed up and might go into paying down debt.

M & S for fruit and vegetables is nice, but not something I would do as a matter of course. I don't personally find them that much better than Tesco, which is somewhat cheaper.

even making savings of £660 a year is not going to make a dent in 45k of debt.
i had 39k and the reality really hit me when payplan showed me my options and how long each would take to repay.

you need proper advice op from a debt advisory agency. make sure you get a free one.

ive realised that there are a lot of fees with the IVA but they are within the debt you already have - the creditors get less and the agent takes a cut but ultimately you still pay the same each month so its no skin of my nose in that respect.

really op phone the national debt advice agency or similar thats free.

I agree that you need advice on the best way to manage this debt. and get it paid off. The interest rate on £45K on a credit card must be astronomical.

1. Change your utilities to Bulb. They're green - 100% renewable energy for electricity - it was cheaper for us British Gas (who we were with before) and if you recommend them to someone else and they sign up, you and they both get £50 free electicity on your account. If anyone fancies it, here's my link

I haven't tried very hard to share it since we signed up (this is the first time I've put it public - but I recommended it to a couple of friends (which I would have done without the incentive anyway, because they're green, so I feel fine about recommending them) and the credit really helped.

1. STOP DOING THE LOTTERY! This is a superstitious addiction. And £30 is loads. Repeat after me "I will set myself free from the idiot tax!!"

1. Get rid of Sky. Do you have a laptop? Connect that to the TV and watch netflix or any one of a zillion things you can find online. You don't need Sky.

I'd keep Netflix. £8 a month for entertainment isn't much.

Don't get rid of BT, being online is essential these days. Maybe look for a cheaper package.

1. Can you increase your craft sales, especially at Christmas somehow? How are you advertising your business? (What do you make?)

1. Have you got a Facebook selling page? Once you have customers you can have sale events to shift a load of stuff at once.

1. As well as looking for work locally, look for work from home opportunities.

www.indeed.co.uk/jobs?q=Online+Work+Home (Some of these are home working, some aren't)

jobs.workingmums.co.uk/jobs/homeworking/ There's a load of crap here!But if you sift through the crappy franchise ops / catalogue jobs etc there are usually some genuine jobs there.

1. Get paid for online testing:

www.usertesting.com/be-a-user-tester www.e4s.co.uk/profile/7818/testingtime.html usertest.io/Tester/Signup?utm_source=E4S&utm_medium=ad&utm_campaign=E4S%20Job%20Post And there are others

1. More homeworking ideas here: www.e4s.co.uk/jobs/1-part-time-work-from-home-jobs.htm

All great advice here from Mumsnetters but for kickass, cruel to be kind type advice try Money Saving Expert Debt Free Wannabe. It's part of Martin Lewis's advice forums.
Many of those who've benefitted from this place have been well over 45k in debt so there's no pearl clutching or eye rolling.Just very good advice,
Best of luck

Also phone for advice somewhere else. Stepfree didn't give you the advice you need, but you can try again elsewhere.

try Money Saving Expert Debt Free Wannabe excellent advice!

@blinkowl just to let you know I’ve just used your bulb referral link !

Moving to them from British Gas - they are so much cheaper!!

Six years in a DMP and we can barely afford food some weeks. I am amazed that you are still able to find the money for driving lessons whilst in a DMP. Seriously, if you pass your driving test where are you planning on getting the money together to buy a car, buy petrol and pay for the insurance, road tax etc? If you want to get this debt gone you need to throw more at it and stop spending. Sky? Get your head out of the clouds.

there are other options than a DMP though. for me that would have meant a 15 year plan - an IVA is a 5 - 6 year plan. its worth looking at.

The OP is in Scotland, an IVA or DMP isn't an option for her.

I'm a (free) debt advisor in Scotland. I can't give proper advice online but I'll be back later with some thoughts OP.

In the meantime, please have a read of this:-

www.aib.gov.uk/debt-arrangement-scheme-das/about-das

Lots of good advice on here, especially to get professional help. It wlll make you feel in control of the situation.

One little thing from me: have you tried Now TV. I believe you can get sports package. I haven’t got round to doing it but have heard it is good and FAR cheaper than sky. I’m sure other posters on here will know more about it.

As many others said, I would bin off the lottery or keep it to one lucky pound :) you could save that £30 for Xmas or something nice or of course to chip away at the debt.

Keep going!

ShesAYamEater and BlinkOwl - thank you. Your replies are really helpful. The online stepchange form just mentioned cutting savings, The issue is that we can repay so we are not really at crisis point and I understand that. It is just so overwhelming. I will, with DH later, look at every link etc and see just where can can use it to help us. Thank you.

SKy - yes, that will go as soon as the contract ends (Oct I think)

BT - yes, that will be looked at too as soon as it ends.

M&S fruit - I buy this when DS plays football (he plays on a Saturday, the pitch is near enough to the M&S so I go and get the fruit while DH watches the football). loose bananas are not more expensive that elsewhere, nor are the basic apples. But yes, it has to end and be bought with mormal shop. We try to eat clean, no ready meals, as little processed as possible. We try to eat fruit when we feel like a snack and it kind of works. My son sees grapes like sweets, loves his carrot battons (he loves chocolate too).

Lotto - I stopped the Postcode one last night. That's £10 saved. the lotto - god, that's so hard. I've had the same numbers for so so long. An excuse I know, but it would be just our luck for them to come up t he week we stopped playing.

the Northern Rock. We sold with only a few thousand in equity. That went on EA/Laywers fees, removal van etc. Nothing left to pay into the unsecured loan. So we are still paying it off. The rest, we racked up on CC when we both lost our jobs. DH was lucky enough to get another witihn 6 months, I took up crafting. but the CCs were now huge and we've never been able to pay them back properly. One lowers the borrowing. Pretty much as soon as there is £1000 in soending, they lower the limit by £1000. That's fine by us but we did get refused a CC for debt consolidation a few months ago.

On the new house, after the 2 year deal, the repayments have gone up almost £200 and we cant remortage.

The car - we thought we were doing the right thing by me taking lessons. When the buses are so few and far between, we felt it made sense. It's an essential skill and one which we hoped wuold lead to me making more money to help us, more money that the cost of insuring the car for me etc. DS goes to the high school after the summer, so hopefully would be able to let himself in and I could work longer. Its been a spend to accumulate effort but I hope we've not been stupid about that.

Notangelinajolie - We do have a car. It's a 4 year old Ford Focus. It runs out on the HP in December. We'll get a cheaper one, but a car is an essential for DHs work. We're not on any debt plan yet, I don't know about them until now.

I spend last night looking fir weekend./evening jobs that DH could drive me to. Nothing so far, but we'll keep looking.

FWIW, we've had 3 family holidays ever - a small cottage up north that we get a bit cheaper because it's through a friend of a friend type thing. We use the library instead of buying books, we don't buy loads of clothes ... If i was sat here in a big house, with a big BMW and a huge telly and a wardrobe burtsing with clothes and wondering where the money went, I'd be an idiot. I'm simply saying the burden of the debt, because of life events, because we made bad decisions in the past, is getting us down, and we cant seem to see a way out. But there have been great links and comments here for which I am truely grateful.

Orkenyfudge, thank you. I'll have a look at the link later (Football mum duties beckon now).

I would get rid of Sky and the Lottery and save yourself £55 a month straight away. Recommend keeping Netflix - lots of entertainment for £8 per month.

If I've understood correctly, you have one DS who is at school. I would honestly look into what job opportunities there are for you and put the craft stuff on the back burner for a while. You can still do it as a hobby.

I would definitely concentrate on passing your driving test - helped short term by the £55 per month you'd be saving by getting rid of the Lottery and Sky. When you can drive you'll have many more job options. Good luck!

Do you have room in your house for a lodger?

If you’ve had your car HP for 4 years you could probably trade it in now, you don’t have to wait until it’s fully paid off. Trying leasing something instead as that’s cheaper than HP and go older. Or you could sell the car, pay off your remaining amount and buy something older outright therefore saving £200 a month.

The other thing is to pay by standing order rather than DD. Those extras pounds chipping away at the debt rather than interest only make a significant difference.

Use a debt snowball calculator to see how much it can benefit you

Hi op just to say what other have said sky Netflix lotto and bt have to go. Grt a cheaper mob co tract if possible. Sell what you can can you sell a car and buy a cheaper one? Take in a lodger, ironing, do cleaning, dog walking, babysitting. Could you register as a childminder?

Fwiw we were a similar position years ago and we did repay ot but that was mainly from redundancies, selling cars etc so some quite big chucks at a time and always switching to zero per cent.