Money, money, money

[stonybroke]

Hi there - could really do with some advice, opinions, experience! I have changed my name (what a wimp!) as I am too embarrassed to use my normal name. I am even nervous as I type, as I know some will wonder how we got in this mess.

Anyway... the subject is AGGGHHHHHH MONEY! We are in a major, and I mean major, mess and we have worked all weekend on figures trying to work out the solution.

I don't have the exact figures with me but the situation is:

We owe £30,000 on credit cards, personal loans, car loan.
We own our house through a shared housing scheme, where we have a mortgage for half and rent half. The equity is only around £8,000. Property prices don't go up very much where we live approx. £2,000 per year. Our mortgage is £31,500

We need a new roof, we only have two bedrooms and now need additional one with dd's arrival. We could convert our room into two bedrooms for 2 kids and we move into ds room. Our garden needs major work done - it is a big old concrete jungle.

We earn about £26,000 between us. I work parttime, childcare is £75.00 per week.

Anyway there lays bear the facts of the situation - scarey eh? We do not live lavish lives - don't buy many clothes, have had one holiday in 10 years, etc. I stayed at home with my ds for 3 years and that is where the problem began. We also bought our first house in the sticks which turned into a major mistake.

The figures this weekend showed that we get into debt every month just paying for our household bills and loan repayments. That leaves nothing for clothes, going out, christmas, birthdays, etc. No extras of any shape.

The option we think my be the one to go with (even though I am a avid watcher of Alvin Hall and he says never to do this) is to consolidate over 25 years (if we would even be accepted for this?) In theory this would reduce our monthly repayments from approx £750 to aprox £260 or thereabout. That at least would mean we would have some cash for clothes, school fund, christmas, etc.

Anyway, I think that is the details. I am shaking as I type this. Please Please any sound financial advise would be very much appreciated! I am off to the ladies to have a cry.

the book people do cheap packs of "all purpose" cards - work out to about 20p per card, or something. They were in the latest catalogue, I think.

aloha, I just googled Barclaycard and the website now shows a minimum spend of £50 a month but we spend much more than that on petrol alone so I'll give it a go!

Aha! Janh, you were right and I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I actually rang Barclaycard, and they admitted that any payments go first to the balance transfer. So I take it back completely. Get an ordinary 0per cent deal and don't spend any money at all on it!
BTW, thanks Janh for alerting me! Even as I was posting, I was thinking, hmm...too good to be true.
Boo to Barclaycard, hooray for Janh

stonybroke - have been reading this with much interest and lots and lots of sympathy, I had a similar thread a while ago about beastly Barclays (it's always Barclays isn't it?) bank charges. Don't have many more ideas other than all the good advice that you have been given here except, since you are civil servants, have you looked at th Civil Service Benevolent Fund? They may be worth appraoching, especially now the car has blown up - you could dress that up as an emergency. My dept also has a Family Fund so your dept may also have on. Also, if you or your husband use the car for business, not just to and from work, have you both claimed a standing imprest for your T&S?

And finally - LIDL! . I've saved pounds and pounds and pounds by using them and Morrisons instead of of Tescos and Sainsburys.

Good luck.

Dear Stonybroke,

What everyone has recommended is great and it is even better that you have managed to put some of it into action. I'm sure you will work down that to do list.

The only other thing I can think of is to rent out a bedroom, you can get about £40 a week or more, which amounts to £160 a month in extra cash. May be you could rent out to a student or a working professional, but this dependent on where you live.

I hope this helps, best of luck.
If your bedroom is big enough maybe the 2 kids can sleep in your room (bunk beds)so you can rent out their room. It depends on how desperate for extra income you are. You will not be liable for tax, if you charge less than £80 a week.

Thanks for checking, aloha! Maybe I won't get one then...only I am sure I did read once that as long as you make the minimum payment, you can then pay extra and tell them what to use it for - might be worth a try!

Have come into work early so I can leave early - stress levels have rocketed. Not only did car die yesterday but computer did last night also. Hard Disk Drive or something. Feels like the straw that broke the camels back. dh has suffered from depression in past and am concerned that it is going to come back (I think maybe that is why we have been blindly ignoring debt, as the stress might push him over edge again). Am very scared and feel like he is hanging onto by the neck and I am pulling him along while trying to sort this out. Sorry feeling very moany. Will be off line until tomorrow. Sorry for feeling sorry for myself. Just feeling very low. Thanks for listening.

Oh no, how awful!
I think if you can get through to Monday and the CCAB, things will hopefully seem much more controllable - can dh go to the appointment with you? I think that feeling "out of control" is a big factor in causing unhappiness, and sometimes depression too. When you have a detailed plan of how best to go forward you will feel more positive.
You WILL be able to sort things out and move forward with you life.
Scoobysnax
xxx

Oh, stonybroke, that's so unfair - hope your DH can manage to be as positive as you have so far. Hard disk drives can be replaced AFAIK, you don't have to get a new computer, but you lose what's on it - do you have any friends who are computer whizzes who can help you out? Or is there one of those small local computer shops? (Try Yellow Pages.)

You've done so well this week, good luck with the PC! Will be thinking about you...

stonybroke - don't get a computer shop to fix it - they'll charge way more than you need to spend. I don't know if you or your DH know much about computers but even if you don't, you don't need a computer shop to fix a hard drive. Luckily that's one of the easiest bits to do yourself.

Firstly, do you know it's the hard drive? Don't want to spend money fixing the wrong thing. Secondly, there are LOADS of books out there that give you step by step guides to doing this sort of thing. Try looking for a Complete Idiots Guide or Dummies Guide. For something with a lot to go wrong, like a motherboard, I wouldn't advise it but a hard drive alone doesn't need much more than plugging in.

If you don't know much about it, you're best off getting an exact replacement for the one you've got now as getting a better one might cause you some problems. If you don't know what you've got, take it to a PC shop and ask them. Then look on www.aria.co.uk because they are fairly cheap for everything.

And if you do know more than I've assumed, sorry for treating you like an idiot!!! HTH

Stonybroke, I pay the agency an annual fee and then ring up when I want a babysitter. They organise a sitter for me, but I pay sitter on the night, at whatever sitters rates are, so they do get to take home everything. If you do put an advert anywhere, stress that you are a mum with own transport. They are the reasons I pay higher rates than the local 16/17 yr olds (plus, they don't seem to need the money round here, and have had 17 yr olds cancel the day before cause they've decided they're going out with their mates - grr)

Stoneybroke - get yourself something to use as a notebook (don't buy one, use an old desk diary or something similar). Write in there a record of EVERYTHING each member of the family spends - every single penny, every day. Just the thought of having to write it into the book will make you think twice before spending money.
Review each week, then each month. Study each item and try to justify it to DH and yourself (and to an imaginary audience of critics). If you can't justify the purchase as essential then don't buy the same thing again. Stop buying newspapers daily (one paper each day costs around £280 pa) - possibly a weekend paper could be justified if it contained a week's tv guide. Stop buying meals out at work, etc - sandwiches and pasties have sustained the working population for decades.
Forget about work on the house and garden - patch repairs will have to do.
You know you're short of money so stop spending - not one penny more than absolutely necessary.
If this sounds depressing, think of the buzz you'll get when you're finally out of this mess. You've got yourself into this; with the help of the advice from the other posters you'll get yourself out.

if you're civil servants you can use costco - for cheap shopping cheaper shopping

also have you got any friends in your IT dept at work how might be able to mend sickcomputer??

also if you can face it - when you go babysitting yoy can charge more if you do their ironing (I know this might be a really drastic solution- but its extra pennies)

and hugs to you and dh hanging in there

Again many thanks for all your encouraging words. Left work at 10am yesterday, so dh and I could have some time to get our heads around everything, without having to worry about the kids. It really helped and am feeling back on form again! Managed to sleep last night as well. I just felt like the living dead yesterday, so sorry for my whinging.

Found out yesterday afternoon that we took out a five year warranty on computer - so getting that fixed thank goodness. This was after we had gone onto premium rate line (£1 per minute) though!! What are we like. It was just everything coming together. The killer as well was that when computer wouldn't work, we were trying to log on for 0% interest rate credit cards!!!

Another piece of good news is that dh has clicked back into coping mode again, thank . The car has gone to a little cloud in car graveyard - bye bye 'Beast'! So starting on bus straight away - so will see savings straight away also! We have managed with a couple of other adjustments to scrap back £160 per month! Now we should at least not be going into the red AND we have some money to start paying back some debt!

Question for all you knowledgeable people - on our credit card bill the % rate is per month (something like 1.4) do we multiple this by 12 to get APR? Scarey if that is the case!

We have all figures worked out and sorted for CAB on Monday. In a way I think we have (with all your fantastic advise - we will be forever 'in debt' to Mumsnetters!) worked out what we have to do and now just have to do it. I see the CAB as looking at what we intend to do and give expert ok on the plan and I'm hoping (don't know if they do this) they will monitor us, so that we are accountable to someone besides ourselves.

www on one of the links from other thread the ivillage 'rapid repayment scheme' looked very user friendly. That is the plan we intend to go with, so thank you.

Anyway, anyway, anyway..... thank you again from the bottom of my heart for all your lovely words of encouragement and for all the fantastic advise - I will let you know how Monday goes. Take care xxx

That's wonderful news Stonybroke---especially about your DH getting back into coping mode! You are making wonderful progress, and you really are inspiring.

I thought I'd posted about this yesterday, but apparently not. BBC Breakfast has been doing segments about debt and managing finances. The website is here

stonybroke, what a great post, you are already halfway out of your hole!

Credit card APRs are not completely straightforward because they depend on how much you pay and when but 1.4 a month is high. The APRs of the big bank cards are around 17/18% I think so 12x monthly rate probably is roughly right.

We got an Egg card in April, 0% interest on everything for 6/7 months (it's about to finish, must pay it off!) and the monthly rate after that is around 12%. Just checked their website and the current deal is 0% until March and you can set the whole thing up on line. (Our credit limit was set up at £10,000 without asking, they are very kind!)

Have a good meeting on Monday, hope you get your PC back soon!

I just followed maomao's BBC link, have a look at this , it's a lot of case studies from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, very encouraging and reassuring

Hi stony, glad you are feeling more positive today. Yes, the credit card interest system is a big shock if you had never realised before how it works.

Just wanted to say, I hope you are aware that you can get a refund on your car tax if you have a few months left on it. You get a form from the post office.

'fraid I've not read all of this thread but if if hasn't been already mentioned, you should check out a great website called money saving expert . It's got details of all the best deals for transferring credit card balances, amongst other things, and you can sign up for free regular money saving tips emails.

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Oh, good, glad that link was useful stonybroke. Well done for the achievements so far, really good stuff!

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jodee, what a good site, thanks for the link!

Janstar and Robinw - we are on the ball - dh has already applied for both refunds! Impressive or what!

dadslib - lol - one of my dh's favourite expressions is your last one!!! Thanks for all the advise - I'm not sure about the 0% credit card situation either - we haven't done anything yet and think we will probably leave it until Monday and see what CAB think. We probably could get some cards as we have never defaulted on Anything Ever - that is how we always fooled ourselves we were doing okay. I think if we couldn't have paid our bills we would have thought we had a problem sooner. We pay for all our house bills by monthly dd - heating oil, BT, electricity, etc.
maomao, janh and jodee thanks for the links - I have put them in my favourites for future reading - am working my way through www's link to ivillage at the moment (yep, loads of work getting done again - head bows in shame!) very good and would highly recommend to everyone - great money saving tips and recipes and gift ideas.

btw have been sorting xmas out already - have spoken to a few friends and said we wouldn't be giving gifts this year and not to give us anything. I hated doing it but know the costs just mount up. Was going to get ds a tv/video combi but am now just going to get him a video (hoping that can get one from bil who has recently got new one, so old one might be going - ds has tv already for playstation and he won't be bothered whether its new or not), my dd is too young to want anything, but will get something in carboot for around £5. dh and I won't get each other anything.

Another thing am looking into is becoming a Virgin Vie office angel - my understanding is that you leave brochures in each office (I work in large high rise) and come back for orders. Avon is here but noone seems to do Virgin and I LOVE their stuff! Couldn't do parties - not outgoing enough - but will give this a go. Also still keen to do babysitting too.

Thanks again to everyone.

You will get accepted for a 0 per cent card! You have credit already and have never defaulted on it so you're a dream customer. The issue here is that with a big credit card debt almost everything you pay goes towards servicing the interest, not the debt. Once you stop paying interest, all your payments pay off the debt. Yes, it's short term, but it's very easy to get a year off paying interest which on credit cards adds up to a lot of money. You don't actually have to physically keep the card itself to get this deal. (You can't 'get rid' of your credit cards if you still have debt! They don't let you!). You get the card, do the balance transfer and then cut up the new card to prevent yourself spending, work out how much you have to pay a month to reduce the debt by half in six months (or pay it off altogether) and then pay that amount. If you still have debt at the end of six months, then swap again to 0per cent. If you don't swap you will still have the credit card debt and will be paying up to 26% interest rates AS WELL, which is madness IMO. Of course, you mustn't spend on the new card, which is why it will be helpful to cut it up.