You don't have enough to live on, cashwise, after debts have been paid so you are almost certainly insolvent. An acid test is how many credit cards you maybe juggling, and whether the balances on them, and any overdrafts, are steadily increasing. If so, take advice asap. Whilst your loans may be clear in 4 years, your credit cards will take 50 years plus so it probably isn't worth the suffering of hanging on.
Speak to a professional trained eye as soon as you can.
Regards.
Cert DR
23+ years in debt advice
I do not post for anyone other than myself
I agree with Size5. People often say that they have never missed a payment but this has been at the expense of additional debt. It would be worth a chat to someone to discuss all your options and hopefully you can get the right resolution.
Sound advice, as always, from the experts. We'd never come close to missing a payment - but only because of the huge availability of credit open to us. To put it into perspective we were paying £850 per month in minimum payments to creditcards/loans etc and £1,400 per month in mortgage/second charge payments. At the time my wife was working part time, we had an 18 month old daughter and our combined monthly income was probably £2,400 at best. £150 left to pay council tax, utility bills, csa payments and to food & clothe a family of three. Try telling me that we were not insolvent just because we'd never missed a payment!!
But if you thought the bulk of it would be over in four years would you of gone through an IVA? I am petrified of the loan with the mortgage. It is unsecured but because it's with the mortgage it makes me just that little more anxious. Without passing the buck we were definitely allowed to take too much with our mortgage. That has caused the extra borrowing.
The future's bright, the future's debt free. In 72 months to be exact!
We had over £56,000 in unsecured borrowing with only about ten grand of that in personal loans - the vast majority was tied up in creditcards and overdrafts, which realistically was never going to be paid off. I agree that for those whose debt is primarily short term loans a 5 year (maybe 6) IVA may not be as applicable. No two cases are the same, Heavydebt.
But the bulk of it won't be over in 4 years will it? That is the point here in the cold light of day.
If you cannot live on your cash you must be borrowing, and if you are borrowing then it will be by the same amount that you need to make up the shortfall each month. When your loans end you will have had 4 years of repayments on both the loans and the credit cards and you will inevitably owe either the same as you do now, but probably more.
IP's are there to help, so don't be frightened to make the call.
Regards.
Cert DR
23+ years in debt advice
I do not post for anyone other than myself
We tried a DMP which would have taken forever to pay off, and an IVA was the only solution for us.
HSBC were the ones who did us - they told us to do additional borrowing on the mortgage, but all they wanted us to do it for was to pay them off!
We foolishly took the extra borrowing, but HSBC were never paid off.
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