# Help, Financial Meltdown



## Diann (25 Feb 2008)

Age: 32
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 34
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 19000
Annual gross income spouse:35000
Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed Civil Servant
Expenditure pattern: In general are you spending more than you earn or are you saving? yes[/font]
Rough estimate of value of home 340,000
Mortgage on home 275,000
Mortgage provider: iib
Type of mortgage: fixed rate
Interest rate 5.1%, 1350 monthly
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
Car loan 335 monthly, 3 years left
Personal Loan 110
Personal Loan 100
Credit Card Self 3500
Credit Card Spouse 11,500
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? n
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? As above
Savings and investments: none
Do you have a pension scheme? Public service pension
Do you own any investment or other property? no
Ages of children: 4, 4, 1
Life insurance: Irish life, 50 monthly

*What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you? *[/font]
We seem to be living week to week and I want to give up work to stay at home. All loans get paid but credit card gets ignored which would be a black spot on our credit rating. Just some advice on consolidating our loans.


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## z104 (25 Feb 2008)

I want to give up work too and stay at home but I can't afford to. It looks like you can't afford to either. sorry.


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## Galway5 (25 Feb 2008)

I presume when you say



> All loans get paid but credit card gets ignored which would be a black spot on our credit rating.


 
that you mean you have already tried to move your credit card balances to 0% rated credit cards (i.e. change credit card company) and that you cannot i.e. this is the black spot? 
If not then you should consider doing this straight away as you are probably racking up penalties and interest on these cards. Then consider possibly getting a personal loan and clear the credit cards and cut them up.

In relation to the other matters I am not sure, would you staying at home cut back on costs like childcare? Might be worth doing a calculation of income and expenditure in both scenarios. But your priority should be getting rid of those credit card balances.


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## eileen alana (25 Feb 2008)

Cut up the credit cards, how on earth did you both manage to run up debts of 15,000 euro on them? Another alternative is to transfer the balances to a credit card which offer a low rate of zero interest for a limited period then cancel the old ones. Either way the debts will have to be paid and ignoring them will not make the problem go away.


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## ClubMan (26 Feb 2008)

Have you spoken to MABS yet?

You mention the loan repayments but not the amounts, terms and rates. You should post this info for clarity.


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## redstar (28 Feb 2008)

If its possible, can you top up your personal loan or mortgage to pay off the credit card debt ? Extend the term of the loan rather than the monthly repayments amount if cash flow is a problem for you.

Unfortunately, until high-interest debts (ie credit cards) are cleared you shouldn't give up work. You need to work on reducing your debt and look at your spending patterns first. Only when this is in control should you consider giving up work (I think you know this anyway).


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## ramble (29 Feb 2008)

You seem to have a fairly serious problem and should talk to mabs.  Do a very detailed note of your spending and look at the costs of you going out to work.  With 3 children to be minded you can't have a lot of money spare from your wages.  You may also be spending money unnecessarily because you are spending money on things that could be done for free if you had time (stuff like packed lunches, car washes, petrol for journeys you could walk, laundry, cleaning, entertainment etc).  Try to get a hold of a book called the tightwad gazette at your local library, it contains some fairly extreme measures and is very american but it will give you an idea of ways to save money and a morale boost.  You really need to get out of this financial hole while your children are small, little children are relatively cheap compared to the over 10's.  Minding an extra child might make it viable to stay at home given your income but you would need to be prepared to take serious spending cuts to get rid of all that debt,
.


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