23-year-old with 20K debt

Age: 23
Spouse’s/Partner's age: N/A

Annual gross income from employment or profession: €23000
Annual gross income of spouse: N/A

Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed - ADMIN

In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, YES
(b) saving?

Rough estimate of value of home
Amount outstanding on your mortgage:
What interest rate are you paying? N/A

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc - €22,000

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? No
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? €5,120

Savings and investments:

Do you have a pension scheme?

Do you own any investment or other property? No

Ages of children: None

Life insurance: None


What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you? See this thread.

Hi Cindy 2010,

Will you give a break down of the essential bills you have to pay every month so we can get a clearer picture of how to advise you. Also it may be helpful if you give your net pay. I have only glanced at your last post and it is all over the place and unclear.

Hi Marietta, €1750 net is what I earn.

GE - €5,000 (roughly) - 5 years - €80 per month
Credit union €6,500 (roughly) - 5 years - €220 per month
Main bank - €4,000 roughly (paying back €7,500) - 7 years - €90 per month
mbna - €5,000 outstanding. - €200 per month
Car insurance - €80 per month
rent - €650 per month
ESB/ gas - €50 (estimated) per month
food - €200 per month
petrol - €80 per month
Phone credit - €40 per month
Prescription drugs - €30 per month (used to be €60)

As you can see, these are all necessities. I may have left something out, I hope I haven't though.

If its ok with the moderators here, Can I perhaps do a spread that Cindy could fill in? We dont seem to be getting the details we need to help her out - think shes not sure how to break it down.

Cindy, if you could please fill out the below for us;

Take Home Pay (please specify if its weekly or monthly) :
Please list the full salary from both jobs, either separately or combined

BILLS
Please specify if weekly or monthly)

Rent:
ESB & Bord Gais:
Food:
Car running costs (Insurance, tax, petrol):

Credit Card - please inform us of the minimum payment they want every month

Loans

Please list all three for us, and also the repayment amounts per month/week. As you are not sure of the full amounts outstanding you might be able to tell us the length of time left on the loans (i.e. 2years, 6 months, etc.).

This should get the ball rolling for Cindy.

Take Home Pay (please specify if its weekly or monthly) : €1,750 monthly
Please list the full salary from both jobs, either separately or combined

BILLS
Please specify if weekly or monthly) MONTHLY

Rent: €650
ESB & Bord Gais: €50 (roughly)
Food: €200 - €300 (roughly)
Car running costs (Insurance, tax, petrol): €160 (tax €80 every 3 months)

Credit Card: €150

Loans

GE Money €80
Bank I'm with €90
Credit union €220

You beat me to it

Ok, some tips! Firstly, what car do you drive? Engine size, etc.? what you pay per month is quite high. I'm the same age as you, drive a Yaris and my insurance for the year was €369 euros. Driving since I was 19. Yours for the year is €960 - some of this cost is because you pay monthly which you cant avoid at the moment. You pay nearly three times more than me - I think with a bit of shopping around you could get this down. As well the smaller the car, the lower tax and petrol cost. I know you say you would be lost without your car but could you perhaps sell it and buy something smaller and cheaper? It could free up some money to use for debt repayments.

You seem to have left out the cost of broadband and/or TV.

ESB/Bord Gais. It is coming to the summer months so hopefully these will be down anyway for the next 2 bills. Everytime you leave your apartment, I want you to go into each room and ensure that everything is plugged out at the wall - not just turned off. Plug it all out. If you have the plugs with switches, make sure the switches are off too. When you are finished boiling the kettle, etc. plug them back out. This really does help, even if its just a little. Try not to use the heating either if you can.

Phone credit - are you on the best package you could be on? Free calls, free texts, etc. Shop around. I know you have a long distance relationship and are possibly using the phone for calls/texts sometimes, try to cut this back if you can - save it for Skype I spend 20 per month with O2, and have the free texts plan - I dont call much if I can text instead.

Food! This is where it was tough for me - I loved eating out or getting takeaways and it was pure laziness on my part, I just couldnt be bothered cooking when I got home. I still get the odd takeaway though You know the basics, shop in the cheapest place i.e. Aldi or Lidl. Meal plans are great too - for example, I would make a lasagne which has approx 4 portions. I freeze 2, wrap one in the fridge to eat the following night and have that nights dinner. Total cost is about 5 euros. It stops me from being lazy too because I have lots of meals in the freezer ready to be defrosted. Always buy the cheapest of everything - butters, bread, milk, ketchup. Own brands are always cheaper. It sucks because it may not be as nice, but by god does it help. I reckon with good concentration and meal planning you could get your food bill down from 200 per month to about 100 - 120. ALWAYS bring a packed lunch with you to work.

I'm going to explain my housing situation to you - my partner and I rent a 3 bed house. We had a friend living with us, he went travelling, so we advertised for another tenant to keep the rent cost down. Problem was we have 2 dogs - maltese - and we thought most people wouldnt live with pets. We had three people come to view the room and all three had no problems with the dogs. I really thought it would be a problem but I was surprised. Everything is going fantastic with our tenant, she loves our two.

Having your own apartment is great but if you could rent a room in a house with other people who dont mind cats you could be saving 300 euros a month. My advice is to get on to Daft, check out house shares - people normally specify if pets are welcome or not. Do a little ring around (from the office if you can - not the mobile ) and visit a few places. This way moving home doesnt have to come into the picture. One cat is not a big deal, they are very independant animals.

I have no previous experience with any of the loan providers you have listed, all of mine were with one bank so I cant really help out there. I wish I could but banks arent really my forte. Some of the regular posters on here are great with that - please give your two cents guys.

Try to take these things on board. I know its hard looking ahead with this financial burden but it goes away. One by one the loans will clear, leaving you with more money each month for you.

I forgot to mention - are you claiming all of your tax credits? Refuse costs, etc.? I wasnt claiming all of mine at all and when I copped it I called the revenue, they updated everything for me and I was taxed less each week. Might be worth looking into.

Another tip! They keep coming to me once I post another, sorry

MBNA CC debt - Ask them can you go interest only for a few months - this will lower those monthly repayments so you can get some money aside. they might agree to 6 months interest only, approx 30-40 euros.

Cindy

It is possible to get out of debt without giving up your life. I know this because I have done it myself. My situation was similar to yours, although I had a little bit more breathing space as I earned more money than you. But I owed about the same amount.

I am happy to say I came out the other side and as a result I am like a ninja when it comes to saving - nothing teaches you saving skills like being in debt!

If you run away from your debt you could be tracked down. Especially if you are just going to the UK. Also if the banks bring you to court and you don't show you, you could end up with legal problems. However I understand how you feel (I really do) but you need to be absolutely sure if you decide to run away the decision is based on logic and not emotion. Right now it sounds like it is 100% based on emotion. This alone tells me it is a bad idea. (Financial decisions should never be based on emotion...)

It does sound like your priorities are wrong. I suspect this is because you are not thinking clearly at the moment which is based on what you told us in your other thread.

You need to forget the surgery idea. Whatever insecurities you have can be solved in your head. You don't need to solve them physically.

You need to move into shared accomodation. You are lying to yourself by saying this isn't possible. There are plenty of people with big mortgages who are desperate for someone to rent a room. And there are plenty of animal lovers. If you really want to you can find somewhere. That'll free up about 250 a month.

Something which I found very relieving when I was paying off my debt was I focussed on paying off one item only. So I paid off CC1 first, then added the money spent paying that one back towards CC2. Getting rid of each debt item like this allows you to "snowball" your repayments so eventually when you're on your last loan you can pay it back within months.

But because you have a low wage this is going to take a long time. Your options are to run away (probably bad in the long run), be miserable while paying it back, or pay it back while choosing to live your life as full as possible. There are loads of free things you can do which are fun - book reading clubs, hill walking clubs, etc. Have a look on meetup.com for more ideas.

Whatever you decide to do, just make sure you are being honest with yourself, and are not tricking yourself into believing x or y based on desperation or negative emotions.

Good luck.

Cindy, having read both threads, a couple of things strike me -
1. You aren't being honest with yourself or us. Please outline how much you owe to friends also and what arrangements are in place to pay this back if any.
2. You say you want to run from your debts; however you wont give up your pets. You can't have it both ways. If you planned on running you are leaving them too.

Based on what you have outlined above you should have approx. €50 spare every month except when paying your car tax. This is clearly not the case based on your other thread. Take some time on this and identify all of your outgoings against what you are earning.

Cindy2010 said:

Credit union €6,500 (roughly) - 5 years - €220 per month
Main bank - €4,000 roughly (paying back €7,500) - 7 years - €90 per month

Click to expand...

I don't understand these two but I might have missed something on a previous post.

Why are you paying €220 per month on a €6500 5 year credit union loan? At those repayments, you will have the loan paid off in just under 3 years.

The same with the second loan. I don't understand how a €4000 loan can man paying back €7500 over 7 years. Is it a subprime lender?

My suggestion would be to make an appointment with MABS. You need to restructure your debt and they may be able to help you negotiate something with your creditors. You need to start focusing on paying back the most expensive debt instead of paying minimum amounts off every debt.

Cindy,from reading this thread and your other thread,I get the impression you're not taking total respnsibility for your debts nor are you looking at your situation realistically.you are a low paid worker.you cannot afford cosmetic surgery,expensive pets,holidays and nights out when you owe this much.you said that you cannot bare the thought of putting your shoulder to the wheel for the next 5 years or so.well,sorry to tell you but you'll have to.listen to the advice here and put your shoulder to the wheel.forget about the surgery.sell the car.sorry,but sell the animals.move into a house share.explain your situation to your partner and maybe he/she will come visit you until you get back on your feet.look into upskilling with a view to increasing your earning potential.you can do it.plenty of people here have.best of luck

Dmos - Okay first off, to answer dmos, I don't have Sky, can't afford it. I just have a hanger as an aerial and my broadband is €15 which I couldn't live without to be honest. I always buy cheap brands of food, toiletries etc. too. I have quite the eye for bargains in the supermarket. And the reason why my car insurance is so high this year is coz i had a minor crash last year and someone claimed off me (they claimed far too much in my opinion but that's the way the cookie crumbles). Believe me, this is the best quote I could get. Plus I have about 6 or 8 penalty points and some Insurers will not take people with that much penalty points on.

UFC - thanks for the comment, I'm glad you understand what it's like. And I have done alot of research on the sharing accom thing for years, people just aren't interested with cats. You find an ad that says "pets allowed" and people automatically presume it's dogs. Because they have dogs. Then they say "no sorry the dogs won't like the cats". Plus, you wouldn't believe the amount of people that dislike cats in this country, it's quite shocking to be honest. Not one person I work with likes cats. And that's about 11 people. It's been very frustrating for me dealing with this kind of thing for so long (years) and that's why I decided to venture out on my own. I appreciate what you're saying, however hillwalking and bookreading is not my idea of fun and I really don't mean to sound mean when I say that.

Deas - I couldn't put it better myself. You're right. "€50 left over every month" - THAT is the problem I have. I don't want to live like this for another 5 years...do you get it? With €50 left over every month? I'd rather be DEAD than live like that for another 5 years...sorry...but I work very hard and it kills me having to live like that ESPECIALLY the fact that it's not a mortgage which I would actually have something to show for it at the end. I guess if it was for 6 months, I could live like that. But 5 years? I'd rather jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. In saying that, I know I got myself into this mess, I take 100% responsibility for it. As for leaving my pets if I run, no way will that happen. Wherever I go, they go. They are free to travel between the UK and Ireland without having to be quarantined first. I did the research. They can go on a ferry, you need documentation and all that, but that's to be expected.

Sunny - apologies, I just checked my paperwork. The loan is €4,900 - over 7 years I'm paying back €7,500 - it's with my bank, a very well known one, I'd rather not say here which one it is though because I don't want to shoot myself in the foot in case there are any prying eyes. And I think I am paying the credit union off in 3 years but I'm not so sure, you see the reason we opted for 3 is because over 5 years the interest was quite high. Apologies for my absent memory, but you guys must understand that I have been putting this stuff to the back of my head for so long, that I find it hard to know what goes in and out of my account anymore. I don't feel financially safe anymore, as when I think I might have €200 in my account I realise I have nothing and it scares me so I just avoid going to the atm machine if at all possible. What about the phonecall to MABS where the "adviser" basically told me off and that she couldn't help? I'm sorry but my opinion of them is ROCK BOTTOM at the moment...she didn't offer to help me or make an appointment for me, I asked but she brushed it off, probably because I don't have a mortgage or kids, I forgot her name actually, pity because I wanted to make a complaint.

legallady, yes you're right. You're wrong saying my pets are expensive to keep though, very wrong actually. Plus I haven't been on a sun holiday in 14 years so you're wrong there again. You're also wrong on the fact that you say I "have to". I don't "have to" if I simply disappear....it may not be the RIGHT thing to do, infact it's very wrong, however, for my sanity, I think it's something I will have to do. Because talking and doing are two very different things. It's all well for you saying "you have to do this" etc. etc. however, are you going to help me when I run out of money 2 - 3 weeks before I get paid again? Nope. Nobody will. And I'm afraid I'll go into a deep depression if I have to carry on having as your man said earlier on "€50 left over every month" for the next 5 years...I just can't do this anymore....I'm at my wit's end.

Cindy2010 said:

"€50 left over every month" - THAT is the problem I have. I don't want to live like this for another 5 years...do you get it? With €50 left over every month? I'd rather be DEAD than live like that for another 5 years...sorry....

Click to expand...

Cindy - I think you need to calm down and start thinking rationally here. It is not the end of the world and €20,000 or so in debt is not huge in terms of what others owe at this point in time. My suggestion to you would be to contact MABS again and maybe you will get through to a different person. If not, contact your local citizen advise bureau, you will find that the people working there are very compassion and will ensure you get directed through the right channels.

You work for the Civil Service which is a permanent secure position and no doubt you will get promotion as the years go on so dont go jumping ship just yet. Absconding to the UK brings its own problems, you need money for accommodation and living expenses and it is not that easy to secure employment after all there is a recession on there as well.

I think you would be better off to restructure all your loans into one then you will know exactly how much you are paying out every month, maybe the credit union will do that for you so go along and have a heart to heart chat with them.

And finally, forget about cosmetic surgery I am sure you are very beautiful as you are and the knife sometimes does more harm than good. Your happiness comes from within and not from your physical appearance. Smile and the world smies with you.

This is the type of thread I normally like to respond to as I am fairly savvy when it comes to day to day budgeting and also am on top of best deals on ins, phone etc and plan for the annual expenses.
However I feel the OP here while they say they are taking 100% responsibility they are not as they are using excuse after excuse when valid rational suggestions are being made.
Get rid of the cat, get a house share, cut back to about half of what you spend on food.
You have to do these things if you want to get out of debt. Most of us have been there before. You are young and have time to get through it.
Restructure loans.
The fact you have so many penalty points gives me the impression you have very little regard for life around you or perhaps if you are being stopped by Guards it's your attitude that is getting them for you hence the issue with MABS.
I think a little maturity is needed - otherwise I suggest you try living in the UK as you suggest yourself.

Cindy, What we're really saying is please try and exhaust every option available to you before you run off. We know its daunting, we've been there. But you can work it out. You have so much going out of your account at different times its impossible to keep track and its frightening. Believe me I know all about this - and it took me the bones of 2 months to consolidate everything together to be lifted at once. Its not going to be easy but it needs to be done.

You need to take out all the loan papers you have and contact each and every bank you owe money to. You need to speak with them about merging the total debt into one loan with one repayment per month. Everything needs to be simplified so you can breathe. I would personally go to the Credit Union first and talk to them.

If merging the debt isnt possible, you need to

1. Talk to the CC provider about going interest only for a few month to give you breathing space. They should agree to this.

2. Talk about extending out the terms of the loans - I know you have done this for one loan already. Yes there is more interest to be paid but chances are once you have money in your account you can save and pay off the loans a bit early.

And please please please for the love of God go back to MABS and talk to them - lay everything out on the table for them - CLEARLY. I wouldnt be surprised if the first girl was confused, you are still confused about your loans yourself!

If the banks refuse to merge all the debt together or extend the terms MABS can help with that.

I have been following this thread with interest and the one thing I would suggest is (and I know a few others have as well is to try mabbs again, I know you had a bad first experience but the first time I went to mabbs (I have had to use them 3 times over the years)the lady i spoke to told me I couldnt afford to live ,and she couldnt help me which was enough to put me off but I a few years later I was so desperate i tried them again and had a totally different experience they were a great help!

Own place, car, pets, internet, mobile phone credit of 40.

I'm afraid that you simply don't earn enough to sustain this lifestyle.

I would've thought it would be tight enough even if you didn't have to service any debt so there probably aren't too many other savings available.

I am going to apologise in advance but maybe I am saying what other people may be thinking - is this a genuine problem?

Where do I start.....the mabs woman did not like you, the person who crashed into into did not like you - they claimed, the insurance did not like you they paid out, the Gardai did not like you - they gave you penalty points nobody likes your cat, the banks dont like you. The people on here dont like you.

I sympathise about your cat, because I am an animal lover but if it were me I would be looking for solutions instead of moaning about problems.

Pride in yourself and positive thinking goes a long way. The world does not owe anyone a living.