Debt

[cronemeister]

Evening/Morning all.

 

After a bit of finance advice if anyone is able to assist please.

 

We (me, the missus and our 2 kids) are hoping to fly out to Oz in a couple of months as I have a new job (on a 457 visa) out there.

 

We are selling our 2 cars and a few other bits and pieces which will go towards shipping costs of some home contents and our dog.

 

The question I have is around some debt that me and the missus have here in the UK with bank overdrafts and credit cards etc, which ideally we would have liked cleared before we leave but in total it amounts to about £7k which would eat into most of the money we will have for moving.

 

Not an ideal situation I know, but on the plus side my missus will be working soon after we get there which she currently does not do here in the UK. My salary will be enough for us to live off, so her salary whatever it maybe will be a bonus for us, so we had planned to use part of it to pay things off back here in the UK.

 

Does anyone know if there is anything wrong with doing this, or should I just contact the relevant companies and explain the situation to them. Obviously the overdrafts don't have monthly payments for them as such, just the charges for having the overdrafts, but the credit cards etc do.

 

Is it possible to have things frozen so that no more interest accrues etc>

 

We are renting our house out which will more than cover our mortgage payment and give us abou £300 additional income as our mortgage is so low, so that again would be used to reduce our debt here. I had thought about borrowing a bit extra on our mortgage as we have loads of equity in our property to pay off the debt, but as I'm currently unemployed in the UK here I don't think my mortgage company would entertain that idea.

 

As mentioned before its not an ideal situation to be in, but this has all come about so quickly that we haven't had any time to do much about it or pay stuff off quicker than we have been able to.

 

Any advice would be most appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[Guest Shell15]

The following website will give you the information you need. You can send a hold action letter to creditors asking them to hold charges of interest etc for a month to give you time to complete a budget summary sheet. Once you have filled the summary sheet in you will have a clear idea of a. Whether you can afford the full payments or b. if you cant how much you can afford to make an offer of to the creditors. I would advise you ring them to make sure you do it the correct way. Good luckhttp://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk

[Guest trasi]

Hi Ya.

Firstly dont worry, you are def not alone..... i too have debt and alot more than that ! :daydreaming:

I am also coming over on a 457 and at first i was gonna just set up a uk account, wire the money back so i can carry on payingthem individually.

 

However, i decided that to make it one less thing for me to worry about, i went into a DMP (like i said, i have more debts than you). Now they have taken everything over, i only have to send them one payment a month and i can relax knowing that they are all being dealt with :cute:.

 

I'm not suggesting for one minute you go into a DMP, just sharing my experience. However, you could get a UK account, wire money back monthly and pay them by DD.

One guy on here, was phoning up each month from OZ and paying his creditor, using his debit card.

 

P.s if you think things will be tight, and you'd like interest frozen, then maybe think about DMP. They have froze my interest.

 

Good luck but dont let it stress you xx

[Guest Shell15]

Trasi what does dmp stand for? Debt management programme?

[Guest Longtime Lurker]

You can also get debt management advice from the CCCS - http://www.cccs.co.uk; they are a registered charity. They can arrange debt management plans (don't know their criteria) and I believe they are cheaper than some you see advertised on television.

[Guest trasi]

Sorry shell, yes it does

x

[Joob joobs]

It's definitely do-able to make the move to Aus still having some debt in the UK. When I moved over here in December I had quite a bit of credit card debt but when I make the payment this month that will now be cleared! I still have my UK bank account and transfer money to that every month to pay the bills. The credit card companies don't even know I have left the UK. They are still registered to my old address (which we are renting out) and I have a 1yr mail re-direct in place. It will be a day for celebration and *happy dance* once this one is gone and I cut up the cards! )

 

Good luck sorting yours out, it really is worth it once you pay them all off and get that feeling of accomplishment. Some people consider upping and leaving, defaulting on their payments... but that would eat away at my conscience.

[noworriesmate]

It's definitely do-able to make the move to Aus still having some debt in the UK. When I moved over here in December I had quite a bit of credit card debt but when I make the payment this month that will now be cleared! I still have my UK bank account and transfer money to that every month to pay the bills. The credit card companies don't even know I have left the UK. They are still registered to my old address (which we are renting out) and I have a 1yr mail re-direct in place. It will be a day for celebration and *happy dance* once this one is gone and I cut up the cards! )

 

Good luck sorting yours out, it really is worth it once you pay them all off and get that feeling of accomplishment. Some people consider upping and leaving, defaulting on their payments... but that would eat away at my conscience.

 

Loved your post! I deal a fair bit with people in financial difficulty and it's so nice to read a post from someone taking responsibility for their financial situation, even from the other side of the world - good on yer!

 

NWM

[PositivePixie]

So, you will be earning loads, relatively speaking, in Aus, you will more than have enough rent to cover the mortgage, and you are worried about being able to pay off your debts? I'm totally baffled by this one.

 

Be aware of the implications of entering into any DMP or similar. If you can afford, comfortably, to pay off the debts from Oz, then just do so - if you have entered into debt plans and have to/want to return to the UK at any time, you may well find the ink stains are hard to remove from your credit history (once you have blemished yourself in the UK it takes a very long time to come good, I have experience of this via others).

 

There is nothing wrong with paying it all off from Oz, you don't need to contact your creditors, just make sure you pay them on time each month.

[fairystar32]

We had just bough a couch on finance 6 mths prior too moving ( the job came up after this and we had to move quickly) and after paying out credit card debt, loan and everything else, we had nothing left to pay the couch as we had to have money to set up. I just kept my bank account open and sent money to it, got family to put Xmas money in and we gave the kids the same amount in $$$ converted here etc.. and payments went out via DD. It was a low payment though and it just finished last month after 3.5 yrs being here!!!

[nicolac34]

I wouldn't worry about it at all, £7k shouldn't take you very long to clear if you are able to send most of your wifes earnings back. We came out with much more debt than that (a loan of £5k, another loan of £8k and both our student loans of over £8k) and so far we've paid off the £5k loan and slowly chipping away at the rest - should all be gone in a years time - something we wouldn't have been able to contemplate living in the UK.

 

You don't need to tell anyone apart from the Student Loans Company that you're moving abroad, the payments just come out of your UK bank account as normal. We send over a couple of thousand every few months and let it sit there with the DD's being taken out of that.