Money nightmare - anyone have any ideas?

[Maxi]

repiV

I had my camera, lenses, laptop and stuff stolen from me yesterday. I won't get it all back from my insurance company so I guess I kinda know how you feel right now...

 

[Parrot of doom]

Well if you live with your parents I wouldn't be that worried. You're not going to get chucked out onto the street are you?

Just don't use a debt consolidation service. They're wallet candy for the fat.

Work out your finances, and negotiate with your creditors. Don't take no for an answer. And sell anything you don't need, because it will ease the pain in the long run.

 

[repiV]

repiV

I had my camera, lenses, laptop and stuff stolen from me yesterday. I won't get it all back from my insurance company so I guess I kinda know how you feel right now...

That's awful. I think it's a pretty different experience, but back when I used to cycle I had two bikes stolen in the space of two months. 300 quid road bikes too, sweet bits of kit. To come back to where you left it and find it missing is so incredibly frustrating. So I can relate...

Well if you live with your parents I wouldn't be that worried. You're not going to get chucked out onto the street are you?

Just don't use a debt consolidation service. They're wallet candy for the fat.

Work out your finances, and negotiate with your creditors. Don't take no for an answer. And sell anything you don't need, because it will ease the pain in the long run.

Yeah, I'm completely off the idea of debt management companies now. Stupid idea that accomplishes little.
The good news is, I've been accepted for a six grand loan over two years at 11% APR. Bloody amazing deal considering my circumstances - none of the major institutions would lend me anything - well, my bank would - at 22.9% APR - not a chance in hell. I'm more than happy to pay the broker 40 quid for arranging that for me.
Monthly repayment is 280, which is just fine by me - I've got an extra thousand in reserve with that loan to tide me over until I return to work and maybe get me a bike that I can use to commute on in a month or two.

 

[Kadayi]

Yeah, I'm completely off the idea of debt management companies now. Stupid idea that accomplishes little.
The good news is, I've been accepted for a six grand loan over two years at 11% APR. Bloody amazing deal considering my circumstances - none of the major institutions would lend me anything - well, my bank would - at 22.9% APR - not a chance in hell. I'm more than happy to pay the broker 40 quid for arranging that for me.
Monthly repayment is 280, which is just fine by me - I've got an extra thousand in reserve with that loan to tide me over until I return to work and maybe get me a bike that I can use to commute on in a month or two.

Excellent. Not the best rate, but when your working you can always get a better loan. One final bit of advice is to stick the extra (after you've paid the OD & CC off) in an instant savings account and only draw on it as you need to pay it, might as well get some interest on it even if it's only a few quid for the few months it's in there. Don't leave it in your current account..you'll end up spending it.

 

[repiV]

Excellent. Not the best rate, but when your working you can always get a better loan. One final bit of advice is to stick the extra (after you've paid the OD & CC off) in an instant savings account and only draw on it as you need to pay it, might as well get some interest on it even if it's only a few quid for the few months it's in there. Don't leave it in your current account..you'll end up spending it.

Yep...it's a better rate than I ever expected tbh.
The deal isn't quite done, I've been "pre-accepted" or whatever the hell you call it by the broker - ie. providing all the information I provided was true and accurate, I will be accepted for that particular loan. I paid them via credit card, so if they **** me around I can just get a refund...and I've got another broker who said they can guarantee me "the best loan available to you on the market", with the money available in my account within five working days as a backup plan if needed.
I just hope they don't screw me around.

I'll open a savings account, definitely. That's a very wise idea. Thanks for all your help, it's been extremely useful and I really appreciate it.

 

[Kadayi]

I'll open a savings account, definitely. That's a very wise idea. Thanks for all your help, it's been extremely useful and I really appreciate it.

NP, hope it all works out well for you.

 

[Kadayi]

Also resist the urge to use your CC again. They are always handy to have around in an absolute emergency, but call the company up and get your limit reduced to something sub ?500. It's all to easy to find yourself running your card up again otherwise.

 

[Dr0ndeh]

glad you managed to get yourself sorted, i see loads of people in a similar debt situation on a daily basis. couple of things:

1) hospital staff dont call moterbikers 'donors' for nothing, get a car.

2) when you get a full time job GET PAYMENT PROTECTION. people who have never claimed always speak badly about it, but trust me the people that have needed it thank their lucky stars they took it. i recently interviewed someone who had been claiming on their loan repayments cover for FOUR YEARS. its there for a reason. if you dont take it youre basicly saying you can afford your debts no matter what happens to you, which as youve found out, doesnt apply to the majority of people.

 

[repiV]

Also resist the urge to use your CC again. They are always handy to have around in an absolute emergency, but call the company up and get your limit reduced to something sub ?500. It's all to easy to find yourself running your card up again otherwise.

Yup, gotta agree with you there. They're a nightmare.

glad you managed to get yourself sorted, i see loads of people in a similar debt situation on a daily basis. couple of things:

Unfortunately I'm not as sorted as I thought I was. Stupid companies with loads of false promises - the loan they actually offered me in reality was only 3 grand repayable over 3 years at 44.5% APR. **** that. I don't even have a bad credit rating, I've never missed a payment. The only thing wrong with it is there's a few credit searches recently, it's bullshit. I guess I'm agreeing to pay reduced amounts instead...

1) hospital staff dont call moterbikers 'donors' for nothing, get a car.

Not a chance in hell. I appreciate the concern, but I'm getting really sick of people telling me how to live my life. Firstly, I live for riding, and if you took bikes away from me you might as well take the rest of my life too. I could break a dozen more bones and spend a month in a coma and it wouldn't keep me off bikes. Nobody hassles and lectures skiiers, ice hockey players, skydivers, cyclists, horse riders, skaters etc. about the dangers of THEIR activites on a daily basis, yet motorcycling is not the most dangerous of these. I picked up injuries on a monthly basis riding a bicycle.
Secondly, where I live, cars are an inferior method of transport in virtually every way - they're several times slower, much more expensive and there's nowhere to park them. The hell is the point in even bothering?
Using a car in London makes as much sense as using a bike in Siberian winter.
Thirdly, there's nothing inherently dangerous about bikes. They're just unforgiving machines that demand a lot of skill and respect. People who call bikers "donors" are both ignorant and offensive, all accidents can be avoided by removing a single danger factor of many and thus all are avoidable. The majority of the danger also comes from the many inattentive and ignorant car drivers on the road, and I'm quite happy to not be counted amongst them. Nor am I going to let my motoring habits be dictated by the actions of others.
If everyone had to spend some time on a motorbike before they were allowed to drive, a lot less bikers would be killed and injured each year.

Besides, you're 20 times more likely to get killed or seriously injured riding a horse than a motorbike, and plenty of people encourage their five year old daughters to ride the deadly beasts. You sure wouldn't find me playing polo, and not just because it's camp. It's all about perception, very little about fact...

2) when you get a full time job GET PAYMENT PROTECTION. people who have never claimed always speak badly about it, but trust me the people that have needed it thank their lucky stars they took it. i recently interviewed someone who had been claiming on their loan repayments cover for FOUR YEARS. its there for a reason. if you dont take it youre basicly saying you can afford your debts no matter what happens to you, which as youve found out, doesnt apply to the majority of people.

The payment protection they provide with loans and credit cards is obscenely expensive - several times the total interest in most cases. I also used to have payment protection on my credit cards and then when I tried to claim on it they told me I couldn't because I'd been in a temp job. Well gee, they didn't tell me that when I forked over the cash every month. Isn't that fraud, charging someone for a service you have no intention of ever providing? Scamming bastards.
There are third party financial insurance companies out there though, who provide a better service at less than a tenth of the cost. I shall be using them instead...

 

[Phobie]

Motorbikes scare the shit out of me. I've known two people to be injured in motorbike accidents, and one person killed because they were hit by one. I'm not saying everyone who rides a bike is dangerous, I'm sure you're careful.

It just scares me so much when somebody I know wants to ride one.

 

[repiV]

Motorbikes scare the shit out of me. I've known two people to be injured in motorbike accidents, and one person killed because they were hit by one. I'm not saying everyone who rides a bike is dangerous, I'm sure you're careful.

It just scares me so much when somebody I know wants to ride one.

I know numerous people who've been injured in car accidents, and you're a hell of a lot more likely to be killed if you're hit by a car than by a bike.
A couple of months back I was on my way to work and some idiot woman ran out in front of me without looking on Victoria Street, had about half a second to react and get a bit of braking in before I plouged right into her at 20mph. She just bounced off, turned round and said "sorry" and then moronically darted across the other two lanes of traffic. If I was in a car, she'd be seriously injured.
In the vast majority of pedestrian v vehicle accidents, the pedestrian is at fault...

Having said that, yes, every single biker I know has been injured in usually more than one accident. That's just the nature of the beast - you have next to no protection in a crash. They aren't necessarily serious injuries though, mine is one of the worst and I ride with a bunch of lunatics - your fate when you come off on a bike is pure luck. When I was new to riding, I accelerated a bit too quickly on cold tyres in the wet and the rear wheel slid all over the place until the footpeg dug into the ground and I got thrown off the bike in the opposite direction at 40mph. Had a fairly violent slide along the ground but I was completely uninjured. A friend of mine came off on the motorway at 130mph and walked away with bruises. You can never tell.
The flipside of this is, bikers (excluding weekend warriors) are infinitely more skilled, observant and dedicated to their craft than car drivers are. 20% of people who hold advanced motoring qualifications are bikers, compared to 1% of the population who hold a bike license. Virtually none of the accidents involving two vehicles or more are caused by the riders themselves. They keep making bike training more difficult but leave the woeful driving standards as they are. The first two hours of my learning to ride was a discussion with the instructor about staying alive, before we even got to touch the controls. A whole day's riding in a private area before I was allowed on the road - you won't find that in a driving lesson...