Hope you have all enjoyed a great Xmas, to those that celebrate it and to those who do not season’s greetings to you this is a short post to get you thinking about the new year and where you financially want to be for 2019 remember the earlier you start the better! You may have started to recieve the demand letters as a result.
Below is just a few simple tips that may help.
While you are debating that new diet to shed the belly, and you are still bloated and hungover with the excesses of the festive season, you may have found your bank balance is now near empty.
You may now have found that the financial hangover from Christmas is likely to be far worse than the physical hangover on New Year's Day, but there are steps that you can take to avoid this for next year and the sooner you start the better.
Firstly, let’s start setting the foundations for 2019.
Setting the foundations
First begin planning, and taking stock of the position you are in financially. Get those statements out!! You need to start looking at the following:
- how much debt you're in?
- who do you owe money to?
- when you have to pay it off by
Start by listing how much you'll be making in debt repayments every month don’t include your mortgage. If this figure is more than 20 per cent of your total monthly earnings then you could be beginning to head towards a level of serious debt. For example if your monthly salary is £1200 and you are paying more than £240. Or more Per month you need to review your debts.
What you need to do is start cutting back
Organise the dates when you're going to repay your debts, taking into account your priority debts first (priority debts are the debts that if you do not pay them it could result in your home or loss of essential services i.e. utility bill for e.g. gas supply)
If you have good credit
The best rates are normally only available to people with a good score, to establish your credit score sign up with Clearscore https://www.clearscore.com Balance transfer cards are very useful products for helping you get a handle on your credit card debts.
For shifting over your card debts to a balance transfer card, banks are offering customers 0 per cent interest periods on the transfer amount for up to 29 months, in exchange for a transfer fee of between 1 and 3 per cent.
Do you have an overdraft?
If you regularly live in your overdraft you should find out what interest rate you are being charged and whether you are being hit with big bank charges especially for straying over your pre-arranged overdraft limits, if this is happening to you, you need to stop doing this as soon as possible. You could save yourself a lot of money just by switching to a new current account if you can find one with a lower overdraft rate.
STILL STURUGGING
Don’t panic take advantage of the free debt advice that is available.
Remember that there is Free debt advice is available from Citizens Advice, National Debtline: 0808 808 4000 , Stepchange 0800 138 1111. or the Money Advice Trust 0808 808 4000.
They negotiate with lenders on your behalf to work out a manageable budget based on how much you can realistically afford to repay every month.
Wishing you all much love happiness and peace of mind for 2019!!!