HI,

This is the first time I have used this forums thingy so Im not sure what will happen! Basically me and my partner took out a car on finance (in his name) in march, The reason we did so is his last car had died as it was quote old and his first car and we didint have the money to buy a new so we thought the best idea would be to pick one up on finance! (bad idea!)

The car is only 3 years old and as much as we are happy with it and the agreement the payments are proving to be a bit of trouble now. Since we took the finance out we have moved accomodation and our now living in a flat, we pay rent and bills etc and my boyfriend also has some debt to clear from when he took had a £2500 credit card and a £1000 thrown at him when he was 18. The debts were consolidated to make cheaper monthly payments for us so we could afford to pay our rent but they last over 7 years now and the car is over 5 years. As my boyfriend has all this to pay I am currently paying most of the rent as I have hardly any debt and I earn a bit more than him but even with this its a bit of a struggle as things are tight every month and Im worried it wont get any better for a long time as the debts are stretched over such a long time!

Does anyone have any advice on how we can maybe shorten them or maybe give the car back? bearing in mind we have already cut down on luxuries and we both have poor credit rating so cant even think of taking out a personal loan to settle the car then have a lower interest rate!

anything would be helpful!

Claire x

Hi Claire,

have you sat down and looked at doing an income and expenditure speadsheed? you say you have cut down on luxuries but do you really know where all your money is going?

i sat down and did this and its surprising where your money goes.

Georgina

Hi

I think you have to bear in mind that you're a young couple who have just taken on 'life' responsibilities that you've never had before. Of course it's daunting and seems endless (when you're young you can't see further than today) but it will get better. Hopefully your wages will increase over the 5 years, you may get better paid jobs, but remember that the more money you have the more you will spend and increase your standard of living. In the short term, have you thought about taking on extra part-time jobs to ease you through this. The only downside of this is that you get used to the extra money and have to keep doing the part-time work.

You're basically experiencing what every couple experience when setting up home.

Hi Ebony has made some good points here.

another way of making money is to sell your unwanted items on ebay. - it also has the added fringe benefit of helping de-cluttering your home ;0)

in addition to ebay - if you want to do something wit your other half i find that goign to car boot sales are good fun and great for money making.

oh yeah - and there are also sites like yougov that will pay you for your participation with surveys.

hang in there