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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Grahame[/i] [br]Hi, I have been lurking here for some time, trying to work out the best way out of my problems. I am married and self employed, running two business for several years. Things have always been tight and about two years ago I tried to start another business through a franchise. This was a limited company. This was a disaster and I earned next to nothing from the company.I lost approx £15,000 on the business. The new company took up much of my time and my self employed businesses suffered as a result. I started to use credit cards to keep everything going, robbing Peter to pay Paul. After the limited company failed, I tried to increase my income on the self employed businesses with limited results, but things are improving as my efforts are bearing fruit, all be it slowly. My business overdraft was increased to £7,000 and I have a bank loan which amounts to £8,000. I have six credit cards and the balance outstanding is £25,000. I also have a car which is on HP and valued at around £3,500 but is on HP with 28 months to go. (Needed for work as I do in excess of 20,000 miles a year, visiting homes and offices). I have a caravan that is also on HP value £6,500 with 3 years left to pay. All the above debts are mine and not my wife’s. We do have a joint account that has an overdraft of £3,000. We have a house which has a joint mortgage of £110,000. In the current climate the house is worth approx £135,000 to £140,000 My wife works at a nursery and has her working week cut down from 5 days to three. In view of the above, I have considered an IVA, but my income does still vary a lot. I have also considered trying to negotiate for a payment reduction and freeze of interest on the credit cards, but I don’t know if the credit card companies would be that helpful in my situation. I have spoken to the mortgage company and they have sent some forms to me to apply for a payment holiday of 6 months. To say I feel a failure is an understatement. I didn’t want to become self employed, but it was forced on me by the loss of my job in 2000 and the lack of decent paying jobs in my area. I am now 58 years old and it is somewhat difficult to find alternative employment that pays a living wage at the moment, so I need to carry on doing what I am in the hope that things will pick up, despite the current economic climate. If I have to go bankrupt, I was hoping that my wife does not need to as the debts are, in the main, in my name. I would appreciate any advice you can give as to what I should do.Sorry that this has been such a long post! Thanks Grahame [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature. Check here to subscribe to this topic.