Accumulated Debt - What to do ???????

Hi

Just wondering if anyone has any advice. My wife and I split nearly 2 years ago. I was unemployed for about 8 months and living with my parents. I then had the opportunity to rent a flat so that I could have my children to stay over.

Anyhow I have accumulated about £15k of Credit Card debt on furnishing my new home and tying me over unemployment.

When trying to reach a financial settlement my wife ignores the fact that I will have to pay solicitors fees and stamp duty when I buy a house and the fact that I had to start over again to furnish a home. When I left the home I left my wife with our savings of about £15k to tide her over finishing her studies and to suppport the children.

I have a couple of endowment policies in my sole name that if I were to cash in would make about £20K. These two policies were disclosed in our mediation although unfortunately the mediation was unsuccessful.

I am thinking that I should cash in the policies and clear all of my debts. This would then give me a 'clean slate'. However if I do cash them in I wont really get the true value as they only have 4/5 years to maturity and my wife will surely insist that they are added back to the 'pot' as she wants 70%. Also is the disclosure value the value at split or the value now? As I have contined to pay for the premiums.

Thanks for reading this - Any advice would be gratefully received.

Hi WWTL

For debt advice, all I can recommend is you visit this site
boards.fool.co.uk/Messages.asp?bid=50079

Disclaimer - The site essentially sells financial products (Credit Cards,Loans, Mortgages,Insurance etc), but the above link takes you to it's Dealing with Debt discussion board, where you will find many volunteers to give you practical, non-judgemental advice on your debt issues. You'll get advice on how to snowball your debts to pay them off sooner. If the experts (look out for Manzanilla & Sonic) judge that you require some professional services such as a Debt Management Plan, an IVA or Bankrupcy Practitioner, they'll source a fee free service for you (for DMPs and IVAs -bankrupcy entails certain fees, but they'll let you know about this).

I have no commercial links with the above site.

I don't know how the Wikivorce team look on this sort of thing (promoting other discussion boards that is), so I'm very sorry if it contradicts one of the rules, but the above link I have to say is one of THE Most Useful Links I have ever come across on the web. Certainly changed my financial life.

Good luck mate!

Hi

Don't think i have any useful advice but we are trying mediation. Debts that I have incurred (paying off CC, car etc) have all been accounted for by mediator. We have only had 2 meetings so far so early days, 2 or 3 to go. So far it has been reasonably amicable but who knows!

I would agree with the last post. i use www.fool.co.uk regularly and find it quite helpful. Another suggestion is www.moneysavingexpert.com being Martin Lewis' site who is on radio and tv.

Goodluck, hope you sort it.

WWTL,
No expert, but my common sense thoughts on this are:

What interest rate are the cc debts? Probably the high teens, maybe the low 20s

What interest is accruing on these debts per month? or annually?

What is accruing annually on the endowments?

Does one offset the other?

Even if you cashed in one policy and offset the credit card debts in part, you are avoiding further punitive credit card interest.

Whether stbx likes it or not, it is all a big pot, and provided that you have a paper trail showing how debts were reasonably incurred, it seems reasonable to me. But I stress I am just another user here and am no expert.

Mike