Advice needed

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

Saaamon:
You’ll easily earn more on artics… My spending went completely to pot when i split up with my ex so know where your coming from.

This is what I thought, surely I will earn about £150 a week more if I found a job ?

I guess the best way is to try talk to companies and say look I am willing to pay for a class 1 but need job security after ?

The debt advice here is good advice and yes there’s no shame in bankrupsy but court fines can’t be included in that I know… As they say you do the crime you pay the fine which is fair enough just wish the payments were lower but the court insisted last time that I earn enough to pay

22

Class 2 licence and Hiab is a handy combination to have but a merchant is never going to pay top dollar, I’d have a look around and see who’s running Hiab flats in Ipswich and go and talk to them. London experience is good too as it shows you can handle the stress of it.

I’d advise caution against spending more cash to try and earn more. I’d look at getting work closer first and better paid second.

23

Absolutely amazing how many posters have written at length about bankruptcy, non payment of debts, interest rates, etc. etc. after the OP mentioned for the 1st time his issue was with court payments.

OP I would do as Limeyphil suggested and contact the court and request they reassess your payments.

Secondly, what car do you drive? Inc. age, fuel & value? Owned outright?

Could this be sold and replaced with a grands worth of small diesel car doing 50-60mpg?

Are there any other areas of your life where savings could be made? i.e Taking butties to work for lunch instead of buying it every day.

24

If your only spending £100 / month on travel your doin well by most people’s standard I would have thought.
If present job is secure and it sounds like it is, stick to it and wait a while before you move up to the glamour (!) and excitement (!) of driving an artic.
As 8w said you’ve got good inner London exp. that should count for something if you look for a better hiab
job, I 'm thinking Utility work with grab wagon maybe. Morrison const. are a big player in that field.
Jim

25

keebs26uk:

Saaamon:
You’ll easily earn more on artics… My spending went completely to pot when i split up with my ex so know where your coming from.

This is what I thought, surely I will earn about £150 a week more if I found a job ?

No matter who you work for you’ll get 450 500 a week if your up the road all week, the only thing with dock work is the rates arent all that, you’ll always be taking a chance with whether you spend your money on training or keeping it to one side but only you can make that decision. I was only ever interested in driving artics so i never bothered to look into carrying on with hiab work but 8wheels has given some good advise about looking for better paying work.

26

Never never never bankrupt yourself.

It costs YOU money, and the court takes a dimmer view of people doing it, convinced they are attempting to “get out of” rather than cannot pay their debts. They’ll look more closely at recent transactions you’ve made, especially giveaway stuff to friends and family. They’ll also go after your house for unsecured debts, which you really don’t want to happen.

IVA’s are no better in that they carry a high packaged commission charge, last a hefty five years and will involve paying 25-50% (bankruptcy lasts 1-7 years, pay 5-10%, walkaway lasts 6 years, and involves zero payments)

IVA’s still allows them to go after any newly acquired assets at the 4.5 year in mark as well, including any new equity you might have built up in your house or pay rises or inheritances you may have come into in that time.

I looked at doing an IVA once, and walked away when I read the small print. I offered them £15k in full and final settlement on the spot, which they refused. So I ended up paying nothing at all, and now it’s over 6 years hence, it’s too late… Whatashame! :smiley: :laughing: :laughing:

Citizens Advice informed me beforehand that “if you make a reasonable full settlement offer that the creditors refuse, then they’ll subsequently lose in court if they attempt to take action against me there” - this turned out to be accururate, as I didn’t get anyone turn up demanding money, or a single letter summons after they turned down my IVA offer in 2004!)

They didn’t bankrupt me either, because they presumably knew that the court would award £1 a month, which they were obviously not going to be interested in if they thought a £15k up front cash offer was “no good” - right?

Don’t do their work for them. Just walk away, change your numbers, sit tight. It costs a lot of money to pursue debts, and they just won’t do it unless you have serious amounts to grab. £15k didn’t seem to measure upto that, so most people in debt are not even going to have that kind of money lying around are they? :exclamation:

27

Thanks again some good advice here, I already cut costs on fuel from £180 to £100 per month. I did this by buying a 106 1.1

Yes I think work closer to home would be great. I was thinking surely there’s class 2 jobs with or without a hiab that would pay £10hr in this area ?

I think 8wheels could be right on searching for higher paid job with the current licence first

The trouble is I enjoy my job and the people I work with, but in this world you rarely get everything in the same package

28

keebs26uk:
Thanks again some good advice here, I already cut costs on fuel from £180 to £100 per month. I did this by buying a 106 1.1

Yes I think work closer to home would be great. I was thinking surely there’s class 2 jobs with or without a hiab that would pay £10hr in this area ?

I think 8wheels could be right on searching for higher paid job with the current licence first

The trouble is I enjoy my job and the people I work with, but in this world you rarely get everything in the same package

It’s a tricky one, on the one hand you’re a bit stretched for cash on the other you’re settled in a job that presumably you can do with ease and enjoy the crack. Changing jobs is always an uncertainty but sometimes you’ve got to take the chance. I’d think that £10hr should be do-able in N.Colchester / Ipswich for a Hiab class 2 job on day work for a specialised haulier, you’ve got relevant experience that you can build on and therefore would be a better bet than someone with no Hiab experience. Failing that the local merchants would probably pay the same but with less travelling to get to work.

29

SHYTOT:
Forget class 1 for the moment, pay off your debts as previous post suggested, keep grafting when on a better footing think about class 1 if thats what you really want to do

+1

i dont know how much a class 1 costs but lets take £1,000 as a round figure. you get it and cant get any class 1 work for 2 years due to lack of experience. i dont know the rate difference but i doubt its more than £1 per hour so lets go with that. you need 1,000 hours before you make any profit on it. 50 hours a week = 20 weeks. thats not far off 2 1/2 years before you see an extra penny for your investment and you still have the same debts during that time. or you can invest the cash into your debts and reduce them which is probably going to save you more than you will make over the next 2 1/2 years with a new class 1.

on the other hand, everyone will advise you to pay some of the debt back now and save for your class 1 once you are in a better position and that wont be easy as im sure we are all thinking in the back of our minds. the sensible thing to do is pay off some debts but that means giving up a class 1 for a long time. or you could get it while the opportunity is available and worry about the debts later. only you can make that choice and it depends on whether financial security is more important than a class 1 licence or vice versa. how much do you want the licence? do you REALLY want it or just for a slightly higher hourly rate?

30

Saaamon:

the maoster:
Btw, I say this as someone who mistakenly thought it was dishonourable to go bankrupt and paid back 250k to various financial institutions over a ten year period and nearly worked myself to death to do it!

Would I do that again? Would I hell. If they’re stupid enough to (as Winseer puts it) “back the wrong horse” then sod "em.

Absolutely!! Theres no shame in going bankrupt, do it right and you can end up doing very well from it… They say that every successful business owner has been bankrupt at some point.

It’s a bit of a more bitter pill when you go bankrupt with your haulage business, not because you spent it on cars and holidays but because a couple of your big customers happened both to go bust at the same time.

I’m not sure in the OP’s position I’d be spending that bit of rainy day money on a class 1 but if their position got a little better I think maybe I would. The reason I think is, I seem to recall, new truck registrations are weakest in the rigid sector compared to tractor units so this would seem to be an early warning of weakening job demand for class 2. A lot of companies like manufacturers that ran a couple of rigids own account seem to be disappearing rapidly and with them the driving jobs.

31

Your situation is a dilemma. You won’t get a higher hourly rate with or without class 1 than you are on now.

It’s a question of if you are prepared to live in an artic all week doing 4/5 nights out per week for that extra 150 take home per week, doing work you may or may not find more enjoyable than your current job.

That is the bottom line. Add the fact that once you pass, you may find it difficult getting someone to take you with less than 2 years exp.

You are ideally located for class 1 jobs, try finding a firm that will definetley give you a start if you pay to pass, bear in mind that for many blokes though, their word is not their bond, my view in this life is that’s all you’ve got.

32

You won’t get a higher hourly rate with or without class 1 than you are on now.

I’d disagree with that, I reckon £10 hr or thereabouts on a Hiab class 2 for day work will be out there in that area. Ok so you’ll not open the EADT and find pages of them, but you’d have to find them yourself by going out looking.

33

Saaamon:
You’ll easily earn more on artics.. My spending went completely to pot when i split up with my ex so know where your coming from.

Really, with who■■?
Lots of Haulage Companies are paying around £7 an hour in Felixstowe. Debens are £7.20, Seven are £6.50 (ish), UPN are £7.50 on days. You have to put the hours in to get a good wage.

34

Also, 2 years ‘experience’ NEEDED once you’ve spent a grand on Class 1. Save ya money, wait until next year when more immigrants drivers come over here stealing ‘our’ job, wage for Class 1 WILL be minimum wage…

35

Yes I suppose the wages are dropping and I suppose I would have to work alot more hours to bring home £400 a week plus

36

Yeah, you would. Bear in mind the nights out are tax free which helps, so that’s 100 or 125 hopefully head start if you’re out all week.

You just need to be really sure you want to live all week in a truck before going down this road. Tramping, I usually find is ok for 3-6 months and then starts getting me down, factor in its great in the summer but minging in the depths of winter.

If you’re totally skint you may have no choice but to do it. It is also a lonely profession, which suits some including me but not all.

Best of luck whatever you decide anyway.

37

Yorkysays:-:

Saaamon:
You’ll easily earn more on artics.. My spending went completely to pot when i split up with my ex so know where your coming from.

Really, with who■■?
Lots of Haulage Companies are paying around £7 an hour in Felixstowe. Debens are £7.20, Seven are £6.50 (ish), UPN are £7.50 on days. You have to put the hours in to get a good wage.

That’s their new slogan for the year I reckon! It’s got a good ring to it, like “Sixtus the Fourth”. :smiley:

38

Silver_Surfer:
Yeah, you would. Bear in mind the nights out are tax free which helps, so that’s 100 or 125 hopefully head start if you’re out all week.

You just need to be really sure you want to live all week in a truck before going down this road. Tramping, I usually find is ok for 3-6 months and then starts getting me down, factor in its great in the summer but minging in the depths of winter.

If you’re totally skint you may have no choice but to do it. It is also a lonely profession, which suits some including me but not all.

Best of luck whatever you decide anyway.

Are you kidding? - Overnighting in a layby in summer constantly reminds you that you could have been out today down the beach with your family, whilst the daylight at stupid O’clock hours makes for it being difficult to get to sleep.

Compare that to a nice and dark winter’s night when there’s bugger all you’d be doing at home anyway, and you bed down in your nice night heater cab, I get a very good night’s sleep indeed. :wink:

39

Earning more is not the answer.
The more you earn, the more you pay to creditors.
If the debts are unsecured, go bankrupt.
I did it, was not proud, but realise that thousands do it every month.
Politicians and bankers screw us every day, and get away with it.

They do not even advertise your details in a local paper anymore as so many are doing it.

40

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