We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum... Read More »
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Formally introducing myself
Options
kymbogs
Posts: 538 Forumite
Hello everyone!
I'm Kimberley, I'm 24 and I live in West Yorkshire with a husband, 2 babies and 2 cats.
I've had this site bookmarked for months and months but over the last couple of weeks have started visiting daily and posting in various places, mostly getting confused with kwh and units on the gas and elec board! Also been comping and signing up for lots of freebies. I got my free condoms already :T woo!
Unfortunately both my husband and myself have been terrible with money in the past and have quite a bit of debt between us now. Neither of us are on high incomes but I've been known to say to him that if we didn't have these debts to pay we'd be rich! But we'd probably just spend it, live to your means and all that. At least that's what I used to think...
It's almost 4 years to the day since we got the keys to our house, we got a 120% mortgage (remember those!) on a £45k house so got close to £9k to basically set up our home - he'd rented forever and I was moving in from parents house, so not much in way of belongings. I'm sure we didn't spend it all on the house, and it got frittered away cos we were still irresponsible.
Shortly after we got the mortgage, Northern Rock (our mortgage company) offered husband a large loan which we jumped at thinking we'd consolidate all our other debts. We did pay some off but not all.
Over the years we've taken out various loans and credit cards here and there, but the only thing I could honestly say we got out of any of them was our wedding. The rest has gone down the drain. Some was probably put towards a holiday or clothes, but don't really have anything to show for it.
Then this year we took out another large loan but I couldn't see a way around it. I'd just had the boiler serviced for the first time since we moved in (was a 20+ year old baxi back boiler) and been told it was on its very last legs and probably wouldn't see another winter through. Also many of our windows were rotting our of their frames. We had a 9-month old baby at the time and another due in March and the idea of having no heating or hot water just didn't bear thinking about. We got several quotes for both the jobs and got some pretty good prices actually (especially compared to the laughable quotes from Safestyle for the windows and British Gas for the boiler). I looked at loans to pay for the jobs that needed doing but the new loan payments on top of our existing credit payments, we couldn't manage. The only thing I could think of to do was get a large secured loan, pay off all our other debts aside from the big Northern Rock loan, get the extra for the windows and boiler, and yes it would be over a few more years but the payments were cheaper than we were paying on our combined debts at the time and we'd have new boiler and new windows so hopefully add value to the house and bring down gas bills.
Anyway....(I will post my SOA sometime soon...) Since having my first baby in April 07 I've been more aware of the pennies than ever. I got in contact with the CCCS who advised me about minimum payments but those debts are all paid off now anyway. I feel like I've been on statutory maternity pay FOREVER! I'm due back at work in November but won't be any better off when I do go back as my part-time wages are roughly the same as SMP. Am looking for full-time jobs and part-time jobs with hours around my husbands hours hoping to find something. Everytime I look at a full-time job I could apply for I put the income and childcare costs I'd end up with into entitledto and see if it all adds up. Need to get a pretty damn good job to put both my girls in nursery and make it worth doing.
As you'll see on the SOA we do still have 2 credit cards (well, husband does, though the Egg account was cancelled in that big cancelling thing they did a few months ago he just has a little to pay off now), and I have a student overdraft which was paid off but as my husband was made redundant and was out of work for 6 weeks when our new baby arrived, we had to dip into it and soon it was all gone. It's not a priority though as it has no interest on it, I just pay them a small amount each week to keep them hassling me about the account being dormant.
So here we go...sorry if it's not an 'official' SOA and if I miss anything out do let me know. I'll probably try and put our total debts on at the end if I can figure out roughly what we owe on what - considering most of them are only a few years old they are probably about the same amount as we originally borrowed anyway!
Oh and there's 3 Barclays Debt Collection department payments, 2 for loans and 1 for an overdraft, which I couldn't pay off with the consolidation as we couldn't get quite enough to fit them in.
INCOME
Husband Wage £912 monthly
Me SMP £451 4-weekly
CTC + WTC £80.64 weekly
CB £125.40 4-weekly
TOTAL £1810.96 roughly monthly
EXPENDITURE
Northern Rock Mortgage £330.00 monthly
Northern Rock £270.00 monthly
Welcome Finance £242.03 monthly
Barclays CDCS £10.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £10.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £5.00 4-weekly
HFC Bank £9.99 monthly (TV go boom)
Egg £5.00 monthly
Virgin Media (tel/tv/net) £30.00 monthly (was over £60 got cheeky last week)
Capital One £26.00 monthly (slightly over minimum payment)
Legal & General £45.00 monthly (home + contents, have shopped around)
Friends Provident £12.82 monthly (life insurance for husband)
Engage Child Trust Fund £5.00 monthly (need to increase this to £10)
Childrens Mutual Trust Fund £10.00 monthly
TV License £11.61 monthly
Tesco Pet Insurance £10.70 monthly (optional but I couldn't afford a big fee if anything happened to either cat)
British Gas Home-thingie £17.00 monthly
Homeserve Plumbing cover £3.98 monthly
Yorkshire Water £35.00 monthly
Groceries £330.00 monthly (includes nappies, milk etc)
Gas £20.00 monthly (don't use this much at mo but wanting to stock up on prepayment meter for winter months)
Electricity £35.00 monthly (keeping a close eye on leccy at mo)
Bus Fare husband £68.00 4-weekly (got him looking for a job he can walk to!)
Clothes, shoes etc for kids £15.00 monthly (try and pick bits up regularly on ebay so don't get a shock when they need the next size up)
Travel & expenses £40.00 (this includes taking the girls out and about, but I never seem to have the money for it, need to find out where it's going)
Council Tax £92.00 4-weekly
Simply Be £5 4-weekly (from some maternity wear I got)
Husband Roleplaying £20 monthly (I recently told husband he should start going back over to the town we used to live in to meet up with his old friends on a wednesday evening, as he doesn't have friends around here. He has the bus ticket anyway so that doesn't cost any extra, but I told him he could have £5 a week for his tea and a drink. He doesn't always get it though, today he's taken sandwiches for his tea)
TOTAL £1714.13 roughly monthly
Difference = £96.83
So in theory I should have over £90 a month left over! I'd love to know where it's hiding! (maybe down the back of the sofa?)
I often wish I could have all my money come in and go out on the same day, then I could take whats left and put it in envelopes (bus fare, baby activities, etc) but cos it comes and goes in dribs and drabs I find it hard to keep track of sometimes, even though I do check the online banking everyday. It's obvious something is going wrong somewhere otherwise I'd have the money for taking the girls out, and the money for husband to take out with him and stuff.
My 'shopping month' starts again next week and I'm going to keep every single receipt and add it all up at the end and see how much I actually spend at shops, supermarkets, indoor market. I'm not sure if I am spending as much as £330 (big shop is about £250 plus a couple of top-ups during month for fresh things) but I may even be spending more. We've 'downshifted' and have saved quite a bit of money on basics like loo roll and cat litter, did that for the first time last month.
Oh flippin' eck I just realised I was supposed to make bread this evening as we've run out and husband needs some to take to work tomorrow so I'll have to go prepare it now and leave it to rise overnight and get up early and bake it. So the debts and amounts etc shall have to wait.
Hope this (LONG!) message finds you all well and I'm looking forward to getting to know you all
Kimberley, Molly (16-months) and Megan (5-months)
I'm Kimberley, I'm 24 and I live in West Yorkshire with a husband, 2 babies and 2 cats.
I've had this site bookmarked for months and months but over the last couple of weeks have started visiting daily and posting in various places, mostly getting confused with kwh and units on the gas and elec board! Also been comping and signing up for lots of freebies. I got my free condoms already :T woo!
Unfortunately both my husband and myself have been terrible with money in the past and have quite a bit of debt between us now. Neither of us are on high incomes but I've been known to say to him that if we didn't have these debts to pay we'd be rich! But we'd probably just spend it, live to your means and all that. At least that's what I used to think...
It's almost 4 years to the day since we got the keys to our house, we got a 120% mortgage (remember those!) on a £45k house so got close to £9k to basically set up our home - he'd rented forever and I was moving in from parents house, so not much in way of belongings. I'm sure we didn't spend it all on the house, and it got frittered away cos we were still irresponsible.
Shortly after we got the mortgage, Northern Rock (our mortgage company) offered husband a large loan which we jumped at thinking we'd consolidate all our other debts. We did pay some off but not all.
Over the years we've taken out various loans and credit cards here and there, but the only thing I could honestly say we got out of any of them was our wedding. The rest has gone down the drain. Some was probably put towards a holiday or clothes, but don't really have anything to show for it.
Then this year we took out another large loan but I couldn't see a way around it. I'd just had the boiler serviced for the first time since we moved in (was a 20+ year old baxi back boiler) and been told it was on its very last legs and probably wouldn't see another winter through. Also many of our windows were rotting our of their frames. We had a 9-month old baby at the time and another due in March and the idea of having no heating or hot water just didn't bear thinking about. We got several quotes for both the jobs and got some pretty good prices actually (especially compared to the laughable quotes from Safestyle for the windows and British Gas for the boiler). I looked at loans to pay for the jobs that needed doing but the new loan payments on top of our existing credit payments, we couldn't manage. The only thing I could think of to do was get a large secured loan, pay off all our other debts aside from the big Northern Rock loan, get the extra for the windows and boiler, and yes it would be over a few more years but the payments were cheaper than we were paying on our combined debts at the time and we'd have new boiler and new windows so hopefully add value to the house and bring down gas bills.
Anyway....(I will post my SOA sometime soon...) Since having my first baby in April 07 I've been more aware of the pennies than ever. I got in contact with the CCCS who advised me about minimum payments but those debts are all paid off now anyway. I feel like I've been on statutory maternity pay FOREVER! I'm due back at work in November but won't be any better off when I do go back as my part-time wages are roughly the same as SMP. Am looking for full-time jobs and part-time jobs with hours around my husbands hours hoping to find something. Everytime I look at a full-time job I could apply for I put the income and childcare costs I'd end up with into entitledto and see if it all adds up. Need to get a pretty damn good job to put both my girls in nursery and make it worth doing.
As you'll see on the SOA we do still have 2 credit cards (well, husband does, though the Egg account was cancelled in that big cancelling thing they did a few months ago he just has a little to pay off now), and I have a student overdraft which was paid off but as my husband was made redundant and was out of work for 6 weeks when our new baby arrived, we had to dip into it and soon it was all gone. It's not a priority though as it has no interest on it, I just pay them a small amount each week to keep them hassling me about the account being dormant.
So here we go...sorry if it's not an 'official' SOA and if I miss anything out do let me know. I'll probably try and put our total debts on at the end if I can figure out roughly what we owe on what - considering most of them are only a few years old they are probably about the same amount as we originally borrowed anyway!
Oh and there's 3 Barclays Debt Collection department payments, 2 for loans and 1 for an overdraft, which I couldn't pay off with the consolidation as we couldn't get quite enough to fit them in.
INCOME
Husband Wage £912 monthly
Me SMP £451 4-weekly
CTC + WTC £80.64 weekly
CB £125.40 4-weekly
TOTAL £1810.96 roughly monthly
EXPENDITURE
Northern Rock Mortgage £330.00 monthly
Northern Rock £270.00 monthly
Welcome Finance £242.03 monthly
Barclays CDCS £10.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £10.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £5.00 4-weekly
HFC Bank £9.99 monthly (TV go boom)
Egg £5.00 monthly
Virgin Media (tel/tv/net) £30.00 monthly (was over £60 got cheeky last week)
Capital One £26.00 monthly (slightly over minimum payment)
Legal & General £45.00 monthly (home + contents, have shopped around)
Friends Provident £12.82 monthly (life insurance for husband)
Engage Child Trust Fund £5.00 monthly (need to increase this to £10)
Childrens Mutual Trust Fund £10.00 monthly
TV License £11.61 monthly
Tesco Pet Insurance £10.70 monthly (optional but I couldn't afford a big fee if anything happened to either cat)
British Gas Home-thingie £17.00 monthly
Homeserve Plumbing cover £3.98 monthly
Yorkshire Water £35.00 monthly
Groceries £330.00 monthly (includes nappies, milk etc)
Gas £20.00 monthly (don't use this much at mo but wanting to stock up on prepayment meter for winter months)
Electricity £35.00 monthly (keeping a close eye on leccy at mo)
Bus Fare husband £68.00 4-weekly (got him looking for a job he can walk to!)
Clothes, shoes etc for kids £15.00 monthly (try and pick bits up regularly on ebay so don't get a shock when they need the next size up)
Travel & expenses £40.00 (this includes taking the girls out and about, but I never seem to have the money for it, need to find out where it's going)
Council Tax £92.00 4-weekly
Simply Be £5 4-weekly (from some maternity wear I got)
Husband Roleplaying £20 monthly (I recently told husband he should start going back over to the town we used to live in to meet up with his old friends on a wednesday evening, as he doesn't have friends around here. He has the bus ticket anyway so that doesn't cost any extra, but I told him he could have £5 a week for his tea and a drink. He doesn't always get it though, today he's taken sandwiches for his tea)
TOTAL £1714.13 roughly monthly
Difference = £96.83
So in theory I should have over £90 a month left over! I'd love to know where it's hiding! (maybe down the back of the sofa?)
I often wish I could have all my money come in and go out on the same day, then I could take whats left and put it in envelopes (bus fare, baby activities, etc) but cos it comes and goes in dribs and drabs I find it hard to keep track of sometimes, even though I do check the online banking everyday. It's obvious something is going wrong somewhere otherwise I'd have the money for taking the girls out, and the money for husband to take out with him and stuff.
My 'shopping month' starts again next week and I'm going to keep every single receipt and add it all up at the end and see how much I actually spend at shops, supermarkets, indoor market. I'm not sure if I am spending as much as £330 (big shop is about £250 plus a couple of top-ups during month for fresh things) but I may even be spending more. We've 'downshifted' and have saved quite a bit of money on basics like loo roll and cat litter, did that for the first time last month.
Oh flippin' eck I just realised I was supposed to make bread this evening as we've run out and husband needs some to take to work tomorrow so I'll have to go prepare it now and leave it to rise overnight and get up early and bake it. So the debts and amounts etc shall have to wait.
Hope this (LONG!) message finds you all well and I'm looking forward to getting to know you all
Kimberley, Molly (16-months) and Megan (5-months)
:heartpulsSpoiling my two baby girls with love - it's free and it's fun!:heartpuls
I'm not very good at succinct. Why say something in 10 words when 100 will do?
I'm not very good at succinct. Why say something in 10 words when 100 will do?
0
Comments
-
just wanted to say hi and welcome, from another just starting out.
x0 -
New as well - waving ! Hello!!!!
Orkney, two kids, dogs, one cat - full time student (PhD - willow biomass) very very skint, one silly ex husband abroad. One brother temporarily living with us. One battered old camper van new to the family.
One nice partner who earns - um is it 4 or 5 times what I do - doesnt live with us! He marvels at what little cash us 'normal single moms can live on' and the quality of life we get away with on it!!!!!
Lots of free beaches here and doggies to walk.
Thats me really - freckles an' allTotal debt 26/4/18 <£1925 we were getting there. :beer:
Total debt as of 28/4/19 £7867.38:eek:
minus 112.06 = £7755.32:money:
:money:Sleeves up folks.:money:0 -
Hi and welcome from me too. I've just taken the plunge over thr lst day to post my diary. Whilst I'm not in that much debt, I know how you feel as was there befre we got luck with our mortage when we moved and managed to pay most of it off.
It's amazing when an soa says you have x amount left each month but you're not sure where it goes isn't it. My soa says a couple of hundred and I am the biggest tight wad you'll ever meet at the mo but I still find it disappears somewhere.
Keep up the good work, and I admire you with 2 babies, I have a 14 month old and she's enough for me to handle, and that's with help from nursery whilst I work and dad and big sis lending hand each day lol.0 -
Hi kymbogs
That is one hell of a formal introduction, it would have taken me a week to type that
A linkfor you that might help
SOA calculator
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html
Have you thought about keeping a spending diary? put down everyting you and OH buy you will see where the £90 goes 20p for this 50p for that it is a real eyeopener
Your OH spends £68 on bus fares is that the "weekly rider" ticket? have had a look at the "monthly pass" saves me £11 a month or a Metro pass not sure how much they cost:o
you've done a great job posting on here :beer:PROUD TO BE DEALING WITH MY DEBT NERD #869
DFD 5/1/16Numpty,Not sure why but I'm crying
. Of all the peeps on this board you're the kindest & most supportive of all & I'm :mad: & 
for you all at the same time . Wish I was there to give you a big :grouphug: & emergency hobnobs
xx0 -
Hi Kimberley
Quite an opening post there - welcome to the board.
Not going to go nuts at you for getting a secured loan ... no really ...
DOH!!
Can't really see anything from your SOA there (mind you, it's a little late)
Groceries - check out the old style board. They can help with mealplans etc and have you thought of moving down a brand?
Council tax - if paying over 10 months, can you ask to pay over 12?
I'd advise keeping a spending diary so that you are able to budget a little better and less money goes missing.After falling off the gambling wagon (twice): £33,600 (24,000+ 9,600) - Original CC Debt: £7,885.91
Dad Gift 6k ¦ Savings & Inv Tst: £2,500
Loan 10k: £0 ¦ Dad 5.5k: £2,270 ¦ LTSB: £0 ¦ RBS: £0 ¦ Virgin £0 ¦ Egg £0
Total Owed: £2,270 (+6k) 11/08/20110 -
Numpty_Monkey wrote: »
Have you thought about keeping a spending diary? put down everyting you and OH buy you will see where the £90 goes 20p for this 50p for that it is a real eyeopener
Your OH spends £68 on bus fares is that the "weekly rider" ticket? have had a look at the "monthly pass" saves me £11 a month or a Metro pass not sure how much they cost:o
I'm a stupidly fast typer it didn't take me too long
I will start a spending diary next week when our pay-month starts, we both get paid next week.
I think the £68 on bus fares is disgusting, it's 4 x week tickets at £17 each (were £15 each till 2 weeks ago). There's a monthly ticket at £57 but the problem is shelling out £57 at the start of the month when all the other bills etc go out too, whereas if he gets it weekly I give him the money out of the tax credits which we are getting weekly. Also he can't buy the monthly ticket on the bus and the office he can buy it from doesn't open till an hour after he goes through the bus station on a monday morning! I am going to try and put money aside next month each week so at the start of the month after, he can go to town on the saturday and buy the month ticket, and do that each month.
Thanks for your reply :heartpulsSpoiling my two baby girls with love - it's free and it's fun!:heartpuls
I'm not very good at succinct. Why say something in 10 words when 100 will do?
0 -
Hi Kimberley
Quite an opening post there - welcome to the board.
Not going to go nuts at you for getting a secured loan ... no really ...
DOH!!
Can't really see anything from your SOA there (mind you, it's a little late)
Groceries - check out the old style board. They can help with mealplans etc and have you thought of moving down a brand?
Council tax - if paying over 10 months, can you ask to pay over 12?
I'd advise keeping a spending diary so that you are able to budget a little better and less money goes missing.
Hi George
I know, I know, secured loan, I'm an idiot. But as I said, I couldn't see another way of doing what needed doing. We did spend a fair while thinking about all the options. It's done now anyway.
When you say you can't see anything from my SOA do you mean cos it's rubbish or do you mean there's nothing glaringly obvious on it that shouldn't be there?
As for the groceries, I mentioned that we had already downshifted (at least it was in that mammoth post somewhere) which we did for the first time last month. Value loo roll has come on a lot since I last used it lol. Bear in mind that we spend roughly £30 on nappies and maybe £15 on wipes a month, and my youngest has a one box a week formula habit (about £7 a box). Also whole milk for my eldest, she gets through quite a bit and it gets used in the food I cook for her too so at least 10 pints a week there. Guessing 10 pints costs around a fiver but my head isn't properly awake yet.
I've been meal-planning for over a year now and it's SO BORING, I used to enjoy it, but saves us a lot of money.
The council tax can't be changed at all now as I missed a payment due to a mix-up with the standing order date and am now paying till March anyway. I'll ask about it next year though - though hopefully husband will be working closer to home with a higher paid job by then and it won't be quite so bad
Will start a spending diary next week at the beginning of our pay-month, or I might start a mini one today as my CTC payment has gone in today.
Thanks for your reply :heartpulsSpoiling my two baby girls with love - it's free and it's fun!:heartpuls
I'm not very good at succinct. Why say something in 10 words when 100 will do?
0 -
Hello Kym, i too am 24...and feel so annoyed at having the amount of debt that me and oh have how can we have multiplied this up !! :O im witing to wake up from this bad dream,.... its a battle sometimes but i will eventually see light at the end of teh tunnel..... hehe..... i have 4 cats and a dog :P lol no pet insurance because if i have to pay a lump sum out il cross that bridge.... now if i paid insurance and didnt claim in a year id expect them to refund me back but to keep the money when i arent doing anything with it is robbery pretty much like home insurance i feel they should return it if its not been claimed from lol id be a poor woman if i was in insurance lol lol :PThe loans will pay themselves the credit cards need a kicking :money: DFW Long haulers supporter 132!!:T0
-
Hi Kim welcome to DFW it's a good place and you will get lots of help and encouragement.
Here are my thoughts:
You can cut down on baby wipe expenses by just using the basic unscented ones when you are out ( I think they were about 50p per pack last time I looked) and using plain water and either a soft cloth or cotton wool when you are at home.
Suspend the child saving plans for a while that money would be better off your debts at the moment and you can pay in more once the debts have gone.
You have already cut down on groceries but I bet you can save even more, have look on the old style boards for inspiration with cooking and shopping.
You mentioned buying on Ebay, are you selling the clothes etc as the girls grow out of them?
Good luck with your plan to be debt free.0 -
Hi Kimberley and welcome onboard. YOur SOA looks ok actually, not a great deal more you can do except for boosting your income. Have you conisidered doing online surveys? Ciao, Brainjuicer, Valued Opinions, You Gov, Globaltestmarket, Pigsback? shopsandscan through TNS https://www.shopandscan.com (you have to register and they invite you to join, very lucrative) and Quidco a cashback site for cashback on purchases? https://www.quidco.co.uk I have this week just received £110 in vouchers from shopandscan and pigsback and have £20 to come from valued opinions thats £130 for xmas. Have you factored in your childminding fees when you return to work, if so, do either of your emplyers offer the childcare voucher scheme? It would be more beneficial for your husband to do it, in nutshell he would have up to a maximum £243 paid as childcare vouchers with which to pay your childminder/nursery but he would pay approx £80 less tax each month. If his employer dont offer it they can take it up, its no nause for them and they would be exempt national insurance each month so it would be in their interest too. LenThis is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 351.1K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.2K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 453.7K Spending & Discounts
- 244.1K Work, Benefits & Business
- 599.1K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177K Life & Family
- 257.5K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards