XxBabyxflutterbyxX First Ever Debt Diary

xxbabyxflutterbyxx · 29 January 2009 at 3:02AM

Hey, I am pretty new to posting on MSE, I have been lurking for about a year though

I have seen numerous diaries that people have done, so to pick apart their finances, so I thought I would give it a go.

Here is a little about us. Me (26), OH (22), ED (10), MD (8), YS (10m) Also have a son and daughter (3 and 4) whom i dont see

). We have 3 cats, live in 3 bed house, OH works FT for Marks and spencer, I am SAHM with chronic sciatica (5 years so far) and cannot walk much am on Tramadol, Diclofenac and Amitriptyline and use crutch/es. I stay in the house all day every day bar the one day I go shopping or have to go to the spinal clinic. I see nobody except my kids OH and mom once a week.

Here is my SOA.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 3 ( AGED 10, 8 and 10m - I have 2 others AGED 3 and 4 that I don't see

but send cards and presents too on bdays and xmas.)
Number of cars owned....................

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 860 (Works full time)
Benefits................................ 780 **
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1640

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Hire Purchase (HP) repayments........... 65 ( Metered TV, Tumble dryer and bed! -I pay £120 p/m as it goes on the hours used, I do however get around £40-80 returned every 8 wks when they empty meter
Rent.................................... 568.75
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 192 ( I have just asked to lower this, hopefully back to £107 p/m)
Electricity............................. 100 (Meter so get the damn charges)
Gas..................................... 105 (paying off a debt, at the moment i'm not paying any though or £20 p/m if i am lucky)
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 20 (am in debt, this is payment to debt collection ppl)
Telephone (land line)................... 20 (Phone, Cable and net are about £60 altogether so have split it by 3)
Mobile phone............................ 60 ( On a bad month!! Contract - I make most calls using this - contract is £30 p/m)
TV Licence.............................. 20
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 20
Internet Services....................... 20
Groceries etc. ......................... 300 (Is normally £200 however I upped it as £200 was to cover food, baby formula, nappies, wipes etc, cleaning and bathroom stuff and cat food for 3 cats. Along with anything for the house)
Clothing................................ 0 ( Get the odd 1 or 2 from Asda/Tesco when do shopping sometimes)
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 20 ( The monthly shopping taxi money)
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 (nothing specific just as and when, usually built into shopping money)
Haircuts................................ 0 (very rare eg once a year and dye mine and daughters own hair)
Entertainment........................... 0 (dont go out)
Holiday................................. 0 (dont holiday)
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Cigarettes.............................. 50 (only thing I have for ME!)
Fashion World........................... 15
Total monthly expenses.................. 1575.75

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 0

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 2500.....(65).......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 2500......-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Tax credit debt................7286......5.........0
Tax credit debt (2)............317.......5.........0
Tax credit debt (3)............37........0.........0
Additions......................170.......20........0 (dont pay every month):o
Home retail group .............1065......20........0
DSS debt.......................1711.09...20........0
Total unsecured debts..........10586.09..70........-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,640
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,575.75
Available for debt repayments........... 64.25
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 70
Amount short for making debt repayments. -5.75

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -2,500
Total Unsecured debt.................... -10,586.09
Net Assets.............................. -10,586.09

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.

OK well I have jsut fpund out I have an old Utility debt of about £650 which nothing has been set up for and there are a few small (under £1000) debts that having chased me for 6m-1yr so I havent included them , would rather concentrate on teh ones that are after me atm!>

The benefits include Child benefit (CB) but only for one child atm as waiting on claim to go through for eldest two daughters as they were returned from care in Sept (long story) But at least it should mean £400-500 backpay i am hoping, Working Tax (WTC), Child Tax (CTC) and Housing benefit (HB) ( a measly 24 a fortnight lol)

I get paid OH wages monthly on 10th (go into my bank, I deal with all finances)
HB bi weekly 24 per week
CTC 4 weekly 464
WTC 4 weekly 193
CB 4 weekly 75

We dont go out, hardly ever drink, rarely buy clothes, our only vice is the fags.

I sell on ebay and also check that if need things as always cheaper.
I try and money save as much as possible am trying meal planning, bulk cooking and freezing meals, i save every little bit of leftover foods in lock and lock pots and make "something". Only buy "proper food" ie no fast food stuffs, no takeouts, kids and OH take packup which includes things like HM pasta salads, HM cakes/biscuits, HM pizzas etc. OH cycles to work, I only go out once a month and that is to do the months shopping as I have chronic sciatica and cant walk much.

The kinds of meals i cook are bolly, vege lasagne, meat lasagne, frittata, pasta/rice/potato salads, mince and spaghetti, roasts and use rest of meat for other meals, shepherds pies kind of things, not always with meat and sub some potato for swede/cauli etc bulk out most things with lentis/pearl barley/oats etc

I buy most things value/smart price unless the alternative works out cheaper.

Sorry for such a long post just wanted to put as much info as possible - now feel ffree to pick me apart lol.:rotfl: :T

xx

halight · 29 January 2009 at 8:33AM

Morning,
Well done on cooking real food!!!!
take a look at the old style bords on here thay are great loads of ideas on cutting down on your house keeping. some you may like others that wont work for you but well worth a look anyway.
Your mobile phone bill is big if i were you are try and cut this down!
Is there any others help/benafits you can claim for your illnes. Try your cab office for this! also can you reduce the money that you are paying back on you CTC if thay will accept a smaller payment a month even if its only £2 smaller then it will make things a bi better.

Im not going to bang on about your fags,
All the best

xxbabyxflutterbyxx · 30 January 2009 at 5:15PM

Thanks for posting HALIGHT.

Yeah I have been having a nose through the OS boards and food and money saving ideas

. In fact I am trying to only buy the minimum amount of fresh food needed this month and use up what I have in the cupboards. Hopefully only £50 :cool: plus about £20 for baby stuff. Although I have given myself £100 just incase.

I am hoping to carry this on for as many months as possible:eek: , and when we run out, only buy fresh food and storecupboard stuffs so that everything we cook is cheap and from scratch. So this means that I should save around £200 out of my housekeeping money and as I was originally paying £192 on Council Tax but am hoping to pay £107 monthly so that saves me £85, so c.£285 per month saved. :beer: :j

This will go straight onto paying off my debts, a little on paint etc for front room and the change in my sealed pot challenge and £2 challenge pot. :T

I am happy because just before Xmas I paid off 6 of my <£1000 debts

, and my ADDITIONS debt will be cleared next Tuesday as I called today and aranged a settlement figure. The original amount was £170 and I am clearing it by paying a SF of £127.50. Well its better than a kick in the teeth!! :rotfl:

It feels so good when I get just one debt cleared, even when it was a debt of £21.

As far as my disability, I dont know whether I would qualify for DLA, i was going to look into it though.

My Tax credit repayments couldnt be lowered by £2 each either because I am only paying what I thought was £5 each to them but then found out I am paying £2.60 to one and £2.40 to the other !

Oh well. Once I have managed to clear my smaller debts i will have my HOUSING BENEFIT debt which comes automatically out of my award, £9 each week, my 3X TAX CREDIT debts and my DSS debt. They are my biggys as far as i am concerned and at the level I am paying them it will take years, about 122 years for one so i was told lol. So obviously once i clear one off i shall use the money that i was paying on that debt to pay towards another and so on and so forth. meaning hopefully that should drop the time limit of clearance.:p

Well thats all for the moment

x

Raychee · 31 January 2009 at 10:14PM

Reading your post, my first thought was why aren't you claiming for DLA? Surely, if you're not mobile, then you should be entitled to it.

The biggest thing is, when you get the forms, you need to make sure you describe worst case scenario for everything. My sister has MS, and she went to the CAB to get support filling her's in. She is an extremely intelligent young woman, but she realised you need to know EXACTLY what to write on the forms. It's worth trying...

I'm not that good on commenting on SOAs, and the only thing I would suggest is cutting back on cigarettes - not to save money, but for health reasons. (sorry, smoking is something I feel very strongly about!) I do however, understand that you need something.

Good luck.

xxbabyxflutterbyxx · 31 January 2009 at 10:15PM

Thanks for you reply

I did actually complete a DLA form online yesterday, i did worst case scenario too!!. but thanks for that

THe fags total was a guess, normally i only smoke 2 a day, i am smoking a little more since i am on my pills (they seem to make me smoke more lol) and bear in mind the total there is for myself and my OH who smokes more than me!!

Billy_two_speakers · 31 January 2009 at 10:39PM

xxbabyxflutterbyxx wrote: »

Thanks for you reply

I did actually complete a DLA form online yesterday, i did worst case scenario too!!. but thanks for that

THe fags total was a guess, normally i only smoke 2 a day, i am smoking a little more since i am on my pills (they seem to make me smoke more lol) and bear in mind the total there is for myself and my OH who smokes more than me!!

worse case scenario is not going to help you get dla, they take issue with that they want to know day to day average

you needed to see this
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/medical/med_conditions/major/back_pain/
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/medical/med_conditions/dlahandbook-pdfs/ch7.pdf

this

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dwp/dmg/index.asp
and this
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/hb5/dla/dla_1.asp

i also have copies of the hand books the company supplying doctors for dla medicals use

xxbabyxflutterbyxx · 31 January 2009 at 10:44PM

My worst case scenario is most days though. I obviously wasnt going to put oh most days i have bad days but the odd day is good, the form itself tells you to put the worst days anyways and so do the CAB and anyone else you ask about them. It isnt as though i am lying on the form!

Billy_two_speakers · 31 January 2009 at 10:50PM

Raychee wrote: »

The biggest thing is, when you get the forms, you need to make sure you describe worst case scenario for everything. My sister has MS, and she went to the CAB to get support filling her's in. She is an extremely intelligent young woman, but she realised you need to know EXACTLY what to write on the forms. It's worth trying...

Good luck.

see my links to advise on filling in the dla forms ..."worse case scenario" is not a good idea these days as they now treat that as exageration
its in here somewhere
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dwp/dmg/index.asp

Raychee · 31 January 2009 at 10:56PM

I didn't mean exaggerating... but worst case scenario or when things are particularly bad can mean alot more support etc needed. DLA needs to know realistic specifics. There's no point in writing, 'most days I'm fine, but there are odd days when I can't do much around the house.'

Maybe using the phrase 'worst case scenario' wasn't a good choice.

Billy_two_speakers · 31 January 2009 at 10:57PM

xxbabyxflutterbyxx wrote: »

My worst case scenario is most days though. I obviously wasnt going to put oh most days i have bad days but the odd day is good, the form itself tells you to put the worst days anyways and so do the CAB and anyone else you ask about them. It isnt as though i am lying on the form!

of course not ............ I have filled in lots and lots of them forms over the years and its a lottery you listen to what they say about how to fill it in, and then you get the award and you think have they read what I put ?

and why has it been refused when the advise said such and such ??????????

Karmacat · 31 January 2009 at 10:57PM

Hi there flutterby

Love the name, thats the first thing that struck me!

Its good to know that you're applying for DLA - if its bad enough for you to be on crutches, you should be getting financial support from the government, surely, its only fair.

The fags! I understand they're for you, I really do - do you ever roll your own? Would they taste too different for you to enjoy them properly?

Well done on working on grocery levels. We can all work a bit there - I'm always really surprised when I find something *else* that I can do differently thats cheaper. Old Style is amazing, isn't it!

Have you ever been on to the Up Your Income Board? Obviously, if you're nearly housebound, and have little children, you don't want to do anything that means you go out, but there might be bits you can do. Stuff I can think of offhand (not for you to do straight away, but that you might be able to build up to):
- clicks on the search websites - people refer to this as "dailiy clicks" - do a search on it on the site.
- surveys - you can sign on to various survey sites - lightspeed, valued opinions, yougov. They're slow, and they dont pay much, but you can get the odd tenner here and there.

There's bits of other stuff that you can do too - for instance, if you sign on to do mystery shopping, they sometimes want you to make phone calls (like to pension centres, truly!). But no one can do it all at once, it takes time.

Hope this has helped a bit, anyway.

good luck, and keep posting.

XxBabyxflutterbyxX First Ever Debt Diary

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