Need help my SOA - Please!!!!

carlih1 · 7 October 2007 at 11:18AM

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £290.20 monthly (sick pay)
Benefits - £153.87 weekly (£666.77 on a four week month)

Total - £956.97

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - Was £217 will be £0.00 need to give in my wage slips to council
Council Tax - was £77.00 will be £0.00
Gas - £30.00 monthly DD
Electric - £30.00 monthly DD
TV License - £11.61
Sky £18.00 (just reduced package from £35.00)
BT - £24.00 (should go down now as have signed up to sky talk and have eve and weekend calls free! Although BT won't let me reduce to option 1 unless i pay £45 reduction charge???)
Mobile - £130.00 (it's terrible i am texting all of the time)
Food - £200 (for three of us, i need to get that down too)
Car Insurance - £22.91
Petrol - £70
House Insurance £19.33
Water £26.77
Internet is free with mobile contract!
Bank fee £12.50
School dinners for DD - £8.00

Outgoings - £603.12

Debts -

Littlewoods £820.98 - They want £137.00 pm (going to try and raise this through ebay and the like) Unsure of % apr
Vertbaudet £246.54 - paying £50.00 monthly out of dd 0%
Busy bees - £657.77 - paying £20.00 monthly out of dd 0%
Argos - £121.98 - Paying nothing 0%
Coment - £132.80 - paying nothing 0%
Additions - £58.87 - paying nothing 0%
ICS - sending threatening letters want me to pay asap £104.38 0%
Council overpayment of housing benefits £234.64 paying £10 a week!

Total: £2377.96

liz105 · 7 October 2007 at 11:31AM

carlih1 wrote: »

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £290.20 monthly (sick pay)
Benefits - £153.87 weekly (£666.77 on a four week month)

Total - £956.97

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - Was £217 will be £0.00 need to give in my wage slips to council
Council Tax - was £77.00 will be £0.00
Gas - £30.00 monthly DD
Electric - £30.00 monthly DD
TV License - £11.61
Sky £18.00 (just reduced package from £35.00) perhaps this needs to go completely?
BT - £24.00 (should go down now as have signed up to sky talk and have eve and weekend calls free! Although BT won't let me reduce to option 1 unless i pay £45 reduction charge??? havent heard of this before, is this just them being cheeky?)
Mobile - £130.00 (it's terrible i am texting all of the time) you really need to cut this down, do you get any free texts? you must be texting almost constantly
Food - £200 (for three of us, i need to get that down too) yes, get over to the os board for tips
Car Insurance - £22.91
Petrol - £70
House Insurance £19.33
Water £26.77
Internet is free with mobile contract!
Bank fee £12.50 is this just to have a certain type of account? unless you REALLY save money on other things like insurances by having it GET RID, change to a free account. I have never seen this charge actually benefit anyone!
School dinners for DD - £8.00

Outgoings - £603.12

Debts -

Littlewoods £820.98 - They want £137.00 pm (going to try and raise this through ebay and the like) Unsure of % apr
Vertbaudet £246.54 - paying £50.00 monthly out of dd 0%
Busy bees - £657.77 - paying £20.00 monthly out of dd 0%
Argos - £121.98 - Paying nothing 0%
Coment - £132.80 - paying nothing 0%
Additions - £58.87 - paying nothing 0%
ICS - sending threatening letters want me to pay asap £104.38 0%
Council overpayment of housing benefits £234.64 paying £10 a week!

Total: £2377.96

there's savings to be made, but you'll need discipline. best of luck

oops_a_daisy · 7 October 2007 at 11:49AM

Hi there carlih1 :hello: right well firstly the £666.77 is the amount you get per calender month not 4 week month so your monthly income is £956.97 although this will go up and down depending on how many weeks there are in the month this is the average. I have made some comments below next to your SOA but the big one that jumps out straight away that Im sure you can make savings on is your mobile - can you give a bit more information on how long the contract is for.

carlih1 wrote: »

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £290.20 monthly (sick pay)
Benefits - £153.87 weekly (£666.77 on a four week month)

Total - £956.97

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - Was £217 will be £0.00 need to give in my wage slips to council - get them in as soon as possible ( will they back date your claim ? )
Council Tax - was £77.00 will be £0.00 as above
Gas - £30.00 monthly DD shop around for the cheapest and go through cashback
Electric - £30.00 monthly DD as above
TV License - £11.61
Sky £18.00 (just reduced package from £35.00) any chance you can cancel this altogether till you are sorted out ?
BT - £24.00 (should go down now as have signed up to sky talk and have eve and weekend calls free! Although BT won't let me reduce to option 1 unless i pay £45 reduction charge???) I havent got BT so can not advise on this one ( I get phone, broadband and digital TV for £30 from Virgin )
Mobile - £130.00 (it's terrible i am texting all of the time) Im sure savings can be made here - can you post a thread on the mobile board to get advise on the best option for you on your usage ( I get 300 mins and 300 texts for £10 per month )
Food - £200 (for three of us, i need to get that down too) have a look on Oldstyle to get tips on how to reduce this by meal planning, budgetting and packed lunches
Car Insurance - £22.91 sorry can not advise on this one but shopping around can normally make savings
Petrol - £70 always shop around and try not to use the car if poss ( may not be poss if your are incapacitated though )
House Insurance £19.33 if this is buildings and contents then it seems fine but if not it seems high - shop around and you do not always have to wait for renewal to change providers
Water £26.77 this seems ok to me
Internet is free with mobile contract!
Bank fee £12.50 if you are paying for extras on your bank account that you do not need then ditch this for a free account
School dinners for DD - £8.00 seems ok to me ( you would probably spend that on packed lunches )

Outgoings - £603.12

Debts -

Littlewoods £820.98 - They want £137.00 pm (going to try and raise this through ebay and the like) Unsure of % apr
Vertbaudet £246.54 - paying £50.00 monthly out of dd 0%
Busy bees - £657.77 - paying £20.00 monthly out of dd 0%
Argos - £121.98 - Paying nothing 0%
Coment - £132.80 - paying nothing 0%
Additions - £58.87 - paying nothing 0%
ICS - sending threatening letters want me to pay asap £104.38 0%
Council overpayment of housing benefits £234.64 paying £10 a week!

Total: £2377.96

It looks like you should have £353.85 per month to throw at your debts and more if you follow the advice above. It also looks like they are mostly on 0% so well done but I think you are going to have to start paying an agreed amount to those that you are not paying at present otherwise you will get into trouble with them. Doing a simple calculation of you total debt £2377.96 divided by the £353.85 per month surplus income you should be able to get them paid off in the next 7 months BUT some things are missing from your SOA like christmas, car maintenance, birthdays etc. Always try to pay off the debts with the highest interest added to them first. Try to keep a spending diary to ensure that you are not spending outside of your budget.

Good luck with it - you are doing really well so far and this is achieveable

xoopsx

cpjackso · 7 October 2007 at 11:53AM

... Others seem to be helping out - so here's three possibilities to reduce your mobile costs:

1) Register with sipdiscount.com, PAYG. It's an online text messaging service - works out at 2p/text. Also there's a similar service at smsbug.com.
2) Use MSN IM instead?
3) ... or alternatively you could get a contract mobile with X hundred free texts (Not sure if this is possible for you??).

Get rid of bank fee and sky. There may be concessions with TV licence.

carlih1 · 7 October 2007 at 12:28PM

Hi,

Liz - Really cannot give up sky it is my only treat and the kids love it too. Don't know about the BT thing, i told him it wasn't mentinoed to me when i upgraded and he said it would be in my terms and conditions! Mobile will have unlimited texts in November, i really don't know what is going on as i get 400 free atm anyway. Food i am currently meal planning with the help of the Old style board! I had that account when i was seriously in debt, my bank charges were almost £100 per month and the account was £8.00 to get me back up to date with my bills. Now it is £12.50 and i can never get through to them on the phone, am thinking of doing it myself but don't want to incurr charges, i have one account with natwest, need another to have bills in really?

Opps a daisy - I put in my wage slips first thing on monday morning last week so hopefully they will be processing it.What do you get on your tv for that? Don't need broadband as i get that free with my orange contract! My mobile i will get unlimted texts in november so no point in changing now! Hopefully then my bill will go down significantly. Car insurance is as low as can be, i am currently meal planning with the help of the old style board. I always get my petrol from the cheapest place it is sent to me by the petrolprices website. My house insurance is contents only, i had a claim last year which is why i think it is so high! Gonna get another bank account asap. I get my child benefit paid into an account my mum controls so all christmas and birthday stuff and car servicing tax etc comes out of that account!

Thanks for the help.

carlih1 · 7 October 2007 at 12:30PM

cpjackso wrote: »

... Others seem to be helping out - so here's three possibilities to reduce your mobile costs:

1) Register with sipdiscount.com, PAYG. It's an online text messaging service - works out at 2p/text. Also there's a similar service at smsbug.com.
2) Use MSN IM instead?
3) ... or alternatively you could get a contract mobile with X hundred free texts (Not sure if this is possible for you??).

Get rid of bank fee and sky. There may be concessions with TV licence.

Hi i get 400 texts free a month until November when i can upgrade and get unlimited texts! Will take a look at those websites though!! Thanks

oops_a_daisy · 7 October 2007 at 12:51PM

I am on the 3 for £30 deal at Virgin and get digital TV L package, phone and broadband. As you already have your broadband covered you could look into the 2 for £20 deal which is for the TV L package and phone which includes unlimited free local and national calls on a weekend. The list of TV channels included is here http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/sorter/channels_sizel.html it all depends on whether you can have Virgin where you live but Im sure a quick phone call ( or e mail via the website ) would confirm that. They dont charge to switch you over. You can pay extra to upgrade the phone service to have calls included ( it used to be about £5.00 for evenings but not sure if it is still the same )
Not sure if you would be better off by doing this but worth looking into.

all the best xoopsx

carlih1 · 7 October 2007 at 1:06PM

I think i can get phone and tv for £20, anyone got this already, it will cost me £25 installation but £10 discount so £15. Sounds better than the deal i am on now!

tigtag02 · 7 October 2007 at 1:22PM

:wave:

Dont know what sort of phone you have but mine has a message counter on so I can keep track and dont go over my freebies ~ I reset it at the bill cutoff point each month. It might be worth having a look through

Is your DD not entitled to free school meals with you being on benifits?

Think everything else has been covered

tigtag02 · 7 October 2007 at 1:24PM

Forgot to mention BT :mad:

I did the same thing a couple of months ago with the sky package and wasnt charged any fees ~ I think they might be trying it on ~ I would go down the manager route

simongregson · 7 October 2007 at 2:23PM

carlih1 wrote: »

Monthly Incomings:

Mobile - £130.00 (it's terrible i am texting all of the time)

If you are at home during the day, you can text from https://www.1899.com for 1p/text via your computer

Need help my SOA - Please!!!!

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