Ashamed of myself (Ourselves)...Very First SOA

A_fiend_for_life

Glasgow Dental School would be an option - its free and supervised - certainly worth checking if they would do crowns.


Good Lord, I've been promoted - about time too!

poorpeople

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

Hi there poorpeople and welcome

Some things that are missing

Are you including the costs of two cars?
Child bills?
Internet access is this included with another package.

The Abbey card is below minimum payment for the balance. You've either entered the wrong amount or your racking up charges minimum payment on that balance should be about £45 at least. Do you mean £10 or £100 for minimum payment?

Scour your statements for direct debits and standing orders that you might have forgotten about. Look out for patterns of the same values per month.

Have you reclaimed credit card charges? If not the sooner you do that the better in England and Wales you can claim back 6 years in Scotland it is only five.

Are you paying PPI on any of the cards too? It might be possible to reclaim this too.

Thanks for the advice, I think the problem is that the overdraft is £1,500 and even if there is any cash left when everything comes off it automatically goes into the overdraft (last year is was £3,000) so it is slowly coming down but even going on a "sun" holiday, and eating in at night, between christmas and birthdays and buying school clothes and shoes and dentist bills we just cant seem to get any more off the overdraft. Also the interest on the overdraft and credit cards doesnt help!

poorpeople

Incisor wrote: »

APR's on the unsecured debts?

Something missing here. Have you done a pared down budget you think you can live on, or are you just missing expenses? Because it looks to me as though you have a healthy monthly surplus and could knock those debts down in about 8 months.

Hi I think the problem is our overdraft, any monies left after everything comes off goes into it, and we just dont seem to have anything left. What with large dentist bills (£600) only paid £200 at the moment, and school clothes and shoes and our "sun" holiday, then its christmas and birthdays we just arent getting the chance to clear anything off the debt and of course the interest from the two overdrafts £40 and also interest from the credit cards doesnt help

poorpeople

gilligansyle wrote: »

Definitely a spending diary will help, and by that write down everything you spend, even 10p on sweets for the kids.

It does look as if you have a decent amount left each month to throw at debts. If this is really the case you can snowball them, throw money at the highest interest one, and then when that's paid, start on another one. You can do this, and at least you are recognising that somewhere you are overspending.

Don't fret about the remortgage thing. Everyone here has done it. All the advice says 'don't put unsecured debt on your secured' but we all fall for it, promise to cut up the cards and not increase the debt.

If you can put a stop to this now, you will be able to be debt free by the beginning of next year, and the money you have been using to pay debts, can then be used to overpay on the mortgage.

thanks, but its just really hard cause most of our friends only have 8/9 years on their mortgage and ours it at just over 21years, we really need to start paying this now! but we just dont seem to get a break, first its dentist bills then its christmas then its even a cheap hol, then its birthdays, help!

poorpeople

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

Glasgow Dental School would be an option - its free and supervised - certainly worth checking if they would do crowns.


Good Lord, I've been promoted - about time too!

thanks, I have looked into that, you have to be recommended by your dentist to go the Dental Hospital or believe you me i would be there now...

Crowns are not on the NHS, I changed my dentist only to discover this, NHS only covers your front teeth... I think payments should be pro-rata I only work two and a half days a week and just because we both work hard to earn a decent wage we have to pay the full price -but this doesnt mean that we can afford it!

poorpeople

gilligansyle wrote: »

Definitely a spending diary will help, and by that write down everything you spend, even 10p on sweets for the kids.

It does look as if you have a decent amount left each month to throw at debts. If this is really the case you can snowball them, throw money at the highest interest one, and then when that's paid, start on another one. You can do this, and at least you are recognising that somewhere you are overspending.

Don't fret about the remortgage thing. Everyone here has done it. All the advice says 'don't put unsecured debt on your secured' but we all fall for it, promise to cut up the cards and not increase the debt.

If you can put a stop to this now, you will be able to be debt free by the beginning of next year, and the money you have been using to pay debts, can then be used to overpay on the mortgage.

We just cant get a break, first its dentist bills, then christmas, then birthdays, then a cheap "sun"holiday then its something else, we do try and will now keep a diary of what we spend but it just seems so hard and the term of our mortgate is massive, 21 yrs and most of our friends only have 8/9 years left, i could cry

splishsplash

You need to keep a spending diary, and your wife too. The figures suggest you should have a big surplas, but if you're not treating yourselves, and unable to clear debt, you're mistaken about what you're spending.

The other suggestion is to get some glass jars, and allocate cash into these at the start of the month, based on the figures in your SOA... i.e. put £320 in one jar for groceries, £40 for petrol in another, etc, and live on only that for a month. It's a very practical way to demonstrate to yourself how far off your estimates you are...

I would also suggest hiding your credit/debit cards. Throw them into a sandwich bag and chuck 'em behind the fridge/freezer so that it's a huge chore to get them out again... see how you do without them.

These are simple ways to a)challenge yourselves to live on your budget and b)deny yourselves the chance to ignore what you've spent... the glass jars should have receipts or cash at the end of the month, all tallying with the amount put into them at the start of the month.

Merlot

Stop thinking about your friends mortgages, and start thinking about your situation. You have a very good surplus each month, and you need to sit down and work out where every penny is spent.

It really really doesn't matter what your friends have or not have, you are the important one here.

Everyone has Christmas, birthdays, a wee holiday (if they are lucky) to budget for, and they are on a much lower income than you, I'm not being harsh, I telling you how it is. I can see light at the end of the tunnel and once you stop thinking of your friends and start being proactive with your spending diary, then just maybe you can overpay your mortgage and reduce the term.

Merlot.x.

angelflower_2

poorpeople wrote: »

We just cant get a break, first its dentist bills, then christmas, then birthdays, then a cheap "sun"holiday then its something else, we do try and will now keep a diary of what we spend but it just seems so hard and the term of our mortgate is massive, 21 yrs and most of our friends only have 8/9 years left, i could cry

Poorpeople

You have posted a lot of similar replies to the above and it does sound a wee bit like woe is me.....I am sorry if this is harsh but you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop looking at other people's issues and comparing your situation to theirs as everyone is different and start tackling this.

If like you say the overdrafts are the main problems then you need to seriously treat them as the debts they are. Open a new basic bank account with NO overdraft facilities. This will then become your main bank account and transactions should be done through this. Then, set up standing order payments to the overdraft accounts every month to pay off a set amount every month. With the interest charges you are incurring, to make any difference in a month, you should be thinking at least £100 to each one based on the figures you gave.

Saying that...i think you need to review your soa and look back over the posts in your thread to see where others think you may be going wrong and work out figures. You also need to set specific budgets for things. You say dentists and christmas and birthdays - well maybe you are just going to have to have a lean year and get through it without spending money on these things. If the NHS only fund crowns on front teeth, perhaps then you could do without having the back teeth crowned for the time being. Look into dental plans too....it might be cheaper in the long run but not sure if you can join mid way through treatment.

Regarding the holidays...if you feel you cant afford them at the moment.....then DONT HAVE ONE!!! Lots of people cant. You need to see that your current lifestyle cannot continue if you want to change. You said that you have reduced your overdraft from £3000 but now you have two overdrafts! I bet other debts are higher too.

Cant remember who said this but .......If you do what you've always done, you will have what you always have.

None of this is meant to be unkind.....I hope you dont feel that but if you want things to change, then things got to change.