SOA advice please!

elle_gee

Hi to all SOA experts (and those for fancy having a stab at this!),

I’ve been an avid reader of MSE for about six months now and have tried to get everything on the straight and narrow to the point of avoiding charges and making sure the bills are paid on time.

I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to look at our SOA and suggest any other cutbacks we could make..

Joint bills:-
Gas £49 (Atlantic)
Electric £49 (Atlantic)
Water £35 (Anglia Water)
TV/BB/Phone £38 (Virgin Media)
Council Tax £86
TV Licence £12
Food £181
Misc. £50
Adds up to £500, towards which we pay £250 each into a separate account for the DDs. The Misc. is in case the phone bill is a bit higher than usual or just to keep the account with a bit in by the end of the month (though there is an overdraft to dip into so we don’t get huge charges).

Mine:-
Car insurance £34 (Kwik-Fit – hopefully should go down next year as I’m 24 now and I think its passed the peak of charges then, isn’t it?)
Mobile £22.50 (Orange – just signed up for a new 18month contract, got discount and the inc mins and txts are well over what I will use)

His:-
Car insurance £27 (Lloyds TSB – he’s 35 so don’t think there’s much saving to be made next year!)
Mobile £15 (Orange – just transferred from 3, again inc mins and txts are enough)

My partner has debts of about £30k. £22k of this is on a DMP with CCCS (which I wouldn’t have had a clue about if it wasn’t for this site!); £3.5k is a secured loan with GE Finance (boo hiss!) and about £4.5k is for car HP.

I have debts of about £4k, which include a personal loan and two credit cards as detailed in my sig. I’m not spending on these cards anymore, just paying them off.

We’re intending to try for a baby in a few months (I’m currently recovering from a miscarriage which has been a bit of a wake up call) so I’m hoping to get all our bills down as much as poss for when my income disappears for a while. I will change anything I can through Quidco and also need to find good but bargain house insurance shortly!

Thanks for any assistance J

RAS

Hi

Do you not pay rent?

Also you need to add car tax, MOT, car maintenance, clothing, holidays, entertainment and your income to the list above. Any other insurance?

elle_gee

Mortgage, but as that's a set cost that we can't lower the payments on I didn't include it. No home insurance - like I said, I know I need to get this sorted PDQ. All the other bits come out of our own personal accounts as and when we need/want them.

It was the monthly household bills I was hoping for advice on as to how/if we can lower them any.