My current situation

roversbabe

Hi all,

I've been posting on this board for a while and inspired by others, I'm going to post my budget to see if I can get rid of this debt any quicker. My plan is to save any additional amounts (left over after bills) in the joint account and clear the finance agreements / loan one by one. I do have a spreadsheet where I track the balance of both the joint account and my account so I can see when I can pay things off.

I intend to leave the car payment to the end of its term as I can't save anything by clearing it early and have just 5 payments left. I also intend to pay the laptop off first as this is the highest APR and the lowest amount of debt.

Joint account

Income-£1100 (£575 from me & £525 from DH)

Monthly outgoings

Household / car
376.37 - Mortgage
89 - council tax (none in Feb or March)
22.33 - Car insurance - (will be paying annually from March as there should be enough saved in the joint account according to my spreadsheet)
22.33 - TV Licence
2 - NSPCC
13.96 Water rates
52.50 Gas (I'll be searching round for cheaper after xmas)
42 (usually a pound or so either way) - NTL for phone, tv & broadband. With the amount of time we both spend online, broadband works out cheaper than dial up.
24 - Central heating cover (our boiler broke down 2 months ago and BG gave us cover but at a higher cost to cover the breakdown)
17 - TV rental (for telly, vid & DVD player - contract till Jan 08, got them down by 15 pm)
17 - Electricity (just switched providers)
82.48 - Endowment (14 years 6 months left)

Repayments
21.94 - Laptop (APR 29.9%:eek: ) - ends Jan 07
107.28 - Car loan (APR not known) - ends April 05 (yayy)
127.60 - Bank loan (APR 14.9) has PPI and I can't cancel this :mad: - ends May 08

None of these are flexible - I can't do overpayments with them

TOTAL - 1005.95

Quarterly bills

42.50 - AA membership (will cancel in June and switch so just December and March to pay)

Annual

200 - car insurance (March) from March 06
200 - MOT (April - this is what I've budgeted if the car needs something doing)
170 - car tax (August)
250 - home insurance (October)

My account

1100 - wages
64 - p/t job

Outgoings

575 - to joint account for bills
60 - Petrol (we do a lot of miles and take it in turns to pay for fuel)
60 - Food (he pays about the same)
100 - going out
100 - egg cc (1500 outstanding - 0% apr) about to tart that for another 12 months interest free
50 - egg money card (this account is in credit by £450 and all debit card spending is done on this card)
12.50 - mobile phone (contract - I get half price line rental)
12 - gym membership (as I'm a p/t student, I get student rate)
15 - tobacco (I know )

total - 984.50 which leaves an extra 178.50 which is used for pressies, clothes etc - I usually have about £100 left at the end of the month which I've been using to pay more off my egg cc.

I'm happy enough with my own account and was hoping for your wisdom on the joint debts / repayments and if the way I'm going is the best way to go.

Apologies for the length of the post & thanks for reading.

rb x

1313

When I first looked at this I thought you were actually going down by about -£150 a month.

It is slightly confusing when you split it over two accounts. At first I thought you had a joint income of £1100

I think it may be better if you just post a simpler version of Income - Ependiture rather than split it over two sets of accounts and two sets of outgoings.

roversbabe

OK - will do. We run things with 2 accounts though so DH can have his own account / spends.

Joint account Income-£1100 (£575 from me & £525 from DH)
Left in my account - £575 after my contribution to the bills
P/t work - £64

TOTAL 1739

Outgoings

376.37 - Mortgage
89 - council tax (none in Feb or March)
22.33 - Car insurance - (will be paying annually from March as there should be enough saved in the joint account according to my spreadsheet)
22.33 - TV Licence
2 - NSPCC
13.96 Water rates
52.50 Gas (I'll be searching round for cheaper after xmas)
42 (usually a pound or so either way) - NTL for phone, tv & broadband. With the amount of time we both spend online, broadband works out cheaper than dial up.
24 - Central heating cover (our boiler broke down 2 months ago and BG gave us cover but at a higher cost to cover the breakdown)
17 - TV rental (for telly, vid & DVD player - contract till Jan 08, got them down by 15 pm)
17 - Electricity (just switched providers)
82.48 - Endowment (14 years 6 months left)
21.94 - Laptop (APR 29.9%:eek: ) - ends Jan 07
107.28 - Car loan (APR not known) - ends April 05 (yayy)
127.60 - Bank loan (APR 14.9) has PPI and I can't cancel this :mad: - ends May 08

None of these are flexible - I can't do overpayments with them

1005.95 on bills and repayments

60 - Petrol (we do a lot of miles and take it in turns to pay for fuel)
60 - Food (he pays about the same)
100 - going out
100 - egg cc (1500 outstanding - 0% apr) about to tart that for another 12 months interest free
50 - egg money card (this account is in credit by £450 and all debit card spending is done on this card)
12.50 - mobile phone (contract - I get half price line rental)
12 - gym membership (as I'm a p/t student, I get student rate)
15 - tobacco (I know )

My stuff £409.50

Quarterly bills

42.50 - AA membership (will cancel in June and switch so just December and March to pay)

Annual

200 - car insurance (March) from March 06
200 - MOT (April - this is what I've budgeted if the car needs something doing)
170 - car tax (August)
250 - home insurance (October)

Leaves 95 pm in the joint a/c to build up for annual bills and hopefully clear the finance agreements and 165.50 in my account for clothes / pressies / chucking a bit extra at my credit card debt.

Thanks again and apologies for the confusion I caused.

rb x

black-saturn

The only things I can see there are obvious ones.

£100 on going out - go out less often and spend less.
£12 on the gym - go for a long walk instead and rejoin the gym when the debts are paid off.
£60 (each) on food - I spend £40 every 6 weeks on 3 peoples food. You don't need to spend that much each. Make things from scratch and have a look on the Old Style Money saving section for inspiration.

I won't go on about the tobacco as I know giving up is easier said than done.

homersimpson_3

i'm confused with this budget-
1. why 22.33 - TV Licence - is this correct?
2. cut out nspcc- every little helps - you can give again when you're out of debt.
3. 52.50 Gas - extortionate- who are you with? why so high? why wait until xmas to change? why can't it be done now?
4. cut out ntl for tv.
5. 24 - Central heating cover - can understand you do need cover for breakdowns but my friend's broke down and BG did not increase hers. get this checked out- what do terms and conditions say? you can get cover much cheaper than £24.
6. 100 going out- no target towards the debt.
7. 12.50 - mobile phone - why is phone essential? if not get rid. if essential- change to payg
8. 12 - gym membership - get rid and go for a walk. go back once debts payed off.
9. 15 - tobacco - get rid
10. get rid of car and associated costs- why it is necessary (not just wanted)?
11. get cheaper insurance

sloggingitout

Can you move your mortgage / endowerment? what rate are you on and who with?

southernscouser

Hi roversbabe. I see you disappeared after my boys whipped yours asses!

roversbabe wrote:

Income:

TOTAL 1739

Outgoings:

376.37 - Mortgage (can you remortgage for a better deal?)

22.33 - TV Licence (as someone else said this is twice what it should be)

2 - NSPCC (I was gonna say scrap it but things like this are very important to some people so what the hell, lets keep it. )

52.50 - Gas (change it now. Don't wait until after Christmas, you'll use it quite a bit by then)

42 - NTL for phone, tv & broadband (can you get rid of some channels you don't watch to make it cheaper?)

17 - TV rental contract till Jan 08 (would it not be cheaper to buy it outright. Your paying a minimum of £612. You can get something much cheaper than that)

21.94 - Laptop (good move in paying this off first) :T

127.60 - Bank loan (APR 14.9) has PPI and I can't cancel this :mad: - ends May 08 (can you possibly get a new loan over the same remaining period but without PPI?)

homersimpson_3

if you still want to help nspcc -understandable- why not do some voluntary work for them e.g. collecting in a bucket; helping on confidential phone line; delivering leaflets. on the otherhand it's only £2 per month. the problem with its only £2 per month approach is that you can say it's only £x for that, y for this and all the xs and ys add up. does that make sense?

no_debts_no_more

homersimpson wrote:

i'm confused with this budget-
1. why 22.33 - TV Licence - is this correct?

I think the OP must have just moved to paying the TV license by direct debit, monthly. They take 1/6 of the license fee each month for 6 months when you go to this option, and then 1/12 of the license fee every month thereafter.

So in a few months time, there'll be a whole extra £11-odd to add to the kitty :j

roversbabe

Thanks all,

Some usful info there. Yep, the car is neccessary (unfortunately). TL licence - that was a typo on my part - should have been 10.49 (oops). Am with British gas for my gas and I did think that was fairly high! Will change that asap.

Mortgage - Just changed to repayment as there will be a shortfall - next on my list is to tackle the endowment and crunch them numbers.

Thanks again for the advice.

rbx

roversbabe

southernscouser wrote:

Hi roversbabe. I see you disappeared after my boys whipped yours asses!

:rotfl: :rotfl: