My SOA - please help if you can

jules73_2

If you can, pay ALL your bills by direct debit. If not, use a bank account just for bills and pay that amount in each month and don't touch it.
Set yourself a monthly budget for everything else (food,petrol etc) and don't deviate from this amount.
Use the spare £500/month to clear those debts with the highest interest rates first.
If you can manage to do this, you will be debt free in two years.
Try to get a part time job to pay for Xmas and Birthdays etc. for the next two years.
After 3 or 4 months of doing this, your mindset will hopefully change, and you will find it easy to acheive. You will know your SOA on a monthly ongoing basis.

ruthem215

Thanks again everyone for helpful advice!
With regards to ebay im always selling bits here and there but again it whittles away - I do try and put the money on the cards but most of the time the money is spent on living costs for the end of the month as we dont have anythign left - and dont make a great deal of profit, and dont think I have anything left to sell lol!

The extra driver point is a good point, I would like to start learning to drive, but as we can't afford it at the moment I'm not but I do have a provisional licence as I did start learning a couple of years back. So I'm not sure if it would be much cheaper insuring a provisional driver? plus because he hasn't been driving long enough he wouldnt be able to take me out and teach me/supervise me driving?

Yes hubby goes to Iraq twice a year, so this is a good time to save as he spends nothing out there! To be honest we got into a really bad habit of spending on the cards - the main bulk of it all is things like stuff for our home when we first moved in which we have still not paid off, as we had no money then and nothing to start us off, so plastic came out bad I know, and things like laptop, digital camera, our wedding, & honeymoon etc. Bad I know I wish we could go back and start again I really do.

I'm taking all your advice on board and hopefully we can change our mind sets on this, hubby goes to Iraq in a few weeks and were hoping to be able to save a substantial amount through this. Were not the greatest in helping each other out either were both as bad - very weak, never really had much when we were younger, and dont seem to know when to stop. But it STOPS now it has to. Plus family history of bankrupcy doesnt help. But we must be strong!!! :mad:

RAS

ruthem215 wrote: »

Statement of Affairs


Monthly Income

Me - £830.00
Partner - £1200.00

TOTAL – 2030.00

Monthly Outgoings


Rent – £155.00
Council Tax – £90.00
Water Rates – FREE
Gas – £30.00
Electric – £30.00
Internet – £20.00
Sky – £36.00
Phone Line & calls– £16.00
Mobile Phones – £100.00 - this is huge - you can cut it back massively, and learn to use things like skype for when you and OH are apart.
Petrol – £100.00 - if you are in MOD accomodation, where are you driving to?
Car Insurance – £95.00 - check this out and transfer via www.quidco.com
TV Licence – £11.95
Pet Insurance – £8.50
Groceries inc pet food – £170.00
Everything else – eating out, entertainment etc - £60.00

Where are
Car tax
MOT
Car maintenance
Clothes?
presents?
Holidays?


Debts & Monthly Repayments


Amounts Outstanding:


Amazon Credit Card - £1,598.22 (paying £100.00 per month) 19.9 – interest rate
HSBC Credit Card - £3,868.48 (paying £120.00 per month) 21.9 – interest rate
Halifax Credit Card - £1,700.00 – (paying £100.00 per month) 19.9 – interest rate
Halifax Overdraft - £200.00
Abbey Overdraft - £200.00
Car Finance - £4,000.00 – (paying £167.00 per month) 6.4% - interest rate
Tesco Loan - £2,100.00 – (paying £212.00 per month)

Total Debt Outstanding: £12,226.70

Total Debt Repayments per month: £699.00


Total Outgoings per month: £1,621.50



We contacted a debt company and they basically said its showing up that we have the above amount spare – so they couldn’t help us.

Please talk to a debt charity not to a debt company. The latter are designed to make money out of you, the others are free.


If its showing we have money spare that’s great, as we can use that spare money (which we are obviously wasting) on debt repayment.

Go through your old credit card and bank statement and work out what you have spent the money on?

Hi

Until you know where it is going, you cannot stop the rot.

Can you reclaim credit card charges? If you have PPI on any of the loans, can you cancel it and get stand alone PPI?

ruthem215

To be honest the spending on the cards is almost down to nothing now, we rarely use them until we REALLY have to like this month we had to whereas the last few months we haven't. We had to get two new tires for hubbys car and we had to buy the food shopping with it. So I think we mainly need to manage the debt we have and if we can fiddle around with our spending we wont ever need to spend on the cards!

r.mac_2

hi there

I can't add much more, but have you tried the CASH method? It really helped me when I was keeping a spending diary. I would take out a set amount of cash for the week or month and I put my bank card in a drawer and when the cash was gone it was gone! It made me realise that i was 'frittering' so much more than I realised and stopped me from just adding things to the supermarket trolley. All those magazines, treats and extras were adding up, but not actually giving me anything in return.

good luck x

ruthem215

r.mac wrote: »

hi there

I can't add much more, but have you tried the CASH method? It really helped me when I was keeping a spending diary. I would take out a set amount of cash for the week or month and I put my bank card in a drawer and when the cash was gone it was gone! It made me realise that i was 'frittering' so much more than I realised and stopped me from just adding things to the supermarket trolley. All those magazines, treats and extras were adding up, but not actually giving me anything in return.

good luck x

Good point, I think I'll give this a go too, aswell as keeping the spending diary.