Buckle up - it's going to be a bumpy ride!

sparky0107

tealady wrote: »

Hi If you look at the It pays to watch website then you should be able to watch the most recent show. There is a forum on this site with a link.
HTH

Thanks tealady,
I didn't know you could do that, I missed the show also. Have a nice day.

GotNoRhythm

Hi all, sorry I've not posted for a few days - been poorly. I'm looking into all my bits and bobs now and will post my SOA shortly.
Thanks for the tip about watching the show - I didn't know I could watch it online! My digibox stopped working on Friday so I'll have to tune the video recorder in so I can tape the shows (I think the TV arial is to blame) - don't worry, I haven't been spending money on fancy digiboxes that record stuff - it's my dad's, he lent it to me 'cos he's been spending his money on a fancy new TV!
I've also started a cash book, writing down what I spend, and that's shocked me! I've dug out most of my receipts from last month so I have a fair idea of what I spent then. Really most of my expenditure should only be food shopping and car expenses (I live rent-free with my mum for the time being, but when I start supply teaching she'll want some sort of contribution, which is fair enough) - needless to say some of my spending wasn't just on food and the car...
Anyway, back soon with my SOA
GNR
xx

GotNoRhythm

Here it is, in all it's glory! Again, I got a few surprises (and not all of them were horrible! I was surprised at how my M&S loan is going down :beer:)

I'm not really sure of the best way to write this all out - I've done a very rambling and almost incoherent excel spreadsheet on my laptop, so if I omit something or if anyone would like any other info which I haven't added, let me know and I'll try and find out!

MBNA M/card - £6720.46 owing mostly at 2.0751% monthly. Min payments £320.43 - probably will be a lot more than this cos I've had a few cash advances this month (£10200 limit. have just received 0% transfer offer until July 2009 with 3% handling fee)
TESCO M/Card - 2441.46 owing - this breaks down as £1702.61 at 1.456% purchases and 738.85 at 1.873% cash advances (£3000 limit) Min payment £162.00
M&S M/Card - £4041.09 owing at 20.9% APR (£4300 limit) Min payment £104.38

Lloyds Loan - £17129.72 owing at 11.7% (£295.34 per month) This is over 84 months and by the end of Oct I'll have 58 months' payments to go)
M&S Loan - £1870.72 owing (£233.84 per month) - so only 8 months left to go on this one :T
Cahoot Loan - 21.9% (variable - this one is the pain in the @ss!!) £3604.14 owing. Apparently I'm only paying the minimum amount (I didn't know this until today!!) £94.97 (I borrowed £5000 YEARS ago :eek:)

I also have a Mint Visa which is currently clear :A. They've offered me 3.9% on £4940 for 6 months with a 3% fee.

Lloyds Current acc overdraft = £2000 and I'm usually at it's limit...

I also have student loans but they're deferred (hopefully until I retire :rotfl:) so I'm not worrying about those.

Salary - because of my situation I've lived on JSA and parents' generosity for the past year - hence a lot of the credit card debt (I was living on those... bad move, I know) Good old dad has been lending me the money to cover my minimum payments :rolleyes:
As a supply teacher I can earn £100 a day (less tax) and I have an interview for this next week. These things are so slow to sort out!! I know that's my priority. I also need to look into teacher's salaries to work out if I'd be better off doing supply for a few years or getting a full-time teaching job (that wold mean an initial drop in salary as I'm newly-qualified).

I'm not really sure whether I should put spending details on here - well, I wouldn't really know where to start! It varies from one week to the next and I know I spend it on silly things too. I did work out that my car costs me about £1 a day just to have it (excluding diesel!)

So that's my lot! Any help and advice greatly appreciated.
Many, many thanks,
GNR
xx

GeorgeUK

You may have missed Sparky's link to the SOA calculator in post 3. This will give you an excellent place to start for looking at your expenditure. I suggest you enter credit card purchases and cash advances as 2 seperate entries as they have different rates.
https://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

No more cash advances on the credit cards - they are crippling you with those rates.
MBNA 27.95%
Tesco 18.95% / 24.95%
M&S 20.9%

The cahoot loan is actually worse than some of your credit cards!!

Can you check to see if you were missold payment protection insurance (PPI) on any of the loans? Did this pay out when you were unemployed?

I suggest you transfer the M&S balance to mint, then after you get a nil balance statement, contact them to see if you can get a low interest life of balance incentive to keep the card open. Then transfer the tesco balance to that with as much of the MBNA balance as possible. Don't spend on these cards that you do balance trasnfers to - cut them in half, put them in a container of water and put this in the freezer if you don't think you can resist using them.

GotNoRhythm

Thanks for your reply, GeourgeUK.
I know! I was so shocked when I saw the Cahoot details! Couldn't believe it!
I looked into the payment protection after I was made redundant from my job in January, but my contracted hours were too low to claim.
I'll have to wait for my MBNA bill to work out the cash advances - they were fairly recent so will be on my next statement. Tesco's bill is brilliant - it has all the info on it. I wish they were all like that, rather than leaving it to me to work it out. (But I guess if they did that, then people would be more on-the-ball and not do such silly things as take out cash advances!)
I love that freezer idea - I came across it yesterday whilst reading someone else's thread. Brilliant!
Hmm, must've missed that link - I promise to have a look...
Do you think the 0% on the MBNA card (until July 09) is worth looking into?

Thanks for your suggestions - I do appreciate the help.
GNR
xx

GeorgeUK

Were you made aware that you may not be able to claim? Were you working those hours when you took out the PPI? If so you may be able to claim it was missold as it was going to be of no use to you.

Edit: I would not bother putting anything onto the MBNA card until you have it cleared. If you put anything onto it, you will be paying off the 0% first and not making any impact on the higher interest debts. Once you get it cleared you may be able to get some 0% offers you can use, then once that is finished, transfer back to one of the other cards for a 0% or LOB deal - this would avoid you paying the 27.95% rate.

GotNoRhythm

Hi GeorgeUK,
No, I wasn't working those hours at the time - I was in a different job at the time, too. I'll look into this a bit further though - I seem to recall reading about this in one of Martin's previous emails and thinking 'Maybe I could claim...' (but then my time probably got consumed with doing other stuff - usually the case!)

Ahhh, I understand about the MBNA rate now. I hate credit cards - they make me feel so stupid. (I'm not really stupid - I got 95% in my maths exam at uni last year!)

I'm just trying to do a proper SOA from that link that you kindly pointed out - it's a bit of a wrangle. I don't know the APR on my M&S loan!! It MUST be somewhere in my paperwork, surely??! - edit - Found it!!

GotNoRhythm

Here it is! I didn't really know what to put for my salary so I put in an approximate figure for how much I'll hopefully earn when I start supply (assuming it will be full-time work). I'll post again with a zero salary just out of interest... at the moment my dad is bailing me out as and when the direct debits come in...
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1250
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1250

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 0
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 15
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 14.99
Groceries etc. ......................... 120
Clothing................................ 30
Petrol/diesel........................... 80
Road tax................................ 9.58
Car Insurance........................... 23
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 10
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 7.1
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40
Haircuts................................ 10.67
Entertainment........................... 10
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 370.34

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1500
Other assets............................ 1000
Total Assets............................ 2500

No Secured Debt

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
MBNA M/c Purchases.............6720.46...156.......24.9
M&S M/c........................4041.09...104.9.....20.9
Lloyds TSB Loan................17129.7...295.3.....11.7
M&S Loan.......................1870.72...233.8.....9.3
Tesco M/c Cash Adv.............738.85....48.6......22.44
Tesco M/c Purchases............1702.61...113.4.....17.47
Total unsecured debts..........32203.43..952.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,250
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 370.34
Available for debt repayments........... 879.66
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 952
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ -72.34

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 2,500
Total Secured debt...................... -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -32,203.43
Net Assets.............................. -29,703.43

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.[/font]

GotNoRhythm

...and this is me with no income! Grim reading...
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 0

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 0
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 15
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 14.99
Groceries etc. ......................... 120
Clothing................................ 30
Petrol/diesel........................... 80
Road tax................................ 9.58
Car Insurance........................... 23
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 10
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 7.1
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40
Haircuts................................ 10.67
Entertainment........................... 10
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 370.34

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1500
Other assets............................ 1000
Total Assets............................ 2500

No Secured Debt

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
MBNA M/c Purchases.............6720.46...156.......24.9
M&S M/c........................4041.09...104.9.....20.9
Lloyds TSB Loan................17129.7...295.3.....11.7
M&S Loan.......................1870.72...233.8.....9.3
Tesco M/c Cash Adv.............738.85....48.6......22.44
Tesco M/c Purchases............1702.61...113.4.....17.47
Total unsecured debts..........32203.43..952.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 0
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 370.34
Available for debt repayments........... -370.34
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 952
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ -1,322.34

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 2,500
Total Secured debt...................... -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -32,203.43
Net Assets.............................. -29,703.43

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.

GeorgeUK

You left alot for us to try to cut down there...
Only thing i can see is the £40pm on presents - are they all for your dad for helping out like this? (And does he mind buying his own presents )

You can't transfer the tesco balance to mint as they have the same card providor so i'm sticking with my previous suggestion.

Good luck with the interview. If you can get a wage you can hopefully put a real dent in these debts. When paying them off, i suggest you go for the highest APR, which i think will be MBNA, M&S, then Tesco as they usually pay the lowest interest debt first to get as much interest out of you as possible. I think the sooner you get started with the mint transfer the better.

Have you looked into reclaiming bank charges or credit card charges?