Calling All Ingenious MoneySavers! New SOA!

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hi All!

Here is my SOA for you to look at. I shall be explaining how I got to be here shortly but first of all - the numbers!

Monthly income after tax.................900
Other income (bar work)................. 100
Total monthly income.................... 1000

Monthly Expense Details
Rent........................................................... 225
Council tax.................................................... 45
Electricity...................................................... 15
Gas............................................................... 15
Water rates..................................................... 5
Telephone + Internet..................................... 10
Mobile phone................................................. 20
TV Licence.................................................... 7.5
Groceries etc. .............................................. 100
Clothing......................................................... 10
Petrol/diesel................................................... 40
Road tax........................................................ 10
Car Insurance................................................. 30
Car maintenance (including MOT)..................... 20
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)..................... 20
Haircuts.......................................................... 10
Total monthly expenses.............................£582.50

Assets
Cash............................................................. 130
Car(s).......................................................... 2000
Total Assets................................................. 2130

Unsecured Debts

Description.................................Debt......Monthly...APR
Loan......................................... 3429.........233.........0 Interest already added.
Barclaycard Total……………………….1900……….50……….2% interest monthly (£30)
(Barcaycard (Cash)………………………900..........50........27.9%
Barclaycard(B/T & Purchases)…….1000……………………14.9% )
Overdraft......................................900.........0..............0% Graduate rate – Ending soon.
Family .........................................500.........0...............0
Total unsecured debts..................6729......283..............0
Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.......................... 1,000
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 582.5
Available for debt repayments............... 417.5
Monthly Unsecured debt repayments....... 283
Surplus(deficit if negative)....................... 134.5

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets…………………………………..2,130
Total Unsecured debt.................... -6,729
Net Assets.................................... -4,599

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

I have been using this site for around about a year shortly after my light bulb moment which happened almost a year ago this week!

Although I have never posted before I did use lots of advice, tips and help from this site which has helped me to pay back over £5000 of my debt so far.

For which I am greatful to you all for continuing to make this forum such a valuable place! So, thank you!

Having had a years worth of hard work, budget writing and revising, working extra jobs, charges reclaiming etc I thought it was time to post on here and ask for some further advice having reached my plateau and maybe to share my experiences so far.

All help greatly appreciated!

penguin83

Hi Littlemiss - welcome to DFW!

You have done really well so far - 5k in a year is excellent. The good news is that your SOA shows a positive balance inc your debt repayments. How accurate is your SOA - do you manage to make all the payments if not keep a spending diary every day to keep track of where any additional money is going.

Do you know exectly when your 0% overdraft is ending or what the interest rate will be.

Have a look at www.whatsthecost.com - play around with the figures to give you an idea in what order to pay the debts off x x

michael19_2

Hi,

Well done for getting rid of £5k worth of debt in a year.

Why not do the same for one more year and youll be debt free. Looks like youve got your finances under control and should be able to do it

Congrats

poorandindenial

You have done brilliantly

The only possible saves I can see are....

Do you REALLY need a car, you don't seem to use it that much??
Could you get a credit card with a 0% deal and balance transfer away from BC?? you would have to be very strong and maybe cancel BC immediately to stop you from spending on it. BC interest rates are horrible.

urg123

Hi

I'll add my congratulations to the others - getting rid of £5k is not easy - well done. It sounds as though you've learned a lot from this site already! Maybe you can give us some tips too!

Your outgoings look good so I think the thing to do is to raise more money so here are a few tips in case you haven't thought of them already:

• sell your text books on Amazon - I waited years before selling mine and lost out on some decent money as publishers regularly release new editions of texts. One word of warning - make sure that the postage costs are covered in your earnings. I was really silly on one and virtually ended up paying someone else to buy my books! :rolleyes:
• try and get some market research focus groups work. YOu can get up to £50 for doing a couple of hours talking!
• Use quidco for any purchases.
• join a couple of the challenges - see if you can shave £20 off your grocery budget.
• Make you festive presents this year!

Hope this is useful

URG x

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Wow!

Cheers for the warm words of welcome! Very pleased to see replys so soon! Makes me wish I had joined in sooner!!!

penguin83 - My SOA is really quite accurate. It has been working ok for 4/5 months. I may get a nasty surprise when annual payments are due if I'm not saving right though. I got into a pickle last year after sharing a house with a friend who was a full time student who rarely paid her half on time. I never really knew how much was coming in / going out each month so I never knew what I had to spend on myself or debts as I was responsible for all the bills - foolishly. So now I am living with my OH we have both studiously worked out our shares that are safely in a separate bank account the day after payday - phew! :-D

Fortunately what saved me last year was I managed to get a 2nd job working in a restaurant/bar. I do often earn more from this bar job per month than I have written down. I just have learned not to count on earnings that aren't guaranteed as the shifts I get can vary from 4hrs per week to 25!

My overdraft graduate rate is ending this month and from what I can gather my overdraft will be getting a 1.5% monthly charge - so it'll be going up around £6 each month. I have reduced my overdraft from 1500 already so far and got rid of my HSBC credit card which was 1000 so I am loathed to pay any more back to HSBC than I have to!

I have just had a look at whatsthecost.com and it is a very useful site! Thanks!!! Having completed a few snowballs I now have my DFD of 14months time Dec 2009!!!! :-D

My big problem is that now I have done all the big things to help the situation taking off chunks from here and there my debt-free ways are starting to slip and I'm not counting those pennies quite so closely as I should be.

Poorandindenial - My car is a big part of my job as a field engineer but fortunately I get petrol rembursed and an allowance paid to me for using it which does help. But that has highlighted the fact that I should put aside my expenses and allowance and fund car repairs, mot directly from them instead of letting them slip into the monthly pot!!!

I have tried twice to apply for a new card to get a balance transfer - once last year and once recently but have been refused for them. Any thoughts on what to do if your credit report is ok but still getting refused?????? :-( so am stuck paying B'card for a long while! Boo. Hiss. I have however brought my limit down from 3100 to 2000 to stop me being able to compound my debt further!!!!!

Urg123 - Great idea on the text books! I have a huuuuge stack of I.T books that I paid a fortune for and what built some of this debt up in the first place! I will also see if I can maybe do a car-boot too what with Christmas coming up. The OH does all our quidco purchases but we only caught onto that recently - we are now the quidco officionados for the family, wrestling ppls insurance out of their hands to get them cashback :-D!!!

I DO need to join some challenges! and I need to get my signature sorted out too! Well time for bed for me now as I have 12 hours of work ahead of me!

Looking forward to any further comments!