crikey - it's worse than I thought - my SOA

locutus2003

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2700
Benefits................................ 120
Total monthly income.................... 2820

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 897
Secured loan repayments................. 166

Council tax............................. 188
Electricity and Gas..................... 59

Water rates............................. 55
Mobile phone (2)........................ 40
TV Licence.............................. 8
Satellite/Telephone/Broadband........... 45
Groceries etc. ......................... 539.61
Clothing................................ 264
Petrol/diesel........................... 134
Road tax................................ 12.08
Car Insurance........................... 17.5
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 42

Buildings and contents insurance........ 15.5
Life assurance ......................... 30
Other insurance......................... 23
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 34
Haircuts................................ 27
Boots/baby stuff........................ 27

Cash.................................... 107
Lunches out............................. 134
Coffee out.............................. 36
ISA..................................... 15
DH life insurance....................... 30
Total monthly expenses.................. 2945.69

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

OK - so this is it. I feel sick - and very, very stupid. I knew I was spending 'a bit more' than my budget - but I'd budgeted for £25/month on lunches out (slightly overspent there then :rotfl: ) and £95 per month on clothes (another, ahem, slight overspend).

My debt is £10500 on a 0% credit card (0% until Feb 09). My mortgage is fixed rate (4.89% until Feb 09) and the secured loan is actually an additional mortgage (for our conservatory) (fixed at 6% for 10 years).

My feeling is that if I could get the lunch/coffee/mega-clothes under control, I might not have to cut back so drastically anywhere else. I reckon I could probably save quite a bit more on my groceries too - despite what it seems I actually am only feeding 2 adults, a 4 year old and a 1 yr old - not the 10 elephants that it might seem with that amount!

Thanks to everyone who suggested I should do a SOA - I've done one before but always on the basis of my budget which, it would appear, had no basis in reality.

Off to bury my head in shame ... and try to stop spending so much money.

penguin83

H Locutus - well done for posting your SOA - when I first did mine it was horrifying!

Head over to old style and join in the grocery challenge. Aim for realistic reductions every month rather than chopping a lot off in one go. The rest I'm sure you know all ready - clothes, lunches out and coffee out will really make a difference to your budget. If you have spent a lot on clothes in the past do you have stuff you could now sell on ebay? Stuff you will never wear again, havent ever worn, baby stuff etc?

I would suggest keeping a spending diary as well - just to see how accurate your SOA is. x x

arthurdick

locutus2003 wrote: »

My feeling is that if I could get the lunch/coffee/mega-clothes under control, I might not have to cut back so drastically anywhere else. I reckon I could probably save quite a bit more on my groceries too - despite what it seems I actually am only feeding 2 adults, a 4 year old and a 1 yr old - not the 10 elephants that it might seem with that amount!

you have answered your own question there.........you know where you are going wrong and overspending......i aint no better myself.......so i aint running you down.....i know how easy it is to get carried away.....thats why im on this site........good luck though.....;)

Horace

Here goes:

I nearly fell off my chair when I saw your grocery budget - how many are you feeding?:eek: Get yourself over to the moneysaving oldstyle board for tips on meal planning, grocery challenges and packed lunches (no more buying lunch at work for you).

Cut down on the clothes spending too and any clothes that you no longer wear sell at a carboot or ebay them. As for the kids clothes get them from freecycle or charity shops - they will never know the difference.

Keep a spending diary and note down every cup of coffee you buy when you're at the shops, every lunch, every newspaper etc. It soon mounts up.

One tip with regard to shopping - look through your cupboards and freezer to see what you have and what you need, write a list of what you need and stick to it. You should be able to get your grocery budget down to at least £100.

Join one of the challenges on here - the No Spend Day Challenge is a good one because you feel chuffed when you have gone through a day without buying anything.

Hope this helps?

poorandindenial

locutus2003 wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2700
Benefits................................ 120
Total monthly income.................... 2820

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 897
Secured loan repayments................. 166

Council tax............................. 188
Electricity and Gas..................... 59

Water rates............................. 55
Mobile phone (2)........................ 40 (do you use all your minutes?? if not then see if you would be better off on PAYG)
TV Licence.............................. 8 (are you in one of thereduced categories? otherwise this is more like £11)
Satellite/Telephone/Broadband........... 45 (ditch the bits you are paying extra for)
Groceries etc. ......................... 539.61 (you were spot on on flagging this, you can definitely get this down)
Clothing................................ 264 (you spotted this already - :rotfl:)
Petrol/diesel........................... 134 (can you reduce this at all?? cut out trips to the corner shop etc?)
Road tax................................ 12.08
Car Insurance........................... 17.5
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 42

Buildings and contents insurance........ 15.5
Life assurance ......................... 30
Other insurance......................... 23
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 34
Haircuts................................ 27
Boots/baby stuff........................ 27

Cash.................................... 107 (for what?? spending diary time)
Lunches out............................. 134 (yup, I have saved LOADS on this since I did my SOA)
Coffee out.............................. 36 (and this, I have a cafetiere and coffee on my desk now)
ISA..................................... 15
DH life insurance....................... 30
Total monthly expenses.................. 2945.69

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

OK - so this is it. I feel sick - and very, very stupid. I knew I was spending 'a bit more' than my budget - but I'd budgeted for £25/month on lunches out (slightly overspent there then :rotfl: ) and £95 per month on clothes (another, ahem, slight overspend).

My debt is £10500 on a 0% credit card (0% until Feb 09). My mortgage is fixed rate (4.89% until Feb 09) and the secured loan is actually an additional mortgage (for our conservatory) (fixed at 6% for 10 years).

My feeling is that if I could get the lunch/coffee/mega-clothes under control, I might not have to cut back so drastically anywhere else. I reckon I could probably save quite a bit more on my groceries too - despite what it seems I actually am only feeding 2 adults, a 4 year old and a 1 yr old - not the 10 elephants that it might seem with that amount!

Thanks to everyone who suggested I should do a SOA - I've done one before but always on the basis of my budget which, it would appear, had no basis in reality.

Off to bury my head in shame ... and try to stop spending so much money.

Well done for being so honest with yourself on your SOA, the good news is that you can already see areas to cut back on.

Next step is the spending diary (to see where money is going) and also the snowball calculator (www.whatsthecost.co.uk) which shows you how to pay off your debts and tells you your debt free date.

belfastgirl23

Just to add my grocery budget was similar when I first came onto this site and it was for just two of us! There's a lot of helpful stuff on the oldstyle board and the grocery challenge can really help to focus you. I'm down to about £160 a month now which is way more than a lot of others!

In particular trying to menu plan helped, means I don't end up throwing out a load of stuff. Also shopping online (harder to be tempted into impulse buying) and radically cutting back on my M&S habit helped. And trying to have a range of options for can't be bothered nights

Good luck and well done on facing up to things...

locutus2003

I already feel better than I did - thanks to all who've replied. I felt so stupid - but I had clearly been burying my head in the sand about the whole thing - I was SO certain I was only just spending over my budget and couldn't understand why I kept being so hard up each month!

I've gone to What's the Cost - and if I just cut my groceries down by £50 (which must be easy - DH (stay at home dad) is off to Asda tomorrow instead of getting our Ocado delivery) - and keep to my original budget of £25 for lunches, £20 for coffees and £95 for clothes - I could pay off £450 a month from my credit card and be debt free by December 2010. Seems a million years away but ... at least I feel I've finally been honest with myself! Of course, if I can do better with the groceries (and I know we could) then we could pay it off even quicker.

Just need to persuade DH that we don't need a new car until 2010. Might take a bit more persuasion than I've managed so far!

poorandindenial

locutus

I think you have a healthy approach here, you COULD make huge savings on groceries, but to go straight in and then not do so well would probably leave you running straight back to your old ways. You might want to do a bit of mix and match across supermarkets (eg Lidl chorizo is far better than that from M&S or Waitrose)

Once you have made your £50 savings and are used to the change then it is time to look again and see if you are ready/willing to make another cut

Good luck persuading OH (try and get him addicted to the snowball calculator)