In Debt & Desperate

Boyfriendgirl

I wonder if anyone could give me some advice. I separated from my husband last year and bought a house with the equity. Since then my debts have hit home and I am now struggling to make ends meet. It seems each month that my wages have gone out of my account before I've paid all my bills.

My new partner has offered to help and I have taken a lodger on to contribute. I have come to the stage that I feel sick about my debt constantly and it is affecting everything I do including sleep.

I have attempted an SOA - some notes - I have a daughter who is away at uni, my partner has a son who stays with us every other weekend. My mobile bill is made up of 3 contracts - my daughters will finish in March next year and will not be renewed.



Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1200
Partners monthly income after tax....... 800
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 300
Total monthly income.................... 2300

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 438
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 110
Electricity............................. 30
Gas..................................... 40
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 20
Telephone (land line)................... 12
Mobile phone............................ 100
TV Licence.............................. 14
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 18
Groceries etc. ......................... 200
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 18.5
Car Insurance........................... 60
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 60
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 150
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 12
Contents insurance...................... 5
Life assurance ......................... 12
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 20
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Daughter University Support............. 300
Total monthly expenses.................. 1719.5

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 157000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 5000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 162000

Secured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 70000....(438)......5
Total secured debts........... 70000.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
CC1 - MBNA.....................5000......59........0
CC2 - HSBC.....................2000......60........15.9
CC3 - Halifax..................6000......130.......22.5
Loan from parents..............14000.....200.......0
Overdraft HSBC.................650.......0.........0
Overdraft Alliance.............250.......0.........0
Store Card Argos...............300.......2.........27.9
CC4 - Barclaycard..............260.......6.........24.9
Total unsecured debts..........28460.....457.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,300
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 1,719.5
Available for debt repayments........... 580.5
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 457
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ 123.5

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 162,000
Total Secured debt...................... -70,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -28,460
Net Assets.............................. 63,540

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.Please help me sort this out! Thanks for reading this. x

spam.jam

hello
im sorry im not an expert about debts, i just wanted to say hello and well done for coming to the right place and taking the time to sort out your soa. someone with a lot more knowledge will come along to help in a while. (one thing that helped me in the beginning was working out which debt was costing the most in interest and pay that one off first) good luck

tealady

Hi When your insurances are due for renewal go to a comparison website (or several would be better) to get the best quotes. Then see if you can buy it via a cashback website which will be even better.
Check out https://www.petrolprices.com for fuel prices in your area.
The Old style boards have great ways of cutting back on the groceries.
Hope this helps.

urg123

HI Boyfriendgirl

Welcome to the Boards. I have a few comments ideas and I am sure that there will be others along soon.

Most of the spending is tight - so I can see why it is a struggle. You have identified some of the main issues.

Can you contact the mobile companies and ask them if they will reduce your tariffs? Someone on this board told their provider about their financial situation and said they were about to go bankrupt. The provider agreed to a much lower tariff - it's worth a try!

Have a go at trying to reduce your grocery bills - have a look a the old-style board.

Okay this is the hard part - a good proportion of your income is going to your daughter. I know this is a difficult one and I can see the income from the lodger actually covers it. Can your ex-partner contribute? Can your daughter get a job? It does silly that you are getting further and further into debt while trying to keep your daughter out of it.

Other things that you can think about are ways to make money. Selling things on Amazon and Ebay. A second job for a little while. There are lots of other ideas on these boards.

Pay off some of the smaller debts i.e. the barclaycard and the Argos storecard as soon as possible. It'll make you feel better to get them off your list.

There are lots of ways in which you can deal with the debt - have a good look at the boards. It can get obsessive. I am sure others will be along to add their ideas and comments.

Good luck with your debt free journey.

URG x

milliemonster

Great advice from Urg, nothing immediately springs out from your SOA and you are doing well in that you still have a surplus each month.

Although, it says in your SOA you pay your daughter £300 a month and theres another £150 a month child related expenses, what is this for? is there any chance you can cut this down? or your daughter can get a pt job while she is away at uni?

If you take away the loan from your parents, your debt isn't that bad, can you negotiate with your parents to pay them back less while your daughter is at uni? so you can throw this money at your interest charged debts for a while?

I fully understand the 'noose around the neck' feeling that debt gives you and you just want it paid off asap, but your daughter isn't going to be at uni forever, if you can encourage her to get some pt work herself and reduce what you pay back your parents for the time being (£50 a month?) then this can free some money up to throw at your debts to get these down.

Numpty_Monkey

Hi Bfg:hello:

A few extra thoughts to go along with what the others have said
I don't know much about cars but your insurance and maintence cost are high, check you are getting a deal with the insurance read Martin's:money:article about insurance
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/

Look at getting a landline and internet bundle package , i pay £16 a month for line rental and broadband, free evening and weekend calls

The OS board is great for getting your shopping bill down
MoneySaving Old Style

YourSOA says you have a surplus at the end of the month but I bet you don't,
keep a spending diary write down everything you spend, papers, magazines,snacks,drinks all the little things.

If you have a surplus try snowballing your debts, use this link
http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx?country=uk

HTH and good luck keep posting:A

CLAPTON

Well done on posting and starting to tackle the problem.
your SOA actually shows a surplus each month of 123. Presumably in practice that doesn't actually happen. The first step is to find out where the money actually goes.
If you and OH could start to keep spending diaries.. write down everything you spend ... it can be quite a relevation where money really goes.. so do you really spend nothing on socialising, medical/dental/optical, the odd magazine lunch out, occasional take away etc...better to be brutally honest with yourselves .........also look closely at the other irregular costs.. do you really spend nothing at christmas, or presents or trips out or absolutely nothing on the house ... think about what you spent in the last 12 months...

When does your daughter finish Uni... would you parent agree to you delaying repaying them until she finishes and then you will have 300 per month extra.

MrsTinks

Car insurance definitely needs to be addressed! Check for penalties of getting out early and then look around to see how much you can save by changing and after that work out if you can get cashback too
Need to know what that £150 is all about and then you need to talk to your daughter about reducing the support you give her financially... it's perfectly possible to work part time whilst studying and there are grants etc available too if she checks with her student union probably.
also ask her to pay her own mobile phone bill from now on. Either that or tell her you'll pay for a £10 top up card a month for a PAYG mobile.

Damita

Welcome to the board, I would battle the store card first

mickeyblue_2

Hi

You spend too much on your daughter. Tell her to get a part time job. students usually spend most of their money down the pub or on clothes. Can she not get a student loan? Either that or tell your ex to put his hand in his pocket and help her out as well.

Hope you sort things out.

andromache_2

Hiya boyfriendgirl,

well done on posting, you've found the right place to help you sort yourself out

I don't know much about running a household but I thought I might offer something from your daughter's perspective as I'm a uni student. Obviously it depends a lot on how much her rent is, if she has to pay travel to get to lectures etc, but in most situations I would say that £300 is a lot to give her. Is she claiming all the student loans and grants she's entitled to? My parents give me £250 a month on top of the basic student loan. I think that this is very generous of them and wouldn't dream of accepting it if I thought that they were in any financial difficulty. I find that this gives me plenty to live on without having to do any pt work in term. In fact, I even managed to save quite a bit of it last year; it's going into a longterm savings account to fund postgrad studies so that I don't have to ask my parents for too much towards that. If they didn't give me that money, then I'm pretty sure that I could fund myself through holiday work and spending carefully in termtime. Oh, and I pay my own mobile bill, thank you!

I know that you probably don't want to worry your daughter about your financial situation. Maybe you could ask her to draw up a budget of how much she anticipates spending this year so that you can see whether she spends a reasonable amount (I did this for my parents). I would never want to be spending my parents' hard-earned money on loads of nights out and so on. I think it's a good idea for her to have to do some holiday work in any case as it will give her good financial discipline - one of the most valuable things I've learned since coming to uni! Tell her that you are trying to give her life skills if you don't want her to know about your money problems as this is true as well Initially cutting her allowance might be a shock to her as she's used to the higher amount but most students have less money than her so I'm sure she will adjust. I dare say she would feel mortified about taking so much money from you if she knew how stressed you were.

I hope that some of these thoughts were useful