Newbie Here - DFW and dragging my other half along with me!

alxx_b

Hi all

Can I just say - I love this site!! I need this encouragement, I'm not too bad with money myself but I'm in the position of having to drag my fella into the debt free wannabe mindset after 15 years of his ex-wife spending all the money he earned, she earned, the capital in the house etc! The lovely witch managed to take out a huge loan with Picture to clear all her personal debts and then walk out on him and their daughter, leaving him to pay it (and now me to pay it!) and risking leaving them homeless.

Consequently we're stuffed for money and in major debt, but we've had a couple of LBMs during our last year and a half together and I'm determined to get us out of this hole.

My SOA (I hope I've got it right!)
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1027
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1959
Benefits................................ 87
Other income............................ 100
Total monthly income.................... 3173

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 818
Secured loan repayments................. 388
Council tax............................. 120
Electricity............................. 30
Gas..................................... 55
Water rates............................. 38
Telephone (land line)................... 22
Mobile phone............................ 90
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 26
Groceries etc. ......................... 150
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 60
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 50
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Other child related expenses............ 30
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 15
Buildings insurance..................... 58
Life assurance ......................... 110
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 20
Holiday................................. 50
Charity payments........................ 25
Total monthly expenses.................. 2282


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 175000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 15000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 190000


Secured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 130000...(818)......5.29
Secured Debt.................. 49000....(388)......6.5
Total secured debts........... 179000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Rob Credit Card................7000......200.......15
Rob Overdraft..................4000......150.......6
Alex CDL.......................2900......153.......6
Rob Credit Card 2..............700.......50........7
Alex Loan......................6500......200.......19
Total unsecured debts..........21100.....753.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,173
Expenses (including secured debts)...... 2,282
Available for debt repayments........... 891
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 753
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ 138

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 190,000
Total Secured debt...................... -179,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -21,100
Net Assets.............................. -10,100

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

It's a shock, not a huge one though as I've made up budgets recently but I'm hoping this will spur us on to make the most of any spare pennies we have.

I like the sealed money box idea, also good to get the little one involved.

alxx_b

So how does one work out a debt free date or do you break it down into smaller goals when you've lots of debts?

hypno06

Hi, and welcome.

to get your DFD go to www.whatsthecost.com and go to the snowball calculator - put your debts in there and the amount you pay and it will tell you what order to pay in and when your DFD will be.

You can then play around with it to see what difference an extra £10 or £100 thrown at your debt each month will make to that DFD - it is a great motivator for you to concentrate on the debt and earn that extra money.

Talking of which, join the £10 a day challenge and you will get loads of ideas of making a few extra £££ which can all help bring that DFD forward!

dancingfairy

Hi and welcome. :hello:
Let's have a look:
Mortgage................................ 818
Secured loan repayments................. 388
Council tax............................. 120
Electricity............................. 30
Gas..................................... 55
Water rates............................. 38
Telephone (land line)................... 22
Mobile phone............................ 90 :eek: how many mobiles is this for?
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 26 can this go for now? can you downgrade or just keep the box and use the free channels and cancel the contract?
Groceries etc. ......................... 150 how many for? seems pretty good to me :T
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 60
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 50
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Other child related expenses............ 30
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 15
Buildings insurance..................... 58
Life assurance ......................... 110 :eek: :eek: a month? how many sets of assurance is this? is this for 2 adults? it seems ridiculously high though.
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 20
Holiday................................. 50
Charity payments........................ 25 can you stop this for a while and pick it up when things are straighter? (if you feel really guilty you could always keep a tally of what you 'owe' the charity for when you get back on your feet again as redirecting this money temporarily will save you lots on interest charges.
Total monthly expenses.................. 2282

The best thing is your SOA is showing a surplus :T of 138 pounds which can be used to repay your debts faster. If you do not see this every month - which is fairly common we recommend you do a spending diary - this will enable you to see if you have underestimated any of the categories, if there is anything you have missed out or more likely that it just goes on coffees/coke/magazines/newspapers/cd's/dvd's/clothes/make-up/bus fares/chocolate bars/ food at work etc, etc which you can identify and then try and reduce.

Anyway - enough to keep you busy for a while.
Best of Luck with it all.
df

Numpty_Monkey

alxx_b wrote: »

Hi all

Can I just say - I love this site!! I need this encouragement, I'm not too bad with money myself but I'm in the position of having to drag my fella into the debt free wannabe mindset after 15 years of his ex-wife spending all the money he earned, she earned, the capital in the house etc! The lovely witch managed to take out a huge loan with Picture to clear all her personal debts and then walk out on him and their daughter, leaving him to pay it (and now me to pay it!) and risking leaving them homeless.

Consequently we're stuffed for money and in major debt, but we've had a couple of LBMs during our last year and a half together and I'm determined to get us out of this hole.

My SOA (I hope I've got it right!)
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1027
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1959
Benefits................................ 87
Other income............................ 100
Total monthly income.................... 3173

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 818
Secured loan repayments................. 388
Council tax............................. 120
Electricity............................. 30 is this the best deal?
Gas..................................... 55 is this the best deal
Water rates............................. 38
Telephone (land line)................... 22
Mobile phone............................ 90 Can you change contracts or tarriffs
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 26
Groceries etc. ......................... 150 well done
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 60
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 50 is this the best deal? check Martins thing about insurane, use casback sites
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Other child related expenses............ 30
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 15 same as car
Buildings insurance..................... 58 same as car
Life assurance ......................... 110:eek: same as car
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 20
Holiday................................. 50
Charity payments........................ 25 Charity begins at home
Total monthly expenses.................. 2282


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 175000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 15000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 190000


Secured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 130000...(818)......5.29
Secured Debt.................. 49000....(388)......6.5
Total secured debts........... 179000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Rob Credit Card................7000......200.......15
Rob Overdraft..................4000......150.......6
Alex CDL.......................2900......153.......6
Rob Credit Card 2..............700.......50........7
Alex Loan......................6500......200.......19
Total unsecured debts..........21100.....753.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,173
Expenses (including secured debts)...... 2,282
Available for debt repayments........... 891
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 753
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ 138

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 190,000
Total Secured debt...................... -179,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -21,100
Net Assets.............................. -10,100

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

It's a shock, not a huge one though as I've made up budgets recently but I'm hoping this will spur us on to make the most of any spare pennies we have.

I like the sealed money box idea, also good to get the little one involved.

Hello:hello: I ve left a few comments
If you have a surplus try snowballing your debts
http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx?country=uk

And with the help and advice here that surplus may get bigger and your DFD will get closer:T

alxx_b

Thanks for your comments. Our car insurance is ok considering we've got 6 cars between us (petrol heads - not going to change although I'm trying to get himself to cut down on what we spend on them) and they are all classics so very low insurance and only two of six have payable car tax.

The life insurance is quite high and OH is going to review this - I've just taken out life insurance and it's much lower, although I am younger, so we're going to see what we can save on this.

Pet insurance is an estimate as I've not taken this out yet - we've just taken in two kittens so I'm still looking at quotes.

Mobile is for both of us but our contracts run out early next year so we're going to switch when they do.

Electricity is settling down but we've had problems as I changed to a digital meter rather than prepayment recently to save money, but it ends up that we were on a cheaper tariff on prepayment so we've ended up with a huuuuge first bill! DD are set to £30 and we hope they'll settle down now that we switch off eeeeverything when not in use!

The Sky will be staying as it's cheaper than hiring videos and we get a free Sky+ box, but as we don't go out otherwise it's our only entertainment really!

paybacktime2008

The house insurance looks huge i reckon you could halve this. As an example I reduced mine from £31 a month to £100 a year! As mentioned before check out Martins Insurance articles especially take in to account rebuild costs........they are not the value of your house as you already 'own' the land.

alxx_b

:eek::eek: 189 months?? 15 years??

Nope, I'm going to pay my debts much quicker! I'm determined now Just been discussing with OH about how we're going to do it and why it's a good thing.

Now to put it into practice....