debt/budget help please

zenith1820

Hi everyone

I've posted my income of £1300 including salary, tax/child benefits and outgoings and would appreciate it if you guys could have a look at ways I could save money to pay off the c/c asap. Ive never missed a payment so far and always try to pay more than the min. payment every month but find that we dont have enough money left over in case of emergencies (my wife is from abroad and has ill parents, so if she needed to get there quick we would have probs)

I got a house through inheritance and had some major renovation work done recently hence the large amounts of debt im in. I dont have a mortgage and hope that i never need one. I owe £15k to lloyds (6.9%, 5 yr loan) £7k to a&l c/c (0% until mar 06), £1200 to lloyds c/c (0% until june), £500 to natwest c/c (16.9%). I also owe £8k to my mother but havent started any repayments to her as we agreed that i need to get rid of the a&l card first. I will BT the a&l card to anther c/c but I'm worried that I wont get a large enough credit limit as I've tarted with a few cards this year and closed them down.

Thanks


Household Maintainence £10.00
Home Content Insurance £40.00
Council Tax £165.00 (£100 after apr 06)
Water Rates / Meter £16.00
Gas Bill £22.00
Electricity Bill £22.00
Home Phone Bill £25.00
Mobile Phone Bill(s) £10.00
Gas & Plumbing Cover £11.00
Food Shopping £150.00
Meals at Work £10.00
Other Eats, Drinks & Smokes £5.00
AA / RAC Membership £11.00
Car Maintainence £10.00
Car Insurance £33.00
Car Tax £15.00
Parking £5.00
Petrol / Diesel / Gas £80.00
lloyds c/c Repayments £30.00
lloyds loan Repayments £300.00
a&l Credit Card Repayments £210.00
natwest c/c Repayments £20.00
Nappies / Baby Extras £25.00
Other Big One Offs £20.00
BIG ONE OFF TOTAL £20.00
New Clothes £20.00
Haircuts £10.00

---

Debt (Jan 2006) £23,700 +
£ 8,000 (borrowed from mother)
= £31,700

Little_Miss_Winner

Hiya.

Just had a brief look, the 1st things that can go are; maintenance £10 (whats that??)
Plumbing cover £11, Meals at work £10. Nappies £10 + £150 food? How many are in the house, just 3??? If so, shouldn't the nappies come out of the grocery money? - mine do.
That's a saving of £41 aleady.

Be back later.....(chops burning!)

Pot

black-saturn

OK heres some pointers of where I cut down when I was in debt:

Electric - £22 - Switch to energy saving light bulbs, be careful with electric.
Home Phone - £25 - Switch to BT option 2
Gas and plumbing cover - £11 - cancel this and use the money for your debt instead,
Contents Insurance - £40 - This is very high but do as in gas cover,
Gas - £22 - Put on a jumper instead of the heating, cook in the slow cooker wherever possible,
Food Shopping - £150 - This is a lot. Make things from scratch wherever possible and again use the slow cooker.
Meals at work - £10 - Take a packed lunch,
Nappies - £25 - Use washable ones,
New clothes - £20 - Try charity shops before you buy new, you might find what you want at a fraction of the price,
Hair - £10 - Have hair done less often.
Car Expenses - Get rid of it and get a bike, walk or use the bus.

magentadreamer

Is the Home Contents Insurance for both contents and buildings? Check to see if you can get it lower -there are some links in the insurance section on the main board.

Food - how many people is that for? If it's for more than two of you then I think that's pretty reasonable. But check out the discount codes on here for money off online shopping. Also check out old style board -loads of helpful tips with budgeting for food and household stuff.

Can you transfer the Natwest CC to one of your 0% cards? and perhaps come the end of Feb transfer your AL balance or a big chunk to your lloyds card if you can't get another 0% card.

Have you checked out your gas/elec suppliers for cheaper options?

AA is working out at over £144 - when thats up look for cheaper -I've been with green flag and another one can't remember it's name and had no probs. also check out if your car insurers do a discounted rescue policy.Also shop around for the cheapest car insurance when it's due.

Your phone bill - does that include broadband as well? You might be able to get a cheaper deal on that. If your with NTL ring them up and say you've found cheaper suppliers -I've got a nice half price package with them at the mo'. Also does your wife use the special numbers to ring her parents abroad - check out the phone bit on the main site for links.

zenith1820

Thanks to all who have contributed. I will try to cut down where possible and switch gas/electric suppliers. My wife and son (2yr old) are home most of the day and have the gas fire on in the living room, other than that we only have the c/h on for an hour in the morning and late evening. We cook our own baby food and try not to overspend on shopping. Whatever money we have left over fomr the month goes towards paying off the a&l c/c. The lloyds tsb c/c only has a credit limit of £1500 so i cant BT any more onto it.

Kevicho

Your budget at the moment adds up to £1295, which leaves you with £5 extra a month for debt repayment?

Do you travel a lot in your car?
The car does seem to be eating up the money through petrol and insurance, would it be worth downgrading to a cheaper, more fuel economic one?

Also anything else you dont use you could sell, on ebay for example will cut the debt down

The big one off total, while this is a good idea, i think paying off the debts are more important at the moment, do you have and savings for this? Again these could be used to pay off some debt

Finally what are the minimum payments on the cards? Ill try to work something out in excel for ya

cheers

Kev

Conor_3

zenith1820 wrote:

Thanks to all who have contributed. I will try to cut down where possible and switch gas/electric suppliers. My wife and son (2yr old) are home most of the day and have the gas fire on in the living room, other than that we only have the c/h on for an hour in the morning and late evening.

You have CH but she puts the fire on? Need to stop that. Put the CH on instead. It uses the same gas but heats the whole house. By having the rest of the house colder than the living room, it drags the temperature of that down too.

My gas bill is less than yours but my central heating is on from 6am -11am and 3pm to 10pm set at 18C and it keeps the house lovely and toasty. It's also a donkeys years old back boiler too so not exactly the latest fuel efficient one.

Sounds like you need to change the supplier.

Bestthingsinlifearefree

HI Zenith,

Just a suggestion. What is the house worth ?

You have no mortgage but 30K of debt. A 30K mortage over 25 yrs might cost you £180 per month.

So if you got a mortgage you could reduce your monthly debt out goings say from £500 to £180

In this day and age a 30K mortgage is not much and you should get a lower interest rate than for personal loans

BUT: Consolidation is often not the cure (ie people consolidate and then run up fresh debt)..living within your mean is the cure.
You would be paying much,much more intrest as the debt is over along period of time.
To get a mortgage you would have to pay fees e.g survey, solicitors etc etc
You would be converting unsecured debt to secured ie you are putting your house on the line.

So think very, very carefully before going down this route but it is an option and is a potential solution to lower your monthly costs / outgoingsetc etc.

Best things in life are free.

zenith1820

Hi

Ive just been payed today and noticed that i got 1k extra?. phoned the payroll dept and told thaem about it but they siad it was an adjustment due to last months inaccuracies. Im not complaining about getting payed an extra grand but im worried that they will want it back sometime even though i have been honest with them and told them about it. Well if they dont then i can use it to slash a grand off the a&l card, yipeee

zenith1820

Conor - how much do you or others pay per month for gas/electric?
thanks

bonnie_2

me naughty, mine comes to £100.