Newbie Here

sam010185

Hi everyone,

I'm new here and have been inspired by Jacks thread that was featured in Martin's email today to get our finances sorted out once and for all!

We don't have an awful lot of debt; two credit cards totalling approximately £3k, £300 to British Gas (don't get me started on that one!) and our car was bought on a payment plan. The only thing that we aren't willing to change is our car (and I hope that posters will respect this) as our current payment plan ends in September at which point we will trade our car in for a new one (using our current car as deposit) and start a new payment plan which will be a considerable amount less than we are currently paying as we will have a much bigger deposit than last time. We are planing to do this as the other options are to either give the car back, pay no more money or pay around £6.5k and keep the car. Neither of these options are suitable for us as we don't have £6.5k and we need to have a car as my Husband is in the Army so we do travel around the country ALOT and also I need the security of a decent car when he goes away.

So, we are a family of 3 plus one dog, and are currently living on just my husband's wage since my maternity pay finished in December and I handed my notice in to my old job as they were not willing to discuss part time hours and it was not workable with childcare costs for me to work fulltime for them. I am always on the lookout for a part time job however with my husband's job and the Army's ability to send him away or have him work odd hours, it has proved difficult thusfar to find something suitable for me because of childcare arrangements.

Our current household income is just over £1600 a month (this is after our rent, council tax and water rates have been paid as these are automatically deducted from my husband's wage before we receive it as we live in Army accomodation). We receive approximately £160 a month in child benefit and child tax credits.

Our monthly outgoings total just over £800 a month however this is without food shopping or diesel. We do like to spend money (doesn't everyone!) so at the moment we are finding it hard adjusting from 2 fairly decent wages to just one hence the credit card debt.

Our aim is to have got rid of our credit cards and have started a meaningful amount of savings by the end of the year. My husband is going away to Afghan towards the end of the year and I know that once that comes around the saving part will be easy because he will be bringing home more money but won't be here to spend it:rotfl: Also, when my husband returns from Afghan he will receive a tour bonus of around £2k. We would like to be able to use this to go on holiday (obviously not all of it!) and not feel guilty about spending money that we really should be using to pay off debts etc. We would also like to have another baby in the not to distant future but obviously we would like to be more financially secure than we are now before having an extra mouth to feed!

I hope that that all makes some kind of sense!! Please could someone show me where to start?!!

Horace

Hi and welcome.

I also suggest that you post an SOA (statement of affairs) and list the APRs on any credit cards, loans etc.

https://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html - use the MSE button to format it for here and then cut and paste. (or copy and paste it here).

It would make more sense to buy a car outright rather than keep having a plan and buying new each year or every three years. We will come to the car issue when you have posted your SOA - not saying that you shouldnt have a car but there are cheaper ways of getting one.