I'm new :)

bevan840

tyllwyd wrote: »

From the SOA you've posted, things look quite healthy - do you find that you have money over at the end of the month, or are you getting further into debt? That is the acid test of whether your SOA is realistic or not

Currently we are still in my overdraft so I don't really notice much extra cash at the moment, I'm working towards getting out of the overdraft and paying the CC's off ASAP! Hopefully. I have Excel on my computer and I tried to work it all out on there, hopefully we'll be out of the overdraft by the end of this year Then I'll be able to pay a bit more towards the cards :T

Nargleblast

Hello Bevan and well done for sitting down and looking seriously at your financial situation. Others have suggested finding ways to reduce your grocery bills - buying supermarket own labels stuff, going to places like Aldi and Lidl, going to the Money Saving Old Style board for meal ideas etc. Would also suggest, if you don't already do so, using a proper butcher for meat and greengrocers/market stalls for fruit & veg, rather than supermarkets - often the stuff from specialist shops/stalls can be cheaper and better quality.
Certainly try and restrict use of mobiles to cut down that bill - text where possible as it's cheaper. Or get people to ring you! Clothing budget - reduce to zero for a few months at least - you must surely have a wardrobe full of stuff that will do? Try charity shops for some clothes - some have good quality stuff donated by "posh" households. And if you get those credit cards paid off one day then either destroy them all or just keep one and make sure you pay the bill off in full every month.

bevan840

Nargleblast wrote: »

Hello Bevan and well done for sitting down and looking seriously at your financial situation. Others have suggested finding ways to reduce your grocery bills - buying supermarket own labels stuff, going to places like Aldi and Lidl, going to the Money Saving Old Style board for meal ideas etc. Would also suggest, if you don't already do so, using a proper butcher for meat and greengrocers/market stalls for fruit & veg, rather than supermarkets - often the stuff from specialist shops/stalls can be cheaper and better quality.
Certainly try and restrict use of mobiles to cut down that bill - text where possible as it's cheaper. Or get people to ring you! Clothing budget - reduce to zero for a few months at least - you must surely have a wardrobe full of stuff that will do? Try charity shops for some clothes - some have good quality stuff donated by "posh" households. And if you get those credit cards paid off one day then either destroy them all or just keep one and make sure you pay the bill off in full every month.

Thank you I don't actually buy any clothes a month but it asked me to put atleast something in, I am (don't yell at me girls) not the sort of person who enjoys clothes shopping, I detest it and only go if I have soo many holes I cant wear the clothes outside of my bedroom! LOL Or if the water is actually getting into my shoes.
The mobile problem is a bit more difficult, I have 600 minutes and only actually use about 150 now that I have the landline, but as explained I cant reduce it yet because of getting it through Jag instead of Orange, although I did it that way to get them to pay the rest of my old contract :rotfl: Although I did that before I got married/moved house and it was only after that the money started to disapear

bevan840

I've been looking through the DFW Honour Roll board and Oh My God am I suprised!! There are so many people out there, with more debt than me and they managed to pay it all off in such a short time!! I'm going to try and use my thread as my diary, so that (hopefully) Maybe one day, I can help someone else who might be in similar situation I will be Debt Free! And I will go on my honeymoon!

I've had an Excel spreadsheet set up for a while but with help on the MSE website I have now added extra pages so I can work on my credit cards, hopefully, HSBC which is my highest interest, I'm going to throw as much as I can at that one and hopefully (touch wood) I should be free of that one by end of 2010 and the ASDA, as it's a smaller balance I will then throw everything I was putting into the HSBC into ASDA and hopefully will be credit card free by Jan 2011 These are just rough predictions and I hope they can come true as I've had the HSBC card since I was 19, hit trouble when I was 20 and been paying it off little by little for the last 4 years, now that I'm married my husband has said I can use some of his wages to get them all paid off (mainly because he gets to use the money in my overdraft!) Anyways, completely on a random tangent there, Credit Card free by 2011, it can be done, I've seen other people's posts who have done it in a smaller timespace After cards I'll be looking into repaying my loans quicker, maybe we might even get to go on our dream honeymoon, but I'm going to walk before I can run.

kate_pixie

Bevan, can I ask where you found the advice about spreadsheets? I need to set one up but don't know where to begin! lol

See, you're helping already! xx

*Jellie*

Hi Bevan- welcome! It looks like you're making a great start to tackling the CCs and loans.

Kate_pixie I used the Martin Lewis Budget planner from the home page here as my starting block.
I then added a sheet where I worked out how much money I wanted in my different bank accounts each months to cover the budget. In my main account I keep money for all my DDs, bills, mortgage etc. I have another account where I transfer monthly amounts to cover annual expenses such as MOT, eye test, insurance (previously I'd end up scrabbling for the money at the last minute and then end up using a credit card for living costs). I have a third account to cover general expenses like groceries, petrol, eating out etc.
I then added another sheet to work out payments on credit cards. I worked out my minimum I can afford to pay each month. I have one credit card on 0% another where I pay interest and an overdraft. My priority is to pay off the CC with interest so I worked out the minimun payment to pay on my second card and set up a DD for it then I put the remainder towards my target card. I used the spreadsheet to work out how long it will be until I'm debt free.
PM me if you want any more info- although I'm sure there are others here who can give better help or explain more clearly!!

kate_pixie

Thanks for the advice Jellie. Looks like I'll be spending my Easter making MS Excel my female canine! hehehe :easter:

bevan840

Hiya kate_pixie

I did similar to Jellie, I have about 4 bank accounts.

1. I've had since I was 11 which is the one with the overdraft (although today is the 2nd day running I'm not in the overdraft ) give it a couple of days and it'll be back in there. I use the overdraft as a back-up when my joint account with husband is running out of money, I either use my card to pay or transfer money into the account, whichever I can do first I do.

2. Joint with OH. Set this up 2yrs ago as he had a seperate bank account and was always without money over bank holidays, and of course, banks are shut on bank holidays so I could never get money to him! Which was why I insisted on the joint so that when he got desperate I could just transfer in and it would be there waiting for him. We are now using the joint as our main account for DD's and any other payments. (Cant get a Meastro card on this account yet until £500 goes in constantly for a few months)

3. My ISA is what I will be using to put a monthly amount for annual payments, MOT, TV Licence, Car Tax, Gas bills etc basically the bills we normally receive and then realise we haven't got anything to pay them with! So I have a SO set up to start the end of May to take an amount every month and then when the bills come I can just transfer the money back into one of the above accounts and pay the bill.

4. Is a seperate savings account, in another bank. My Parent's set a budget for mine and my sisters wedding last year, my sis spent all hers and what was left of mine (nearly £2000) we were going to put towards a honeymoon. Unfortunately, with me moving 400miles to be with my husband I was unemployed for a while and the Job Centre wouldn't give me JSA because 1. I had voluntarily left my job, but what they couldn't get their head around was what was the point in driving 450miles for a days work!??!! and 2. I hadn't paid enough NI Contributions because I was signed off by Dr for about 9-10 months a few years ago because of an illness I developed in 2003. So all the money left over has gone but we are working on putting it all back again. There is another SO set up to start at the same time as number 3 so hopefully we'll be able to go honeymooning by 2012 (I'd like to go sooner so if we have any spare cash it'll be going in there after CC's are paid off!!)

Excel
I work with Excel as part of my job so I knew some of the things to do, the advice I got from MSE was how to work out the monthly interest rate for my CC's. I set up a page first for the amount of money we have (I just add what's in my 1 & 2 accounts) I then worked out when/what I pay every month to bills, loans, CC's and what date's our wages go in(I went a bit mad and went on till 2017!!! Although hopefully by then I worked out we might be able to put a deposit on a house!! )
(I could send you the file if you wanted by email PM me with address and I'll send it with a bit of info how to use it)

The second page is for my annual payments, how much goes in and how much goes out so I can make sure I'm putting the right amount in a month. Eventually I would like to be paying Car Insurance in one go, instead of per month as it works out cheaper, if you pay monthly they put a little bit of interest on it.

My third page is for the Wedding/Honeymoon account, I opened it as it has a 3% interest for awhile and with the recession I think I was lucky to of seen it on the MSE website and got it asap! There is 3% interest until April next year, if I find something better then I'll probably close and find another to build it up quicker. Although 2% still isn't bad for the moment, it's making more money now than it would of done in my ISA.

Fourth page is for my HSBC CC. I'll see if I can partially lock some of the cells if you'd like the file, or if you'd like to tell me the % on the cards you have I'll input them into the file for you before I email it.

Fifth is for my ASDA CC. Same as fourth but different % rate.

If anyone would like the file just let me know and I'll email it to you. I'm working on putting little notes on each page to help anyone new to Excel. I've also removed the Wedding/Honeymoon page as your savings accounts are probably different, although if you would like me to edit/add any of the pages for yourselves (for those of you who don't know how to do it) just let me know and I'll add them in before I send you the file.