Where am I going wrong???

Flylady_Flower

flying_fresian wrote: »

Right, according to that you have a surplus (Woo!) which is good, but dear Lord, the interest rates for Vanquis are obscene. Are you at your overdraft limits? Normally I would advise against clearing debt with more debt, but in this case the difference in APR is astounding.

Apart from that I have noted a few suggestions, feel free to tell me naff off!

This is brilliant FF - thank you so much and just the kind of help I need. I am just going to work but will have a proper look when I get home and give some answers (PS: Internet is TalkTalk I don't pay for it - couldn't do without it otherwise...;))
Thanks again, Denise

Flylady_Flower

flying_fresian wrote: »

Right, according to that you have a surplus (Woo!) which is good, but dear Lord, the interest rates for Vanquis are obscene. Are you at your overdraft limits? Normally I would advise against clearing debt with more debt, but in this case the difference in APR is astounding.

Apart from that I have noted a few suggestions, feel free to tell me naff off! Never, all great suggestions, thanks...:T

Monthly Expense Details
Rent.................................... 446.46
Council tax............................. 123
Electricity............................. 75
Gas..................................... 35
Water rates............................. 29.2
Telephone (land line)................... 35
Mobile phone............................ 65 For both of you? Yes, and a dongle
TV Licence.............................. 11.95
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 20
Internet Services....................... 0 Eek! No internets?? free talktalk or I would be completly lost
Groceries etc. ......................... 303.33 Have you tried the OldStyle board to get this down? Hehe! Even £30 per month reduction would help! *** Yes, I think I need to rejoin the GC - but I have a cunning plan for this too...;)
Clothing................................ 0 Budget for this just in case! ***
Petrol/diesel........................... 260
Road tax................................ 0 I think you need this! ***
Car Insurance........................... 59.75
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 Need to budget for this ***
Other child related expenses............ 43.33 What's this? £10 per week Karate for DS
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10.25
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 26
Contents insurance...................... 13.8
Life assurance ......................... 27.14
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 86.66 Seems high.... This is a Christmas Loan club - we pay in £10 per week to it, and because we had a £500 loan out at end of last year for our holiday, we pay £10 extra a week back on that too - so we will get £500 in November towards Christmas.
Haircuts................................ 0 Ach, everyone needs a haircut! But that means spending money??? :rolleyes:
Entertainment........................... 303.34 Wowza! Can you cut this? Yes, again, comment below
Emergency fund.......................... 0 You should have some kind of contingency fund... Point taken - I have made a comment below on this
Hubby to work away from Home (allowance) 866.67
Bank Charges............................ 6 Is this worth it? No, I shouldn't have put this in because it is the interest we pay on the overdraft
Business Spending....................... 46
Total monthly expenses.................. 2892.88

Assets
Car(s).................................. 1500
Total Assets............................ 1500
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt.............Mo nthly........APR

F/Direct Loan...............2796.33.........164.4.......... .19%
F/Direct CC....................990................29....... .....27.9%
Vanquis Visa - Me........474.31.............21............46.8% Jeez!! :rotfl:tell me about it, but good thing is that I am getting a cheque from the insurance co. soon and that will pay off both of these...:T
Rent..............................707.16.......... ..95.2............0
DWP Hardship Loan......390................43.33..........0
A&L Business O/D........1000.................0..............13%
F/Direct Overdraft.........1000..................0......... ....12%
Freemans Catalogue......1870.13.........150...............0 % When does this end? It starts this month, buy now pay later for May is £612 so it will be £65 for May/June/July then the rest is due in Aug and it will be £1675 - they divide the balance by 12 months so it will be £140 pm until Aug 2010 (unless I clear them earlier )
Debenhams......................241.92........29.9. ............18%
Vanquis Visa - Hubby......475.07.........22...............47.89% Same as other card, going soon :T

With my fuel and grocery budget, I budget £60 pw for shopping (that's for everything, household stuff, food, personal hygiene, etc) and £65 pw for fuel for both of us. Now sometimes we use it all and sometimes there is quite a bit left, so I have been paying anything we haven't used in the last few weeks into an e-savings account (my rainy day account) to use when we need it (I have just had to transfer the £170 I had in there back into our account for DD's due out today (1st of month) to cover us till next weeks payday) You're right though, I need to bring these down, and joining the GC again is good, but fuel is hard to budget as sometimes I'm working a lot and have to travel long distances, so I thought if I budget as though its a full week then put away what's not used it might be good?

Entertainment wise, I don't know why it's got £303 up there, I must have worked that out wrong, as we spend approx £50 per week when hubby is home - he works away 11 days and then is only home for 3 days so we like to go out when he's back - the budget should have been £200, and again, when we don't use it, I put it into the rainy day account.

Right, with these *** I didn't really do my budget properly did I? Because they're not a running cost as such, I didn't include them, which is probably why we have a £200+ excess that I am supposed to snowball - seeing as I haven't had that before it seemed a bit strange that it was here all of a sudden... and I think it would just disappoint me not to be able to live up to that, so I need to re-do this properly.

I use MS Money to keep a track of what I spend/whats in the bank, etc so as it has a budget button on it, should I do that and then would it be best to do Martins budget first using the MS Money budget planner for the figures and then the Make sense of cards planner so I can get the snowball thing right?

Valli

FF has some good advice there Flower...
how's the Vanquis looking?

Flylady_Flower

Valli wrote: »

FF has some good advice there Flower...
how's the Vanquis looking?

Yep, just working out from Money what we've spent in the last year...:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

It's about £920 at the moment, can't wait for that cheque to come...

Flylady_Flower

Didn't do my spending for yesterday as got carried away, so here goes...

The Good Stuff:
Had a nice day out yesterday. Decided to drive instead of going by train, which was a BIG mistake as the A13 was shut at Barking, so a 30 minute drive took 2 HOURS!:eek: - by the time I got there, my friend had already been round once... she was lovely and did it all again with me... some really beautiful stuff there and loads of ideas to take away (not just for clients either...:o)
I DIDN'T SPEND ANY OTHER MONEY ON TAKEAWAYS OR LUNCH.... :j mainly because by the time I got there my friend had eaten while she waited for me, so I thought whats the point... (although I did buy some chocolate at the garage - I was stressed!)

The Bad Stuff:
The parking there was so expensive - It was £3 for an hour, £6 for up to 2 hours and £10 for 5 hours, but I thought I might be over 2 hours so paid the £10 - I was 1 hr 45 mins... :mad: why can't you pay as you leave so you don't go over like that - £4 wasted is so annoying and I HATE paying parking charges anyway... :mad::mad::mad:

The Naughty Stuff:
On the way home the A13 was blocked again, this time right by where I live... so I turned off early and went to our club and had a drink and some more chocolate.... £1.75 I just needed to get out of traffic - it was actually lucky I did as apparently the jam went on for MILES
And the chocolate in the garage that I brought while I was getting fuel was 99p (well, it was 75p for one and 99p for 2 - how could I resist...:p)

I need to go shopping today at some point, so need to menu plan for next week so I don't go over... see you all later...:hello:

Valli

oh
you haven't got here yet.
I'm hoping you are going to be strong..
pay off Vanquis then make a start on your next most expensive
(BTW I knew about the A13 - I always 'hear' A13/A127/A12 on the traffic announcements because I have Radio 2 on all day cos of my rellies and 'knowing' the area (slightly) - so I thought of you, too!)
So it's the First Direct CC now...
as much as you can as quickly as you can!

Flylady_Flower

Valli wrote: »

oh
you haven't got here yet.
I'm hoping you are going to be strong..
pay off Vanquis then make a start on your next most expensive
(BTW I knew about the A13 - I always 'hear' A13/A127/A12 on the traffic announcements because I have Radio 2 on all day cos of my rellies and 'knowing' the area (slightly) - so I thought of you, too!)
So it's the First Direct CC now...
as much as you can as quickly as you can!

:rotfl::rotfl:Thank you boss, how can I fail with all you lovely people keeping me on track... Thank you :T:T:T

For those of you that DON'T know, I got my insurance cheque through today - £1,224.25 and I will be using it to pay off the dreaded Vanquis cards once it's cleared... :j:j:j:j:j

I will, promise, I am working through my budget properly at the moment so will update as soon as I know what's going on, although we do have to pay for hubby's bike test - £550 :eek: but once he has his bike, it will save us on fuel, ect... that's what he keeps telling me anyway, but he has been saving his 'housekeeping' each week too (the money he gets from his firm to live away) so we have a bit towards it already, which is great. If this cheque hadn't come it, we were going to pay off the cards as we saved, then pay for the bike test, so at least the interest payments were lower, but this is much better...

I will update once I have been shopping and have sorted my budget properly...

mumoffour77

Well done!!! FF:D

Im going to start a diary here soon!!!

Oh, went to the blooming bank yesterday (no money again btw) But im gonna post a pic on your thread.........sorry, but I have to show someone!!!!

mumoffour77

What do you think of this?........





Surely this isnt allowed!!!!
Im shocked that a bank can take money out of my account 2 days before its actually due!!

Oh and on tuesday there is a BACS going into my account for 300.00!!!!!!! They were gonna get their money!!!

Valli

It could have been worse - if it wasn't a Bank Holiday today they might have shown those debits coming out on the fourth!
If I have this right - and I will check - direct debits are claimed by the people who will get the money so they will have put their claims in because of the BH (for a guess) whereas standing orders are sent from you to them and the payees don't 'know' the money is coming until it arrives in the destination account.