So so !!!!ed off (with SOA)

slimey

Bumpity bump - any great suggestions from the morning crew?

bertietheblue

Hi Slimey!

Well, I can see one huge expense - the £67 you pay for internet/TV/landline. You could knock that down considerably by taking out a bundled package.

Why not shop around? I can only comment on Virgin - do you have cable? - but for £14 you get all the freeview channels (c40) and basic L broadband (upto 10Mb, unlimited download) plus free weekend calls to landlines. The L broadband has proved more than enough for me to watch streaming videos (eg on BBCi or 4oD) without buffering (although I think I'm near a connection hub).

Anyway, I'm sure there are plenty of other packages that are much, much cheaper than £67. Also, it's much less hassle to get your phone-TV-broadband from one provider.

All the best
Bertie

angelicmary85

slimey wrote: »

Okay - here's a first pass at an SOA. I've only included the fixed expenses. Some of the numbers (e.g. petrol, groceries) are educated guesses - I'm trying to keep a spending diary (but not too great at it)

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 4800
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 4800

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 553
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 195
Electricity............................. 120
Gas..................................... 177 - you should of put this amount in instead of old amount
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 67
Telephone (land line)................... 25
Mobile phone............................ 28
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 22 can you cancel or get cheaper
Internet Services....................... 20 can you get cheaper
Groceries etc. ......................... 450 HOW MUCH?? You could cut this down by loads
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 400
Road tax................................ 30
Car Insurance........................... 58 is this for the 2 cars
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 486 I would take this amount and pay it to egg card (are the schools off for 2months?)
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 32 can you get cheaper
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 146 why is this so high?
Other insurance......................... 31 what is this for?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2775


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 265000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 267000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 265000...(553)......2.5
Total secured & HP debts...... 265000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
HSBC Loan......................10128.....596.......0
Egg Credit card................7787......237.......26.9
HSBC Credit Card...............11496.....281.......21.9
HSBC Overdraft.................2500......0.........0
Barclaycard....................12300.....264.......14.9
Total unsecured debts..........44211.....1378......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,800
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,775
Available for debt repayments........... 2,025
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,378
Amount left after debt repayments....... 647

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 267,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -265,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -44,211
Net Assets.............................. -42,211

Hi Slimey!

Made a couple of wee notes on your SOA. I'd suggest keeping a spending diary (and the wife!!) to see where your cash goes, the odd coffee or sandwich from a shop can add up to a fair bit per month!

bubbles0169

hi well done on trying to sort things out!
i just wanted to add something, why is your water bill so high?
are you on a meter? if so you could look into saving water, collect rain water in a butt to water garden ,shower not bathe, turn off tap whilst brushing teeth
also is there any way your wife could work part time, then her wage could be used to knock the debt down a bit more or for treats!:)

shrimpy_80

Are you claiming child benefit? This should be on there - think everyone is entitled to it unless I am mistaken? (No mini-shrimps just yet)

slimey

Thanks for the replies - let me try to respond to them all...

Yes, we do get child benefit, so I'll need to include that in the next iteration of the SOA.

Our water is metered - we don't tend to water the garden, but my daughter doesn't like the shower so tends to have a bath every day. My wife baths once or twice a week. The rest is all showers.

22 quid for TV is for Sky with the Kids pack - it gets used a lot by the kids, so I'm reluctant to touch this.

The 20 quid for Internet is actually paid to my own company (I co-run a small ISP) - I ought just get the company to pay for this.

58 quid is car insurance for 2 cars. I'll be shopping around as each one comes up for renewal.

School fees will be stopping in August - my daughter is currently at private school, while my son is home educated (which puts pay to my wife working part time). We've realised that we're not getting good value for money from private education, so we're moving our daughter into the state system. Assuming I can balance my budget before then, I'll use that extra money to pay off debts faster.

Buildings insurance is high - I've just cancelled the renewal of the policy because the renewal price was double what I could buy a new policy for. Must remember to buy a new policy!

The extra 31 quid for insurance is to Norwich Union for *something*, but I can't remember what. Must phone them and find out what it's for

I need to review the life assurance, as my monthly outgoings for school fees and mortgage (which it was to cover) are now *significantly* less than when I took it out.

Groceries is an area that we're trying to fix as a family. As I said earlier, we spent £270 at the start of the month at Asda which we intended to cover 2 weeks, but it was more than we wanted to spend, so we're trying to make it cover 3 weeks, or hopefully even 4.

Fire_Fox

slimey wrote: »

Um, Yes, Yes, and hopefully not :rotfl:

We've had the heating on constant over the winter. Just this week I've got round to switching it back to timed (couple of hours in the morning and evening).

We've got a fairly large house (5 bedroom over 3 levels), although it's new (about 5 years old), so should be fairly well insulated / energy efficient.

Our water is metered - we don't tend to water the garden, but my daughter doesn't like the shower so tends to have a bath every day. My wife baths once or twice a week. The rest is all showers.

Wow .... why was your heating on constant all winter AND all spring? Why is it still in use at the end of April? I know it's too late for this winter but next year, everyone wears a fleece and thick socks around the house. Buy heated underblankets and turn the thermostats right down in the bedrooms.

I live in a two bedroom flat in Yorkshire and my heating went off in mid February. Our direct debit is £34 a month for electricity (no gas in property) which easily covers our usage. You will be spending eight or nine times as much next month!! :eek:

Tough if daughter doesn't like showers - this is costing you in gas/ electric more than in water. Tell her she can have two baths a week and short showers on other days. Seriously this will be a good life lesson for her - so many kids go off to uni, taking long showers and walking round the house with just a t-shirt on then post on this message board when they can't afford their winter energy bills.

I'd be inclined to get one or both of the kids on board with energy saving/ money saving. Depending upon their ages you could be very open with your SoA. Your daughter wants new clothes, so perhaps she could 'earn' them in a kind of cashback system? Many kids enjoy helping with the supermarket shop and finding cheaper alternatives, or reading the electricity meter and wall charting the reductions as they learn to switch stuff off etc. There are DFW regulars who are marking off squares as they pay off debts. If you are home schooling one child you could even make the whole thing into a sort of challenge/ project. :cool:

Generali

Cut the grocery bill, ditch Sky and buy a warm jumper.

Can you take in a lodger as there are 4 of you in a 5 bed house?

catherine_h_2

Hi Slimey

I've not got much to add as everyone seems to have covered everything. I'm assuming your Buildings insurance covers contents as well?!?!?
Seeing as you have a large house, do you also have a large garden?!?! If you do how about getting the kids to have their own vegetable patches (will help son with homeschooling too!) or their own section in a greenhouse?? Will have lovely home, grown, CHEAP veg and hopefully a kid who will do the garden for you:rotfl:
Also with the school fees once they stop put it towards the cards as it's money you aren't going to miss anyway:D
Also for your wife to help with the food shopping & meal plans have a look at the 'Old Style' board, some excellent ideas and tonnes of recipes. As for food shopping, do it on the internet, stops impule buying and is easier to find bargains. Have you had a look at MySupermarket?? Great site for showing where you can cut back:D

Good luck on your journey x

pelirocco

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I've also got a work trip to St Lucia next week - good in some repects because it'll save a week's petrol (and I can claim for the mileage to the airport), but I'll need to be able to pay for incidentals while I'm out there - taxis, etc - but I have no idea where that money's going to come from. I spoke to work today to make sure they could pre-pay the hotel, and they said they'd try (assuming their credit card
wasn't at its limit!).

Do not fund your company , two weeks ago a friend of mine was taking customers out on a jolly the company credit card failed so he put it on his , on the way home he was told the company had gone into administration , owing him that months pay plus the £2k he put on his card