Hit and Miss

southernscouser

Hi duke? How many of you are there in your place?

If you live alone you should only be paying single persons council tax rate and £250 for food is amazingly high!

I don't mean for this to sound harsh but you have to make sacrifices. You can't afford not to. Clothes, going out, takeaways, mobile, tv! This are all non-essentials that you don't need.

It's all about finding a balance. Yes you have to have a life, but you also need to reduce your outgoings! Unfortunately it's not nice but it has to be done. All depends on how much you want to get out of debt!

Good luck

SS

Duke_of_Northumberland

Have thought about that but my saving for the month would be £40!! and leave me with nothing and little room. But I do take on board about the food spending I will try and set a budget of £125 p/m and see what happens bargin hunting I think!!

So

£125 on food
£ 20 saving on phone
£ 10 on petrol if drive better!!
maybe get £10 off car insurance as its due soon
£50 less on clothes
£20 on take aways

£235 so far!!

CLAPTON

some ideas

: mobile ..get aPAYG and use sparingly.....save £15
: what does TV 20 mean?
: phone at 40 is far too much: do BT at £11 and use call18185 and/or call1899 ..saving £25
: gas and elec at £50 for a single person could be reduced ..adjust the time switch, ware a pullover say saving £20.
: food and take aways £300 can reduce to 100 easy saving £200.
: probably need decent cloths for work but should be able to reduce this to 25 ..saving £25
which all adds up to £295 which alas is not enough
so that leaves the follow
a. can you get increased earning , overtime or a evening job ? you need over 200 a month which is 20 hours a week at £5 an hour
b. can you take alodger?
c. your rent for a single person is quite high at 485..dont know where you live but here must be cheaper places to live. This will additionally probably save of council tax and water charges
d. finally there is the car costs ...is it possible to get rid of the car or reduce the costs, sharing journey to work etc???

skintchick

Clapton, if she lives anywhere near me (south east) then she won't be able to rent anything cheaper unless she is someone's lodger. That's standard and quite cheap for a one-bed place round my way.

Duke_of_Northumberland

skintchick wrote:

Clapton, if she lives anywhere near me (south east) then she won't be able to rent anything cheaper unless she is someone's lodger. That's standard and quite cheap for a one-bed place round my way.

Thanks someone who sees sense!! Really £485 is not bad I would rather buy a house but as we all can see I can't afford it. I think there is some savings to be made but not enought to cover the debt. I think it is looking like IVA but I going to look and see if I can do something outside of work and see if can generate some cash! Ive watch the pay your morg off in 2 years well I would like my debt paid off so I think first its tighten the belt which will give me a little room then see if I can do something outside not sure what but I'll get my thinking cap on....

lynzpower

I dont think you are anywhere IVA time as there are clearly large savings to be made. You dont want to go down that route if you can avoid it.

Sell stuff you dont use on ebay, or a car boot sale. Thats a start. Ive made a couple of hundred quid on ebay over the last few weeks.

nabowla

'Fraid it's bad news. You're going to have to tighten your belt quite a bit. The good news is that you can still have a reasonable lifestyle - you just need re-educating!

I'll give you some examples using my budget as I'm a singleton too:

Phone: £10 per month to BT (line rental). Free evening and weekend calls (local and national) via TalkTalk, no other fees. Monthly phone bill (all inc) comes to a grand total of £10.
Food/Groceries: I spend c.£80 per month, including all washing and cleaning products. I eat salmon regularly, had a fantastic Thai chicken curry at the weekend, have yummy chocolate puddings from time to time (not too many - got to think about the calories!) and buy organic milk.
Internet: £9.99 per month via OneTel. OK it's not broadband, but can you really afford broadband right now?

Other ideas to help cut back:
- go for a combined gas/electric package. This should knock a bit off your monthly bill
- Council Tax: check that your bill includes the Single Person discount. This knocks 25% off the bill.

Finally, it's probably a Good Idea to investigate a Saturday job. This could add a hundred quid or so to your monthly incomings. Use £20 from the Saturday job to pay for those takeaways (I can understand why you need one luxury a month!) and throw the rest at the debts.

dinkylou

Sorry to be harsh but you need to take some drastic action NOW!

By my calculations you will be defaulting on your payments very soon (as soon as your savings are gone)

You need to cut out anything that is not essential now and cut your food costs down to the bone. (no pun intended!)

If you are sure that you will get the payrise in June then you may be able to start paying off your debts on your own but I personally would advise talking to either CCCS or Payplan as it looks like only a matter of time before you will really need them.

You know yourself that you are living on borrowed time, so do something about it now!

Good luck x

Chortle_2

I don't think you're at the IVA stage, far from it!

I've been servicing my debt for a while now, on an income not much higher than yours. I too live alone, and had similar outgoings and have not gone into a DMP, let alone considered an IVA.

At the start, I owed over £41k - MUCH more than you do now. It is possible, you just need to have your lightbulb moment, and strip back everything you don't need. Until you realise and accept that clearing your debt is more important than anything else you could be spending your money on, you won't get anywhere.

tyllwyd

Going back to your SOA - if you are renting, does that mean that you don't pay buildings insurance so your £19 per month is just for contents? Have you shopped around?