My Statement of Affairs...

bobpitbull

I'm new to this so would welcome people's advice on how to proceed... CCCS is currently recommending an IVA...

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 4
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 3615.84
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 132.8
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3748.64

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1772
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 180
Electricity............................. 65
Gas..................................... 65
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 26
Telephone (land line)................... 35
Mobile phone............................ 45
TV Licence.............................. 9
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 21
Internet Services....................... 55
Groceries etc. ......................... 300
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 290
Road tax................................ 30
Car Insurance........................... 65
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 20
Car parking............................. 10
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 90
Other child related expenses............ 333
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 35
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 26
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 15
Holiday................................. 60
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 3647


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 285000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 10000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 295000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 249000...(1772).....0
Total secured & HP debts...... 249000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
VIRGIN.........................11414.....253.......29.9
HALIFAX PLAT...................2294......60........0
HALIFAX GOLD...................3319......80........0
BARCLAYCARD....................7614......171.......0
Total unsecured debts..........24641.....564.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,748.64
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 3,647
Available for debt repayments........... 101.64
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 564
Amount short for making debt repayments. -462.36

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 295,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -249,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -24,641
Net Assets.............................. 21,359

Created using the SOA calculator at makesenseofcards dot com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

bobpitbull

One thing about my SOA... I put my property value down as £285,000 ... that was the value when I bought the property 3 years ago... it's now probably worth around £265,000 ...

Miss_Piggy_2

Hi Bobpitbull

One quick question first....your SOA says four adults in the house. Is your income just from yourself or are the other adults contributing?

Miss P
xx

Horace

Your internet cost is high at £55 is this right? I know that with Virgin I have 10Mb download speed and only pay £18 a month. Also your satellite tv is also high can you drop to a lower package or even ditch for freeview?

Do without clothes for a while, shop from your wardrobe and get the others to do the same £50 is a lot on clothes each month. If you have stuff you no longer use or wear stick them on ebay or do a carboot.

Sell a car. if you have older kids (whom I am assuming are classed as adults) then charge them rent as this gets them used to the idea of the real world.

Stop spending on your cards and cut them up - keep a spending diary so that you know where your money is going. Looking at it, your debt level doesnt look too bad.

bobpitbull

Thanks for the fast advice.

£55 for internet includes my website hosting - I need a Server for website hosting... which I'm getting for £40 per month... that's for a part-time business that I'm setting up which, at the moment, I would say is "breaking even"... I'm hoping that soon it will start to make a decent return and to help me with some of the bills...

The 4 adults are myself, my wife (a student currently but expecting a baby in August) and her parents - both elderly and retired. Her mother-in-law is actually disabled. To be fair, they contribute to the grocery fees so that brings the £300 that I listed down to more like £200 per month...

We did without clothes for quite a long time, we're really only buying what's absolutely necessary...

My kids are 12 and 3 years old... so I can't really charge either of them rent.

I've already stopped spending on the cards... I'm just finding that it's difficult to make the minimum payments at the moment - meaning that the balances are barely coming down...

My bank (Barclays) is making regular charges for me using their "reserve" and overdraft etc...

Eurgh... I just want to get that first step on the ladder to recovery - preferably without resorting to an IVA (which is what the CCCS website recommended) or being in debt for the rest of my life...

Anyone got a spare winning lottery ticket?

bobpitbull

Oh... regarding the car... I'm loathe to do that at the moment while my wife's pregnant... our daughter (3 year old) suffered convulsions a few times in the last couple of years so I'd hate to leave them home without transport... plus my wife needs to regularly take her mum to the hospital, dentist, doctor, etc...

Jingbah

Both your mobile and your internet seem very high. I was paying £35pm for my mobile, and £20 for internet. I've kept my phone and my number, but switched to a 'simplicity' tariff for just £15pm. With that - I've been able to get a faster service with my home broadband too - first 3 months free, then down to £10pm - saving £30 a month. That's with o2.

Totally agree with cutting the cards up - it was the best, most liberating thing I've EVER done.

Groceries, have you tried switching to a lower brand? Switch supermarkets, going from Tesco to Asda has saved me between £5 and £10 per week on my weekly shop.

The Virgin card has a very high APR - are you able to transfer this to a 0% balance transfer card?

I'm new to all this myself, having recently admitted my debts - and little changes like this do make a difference.

Good luck - and I'm sure you'll get some really good advice from this board!

Horace

Is there a way in which the elderly parents can contribute more because it seems to me as though they are living rent free.

If your child has convulsions are these childhood ones or is it a permanent disability? If its a disability then you could probably claim Disability Living Allowance for her with a mobility element - this isnt means tested btw.

Kids clothes and baby things and be obtained from freecycle - as these are often new or nearly new.

Keeping a spending diary will definitely help. With regard to your bank account, set up another one but with someone that is totally unnconnected to Barclays eg. HSBC or some other bank. Reclaim bank charges - I am sure there is something on Martin's site telling you how to do this.

bobpitbull

Re: the mobiles... My wife is on a £20/month contract, I'm on £15/month and my son is on £10/month... I know 3 phone contracts is quite a lot but, with my wife pregnant, I again felt it was a necessary "insurance"... my son's is perhaps unnecessary... but I'm tied into the contract until next year now...

Regarding internet... I will switch to the £10/month O2 contract definitely - I'd already tried to arrange that when I was told by BT that I'm contracted with them till November... it's really the website that costs the most... the reason I need a server-based solution is that my part-time business is in online marketing... email marketing... so, to cut costs, I send the emails from my own server... most people don't know this but most ISPs and online email providers limit the number of emails you can send to around 200 per day. I regularly send 5,000 - 10,000 per week...

Thanks for all the advice,
Bob

bobpitbull

Reclaiming bank charges is definitely something that I will look into... I did it many years ago with Halifax. I know that Barclays have charged me well over £1000 over the last couple of years so, yeah, it's definitely something worth doing.

The convulsions aren't a disability... just something that can happen with kids up to 5 years old (it's quite common, actually). It's scary... when you have kids, you really put them first ahead of your own finances...

bobpitbull

"Is there a way in which the elderly parents can contribute more because it seems to me as though they are living rent free."

To be fair, they are contributing quite a bit already... they pay a sum directly to my wife which means that she has petrol in her car, can buy any extra groceries that we or they use, etc... they're paying us quite a bit, really.