Aiming to get to payday with money in the bank!

donny-gal

You are correct kymbogs it does stand for Basic Rate and he is being taxed at 20% on all his earnings. I have just spotted the same today on DH's pensions for last year and this, letters to inland revenue are awaiting the post now.
DG

ixwood

kymbogs wrote: »

INCOME

Husband Wage £970 monthly
Me wage £451 4-weekly
CTC + WTC £93.64 weekly
CB £137.40 4-weekly

TOTAL £1932.96 roughly monthly

EXPENDITURE

Northern Rock Mortgage £330.00 monthly What rate is it?
Northern Rock Loan £270.00 monthly
Welcome Finance £274 monthly
Barclays CDCS £11.00 4-weekly What's a CDCS?
Barclays CDCS £11.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £6.00 4-weekly
HFC Bank £9.99 monthly What's this? A debt?
Virgin Media (tel/tv/net) £30.00 monthly Ditch the TV and shop around for BB and net.
Capital One £30.00 monthly
Halifax home insurance £37 monthly Sounds very high.
TV License £13 monthly
British Gas Home-thingie £19.00 monthly Ditch it.
Homeserve Plumbing cover £3.98 monthly Ditch it.
Yorkshire Water £37.00 monthly Any credit on account? Can you reduce usage?
Groceries £300.00 monthly (includes nappies, milk etc)
Gas £20.00 monthly (don't use this much at mo but wanting to stock up on prepayment meter for winter months)
Electricity £35.00 monthly (keeping a close eye on leccy at mo)
Bus Fare husband £72.00 4-weekly
Clothes, shoes etc for kids £20.00 monthly
Travel & expenses £40.00 (this includes taking the girls out and about, but I never seem to have the money for it, need to find out where it's going)
Council Tax £98.00 4-weekly
Simply Be £40 4-weekly What's this?
3 phone x 2 = £30 monthly Sounds expensive. Do you need 2 phones?
Transfer to RBS account £10 4-weekly What's this?
Mothercare storecard £25 monthly
CL Finance £5 monthly


TOTAL £1776.98 roughly monthly

Difference = £155.98 a month - would love to know where it is!

That's a whole lot of debt! Are the figures listed just the minimum repayments? What are all the rates? You should pay the most expensive off ASAP and then the next most expensive etc.

Where did all the debt come from? You need to address the root cause.

You're paying almost half your outgoings on debts. You need to get rid of as much debt as possible and then you'd actually be okay without all the interest you're paying. I'd scrimp and save for a year or 2 and pay everything off.

kymbogs

ixwood wrote: »

That's a whole lot of debt! Are the figures listed just the minimum repayments? What are all the rates? You should pay the most expensive off ASAP and then the next most expensive etc.

Where did all the debt come from? You need to address the root cause.

You're paying almost half your outgoings on debts. You need to get rid of as much debt as possible and then you'd actually be okay without all the interest you're paying. I'd scrimp and save for a year or 2 and pay everything off.

Sorry ixwood I don't know the rates for everything and it would be a real mission to find them all out. I know we have a LOT of debt and I'm not proud of it. Partly due to irresponsible borrowing and spending (majority on DH's part before I met him but not all), some bad luck with our house and not having savings to pay for the things that needed doing so borrowing to pay for them (boiler, central heating, double glazing).

We did have a mortgage review a few weeks ago and the Halifax could have saved us a little bit of cash each month but the get-out charge for NR made it not at all worthwhile.

CDCS is 'central debt collection service' for Barclays they arrange and collect token payments on Barclays accounts.

I'm not going to 'ditch the TV'. £30 a month for my internet, TV and phone (most calls included) seems pretty reasonable to me, I don't want to get a BT line put in and pay line rental then pay for phone then pay someone else for net. We don't watch the TV much but what we do use is the on-demand services on Virgin and considering we don't ever go out and haven't been to the cinema for years it's our only entertainment expenditure. I work at a place that sells TV/BB/phone packages and combinations thereof and do keep an eye out for something better but haven't seen anything yet.

HFC bank is the company who provide retail finance through PC World and other places, we got a TV a year or two ago when ours unexpectedly blew up.

I have cancelled the British Gas Homecare direct debit but am in two minds as to whether to get it going again. As I mentioned above we don't have savings and I don't know what we'd do if something serious happened to our boiler or heating. I think I am going to see if they will lower the DD by a couple of quid. For me it provides a lot of peace of mind, especially having two young children the yearly boiler service for a start is really great.

In a previous post I explained about the home insurance, why it is high (previous claims) and how lucky we were to sign up for the new package when we did as our house flooded just over a week later.

The plumbing and drainage cover has been great value for money, we've had them out a number of times which would have cost us a lot of money otherwise paying a plumber ourselves, and it was invaluable when our house flooded a few weeks ago as half an hour after my call a plumber was here, fixed the problem and it didn't cost us a penny other than the few quid a month we pay which to me is well worth it.

The water bill is the standard bill we get (and I imagine everyone else in this town who isn't on a meter gets) it seems to go up a couple of quid a year, with two young children and all the washing and baths involved I don't think it would be a good idea to go onto a meter?

Simply Be is a catalogue.

I don't need two phones and I don't have two phones. I have one and my husband has one. Considering we see each other during waking hours for about 3 hours a day it wouldn't really be viable to share one...

The transfer to the RBS account is £2.50 a week that I pay into an old student account I have that has an overdraft on it.

Some of the figures are minimum repayments (the token payments for instance) but most we are paying a little over the minimum.

I know we need to get rid of as much debt as possible...if it were just that easy...however as I have mentioned in a previous post I am more interested in finding the so-called 'leftover' cash that we should have each month assuming we stick to budget and using that to put towards the debts and some for savings, than trying to squeeze the extra £3 or so out of the budget here and there, at least for the time being. Once we manage to stick to everything completely and we're paying a bit more off our debts and managing to put a bit away then we will re-evaluate and maybe see where more savings can be made. However I do not feel that we have an extravagent lifestyle by any means, it's not like we're spending cash on going out on the p!ss and wondering where the money has gone.

If/when DH gets a tax rebate we will be paying off a couple of the debts (probably mothercare storecard and simply be maybe capital one too) so that will be at least £65 a month for us to put on other debts. The CL finance one will be paid off in a couple of months so that's another £5 a month.

kymbogs

Little update on the tax front - DH has spoken to whoever it was he needed to speak to and they just need his P60 and a letter asking them to do a tax review so that is sorted now. Wonder how long it will take? Have also sent off my tax credits renewal and hoping they don't come back and say they've overpaid us like they did last year then they took 6 months to decide they had in fact underpaid us, heyho it was a nice surprise then the underpayments went in the bank hehe.

DH asked work again about getting just a bus pass and they can do one for the year that works out about £12.50 a week so obviously a bit of a saving there. The only thing that worries me about it is the idea of DH having to not lose the same bus ticket for a year! Or maybe they send a new one quarterly? Don't know how it works but it still makes me nervous, it's a bloody expensive bit of paper that is.

We're going to be spending about £7 a week from now on on taking the girls swimming. Which sort of evens out the bus ticket saving I guess. Yes I know we're supposed to be spending less not more! But I realised last week than in Megans' 14 months on this earth she's only been swimming once and that was in November last year, that was also the last time Molly went. I was a total water baby and the girls do love the water too, so we've decided to set a weekly date and go every week now on a sunday morning.

Can't think of anything else to report!

Flower08

Great news that you will be getting some money back for OHs tax! I seem to remember mine took about 5 or 6 weeks to come through when i got a tax rebate, came as quite a nice little surprise aswell as i had forgotton all about it!

I agree, that bus ticket would be one expensive bit of paper!! Do they not issue plastic cards if the ticket is for that long?

Primula

Hiya Kymbogs
Great news on the tax rebate, hope you don't have to wait too long for it and good idea putting it towards paying off some of the debt.

I am a bit like you with our central heating insurance, it's such a godsend when the heating breaks down and someone comes out and fixes it really quickly "free of charge", well it's not really free but you know what I mean. I would definitely not cancel mine now, but do ask for a discount.

A nice idea taking your girls swimming each week too, they are only young once and before you know it they will be all grown up and not wanting to go swimming with you so make the most of it. However!.......... does your Local Authority do a family membership scheme? Ours does and the family membership only costs about £21 or £22 per month for 2 adults and 2 children and you can use the leisure facilities as much as you like and it also includes many classes too so it would be worth looking into that to see if your Local Authority does that.

Keep up the good work.

P
x

natsing

kymbogs wrote: »

Little update on the tax front - DH has spoken to whoever it was he needed to speak to and they just need his P60 and a letter asking them to do a tax review so that is sorted now. Wonder how long it will take? Have also sent off my tax credits renewal and hoping they don't come back and say they've overpaid us like they did last year then they took 6 months to decide they had in fact underpaid us, heyho it was a nice surprise then the underpayments went in the bank hehe.

DH asked work again about getting just a bus pass and they can do one for the year that works out about £12.50 a week so obviously a bit of a saving there. The only thing that worries me about it is the idea of DH having to not lose the same bus ticket for a year! Or maybe they send a new one quarterly? Don't know how it works but it still makes me nervous, it's a bloody expensive bit of paper that is.

We're going to be spending about £7 a week from now on on taking the girls swimming. Which sort of evens out the bus ticket saving I guess. Yes I know we're supposed to be spending less not more! But I realised last week than in Megans' 14 months on this earth she's only been swimming once and that was in November last year, that was also the last time Molly went. I was a total water baby and the girls do love the water too, so we've decided to set a weekly date and go every week now on a sunday morning.

Can't think of anything else to report!

Hi there, thought I'd metnion that a West Yorkshire metro card can be 'insured' against loss or theft, take a look at the metro website for more information, not sure if it costs, but might be worth a few quid just in case.
Nat

kymbogs

Primula wrote: »

does your Local Authority do a family membership scheme? Ours does and the family membership only costs about £21 or £22 per month for 2 adults and 2 children and you can use the leisure facilities as much as you like and it also includes many classes too so it would be worth looking into that to see if your Local Authority does that.

Keep up the good work.

P
x

Hi Primula,
I will have a look at any offers or schemes they may do, as it is we're only paying for us two adults to go in anyway as the littl'uns get in free (think all kids under 16 swim free now?). Would be nice to be able to get into other classes and things so will have a look online and ask when we go on Sunday.

kymbogs

natsing wrote: »

Hi there, thought I'd metnion that a West Yorkshire metro card can be 'insured' against loss or theft, take a look at the metro website for more information, not sure if it costs, but might be worth a few quid just in case.
Nat

Hiya,
he's not going to be getting a metro card, getting a 'First Year', however he asked at the bus station office today and they said he'll need a passport photo so I think it will be some sort of card. He assures me he's never ever mislaid anything (hmm how come he never knows where things are when I ask him :rolleyes: ) so I think, unfortunately, I'm just going to have to trust him hehe

kymbogs

We've made it - DH gets paid tomorrow and our bank account has £50 in! AND I have £20 in my wallet!