Lewby - SOA Advice Please

Lewby

Having said hello I want to post my SOA and would appreciate any advice, no matter how small. This is the first time in my life I have looked in detail at what we spend and if I can make any other cutbacks then I intend to pay as much as I can off the credit cards. I have done a snowball calculator (as recommended by another MSE member) and it says that the cards can be paid off by Dec 09. The loans should run their course and be finished in 2010, although I am checking to see if there are any early payment penalties and if I get any other money I'd like to settle them sooner!

Income

Me - £2,200
OH - £1,850

Total - £4,050


Outgoings - Fixed

Rent - £430 (low as have been in the house for 9 years and landlord is so nice!)
Council Tax - £110
CSA (1) - £231.68 (OH Ex Wife)
CSA (2) - £240.07 (My Ex Husband who earns lot less than me and shares care of our 2 kids)
Income Protection - £20.68 (Have taken PPI off all debts)
Electricity - £55 on monthly budget plan (house all electric)
BT - £25 on monthly budget plan
Home Insurance - £14.57
Life Insurance - £24 (for both of us and ex-wife)
Tv, Video and DVD Rental - £18.84
Sky - £21
Car Insurance (1) - £28.28 per month (04 plate)
Car Insurance (2) - £34.49 per month (53 plate)
Orange (oh) - £25 (Just changed to PAYG) I get a work phone
Savings - £25 (feel it's important even with so much debt)

Total - £1,303.61

Outgoings - Debt Repayment

Amex (me) - £1,950 (apr 9.5%) Min Payment £59
Amex (oh) - £2,311 (apr 17.2%) Min Payment £70
Barclaycard MC (me) - £36.17 (apr 18.9%) (recently moved £5,000 to 0% Amazon) Min Payment £5
Barclaycard MC (oh) - £1,814 (apr 18.9%) Min Payment £45
Barclaycard Gold Visa (oh) - £7,787 (18.3%) Min Payment £155
Barclaycard Visa (me) - £239.35 (apr 18.9%) Min Payment £5
Dorothy Perkins (me) - £26.81 (apr 22%) Min Payment £5
Capital 1 (me) - £1,554 (apr 14.9%) Min Payment £46.60
Capital 1 (oh) - £5,419 (0% for 6 months - apr 14.9%) Min Payment £162.00
MBNA (oh) - £8,815 (apr 14.4%) Min Payment £119.29
Morgan Stanley (oh) - £4,397 (apr 16.8%) Min Payment £88
M & S (me) - £356.30 (apr 14.8%) Min Payment £10.71
M & S (oh) - £406.53 (apr 18%) Min Payment £8.33
Mint (me) - £458 (apr 12.6%) Min Payment £9.00
Royal Bank of Scot (me) - £1,187 (apr 17%) Min Payment £26
Scottish Widows (oh) - £2,330 (apr 15.6%) Min Payment £47
Egg (me) - £6,350 (apr 0% for 6 months - then 14.9%) Min Payment £127
Amazon (me) - £6,500 (apr 0% for 6 months - then 14.6%) Min Payment £130
AA Card (oh) - £487 (apr 16.8%) Min Payment £9.74

Total Debt - £52,424.16 Min Payments - £1,127.67

Loans

Loan 1 (oh) Barclays - £6,675 £232.05 pm (end Aug 08)
Loan 2 (oh) Cahoot - £1,773 £150.02 pm (end March 07)
Loan 3 (oh) AA - £11,000 £198.99 pm (end May 10)
Loan 4 (me) Barclays - £3,000 £303.73 pm (end Nov 06)
Loan 5 (me) HFC - £18,800 £351.65 (end Nov 10)

Total Loans - £41,248 £1,236.44 pm

Total Debt - £93,672.16

Total Monthly Expenditure - £3,667.72

Balance of Income less expenditure - £382.28

I have withdrawn £300 this month for our 'grocery challenge' but that is all of our 'living money'. I give £50 to OH for day-to-day expenditure and have taken all cards of him and I have £250 for food, kids and incidentals.

I know we should have some clothing money in budget but have so many clothes from overspending we don't need any at the moment. When Nov 06 loan is finished will add £50 to monthly budget for kids clothes etc and snowball the rest.

We also both get a fuel account from work so we don't have to pay for fuel and as both cars are fairly new haven't had to pay for servicing or MOT's yet.

Sorry this is so long - it's our fault we have so many cards and so much debt!

Any advice would be appreciated - apart from stop spending that is .. we have!!

roswell

Is the ex wife worth life insurance ??

You have 2 cards with less that £50 balance left on them try pay these off little steps start big progress.

Although with a quick glance of the figures even with your above average earnings your paying more than either salary out on MINIMUM payments .....

Going by the loan record your taking on a new loan each year and each year its nearly growing at a rapid rate.

Its going to be tough to sort this out with out help from the CCC`s or CAB,
Firtly you need to look at gettign your interest rates down as some of cripilingly High, if you can get 0% deals try get them if you cant see if what available limits you have on cards an move higher APR`s to lower APR`s. Try negotiate with the car issuesr either to lower the interest or to increase your limits and give you Life of balance rates.

FrankieM

Hi,
just at a glance..do you get child benefit? I think I remember mentioning in another post that you have 5 children?

moo842

can you get rid of sky as thats £21 a month towards your debt? how many of you are there?

FrankieM

Hi again...
forgot to mention that I think you've done well with your fixed spending. Its quite low.
Only things that jump out at me are Sky ? tv,dvd rental? Are car insurances the lowest you can get? also orange PAYG, perhaps that could come down abit?
as far as savings go???? I think there are good points for doing it and good points for just throwing it at your debt especially as some of your apr's are so high....

Good on you!

Bokken_2

[QUOTE=Lewby
Amex (me) - £1,950 (apr 9.5%) Min Payment £59
Amex (oh) - £2,311 (apr 17.2%) Min Payment £70
Barclaycard MC (me) - £36.17 (apr 18.9%) (recently moved £5,000 to 0% Amazon) Min Payment £5
Barclaycard MC (oh) - £1,814 (apr 18.9%) Min Payment £45
Barclaycard Gold Visa (oh) - £7,787 (18.3%) Min Payment £155
Barclaycard Visa (me) - £239.35 (apr 18.9%) Min Payment £5
Dorothy Perkins (me) - £26.81 (apr 22%) Min Payment £5
Capital 1 (me) - £1,554 (apr 14.9%) Min Payment £46.60
Capital 1 (oh) - £5,419 (0% for 6 months - apr 14.9%) Min Payment £162.00
MBNA (oh) - £8,815 (apr 14.4%) Min Payment £119.29
Morgan Stanley (oh) - £4,397 (apr 16.8%) Min Payment £88
M & S (me) - £356.30 (apr 14.8%) Min Payment £10.71
M & S (oh) - £406.53 (apr 18%) Min Payment £8.33
Mint (me) - £458 (apr 12.6%) Min Payment £9.00
Royal Bank of Scot (me) - £1,187 (apr 17%) Min Payment £26
Scottish Widows (oh) - £2,330 (apr 15.6%) Min Payment £47
Egg (me) - £6,350 (apr 0% for 6 months - then 14.9%) Min Payment £127
Amazon (me) - £6,500 (apr 0% for 6 months - then 14.6%) Min Payment £130
AA Card (oh) - £487 (apr 16.8%) Min Payment £9.74

Total Debt - £52,424.16 Min Payments - £1,127.67

Loans

Loan 1 (oh) Barclays - £6,675 £232.05 pm (end Aug 08)
Loan 2 (oh) Cahoot - £1,773 £150.02 pm (end March 07)
Loan 3 (oh) AA - £11,000 £198.99 pm (end May 10)
Loan 4 (me) Barclays - £3,000 £303.73 pm (end Nov 06)
Loan 5 (me) HFC - £18,800 £351.65 (end Nov 10)

[/QUOTE]
well done for posting and owning up to it all.
There is a little that you can do to start and as you have pointed out these efforts if snowballed will reduce your debt but it will take some attention and effort.
Have a word with Amex and explain the situation and request a Life Of Balance card to move the Amex debt to and then close the Amex cards you have at present.
Barclaycard Visa @18.9% and the Dorothy Perkins cards are fairly low balances aim to pay them off ASAP while you still have 0% offers running on other cards.Eat soup for the whole month and get rid of those two and phone and cancel the cards.
move your hight credit card debt(highest APR's)on to the 0% credit cards until their limits are full,then try to move some of the rest to the next lowest at Mint.
I would also have a word with MINT and explain why you want a credit limit increase and then move the higher balance ,18%,17%,16% to mint if you can.
Now MINT charge a 2% fee of the balance transfered to it but at this time I think you may just have to accept the fact you will have to pay some fees to move your money to it's new positions where it can do the most good towards reducing the overall debt.You can always move the debt again to new cards later in the year.Also by showing that you are paying off some of your debt and cancelling some of the cards you are managing your accounts and you should then keep the way open to apply for 0% credit card offers in a few months time.
AA is the next card to pay off ASAP.
Hopefully if you can implement all of the above you will have closed some of the cards and moved some of the debt giving you a little breathing space to concentrate on the other credit cards for the remainder of the year.
I would leave the loans alone for the time being.
You have presented the debts in a concise format so the skills and the determination are there you just have to apply it now to the debt reduction and just do it.
Post updates and post here again or on the credit card forum if you are stuck or unsure.
You need to read and understand the articles written by Martin about the credit card shuffle and the LOB cards.the yello links at the top of the page.
Good luck.
I found Golden vegetable soup to be the most palatable!

thirdparty

How serious are you and OH committed to paying off the debt?
How much savings do you have?
Is it important to separate the debts?
What have those loan been taken out for i.e did you consolidate debt only to run them up again?

If I were you I would pay off Dorthy Perkins card (cancel the card) and Barclays Visa.
Phone Barclays and ask to some balance transfers (ask for special rates - recently saw they were offering 6.9% for life - see if you could do better) and transfer as many of you cards as you can starting with the highest APRs.
This will help reduce you monthly payments and throw more at the higher APR debts

How is your credit rating? Can you apply for more cards and do balance transfers.

Keep a spending diary (are you spending a couple of quid here and there?)
Can you start paying for everything by cash and not using any cards?
Your OH needs to start tackling his debt by getting the debt on lower APRs

lynzpower

I dont really know that much about transferring debt, but yes, transferring to 0% or low life of balance cards is the best plan as far as you can. If you can amalgamate cards together, then it will be easier to manage the payment, and you'll be able to see the balances going down. Pretty motivating.

With your DVD, telly & video rental, am I right in thinking thats some sort of HP? like the old school rumbelows? If it is GET RID. You can buy a dvd player for 20 quid. Likewise your video. Get them from tescos and get your clubcard points too! Ditch your sky, without sounding harsh- you cant afford it!

Head over to the Old style board for tips on making your food and household cleaning cheaper. We are trying the 80 a month challenge for 2 of us including taking lunches.
Part of that includes using up everything in the cupboards and basing meals around whats there ( pasta pasta & more pasta in the short term!) and using bubble bath as shower gel.

Also to say if you have been an overspender, chances are you'll have loads of stuff lying about. Do a car boot sale or ebay some stuff, and watch the pennies roll in. throw every penny you can at your cards. Someone on here has a sig that says " what doesnt pay rent must move out or be sold" not your kids of course. but chances are your home will be a treasure trove of stuff to flog.

Having £50 spends? What for? If they are being frittered away ( yes, Ive done it) on coffees, lunches, magazines. None of it is neccesary. A spending diary will clear up this. I have a pound a day in my purse for "spends" and this gets me my paper. and a bar of chocolate. I love the NO SPEND days. Come into the "what have you spent today" thread!

I would definately cash in your savings ( or at least part of them) and clear a card if you can. £25 a month onto one of the cards is a lot of money- that you can really use right now.

Hang out on here ( tihs is the easiest & cheapest) as its full of top tips and brilliant support to help us all on our way to being debt free.

CLAPTON

I have deleted my post here as i worked out the numbers incorrectly and so was wrong

Lewby

Thank you all for the advice. I am really determined to get rid of this debt and I will keep posting my progress on this board. I will keep my current balance and the balance each month on my signature so we can all see the difference - I think that will motivate me more!

The amazing thing is that we do have a great credit rating because we have never missed a payment or had a problem with paying them. That has been part of the problem, our credit cards keep on upping the limit or offering us loans. The real problem however has been our inability to say no to the things we want rather than need!

Our income is fixed as posted, I don't get Child Benefit, my ex-husband has it as he earns less than I do and has the kids 3 nights per week. I am looking at selling some of our 'surplus items' on ebay etc to get some cash to pay off the cards.

I agree that it is psychologically a boost to clear a card or two so will pay off the D.P. card and one Barclaycard this month. I will also look into shifting as much as I can on to 0% where I can. We would like to keep Sky as we don't go out, have the kids and as a family do watch quite a few things together. We will be taking advice on this site though to phone Sky and see if they will offer us a reduced deal for a while if we say we are going to cancel. Will also look into Freeview.

Clapton - thanks for the good, the bad and the ugly! I think that it's the way I've listed it badly, but our income is £382 more than our outgoings at present and if I can budget well - using the Grocery Challenge etc and taking full advantage of when the loans expire, I should be able to snowball quite well. Here's hoping so anyway!

Lynzpower - The £50 for OH isn't just for him to spend, it's for when I phone him to say please pick up bread and milk on the way home, or can you give the kids some change for something they have to pay for at school. He is very good and gives me back anything he doesn't spend! and we have started to keep a spending diary so we can account for every penny. It's amazing what you don't spend when you know you're going to write it down.

Anyway, in danger of waffling on so thank you everyone - I'll keep you posted!