My SOA

narabanekeater

Hello
After being a lurker on the board for a while I thought id post my Soa
Were a 2 adult one baby family. We have an income of £1604 per month before tax inc child benefit. This can alter but thats the minimum that we have coming in.
I have a Capital one CC with £2500 on it at 6.9%. I am just about to clear off my one other cc so I wont count that. Every spare penny plus what Ive earnt by selling a few old bits on Ebay is used to reduce debt. My hustband has no debt at all.
I guess im after advice on where we can save more.
So here we go (Ive used Martins planner)

Mortgage £320
Home insurance £38
Council Tax £90
Water £20
Gas £40 (we have the cheapest supplier as we do for electric)
Electric £50
Home phone bill £20
Mobile phones 2xpagy £20
Internet £13
Pet insurance £16
Other insurances £50 (life, mortgage etc)
Food shopping £110
Eating out (if that as we rarley do it)
Pet food wormers etc £12
RAC memebership £9
Travel by bus if I cannot walk £5
Car insurance £23 (I know this is the cheapest)
Cat tax £15 (I buy saving stamps)
Petrol £30 (only use car when needed as we cycle to work but do travel to see family)
Childcare £70 (we dont get any tax credit help as we earn to much)
Toddler group £15
Nappies and baby bits £20 (probabily less as I try to save)
TV Licence £13
Haircuts £10 (used this figure as it pays for 2 cuts for mum and daughter)
Secured loan £150 (A massive mistake that were stuck with 12.9%)
Credit card min repayment £100

Thats it and it looks massive compaired to some peoples. Weve done so well cutting down on things and have probabily shifted £8000 in the last year but I really want rid of this cc debt so we can look at being debt free apart form the silly secured loan asap
Thanks for all your help

black-saturn

OK, heres some ideas I have put forward:

Mortgage £320
Home insurance £38
Council Tax £90
Water £20
Gas £40 (we have the cheapest supplier as we do for electric) - This seems high. Try to put a jumper on instead of the heating
Electric £50 - This is high too. Switch everything off when it's not being used and dont leafve lights on in rooms that arnt being used. Candle light is also very romantic.
Home phone bill £20
Mobile phones 2xpagy £20 - Do you need 2 mobile phones?
Internet £13
Pet insurance £16 - Do you need pet insurance?
Other insurances £50 (life, mortgage etc)
Food shopping £110 - You could cut this down by making things from scratch and frugal shopping.
Eating out (if that as we rarley do it)
Pet food wormers etc £12
RAC memebership £9
Travel by bus if I cannot walk £5
Car insurance £23 (I know this is the cheapest)
Cat tax £15 (I buy saving stamps)
Petrol £30 (only use car when needed as we cycle to work but do travel to see family) - Could you not use public transport to get to this and cut out the car expense altogether?
Childcare £70 (we dont get any tax credit help as we earn to much)
Toddler group £15
Nappies and baby bits £20 (probabily less as I try to save) - Washable nappies?
TV Licence £13
Haircuts £10 (used this figure as it pays for 2 cuts for mum and daughter)
Secured loan £150 (A massive mistake that were stuck with 12.9%)
Credit card min repayment £100

ms_london

£1604 per month before tax inc child benefit.

Mortgage £320
Home insurance £38
Council Tax £90
Water £20
Gas £40 (we have the cheapest supplier as we do for electric)
Electric £50
Home phone bill £20
Mobile phones 2xpagy £20
Internet £13
Pet insurance £16
Other insurances £50 (life, mortgage etc)
Food shopping £110
Pet food wormers etc £12
RAC memebership £9
Car insurance £23 (I know this is the cheapest)
Cat tax £15 (I buy saving stamps)
Petrol £30
Childcare £70
Toddler group £15
TV Licence £13

TOTAL: £954


Secured loan - ????? - 12.9% - £150 per month
Capital One CC - £2500 - 6.9%. - £100 per month.

TOTAL: £250

Your standard outgoings & debts total £1204 each month.

Please can you confirm what your incomings are as you say the above amount is BEFORE tax but INCLUDING child benefit??!!!

Based on the £1604 each month, you would have a surplus of £400 each month.

Could you throw £200 of this at your CC and then use the remainder £200 for general housekeeping/odds and ends and also try and build up an emergency fund? If this can be less than £200 a month - even better!!

Assuming you are throwing £350 a month at your credit card - without taking into account interest repayments - you could potentially clear this debt within 8 months!! Go to:

www.whatsthecost.com

Once the CC is cleared you can then throw the £350 a month at your loan (on top of the £150 you already pay).. Is there a penalty for early repayment of the loan? It might be worth looking into now, just so that you know.

I hope this helps.

xx

tigerlily

black-saturn wrote:

Pet insurance £16 - Do you need pet insurance?

As a pet owner I would count the ins I have for my dog as a necessity, the whole ethos of getting a pet means looking after it. I know if my dog was involved in an accident it would be my duty to do all necessary to get her well again, this could very easily run into thousands so for me the £10 per month I pay is total peace of mind as I just dont have that kind of cash hanging around.

narabanekeater

Hi Ms
London
Thansk for your comments
Our Electricity bill is high. Its not a matter of putting on an extra jumper else wed all be walking round like wolly mamouths. Our electic bill has always been high. We turn everything off at the wall and use economy 7 as much as possible using timers. The only thing thats on all night is the fish tank.
Our 2 dogs are old so cancelling the insurance wouldnt be a good idea. Although as yet weve never had to claim from it generally with the breed we have (greyhounds) ive found with age comes illness.
My daughter was in washables but although your all going to think im sounding daft disposables are cheaper for us as I pay less than 5p each for them. Taking into account nappy liners, soap powder etc then theres no saving to be made and shes only 6 months of potty training
The car is litrally used when needed as I said. We do need it as I finish work at 1am so theres no public transport then. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but I know if I can cut down then that lights going to shine quicker.
Some real bad news is the loan wont allow any over payments so were stuck with it for another 8 years. The mobile are both payg ones. We top up £10 each monthly as this allows us cheap texts and calls but we do only use it when we need to but we both have to have a mobile and it switched on 24/7 for work. Im just going to do some internet shopping round for our home insurance now wish me look and once again thanks Oh yes the earnings are after tax thats litrally what we have in our hands at the end of the month

narabanekeater

Ive managed to chop down the home insurance to £30 per month as well. Ive just got to phone to confirm tommorow.
Any more advice is most welcome

lynzpower

do you have a big home? Only I ask this again due to your electric & gas. we only have lecky ( no gas) here and yes it a 2 bed flat and we've never paid more than 35 a month. Granted you might have a bigger place than me. Also to say, are you using energy efficient lightbulbs? tumlbe dryer ( massive amount of lecky used with them) lagged your boiler, and insulated your loft if you have one? ( insulating lofts can be done with loads of old newspapers if you cant afford "proper" insulation at the mo.

lynzpower

Oooh are you using disposable nappies? If you used renewable ones ( towelling) youll save a fortune, plus save the planet too! If you go to a website like "green baby" ( sorry dont know the exact website) then youll find some modern easy ones with velcro ( saving all that pin malarky) that can be used over and over. Also there is a healthy market for second hand ones on ebay, so you can sell them on when youve no further need for them. Just a thought.

Sultana

RE your electricity bill. Is your fridge/freezer working OK? We carried on with ours on its last legs for years thinking we couldn't afford to replace it. Now we finally have our electricity bill has almost halved.

moo842

does your company do nursery vouchers? these come out of your wages befor ni and tax is taken so are tax free. our £30 bill has been cut to approx £23 so i imagine it would save you over £15 each month. martin has alot more info about them on here. they rae really easy to arrange and we only use a little pre school and they happily accept them

Smiley_Mum

Do you pay the majority of your bills by D/D?

Telephone Bill
I pay the bare minimum to BT of £11.50 a month for the line rental and put calls through another company during the day like 1899 etc and free calls evenings/weekend.

TV Licence
Do you pay TV licence monthly or quarterly D/D etc? Monthly doesn't have a surcharge as far as I'm aware but quarterly D/D does. I only pay £11.07 a month and then £10.99 after that. It is still £126.50 a year isn't it for colour and £42 for black and white. You could always see if someone is freecycling a black and white telly, worth a shot if it saves a few pound.

Mobile Phone
Get rid of one of them. If you need to contact someone on a mobile and you can get free texts via the internet, I think you can send text messages via some websites, up to 30 a month. Just a suggestion.

Haircuts
Perhaps if you contacted your local college, they may have beauty therapists/hairdressing trainees where you can go along and have your haircut a lot cheaper than you would in a salon.

Electricity/Gas
You may be entitled to some grants or financial assistance from your local Council re energy saving measures in your home. See what needs doing and then give them a call and enquire. Worth a shot.

I keep my flat at around 20-21C.(68-69.8F) In the morning it's about 18C (64.4). Don't know what everyone is like, is that too hot.

Kiddies room can be kept at that so long as they are wrapped up, didn't do my kids any harm. If flat was too warm it would cause their asthma and skin problems to flare up. Also when the air is too dry it causes you to catch more flus/colds etc as you dry out your airways and bugs get a footing. Better to be slightly on the cool side than too hot.

If you do use a tumble drier, take a note of what you pay, including VAT and charges etc for a unit of electric. Use this http://www.energyfirst.org/Runningcosts.htm (accurate enough to work out running costs). I can run my drier for about 30 minutes and that's a unit used up about 8.82p incl charges etc. If I need to use it I just run it in increments that use up one unit and keep an eye on it. I bought a large airer and put most of my clothing on that now, don't use tumble drier much now, except when I really need to. This info may be useful for someone else if not relevant for yourself.

Also use micro fibre towels/cloths for baths etc. Cost a lot less to wash/dry than your regular cotton towels.

Grocery Bill
Check out the Old Style Moneysaving section of the board. Loads of advice and tips on there on saving money.

I'll post a bit more later. Good Luck and well done for getting yourself in order, a big pat on the back. :-)