My SOA - please help

Taye

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1
Number of children in household......... 2 (+2 cats and a large dog)
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 994.85
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 1155.98
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2150.83
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 210
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 293
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 66
Electricity............................. 60
Gas..................................... 40
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 24
Telephone (land line)................... 9
Mobile phone............................ 15
TV Licence.............................. 14
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 250
Clothing................................ 15 (£15 a month is not set aside, but soa insisted on a number.. i buy as little as i can get away with hence my shoes currently being superglued together)
Petrol/diesel........................... 80
Road tax................................ 11
Car Insurance........................... 45
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10 (again not saved i wish it was, my car is a heap of junk fails it's mot every damn year)
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 640
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 28
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 13
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20 (£20 isn't saved here either i wish it was, it's whatever i can afford, last month i thing £14 went in the tin, the month before that it was only £3.50:o)
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1833

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 32000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 33000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 26000....(210)......0
Secured Debt.................. 12600....(293)......3.5
Total secured & HP debts...... 38600.....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
loan...........................6600......143.......9
credit card....................1900......40........0
credit card....................1500......35........0
credit card....................448.......21........11
credit card....................2400......54........0
Total unsecured debts..........12848.....293.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,150.83
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,833
Available for debt repayments........... 327.83
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 293
Amount left after debt repayments....... 14.83
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 33,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -38,600
Total Unsecured debt.................... -12,848
Net Assets.............................. -18,448
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.

Urm i think the above say's it all really HELP!

Im surviving, but only JUST i want/need this to change .. unexpected bills flatten me every time, i've been surviving like this for 7 years, it maybe greedy but i want and need to build a future, survival is no-longer good enough.

moo2moo

First congratulations on being a house owning single parent. Thats one hell of an achievement, especially with a childcare bill thats two thirds your monthly salary. It won't be that high forever but it certainly doesn't help matters.

Your outgoings are minimalistic and on paper at least you break even each month. Just.

I know this is going to sound odd but what sort of mortgage deal do you have? £210 a month on a 32K mortgage seems rather high.

Can you change your hours to reduce your childcare costs or change your childcare arrangements to something cheaper?

You could cut a little off the grocery bill. Even £5 per week would give you £20 more each month. Long term you could reduce it to £150 for the three of you.

Your car insurance also seems very high. Have you recently had an accident or points?

How long are the credit cards 0% for?

Taye

I thought £210 was really good! i'm on a staff mortgage at the bank so it's a really low interest rate, much lower than the one i was on previously.

The childcare has been looked at thats the lowest i seem to be able to manage to get it right now having to pay for 2 kids is a nightmare, i don't have much wiggle room with my work hours i could possibly go part time but im not sure that will help because it would mean less earnings.

Im working on getting the food bill down slowely but it's really hard, i do frequently come in "under budget" usually when the kids need new shoes or something (new shoes is the reason we are at £150 budget for this month) ugh, generally i know that £250 is the MAX ridged MAX that i can spend on food if i shave anything off it i try and use it for stuff the kids need/emergancy's or paying off credit cards.

I've only been driving 2 years, had a crash in the first year opps my fault the car insurance is due in about a couple of months and i'll have my first years no-claims so im hoping to bring it down, but i have a crappy car in the wrong area so the premiums are high regardless but im working on the theoretical figure that it's the same next year as it was last year just incase it doens't drop for whatever reason.

Taye

Oh the 0% cards,

credit card £1900 ......40........0 March Next year
credit card £1500......35........0 August this year
credit card £2400......54........0 June next year.


Hope this helps, someone please tell me im not a lost cause

searching_me

taye the payment a day challenge might help chip away at those debts x

Taye

searching_me wrote: »

taye the payment a day challenge might help chip away at those debts x

yes just got to work out where to get the money to make a payment from.. im normally down to about £3.50 by the end of payday.

dancingfairy

It might be worth looking at a dmp? have you contacted the CCCS or CAB or Payplan for advice? This would give you a more realistic budget to work with rather than one which is just tooo tight although your credit rating would be trashed (although it may not be in great shape already).

Also can you get childcare vouchers at all? would this help or would this affect the benefits?

Anyway of shuffling some of the balance on the card at 11% onto a 0% card? not sure what rate you would get but might be worth considering but don't know how this would affect your current 0% deal?

Good Luck
df

searching_me

well you could always everytime you find a penny or 10p in your pocket put it in a jar then at the end of month cash it in ... honestly you'd be suprised how much it can knock off x

Taye

My credit rating is pretty good actually better than my finances show i've never YET missed a payment on anything, gone overdrawn a couple of times but nothing major.

childcare vouchers would effect my benifits i belive and im not sure how you go about getting them? anyway arn't they given as part of emplyment packages??

i'd rather stear clear of the DMP route purely because it doens't really get rid of the debt it just draw's it out longer, the debt was left by my ex-husband and i guess i just want it gone asap it's like the sooner it's gone the sooner i can close the door on that part of my life, im already going to be in debt for the next 10years i'd just rather not make it 20 years.

Also im living in a 1 bedroom house atm and at some point i'd like to be in a position to move so my kids can have there own bedroom preferably before my eldest is 18 and bringing girlfriends home, dragging out the dept and ruining my credit rating at the same time doens't some like it's going to help my goal of getting my kids their own bedroom.. or more importantly thier own BED!!

Horace

Hi and welcome to the DFW board Taye.

The grocery bill looks a bit high so you could shave something off this - look at the moneysaving oldstyle board for tips on mealplanning and cooking cheap but healthy meals.

Have you thought about trying to up your income slightly by becoming a mystery shopper? Look on the Up Your Income board or even look at the make £10 a day challenge elsewhere on DFW (this is 'free' money).

Keeping a spending diary may help so that you know where everything is going.

Look on the freebies board for free stuff - sometimes they have stuff for kids too. You can send off for free seeds and all sorts of things - free seeds are for kids to encourage them to grow veg and flowers, it might help your two and make them interested in gardening:D

Good Luck.

Taye

Horace wrote: »

Hi and welcome to the DFW board Taye.

The grocery bill looks a bit high so you could shave something off this - look at the moneysaving oldstyle board for tips on mealplanning and cooking cheap but healthy meals.

Have you thought about trying to up your income slightly by becoming a mystery shopper? Look on the Up Your Income board or even look at the make £10 a day challenge elsewhere on DFW (this is 'free' money).

Keeping a spending diary may help so that you know where everything is going.

Look on the freebies board for free stuff - sometimes they have stuff for kids too. You can send off for free seeds and all sorts of things - free seeds are for kids to encourage them to grow veg and flowers, it might help your two and make them interested in gardening:D

Good Luck.

We already do alot of gardening

TBH the £250 is our "living pot" it covers all grocerys, cleaning stuff, pet food and other unexpected bit's and bobs, school trips.. repairs for the house anything the rest of the budget can't cover so if something comes up that is where it tends to come from.

Generally i budget for £250 as a MAX figure basically thats the number i can go upto without ending up in trouble, i generally try and spend as little as possible and anything i have leftover i use towards debt etc depending on what i need at the time and whats most urgent.

i've tried to get the food costs down, but i have two boy's with hollow legs, i did go though a stage of watching every single thing they ate, not allowing any of use any food that wasnt 100% essential but that wasn't any way to live and it was making us all misrable. I do hope to knock abit more off it though as soon as my veg starts producing.

I've kept a spending diary for years i can't afford not to, i don't think i've spent 10p i can't account for in the last 4-5years.