New name, New beginning

chocolatebum

i have been a poster on the site for a couple of years but decided on a name change as my old name is one that i use on a few other sites and i didn't want anyone googling my name and being sent here

i am starting this diary just to give me the focus and motivation to stay on track, i have made half hearted attempts at being debt free before but this time i am determined to stick at it and hope this will go a long way in helping me on that road

i have done my SOA and hope i have my figures correct and added notes explaining a few things, my aim is to be debt free in 13 months apart from car and personal loan but i am hoping to reduce this and save towards early settlement sums for the car and loan

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 6
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1060
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1240
Benefits................................ 344
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2644
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 518.3
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 196.5 (car finance due to end may 2011
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 200 (includes arrears from 1999 which we only found out about when we moved last year)
Electricity............................. 73 (underestimated inital DD when we moved so includes extra to cover this, but i do need to cut this down )
Gas..................................... 52 (as electricity)
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0 (in scotland so included in C tax)
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 25 (OH's contract has 8 months left to go)
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 65 (includes channels, internet and telephone)
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 560
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 40
Road tax................................ 14.6
Car Insurance........................... 26
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 10
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 50 (pocket money, dancing, beavers)
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 51 (this is up for renewal next month and will be changed hopefully through quidco,)
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 10
Other insurance......................... 16
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 100
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2029.4

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 93000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 9
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 93009

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 78000....(518.3)....6.6
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 4600.....(196.5)....0
Total secured & HP debts...... 82600.....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
bos credit card................1200......12........0
cap one credit card............86........5.........30.34
mastercard.....................466.......15........31.9
personal loan..................4800......179.......8.4
credit union...................1000......84........12
catalogue 2....................908.......90........0
catalogue 1....................250.68....80........0
simply be......................158.......15........28
next...........................450.......50........26.49
Total unsecured debts..........9318.68...530.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,644
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,029.4
Available for debt repayments........... 614.6
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 530
Amount left after debt repayments....... 84.6
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 93,009
Total HP & Secured debt................. -82,600
Total Unsecured debt.................... -9,318.68
Net Assets.............................. 5,690.32

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.

chocolatebum

plans for tomorrow

1. Check online banking and update diary with details
2. contact car insurance to change DD details to new account
3. check catalogue/cards account online to see if any updates
4. daily scratchcard (won £5 today )
5. sort out details to send to TAB so i can withdraw my winnings from there
6. try to sort out 5 items for ebaying

i have £74 coming at the end of this month from quidco and trying to figure out the best place for it, brain says mastercard as thats the highest APR but i think the physchological benefit of paying it to cap one and being able to clear that next month through normal payment and my rounding down of my accounts at the end of each week would be a big boost for me

chocolatebum

1. Check online banking and update diary with details
2. contact car insurance to change DD details to new account
3. check catalogue/cards account online to see if any updates
4. daily scratchcard (yeh an exciting 10p lol )
5. sort out details to send to TAB so i can withdraw my winnings from there
6. try to sort out 5 items for ebaying

can't believe i get annoyed and frustrated when theres nothing to change on my SOA :rotfl:

chocolatebum

Need to do my meal plan and shoppping list for tomorrow as well,might be a frugal week as i still have loads of meat in the fridge/freezer due to morrisons 50p deals this week

chocolatebum

plans for tomorrow

1. into town to deposit a cheque
2. transfer cap one onto a 0% which has just enough space for it lo
3. shop with list and do not deviate from it and hope to spend less than £100
4. sort out hose 5 ebay items which i still didn't do today

Barebear

You're in a very similar situation to me, I'm quite surprised how similar our SOA's are. I have about £13K of unsecured debt and £70K mortgage though. Our incomes are quite similar though although I'm doing this on my own and only have my own income to work with. And I have no kids. My GF stays with her parents and I have to pay all my household bills alone. I do get the 25% rebote on my council tax though. You are similar in that you have a few wee debts which could be paid off quicker or as you said, dropped into the 0% card if possible. My own credit rating prevents me from getting those though, so I just need to hammer it as it stands.

A couple of things I could give you advice on though, if I may? You're right about the home insurance, it should be much lower, my combined buildings & contents is £32. Do a comparison asap. Bump Sky and get Freeview with a Humax recorder hooked up to your dish., get free Broadband with your mobile contract (after you've renegotiated the price of that too). That only leaves you with £11 a month for BT line rental instead of £65.

Do your shopping online with mysupermarket.co.uk, set a weekly budget and get it delivered. That site will sniff out all the best alternatives for what you are looking for and even compare your virtual trolley with other online stores.

Hope this helps - I'll subscribe and wish you all the best.

chocolatebum

Barebear wrote: »

You're in a very similar situation to me, I'm quite surprised how similar our SOA's are. I have about £13K of unsecured debt and £70K mortgage though. Our incomes are quite similar though although I'm doing this on my own and only have my own income to work with. And I have no kids. My GF stays with her parents and I have to pay all my household bills alone. I do get the 25% rebote on my council tax though. You are similar in that you have a few wee debts which could be paid off quicker or as you said, dropped into the 0% card if possible. My own credit rating prevents me from getting those though, so I just need to hammer it as it stands.

A couple of things I could give you advice on though, if I may? You're right about the home insurance, it should be much lower, my combined buildings & contents is £32. Do a comparison asap. Bump Sky and get Freeview with a Humax recorder hooked up to your dish., get free Broadband with your mobile contract (after you've renegotiated the price of that too). That only leaves you with £11 a month for BT line rental instead of £65.

Do your shopping online with mysupermarket.co.uk, set a weekly budget and get it delivered. That site will sniff out all the best alternatives for what you are looking for and even compare your virtual trolley with other online stores.

Hope this helps - I'll subscribe and wish you all the best.

hi thanks for your comment, i was definetly ripped off on teh home insurance, it is both combined but still way too much, it runs out beginning of october so start of september i am going to shop around for some quotes and get it lower.

cable and mobile are DH's domain i have no clue, well apart from to tell him hes not allowed the sports channels lol but will pass the info on to him and get him to see whats what.

i used moneysupermarket once (to get cashback from quidco lol) but just didn't like it, could never find what i wanted on it lol, although i may start using it for a monthly shop of my heavy items and just do the weekly shop for fresh stuff, will have another look today, although when i go shopping i take my budget in cash now and calculate on my way round so i dont' go over

onthe plus side i transferred my simply be account onto the 0% card this morning so more to go towards extortionate mastercard and next account :T

we always thought we didn't have that much debt because we were managing it but when you write it down you realise how much you actually have and how something like losing a job, which was a possibility last year could cause horrible problems for us

chocolatebum

well its been a busy week with lots on so not really had much time to update on here or do anything to make more money lol

i have paid off my simply be account by transferring some onto the 0% card and using some of my quidco cashback, i also paid off another £50 to the cap one credit card which should hopefully be paid off by the end of september

i got some quotes for my building and contents insurance and should be able to cut this by about £30 a month.

on a money saving and an energy saving side i am keeping an eye on our electric meter to see how much we are using and the kids have been warned any longer htan 5 minutes in the shower and it gets turned off, they have a fondness of spending 20 minutes or so in there

will update my SOA at the end of hte month with the lower payments etc and my income might be dropping slightly hope it doesn't