Hi I am not new but I need to start again

queenofthedump

Hi there I am not new and I have to start again so I will do it properly.

I owe less than £60K but not by much.

My SOA

Income OH £1500
Me £350 variable part time job paying emergency tax YUK
Child Benefit £100 ( roughly can never remember )
WFTX £37.00

Total £1987 (wow thats quite a lot really) How did we get in the debt ???

Outgoings

Specsavers £15.00 (not worth changing
TV Licence £10.99
Acct Fee £5.00 (get preferred rate on overdraft)
Gas/ELEC £50
NTL £44.13 Varies monthly but around £45 at most phone modem
SKY £36.50 Cant canx stuck in contract 1 year ends Oct 06
MBNA LOAN £369.40
Barclay Loan £372.83 only just started working again will try to change soon
Kid Acct £10.00
Furniture £16.84 10 month int free ends sep 06

Total£ 930.69

This leaves approx 1056.31

then we pay £450 a month off credit cards and whatever is left is food, petrol, other bills that are not regular things dentist, kids clubs, clothes etc

roswell

um first for the firing line is the bank account is the rate you get better than the £5 a month it costs you ? are you actualy in your overdraft if not cancel the overdraft and change the accoutn to a none fee account.

NTL phone and modem can probably be cut what call package are you on ? if your on a call package like talk 24 or free local calls evening check there not charging you line rental and call package effectivly charging you twice for line rental (been caught out with this one before).

Even though your in a 1 year contract you can still change the package with them eg remove unwartched sport / movie channels

Emmzi

Maybe a stupid question, but I can't see rent above?

CLAPTON

to get a grip on spending you need to itemise ALL items. that is everything you spend or expect to spend over the next 12 months.

you need to work out how much you spend on, rent/mortgage, food, how much on petrol, how much on lunches, how much on children etc ....for things that dont occur every month, take your best guess (consider last year as an aid) for the next 12 months and divide by 12 to give a monthly figure, so presumably you have a car, take car tax, car insurance, MOT, servicing, etc and divide by 12: holidays, presents etc. etc.
add up a subtotal of spending

seperate your debts
for each loan say ... monthly payment , number of months left to pay
for each credit card say ...total amount, minimum monthly payment and APR
add up the totals for total debt and total monthly payments

you need to do this so you can clearly see where you money is being spent so you can see how much is available to pay the debts, and also so you can prioritise your spending and reduce where possible.


its a great idea to keep a spending diary...write down everything you spend as you spend it in a little book...really shows where the money goes.

have look at the Budget Planner at the top of this page and read the 'sticky' thread at the top for new posters.

LookingAhead

I agree with Clapton re: spending diary. If you don't do one already, make that a priority to set up. I have just a spreadsheet on Excel and it horrified me the first week I filled out. I couldn't believe what I was spending on "little" things that added up to a pretty hefty figure that I really can't afford.

I now see it as a challenge to make each week a smaller spend than the last. That's not always possible of course if you get a big bill in or something but you can control the little spends like a can of coke here or a new lipstick there...it's made me really question every purchase even more and hunt around for bargains or can I get cash back via Quidco etc. There's pretty much got to be something in it for me these days if I hand over my cash!!

Good luck with starting over...make sure you keep coming back to the Forum & sharing and reading.

L.A. x

queenofthedump

Hi everyone

1- No rent as it comes out of OH wage
2 - cant change sky as we have sky plus and it is cheaper to keep premium channel rather than pay the extra £10
3- have started to record what we are spending as our spending has changed since i started working again.
sop will keep you updated on that one
4- we have talk 24 and trust me after 5 years of being an NTL customer i go through my bill with a fine tooth comb every month!!!!
Cant use last year as a gude for anything as last year we just did it regardless of what it cost and we just kept shuffleing and extending loans and cards.
We find it impossible to budget monthly as we never know what our money will be we pay for evrything and then survive on whats left we generally know what is due to happen that month and budget then so some months we spend more than others but will keep a record and see what comes up.

Thanks all

kar

But you've encluded OH income in your SOA? (I'm confused - does it come out before he gets it or something - like work accomodation?)

Current account charges has to go - change banks to one offering a better od rate for free.

Gas/Elec -seems high - have you looked at changing this

What is Kid acct?? - is this savings for your child. If so this can stop until you can sort yourselfs out and then you can pay in more to make up for the time you missed.

Why is specsavers not worth changing. What do you get for your money? what would you loose if you stopped?

The first step you need to make is to budget for where that £606 is going exactly every month (how much on food, how much on other bits and bobs). Keep a spending diary and look to make cut backs here so you can pay off more on your CC's