FULL WATT MOMENT!!! seeking your advice...includes SOA.

LearningToSave.

hiya everyone,
i have posted here before but have in the last few weeks had that major full watt lightbulb moment and more importantly so has my husband.
the snowball calculator says that we will currently be debt free in november 2011......our target however is december 2009.
the reason for this is that we become eligible to buy our house in january 2010,we would dearly love to be debt free then and be able to get a mortgage.
we have already made inroads into clearing this but im looking to do
EVERYTHING we can.we have already....

1).Cut up all of the credit cards and also hidden them so they cannot be used online either!! we had already consolidated into a huge barclayloan(silly i know!!) but continued to spend...paid now.
2).drastically cut back our tv package...we were paying £80-£85 a month for our tv(full package),broadband,phone and phonecall charges.we have now downgraded to the 3 for £30 package and do our phone calls through 1899 which costs in the region of £7 a month.
3).cancelled both mine and my husbands gym memberships saving £70 a month.
4).stopped buying 4 sunday papers every week...i dont need them and rarely read them properly.
5).started menu planning and drastically cut shopping back!!
and numerous other small things.
6).after seeing the mortgage pig thread i now have doris the debt free wannabe pig:D

we are now making inroads into the debt as i said rather than building it up but heres my soa (with our new budget rather than chuck everything on the credit card one!!)and i'd love to hear any further ideas.

INCOMING= husbands wages.....£1353.
tax credits.............£176 ish.
Child benefit...........£113.

TOTAL INCOME = £1642.

OUTGOING= rent..............................£235.00
council tax.....................£106.00
BARCLAYLOAN.................£376.00
OWED TO PARENTS..........£250.00
water.............................£31.60
car insurance...................£35.00
gas and electric................£70.00
going out/ourselves...........£50.00
phone(inc mobs)/net/tv......£50.00
house contents insurance...£15.00
petrol..............................£90.00
car tax............................£10.00
pre pay prescription...........£10.00
car mot...........................£25.00
xmas/birthdays etc............£25.00
clothes..........................£15.00
tv licence.......................£12.00
life insurance...................£19.88
child savings...................£10.00
holiday savings................£25.00
grocery shopping.............£160.00

TOTAL OUTGOING = £1620.48

debts are.....£25,000 barclayloan with 7.1% apr......current balance £22,737.38...i cant overpay on this but can pay off early with no penalty.

and £12,500 left owing to dh's parents.


a few things before you make your minds up!!!! yes the gas/electric is high but i would rather pay this continuously throughout the year and it stays same over winter than get hit by high bills like this year.
we have just changed suppliers to what was the cheapest for us.
car insurance was by far the lowest quote we could get.
there is no PPI on the loan......even im not that stupid:rotfl:

thats all i can think of for now so i'll stop boring you all to tears:D
look forward to hearing your advice.

Broken_hearted

well done on cutting the cards up and good luck with your saving for the mortgage.

crazyscientist

Hi and welcome

There's plenty of people on here who are better than me at this but until they post here's my tuppeneth...

You have a total of £115 a month allocated for clothes, going out, presents and holidays. Surely this can be reduced?

'Child savings' is always a good idea but the interest you are earning is probably far less than what you are paying on your debts.

Grocery budget could be reduced too. Check out the 'old style' board for tips.

Try the brokers recommended by Martin for cheaper life, contents and car insurance - you are paying quite a lot for all of these.

earwig

hi im sure some one else will be along in a moment who can help you futher but i noticed that you have 25.00 down for mot the goverment has changed mot and they now done on the compture so it takes more time and because of that it now cost 40-45 per test and the free retest is gone now its half price retest if you are lucky its all to do with stoping fake mots your mot is now a barcode what gose stright on to the dvla site so they know when your cars due if it failed or pased so its harder to get fake mots like before when all the theifs needed was the certificate and the garges stamp so i would allow a bit more for your mot so you dont get caught out i know this as i have this month had our car moted and was told this by the garage who did the mot

LearningToSave.

EARWIG.....in regards to the mot....thats £25 per month which is £300 over a year.....surely this is enough i was advised to allow £250 so was eering on the side of caution i thought!!

CRAZY SCIENTIST.....the grocery shopping that is for everything...cleaning products,female products,nappies,everything!! im a regular on oldstyle and would struggle to cut any lower than this although i have on some months when we've got lots of good reduced things.
the house,car and life insurances are the cheapest available.....the life covers both of us.my husband has an accident declared which will dissapear next year so hopefully it will get cheaper then.contents was by far and way the lowest i could get...we had to claim after flooding last november though so that may be why?

You have a total of £115 a month allocated for clothes, going out, presents and holidays. Surely this can be reduced?
in regards to the money for clothes...i dont think £15 for 4 people is bad i do shop in charity shops and car boots for me and the children,we try for my husband too but at 6ft 7ins you dont find much for him in there!!...holidays we visit the inlaws in france and just have to cover cost of petrol and cheap ferry plus a sun holiday,again not much over a year £300....going out...this £50 covers both me and my husband for everything-not just going out,anything that isnt seperately covered in soa.
presents...we both have large families...this covers all birthdays,anniversaries,christmas(food etc as well as presents) as well as things that pop up like engagements etc too....again it may just be me but £300 a year doesnt seem a lot for these things.
the child savings i am considering stopping until debts are paid-not decided yet....its £5 in each of my daughters accounts.
as i said i cannot over pay on my loan but can pay off early.......anything that is left over from these things above will go into savings to pay off early.

Wizwoo

Hello LearningToSave,

Welcome and well done with what you've already achieved. It obvious from your SOA that you've already worked hard to trim things down.

With regards to earwig's comments re: the MOT the £40 - 45 figure is I presume just for the test whereas your budget of £25 pm allows for service needs / any repairs that are required on top (my MOT due in 3 weeks ).

From feedback you've already given others it looks as if you feel you've taken things as far as you can re: saving on your spending (especially with the grocery shopping - I think that looks good for what you need it to cover).

The only thing I'd say is that if you really really want to pay that debt off sooner (don't we all :rolleyes: ) then you'll need to really look at it again:
Water looks high - are you on a meter?
Could the in-laws come to you? (I know, I'd hate missing a genuienly cheap break too) .
Gas and electricity - we pay monthly (only 2 of us though) for a 3 bed semi and it comes in at £49 per month?

Otherwise you'll need to look at trying to increase your income:
Tried ebay / amazon / car boots etc

The answer is never easy - especially when you've already worked so hard at getting it down to what you feel is the minimum and it's still not enough.

Many people here keep a money / spending diary - and I did for a while. It didn't take long to realise that little things mount up. So you might find that it would help you too.

Whatever you decide - try to keep positive :T

lynzpower

the other angle, is is there any way you could increase your income, even if its just by a little bit such as a saturday job, or evening call cetre work ?

LearningToSave.

hiya wizzwoo......thanks for your reply!!
the visiting the in-laws is a major sticking point....i would happily forgo that but my husband will not....and i cant say i blame him,if the boot were on the other foot and it were my parents i dont think i would either......they do come here twice a year at xmas and one other point too. we only pay the ferry (which is £39 each way) and the petrol to get there and when there give mil that weeks grocery money.
i know that is probably with ferry costs and petrol another £150-200 a year we could pay off debts with but i wouldnt be happy denying my husband seeing them and possibly cause problems in my marriage....if i said we couldnt afford it he would abide by it but it really would make him unhappy although he'd try to hide it......and as i said i would insist if it was my parents......heck i'd probably insist on going more if it was mine to be honest.

the gas and electric through the summer months (march-sept) only cost about £40 a month.......but in winter we got really excessive extra bills on top of the £40 we were paying.....does this happen to everyone? our usage wasnt excessive even turned it off at 6pm when kids went to bed every night and sat under a quilt......i thought when i did this budget it would be better to pay a higher amount every month...be in credit through summer and not get extra costs at winter????? does everyone agree???? as i said my debts cant be over paid just saved up and paid early so i figure anything excess can be put to it at end of year??

water....im not on a meter no and from what i've asked around this is average cost (we live in bristol)...would be interested to learn how if i could cut it back??

i've just realised i seem awfully defensive in my posts dont i!! sorry.............i really do want to do this but just couldnt bear to cause my husband that much unhappiness for the sake of £150-£200.

LearningToSave.

lynzpower wrote:

the other angle, is is there any way you could increase your income, even if its just by a little bit such as a saturday job, or evening call cetre work ?

hiya lynzpower,
im trying!! my husband works a rolling shift pattern of 6 days on (2 earlies,2 lates,2 nights)4 days off.....so never the same days or times off.i have been to interviews etc with all the supermarkets/shops that claim to accomadate different situations but no luck,not even as a seasonal worker.
i have no one near enough to look after the kids for a few hours a day either so childcare of around £4 an hour for a childminder would mnore or less wipe out earnings or around £5.20ish for supermarket work by the time i factored in travel etc.
im quite hopeful at the moment though....mcdonalds have announced what seems to be a super flexible working scheme so i have gotten an application form......ok not the worlds greatest job but if they can accomadate my husbands rota and pay me i dont care!!!!!!!
i did do avon for a while but the round was rubbish and just wasnt worth my while..even cost me a few times and despite trying sevral things couldnt drum up any more business so i stopped.
looked into other home working things but they are either the same thing as avon or require a car(i dont drive)....any other ideas anyone?? am i missing something??
im doing pigsback and a load of paid to clicks too but have only been doing then about a month and a half so cant say what i'll earn though...although im told by a friend that has been doing them for ages and put me onto them that if i carry on i'll be getting £20 off pigsback every 1.5-2 months(me and hubby do it) and around £40 in cash/cheques from the others....not great,very tedious but it helps and i can do it easily whilst im home.
the pigsback vouchers we are getting the john lewis/waitrose ones.....i figured that they are good to give for presents,especially wedding/engagement but because they can also be used in waitrose we can save any we dont use and use at xmas.

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi Hun

Would you not be entitled to free perscriptions being on Tax credits? The loan to your folks-is it interest free? If so, could you reduce this and throw more money on the loan by over paying IYSWIM? Also, do you have PPI on the loan which you could cancel?

Your gas and electric seem fine for all of you. Are you sure you getting your insurance as cheap as you possibly can? Your water seems a little high though-Im sure there is an estimator on here somewhere, of not your water company should let you know the price difference as you should have the amount of water useage you use.

PP
xx


PP
xx

LearningToSave.

Penny-Pincher!! wrote:

Hi Hun

Would you not be entitled to free perscriptions being on Tax credits?

PP
xx

ooohhhhh hello hun!

unfortunately not :-( hubbys earnings are too high at £21,000....i believe earning have to be under £16,000 to get anything like that.
the £10 per month is towards getting the prepay card for £120 ish as he has bad asthma and hayfever and has at least 3 scripts a month so its cheaper by far to prepay
you edited whilst i was posting............lol so im editing now!!!
the loan to parents is interest free but theres no way we can lower it....they are in a few difficulties now so theres no way i'd ask them to lower what we pay...i already feel guilty we cant pay more.
will look into the water as a few of you have mentioned it.....it did go down from £34 last year....we are quite conservative with our usage though...before we had shower fitted me and dh would share bathwater,reasonably shallow bathwater at that as did both of the girls......toilet is not flushed at night unless its brown or monthly time(sorry tmi!) due to noise.