Ive just done a soa and snowball - help needed

shandypants

Can someone help me, Ive put everything into the SOA and then a did the snowball thing to see which debts to pay off first. Im a little unsure about what I did but I put in £1242.54 to pay off debts every month. Is this correct? Because it says I will be payment free in April 2012? Or am I doing this wrong, can someone help me please. Many thanks Suzie


[tt]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1958.07
Partners monthly income after tax....... 587.27
Benefits................................ 458.16
Other income............................ 397.36
Total monthly income.................... 3400.86
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 986.5
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 52.86999999999989
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 137
Electricity............................. 33
Gas..................................... 34
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 26.5
Telephone (land line)................... 21.74
Mobile phone............................ 56.31
TV Licence.............................. 11.95
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 57.25
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 300
Clothing................................ 100
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 41.92
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 158.55
Other child related expenses............ 32
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 11.9
Contents insurance...................... 17.5
Life assurance ......................... 44.33
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2158.32

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 180000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 4000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 184000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 168426...(986.5)....6.65
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 1545.....(52.87)....14.9
Total secured & HP debts...... 169971....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
very cataloge..................594.5.....29.74.....35.7
Next...........................895.88....94........29
Capital One....................4915.4....218.......22.94
Overdraft......................5000......59.98.....29.6
GE capital.....................5381.8....74.51.....21.36
La Redoute.....................468.33....45........29.8
Egg............................2717.53...59.24.....0
Virgin.........................4864.26...82.97.....16.7
MBNA...........................5390.12...69.2......16.9

Justicenpeace

Hi Suzie,

Well done on posting your SOA. Somebody more experienced will be along in a little while. But your calculation seems right to me: Your monthly income = £3400.86 minus monthly expenditure including secured debt @ £2158.32 leaving £1242.54 to throw at the unsecured debt. Obviously your Very catalogue would be the best place to start, and a quick hit too. There are probably a number of ways you can trim your monthly expenses to make that DFD earlier. Somebody will be along to advise about this before too long.

josephine82

shandypants wrote: »

Can someone help me, Ive put everything into the SOA and then a did the snowball thing to see which debts to pay off first. Im a little unsure about what I did but I put in £1242.54 to pay off debts every month. Is this correct? Because it says I will be payment free in April 2012? Or am I doing this wrong, can someone help me please. Many thanks Suzie


[tt]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1958.07
Partners monthly income after tax....... 587.27
Benefits................................ 458.16
Other income............................ 397.36
Total monthly income.................... 3400.86
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 986.5
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 52.86999999999989
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 137
Electricity............................. 33
Gas..................................... 34
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 26.5
Telephone (land line)................... 21.74 is this the cheapest you can get?
Mobile phone............................ 56.31 Is this for 2?
TV Licence.............................. 11.95
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 57.25 Can you get rid of this and use freeview?
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 300
Clothing................................ 100 can you just buy clothes for the kids for the future and only buy things when you really need them for you?
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 41.92 seems high- is this the best quote?
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 should budget for MOT and service here
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 158.55
Other child related expenses............ 32
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 11.9
Contents insurance...................... 17.5
Life assurance ......................... 44.33
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 0 do you never get your hair cut?
Entertainment........................... 0 no films, meals out, etc?
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0 should have something small here
Total monthly expenses.................. 2158.32

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 180000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 4000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 184000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 168426...(986.5)....6.65
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 1545.....(52.87)....14.9
Total secured & HP debts...... 169971....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
very cataloge..................594.5.....29.74.....35.7
Next...........................895.88....94........29
Capital One....................4915.4....218.......22.94
Overdraft......................5000......59.98.....29.6
GE capital.....................5381.8....74.51.....21.36
La Redoute.....................468.33....45........29.8
Egg............................2717.53...59.24.....0
Virgin.........................4864.26...82.97.....16.7
MBNA...........................5390.12...69.2......16.9

Hi suzie

I have made a few comments above. I think you may have missed off the end of your SOA as it doesn't show the surplus but your calculations are right, you should have a surplus of £1242.54 at the end of every month.

Do you have this? If not you need to start a spending diary to see where it goes. Or go through your last few months statements and see what you are spending it on. (this is a real eye opener- one month I spent £35 on coffee from starbucks...:eek:)

I would aim to pay off the catalogues first, then look again at what your have per month and try and get rid of the other debts slowly, but surely!

Good luck!

Tixy

Hi Suzie

As others have said you should have £1242.54 available to make debt repayments and your minimum payments come to £732.64, so you should in theory be able to overpay by £509.90 each month. Which would mean you could have Very and Laredoute cleared by christmas.

I expect you have this money and don't know it is going so you need to follow josephine's great advice about keeping a spending diary for a few months. Make sure you write down everything your spend (even just 50p). Usually its the small things that people forget but really add up. So typical 'culprits' are magazie & newspapers, lottery tickets, coffees and lunches at work or while shopping, 'top-up' groceries and childrens pocket money. Also you have put nothing in for entertainment which I suspect is unrealistic.

Is your mortgage on a fixed deal and how long is it fixed for? You may want to look at how much you could save by switching to a better deal and what the redemption penalties would be.

Landline & Satellite are costing your £79 per month (assume this also includes broadband?) Look to get a package deal from one provider and you could make a big saving or consider cancelling Sky or reducing the channels you have.

Clothing is high and could certainly be reduced for a while - buy only essentials for adults and only what the children really need and make sure you are getting value for money as they grow out of clothes quick there is no point spending a lot on kids clothes.

Where you have a cost you don't pay every month you should ideally budget and save 1/12 of the annual cost each year. So things like MOT, car service & tyres etc & road tax.

Check all insurances are the cheapest you can find. If you life insurance was bought with the mortgage you will almost certainly get cheaper by switching.
If you switch any insurance or utility check out whther you can earn cashback from quidco or topcashback.

Does the HP relate to the car or something else?

Are you committed to making no more purchases on your credit cards or catalogues? There is no point overpaying debts if you are still spending on the accounts.

What is your credit rating like? Have you considered a 0% card to do a balance transfer? Only do this if you are discplined enough to close the old account and cut the card up and also cut up the new card as you shouldn't spend on any card you do a BT to (because of how the interest is calculated).

When is your overdraft up for renewal? Are you operating within the overdraft limit? I assume you never get yourself back in the black with this account? (as wages are lower than the limit). Your overdraft is at a high APR. If you get a 0% card you may be better to use it to pay off the overdraft rather than a credit card (again remember to cancel the o/d afterwards). To do this you would need to choose a card that allows transfers to the current account (known as a super transfer card).

Just my thoughts - hope they help.

Good luck.

JasX

Tend to agree with josephine's advice above, none of the 'household' stuff seems unessarily high, just worth re-iterating making sure this is all you're spending and there isn;t a series of small daily spends that are adding up to something big over the course of the month (eg starbucks example above, pub visits etc).

Other than that stay relatively dicsiplined and there should be a fair chunk to throw at your debts each month to start cuttting the most expensive ones down to size over the next 18 months or so....

Good Luck

september09

josephine82 wrote: »

start a spending diary to see where it goes. Or go through your last few months statements and see what you are spending it on. (this is a real eye opener- one month I spent £35 on coffee from starbucks...:eek:)

I completly agree with this - one month I spent nearly £700 in supermarkets!! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: my wage is only £800!! No wonder I got in debt.... On the straight(er) and (very) narrow now though. :rotfl:

Fantastic advice all round from all the posters here. Just wanted to add that, unfortunatly I cant think of anything else to add but good luck!

x

shandypants

Thanks very much everyone. I think a long hard look at what I actually spend is the way forward. As of tomorrow, I pinched one of my daughters notebooks (see saving already!) I will be writing everything down. Im about to go and look through past statements, oh err not looking forward to that but it has to be done.

Tixy I think I will look for at my Natwest overdraft. I think it is a killer. I would probably need to get 2 cards though because it needs to cover £5000. I think my credit rating should be pretty good coz I never miss a payment as they all come out with direct debits.

I think I'll get rid of the sky package as never watch anything other than CSI and thats on channel 5! Certainly can get rid of the movies as probably seen most of them anyway!

Right Im off to saving loads of money and my aim is to pay off catalogs by xmas. Although got home today and their christmas catalogs were on the door steps, ahhhhhhh Im not tempted thou.... No No No..

Thanks Suz xx