MillieJon's SOA - advice please

milliejon

Here goes!!!

I wonder if any of you can help me. I've been managing my own DMP for approx 18mths and have been lucky in that all my creditors have accepted my offers and have frozen the interest and charges. They write to my every 6 or 12 months (depending on the company) to see if my circumstances have changed. If they change inbetween this time and write and tell them.

I based my outgoings on my actual outgoings for rent, water, gas etc, but based my housekeeping and clothing allowance etc on the figures given by National Debtline.

I've been reading the SOAs here over the past couple of weeks and think I've been really lucky. My SOA is as follows (this has changed slightly since my last update to the creditors because of increases in gas/elec/council tax so the figures are slightly out):

Incoming
Salary £1,572.00
Tax credit £83.40
Child benefit £115.10
Total £1,770.50

Outgoing
Rent £475.00
TV Licence £11.07
NTL £60.00
Water £22.00
British Gas (gas) £55.00
British Gas (elec) £33.50
Travel to work £41.50
Council tax £84.00
Life insurance £15.00
Housekeeping £433.33
Clothing £86.67
Health costs £21.00
Nappies £26.00
Total £1,394.07

I pay my creditors around £400 per month, and will take another 5 years to pay off.

My household includes me and my husband, my 3 year old daughter and 4 month old son. I smoke and desperately want to give up but getting stressed about money makes me dive for the fags!

I know that I should reduce my food and clothes allowances, but I'm afraid to incase we can't cope on the money left.

How does everyone cope on £50 per week for housekeeping? We don't own a car, so get the food delivered by Tesco. Otherwise, we would have an hour on the bus to get to Lidls and the delivery cost from Tesco is the same as both of us getting on the bus!

Any advice would be grately appreciated.

lynzpower

I think its possible to cut your shopping down a bit more, could you get a tesco delivery once every 2 weeks say for 70 quid instead? You can freeze milk & bread too?

Of course Im going to mention 60 quid to NTL? You can get cheaper than that if you dump the telly?

ms_london

You will either have to cut back on your budget where you can, or accept that it will take 5 years to be debt free. You either have to increase your incomings or decrease your outgoings.

What do you ACTUALLY spend on these areas (if these figures are estimates):

Housekeeping £433.33
Clothing £86.67
Health costs £21.00
Nappies £26.00

NTL - £60.00 - this seems high? Is this a tv/phone/internet type package, could you get something slightly cheaper or downgrade?

I think you could definately cut back on the above figures, despite being a family of 4.

The choice is yours I suppose.

xx

Penny-Pincher!!

Pop over to the OS board and we'll help you shave alot off your house-keepingl:D

PP
xx

calleyw

As has already been said.

NTL very high. Ring them up tell them you need to save money and are thinking about changing suppliers for Internet/Phone and getting a freeview box. Does this include your calls charges as well.

Housekeeping I assume includes your smokes. You need to stop not just for your health but your childrens health. They are more likely to suffer with colds and asmtha as well. You do need to break this down as we can't help if you don't know what you are spending it on.

Clothes over £80 a month. Sorry way to much even with children. If you have been spending that sort of money. Both you and your husband and children should have wardrobes full of clothes. So you should not need to buy any more. But of course children have a nasty habit of growing or ruining clothes by ripping etc. I would say that £50 a month is more generous. I don't remember the last time I bought clothes for myself apart from underwear as I just can't afford it. My husband has lots of T-shirts etc but he has been given these for birthdays etc.

Look through your wardrobe and be honest with yourself. Do you really need any more clothes. I doubt it. You should of course replace when items become to old, stained or to holey to fix.

Gas seems a little on the high side but if you are home all day with a baby then kinda makes sense.

Do you not have contents insurance, mobile phones. Somethings that are missing from you budget unless them have been lumped in with housekeeping:

Holidays
Birthdays
Christmas
Hair cuts
Days outs


Yours


Calley

milliejon

Thank you all for your replies!

lynzpower wrote:

I think its possible to cut your shopping down a bit more, could you get a tesco delivery once every 2 weeks say for 70 quid instead? You can freeze milk & bread too?

Thanks - hadn't thought of freezing milk. My freezer should have some room soon, cos I've started to stop buying convenience foods and making one pot meals with pasta, rice etc.

lynzpower wrote:

Of course Im going to mention 60 quid to NTL? You can get cheaper than that if you dump the telly?

In reality this is nearer £50 but has been as high as £60. Since posting, I've contacted NTL to say that I wan't to get rid of the telly and just have the phone and broadband. They offered me a new package and reduced my basic bill by £7 a month with free evening and weekend calls. :j

ms_london wrote:

What do you ACTUALLY spend on these areas (if these figures are estimates):

Housekeeping £433.33
Clothing £86.67
Health costs £21.00
Nappies £26.00

Looking back at my spending on my Tesco account, we spend an average of £60 per week. Although this should reduce soon, as I'm buying dried beans, etc. However, I also spend around £15 per week on odds and ends that I forget to get when shopping or find that I've run out.

I very rarely spend any of the clothing allowance. I sell a lot of the kids clothes on Ebay and buy the next size for them on there too. Me and hubby don't get new clothes.

Health cost is about right, it includes my hubby's prescription costs, and dental fees (which at the moment are very high)!

Nappies spend is right too - the baby obviously needs nappies, and my little girl still wears them at night.

I've been able to reduce my overdraft (Which isn't included in the DMP) by £100 in the past month, and I'm hoping to pay the rest off over the next couple of months.

I suspect the other money is paying for the fags!

Penny-Pincher!! wrote:

Pop over to the OS board and we'll help you shave alot off your house-keepingl:D

PP
xx

Thank you - I'll pop over later tonight. I've been having a nosey around there - hence the reason for getting the freezer stuff down!

calleyw wrote:

Housekeeping I assume includes your smokes. You need to stop not just for your health but your childrens health. They are more likely to suffer with colds and asmtha as well. You do need to break this down as we can't help if you don't know what you are spending it on.

I question myself over my smoking every time I light up - but nothing works!:o

calleyw wrote:

Gas seems a little on the high side but if you are home all day with a baby then kinda makes sense.

This has gone up £20 per month this month! The usage has doubled to this time last year! Not quite sure what's going on there!

calleyw wrote:

Do you not have contents insurance, mobile phones. Somethings that are missing from you budget unless them have been lumped in with housekeeping:

Holidays
Birthdays
Christmas
Hair cuts
Days outs

No contents insurance. We both have PAYG mobiles but haven't put any money on them in about a year!

All the others have to be coped with when they happen. I cut my husband's hair and my daughter and I never have our hair cut!

Thanks again for your replies - if anyone has any thoughts on my SOA - please post. I'll welcome all your views.

calleyw

milliejon wrote:

I question myself over my smoking every time I light up - but nothing works!:o

Sorry I didn't mean to come across as holier than thou as I don't smoke and I do know how hard it is to give up. I suppose it is a bit like me trying to loose weight. Note the trying bit. It is not easy.

I am not sure how you can get a lightbulb moment on your smoking. Lets say both you and your husband smoke 1 pack each a day.

so that is 14 packets a week. At say an average of £4.50 a packet.

£4.50 X 2 = £9 a day.
£9 x 7 =£63 a week
£63 X 4 = £252 a month
or £63 X 52 =£3276 a year :eek: in ten years that is £32760 :eek:without the interest. That does not include anything extra you pay in life insurance etc.

See that could be money you are putting away for deposit for a house or going on a nice holiday and still putting someaway in savings.

Right leaving smoking behind as that is going to be ongoing thing and we can't sort that out in 2 mins. I wish you all the best with giving up when you are ready to.

You say that you don't spend the £80 a month on clothes. That is worry as your budget is not working. You need to plug the gaps. And the first thing I would suggest is to keep a spending diary. As you really need to know where the money is going. As you can't plug a gap with out it.

I find the best way to not spend is to 1) don't go out but that is very boring
2) don't take any money out and go window shopping.

I get my shopping fix by food shopping and shopping for items for the house. It is coming out of the joint money. And I spend with the budget limits.

Not sure what else to say. But as long as you keep letting us know how and where the money is spent we might be able to help.

You don't say how much you spend on phone calls. But for during the day use another provider. I am on telewest just NTL in another disguise. And we only get free calls at the weekend. So we use a 1866 look on the telephone board for more info. And they charge 3p connection and 1p a minute to land lines. 10p a min for mobiles apart from the weekends when it is 3p a minute. We use telewest when we have to phone an 0845 number. Cheaper than 1866.

All the best


Yours


Calley

milliejon

calleyw wrote:

Sorry I didn't mean to come across as holier than thou as I don't smoke and I do know how hard it is to give up. I suppose it is a bit like me trying to loose weight. Note the trying bit. It is not easy.

No offence taken at all! Thank you for the estimates on costs too! I just worked out that we're spending around £30 a week on fags between us. What I could do with that!!

calleyw wrote:

You say that you don't spend the £80 a month on clothes. That is worry as your budget is not working. You need to plug the gaps. And the first thing I would suggest is to keep a spending diary. As you really need to know where the money is going. As you can't plug a gap with out it.

This money is going towards the cost of the fags together with that left over from the housekeeping. I've just realised that I'm walking around in shoes that are falling off my feet so that I can smoke. Reality check needed!:eek:

calleyw wrote:

You don't say how much you spend on phone calls. But for during the day use another provider. I am on telewest just NTL in another disguise. And we only get free calls at the weekend. So we use a 1866 look on the telephone board for more info. And they charge 3p connection and 1p a minute to land lines. 10p a min for mobiles apart from the weekends when it is 3p a minute. We use telewest when we have to phone an 0845 number. Cheaper than 1866.

Thanks for this Calley. I didn't realise I could use these dial through numbers for NTL. I'll look into this. Saying that, we hardly ever use the telephone during the day - I'm really strict about that.

Thanks again!

fairylights_2

I'm sorry but I think you're getting royally ripped off by NTL. Our current telecoms bills are £14.99 to virgin for the broadband, £12 line rental to BT, we use justdialsaver for free calls evenings and weekends, and 1899 in the daytimes, calls come to less than £5 every month. That comes to just over £30 a month, and they're giving you a special rate of £53? Thieves.

We too are a family with one 18 month old and a 3.5 year old, and spend less than £200 a month on household stuff (inc. cleaning). It's a case of planning and diligence. If you don't have it, you don't spend it. We use cloth nappies so have no monthly nappy costs, we make our own washing detergent so don't spend £5-10 every month on that. I bulk buy loo roll, dishwasher tabs, etc when we need them (and have a dinky pantry cupboard for the excess) and just buy what we need and no more.

£30 from one bill, and say only £130 from your groceries (leaving you £300 a month which is MORE than enough) and you're £160 better off every month. What'll that do for your DMP?

milliejon

Sorry - I may have misled you about NTL. Currently, my costs are:

321 Phone and base TV pack £21.50
Unlimited 1MB Broadband £17.99
Total £39.49

With calls and the occasional on demand film (school hols or rainy weekends) the bill comes to around £48 to £50.

With the new package, my basic cost for Talk Unlimited phone, base pack TV and 1mb broadband is now £32.99. So with the same calls and films on demand it should come in at around £45.

I'm going to try really hard to get my groceries and cleaning etc under £50 per week (inc delivery charge). Once I've got the hang of planning properly, and got hubby trained for when I go back to work, I could then look at my SOA again.

I want so much to reduce my debts more quickly. I need to stop smoking and keep a check on my groceries (which are the two things I can make a change to).

Thanks again for the responses.

Snich

Hi,

The others have all given good advice and I would second the smoking.

Films on demand are very expensive - why not try swapping your clubcard vouchers for blockbuster vouchers? Much better on the wallet and you'll spend less of these because you have to hand over the money voucher each time and go to the video shop. Little things like this really help!

Make sure your kids don't know the on demand pin - I recommend you change it and lose it!

Good luck with getting the shopping down. It's worth it - involves menu planning and iron will in not going back to the shops.

No more cigs
Hugs, Snich x