What insurances do I need for my home

Xbigman

Go to the endowment board and ask about selling the endowment on. Supposedly its worth 15% to 30% more than cashing it in.
Regards



X

tanith

£18 on the National Lottery :eek: I'd cut that out ....... Just reread and see you are cutting that out already.....

Your Power bills seem extremely high and if you have both with same supplier you should be getting a discount so check that out... I pay £55 for both in a 2bed semi....

Looks as though you can cut out some of the insurances once you figure out what they all are.....

Good luck

Debt_Free_Chick

HappyIdiotTalk wrote:

Imcoming £ per month Note
===========================
Salary £1,500.00

Outgoing £ per month Note
========================================
CIS OB Insurance £5.58 No idea what this is
CIS F&A Insurance £25.01 No idea what this is either
Norwich Union £33.09 Or this
Norwich Union £28.01 Or this
Roadside Assist (wifes car) £4.40
Npower (gas or electric) £54.00
Npower (gas or electric) £72.50
National Lottery £18.00
Car Loan (CAHOOT 5.8%) £220.45 10k started 2 months ago
Legal & General MI C/L £13.88 Not sure what this is?
Legal & General Endowement £63.00 40k mortgage matures 2018
Egg credit card £42.00 Minimum payment at the moment
Mortgage £661.26 50k Interest only, 70k repay
Orange Mobile Phone £33.63 This goes next month
Diesel for car £100.00 +/- £25
Shopping £150.00 Food ect
===============================
Total Out £1,524.81

Debts £ per month Note
=======================================
Barclays Overdraft £608.62
Car loan (CAHOOT) £9,500.00 This doesnt really count
Egg Credit Card £3,000.00 Approx, egg down, cant check
==================================
Total Debt £13,108.62

A few things appear to be missing ..

Council Tax
Water
Phone - landline
Internet/Broadband subs
Car maintenance
MOT
Road tax
Parking

clothing
entertainment/going out
holidays

dentist
eyecare

Some of these may not apply, but for those that do, you need to budget for them each month and put money aside in a savings account so you can pay the bills when they arise. Otherwise, you end up spending on credit cards. I suspect this is what's happened in the past.

You need a budget that includes everything, otherwise you'll be hit with "nasty surprises" for things you haven't budgetted for.

Martin has a budget planner here which is very comprehensive and should cover just about everything.

Let us know how you get on

HappyIdiotTalk

tanith wrote:

Your Power bills seem extremely high and if you have both with same supplier you should be getting a discount so check that out... I pay £55 for both in a 2bed semi....

Yes I think so too. This house is fairly large, but not excessively so. Its also a mid tarrace and better insolated than our first house! Its got two nice size bedrooms, one very small box room that once would have been part of one of the larger rooms. Two rooms downstairs, plus kitchen, cellar (which has a small radiator I leave on for computer) and an attick room.

I've fitted a load of energy saving bulbs but these have yet to put a dent in the bill.

I'm going to switch over to PowerGen, according to USwitch I can save about £30 a month.

Col!

tanith

Do you have all the insulation you should have... loft, hot water tank lagged and even cavity wall insulation which you can get at discounted rate at the moment.. we just paid £150 for full cavity wall insulation and the local authority are paying the other half.... I hope it will get my bills down even further.....

HappyIdiotTalk

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

A few things appear to be missing ..

Council Tax
Water
Phone - landline
Internet/Broadband subs
Car maintenance
MOT
Road tax
Parking

clothing
entertainment/going out
holidays

dentist
eyecare

Most of the above are my wifes bills. I get to pay the big one's and she does anything else, plus clothes, baby supplies, birthday/christmas presents ect. Although I did get the road tax bills for both cars last month, which is pretty much why I'm so overdrawn at the momemnt.

I also paid for the flights to Italy in July too, which has contrbuted to the high credit card bill. Mels going for 3 weeks, and I'm going for 2. We're staying with her parents (we both get on with them) who have rented an apartment on the beach. They have said they dont want any money, but we'll have t contribute something.

To be honest I dont want to think about the other stuff you've mentioned. I'm going to sort out the big things first, and then worry about the smaller stuff when I've improved my position.

I'm really determined to do this I've been in debt more or less constantly since I was about 20, and enough is enough - I'm sick of it. Plus we have another baby on the way and I'll have to take over some of the other bills.

Thanks for the suport everyone!

HappyIdiotTalk

tanith wrote:

Do you have all the insulation you should have... loft, hot water tank lagged and even cavity wall insulation which you can get at discounted rate at the moment.. we just paid £150 for full cavity wall insulation and the local authority are paying the other half.... I hope it will get my bills down even further.....

I think the loft could have better insulation. I work at the old MG Rover site at Longbridge/Birmingham and have seen some insulation material in one of the old car assembly buildings. Might try and get a scrap note for some of it next week and bring is home.

Not sure about the other stuff. I dont think we have a hot water tank, our water and heating is heated from a combi boiler. I'm wondering if the combi is to blame, it works fine, but looks oldish and so could be horribly inefficent. Also this house was built in 1884 or something so I dont think it has cavities. It feels a lot warmer than our old house though, maybe because its got a lot of double glazing - only a couple of windows aren't glazed and one has really old glazing.

Debt_Free_Chick

HappyIdiotTalk wrote:

To be honest I dont want to think about the other stuff you've mentioned. I'm going to sort out the big things first, and then worry about the smaller stuff when I've improved my position.

Having a full and complete budget is a necessity, not an option. Sorry, but you are likely to get in a terrible muddle or worse, if you only budget for some things. In addition, you need to prioritise your bills - in particular, paying Council Tax and utilities is a must. For Council Tax, if you get into arrears, the process is a nightmare that ends up with bailiffs if you fail to pay.

In addition, what on earth are you going to do about the bills that your wife pays, when she goes on maternity leave - you know her income is going to reduce, substantially?

At the moment, I'm not sure you know whether you can afford to pay your bills, let alone deal with the debts - especially once your wife stops working.

Stop burying your head in the sand - not knowing what you need to pay the bills every month is not going to deal with your debts. Even if you don't post it here, you must do a full and proper budget if you're to keep your head above water.

Please - rethink the budget

Bloke_with_a_simple_life

HappyIdiotTalk wrote:

Mortgage £661.26 50k Interest only, 70k repay


Debts £ per month Note
=======================================
Barclays Overdraft £608.62
Car loan (CAHOOT) £9,500.00 This doesnt really count
Egg Credit Card £3,000.00 Approx, egg down, cant check
==================================
Total Debt £13,108.62

Hello Happy...

Bit concerned on the mortgage - can you confirm that your £661 repayment is "Interest and Capital" or "Interest" only?

If interest only - how are you saving to cover the amount you borrowed to pay for the house?

---lee---

Regarding the insurances, Martin has some excelent info on life policies - read the articles, they will help.

As you don't know what the insurances are for, it's likley that at least some of them will have been provided by the mortgage company. These policies are usually not competative so you can probably get better deals and products else where.

Decreasing life term policies are a waste of time as far as I'm concerned, you can probably get full term cover cheaper.

Like Bloke_with_a_simple_life, I'm also confused about what type of mortgage you have. If it's not a repayment one, you could retain your endowment and use it to pay off at least part of the capital at the end.

If your mortgage is a repayment one, it may be best to think about selling the endowment to clear some of your debt.

As Debt_Free_Chick says, you need to look at your finances as a whole. Half a budget simply won't work. You've already said that your wife won't be working shortly so how is she going to pay the other half of the bills that are not accounted for?