My Turn for a SOA

andystev

Deep breath... Right, bear with me, this might take a while.

Statement of Affairs

Budget (2 Adults 2 teenage boys)

Income:

My Salary £900.38
Partners Salary £753.33
Maintenance £150.00
Rent £80.00
Child Benefit £68.00
Total £1,951.71

Expenses:

Direct debits

Anglian water £34.72
ING Direct transfer[1] £51.00
Interest £31.97
Service Charge[2] £12.00
NTL(phone) £23.71
NTL(TV) £30.50
Mortgage £517.63
Personal Loan £229.82
British Gas £62.00
British Gas Electric £60.00
Mum & Dad[3] £50.00
Nor Union (Life ins) £22.94
Direct Line (Hse ins) £32.65
Council tax £113.00
Total £1271.94

Others

CC min payments £68.86
Food £300.00
Fags[4] £160.00
Lottery[5] £8.67
House maintenance £80.00
Fuel £50.00
Total £667.53

Total expenses £1939.47

Surplus £12.24

[1] Transfer to savings account to cover quarterly & yearly bills:
TV licence, Car Tax, Car Insurance, ISP, Breakdown recovery

[2] Service charge gives a slightly lower O/D interest rate.

[3] I can stop & start this as needed, don’t you just love parents?!?

[4] I’ve quit and herself has gone on to roll-ups & cut down significantly.

[5] I know, I know. Just can’t help myself!

I’m hoping to bring the food spend down a bit & I’ve no idea what £80.00 a month on house maintenance buys. I’m also working on getting herself to give up the weed, but no-one start holding their breath. The rent is from our 19 year old eldest, it’s actually only £50, he also pays for the NTL TV. This is likely to change in September when he goes back to college.

My partner’s light bulb isn’t fully on yet, so I’m struggling somewhat spending to a budget. But it’s getting better, slowly.

I’m keeping a much closer eye on what goes where, pretty much keeping a spending diary, so I’ll be able to update the budget as I get more accurate information.

The electric bill is just silly! There are 6 PC’s in this house, 2 of them on pretty much permanently. That’s stopped. Kid’s are being retrained to turn things off when they’re not in use, an uphill struggle. I’ve put a ban on the tumble dryer, the dishwasher is to be used once a day only, overnight on the timer & I’m going to investigate a timing system for the washing machine. (Economy7 meter)

My earnings are budgeted at the minimum; there could be anything up to £350 - £400 extra a month to play with if things pick up at work. No sign of that just yet ‘tho.

There are some fundamental things we’re not spending money on yet; more life cover & pensions being the main ones.

Debt at the end of May 2006:

Creditor, Amount, Limit, APR
RBS Credit Card, £720.12, £1,000.00, 0.0% ('til August 06)
CITI Credit Card, £807.35, £2,710.00, 20.7%
Mint Credit Card, £1315.10, £3,000.00, 10.0%
RBS Loan, £15000.00,, 7.7%, 84 Month term from Jan 2006
Abbey O/D, £524.50, £1500.00, 9.9%, (If depositing >£1000)
RBS O/D 1, £184.99, £1000.00, 10.6%
RBS O/D 2, £1695.19, £1800.00, 13.9%
Mum & Dad, £3112.10,, 0.0%
Gas, £113.50
Electric, £316.16
Total £23789.01

The CITI & Mint cards will be balance transferred to an Intelligent Finance card as soon as it arrives for a LOB rate of 6.9% I think, it’s pretty good anyway. I’ll BT the RBS card once the 0% term’s up. That should cut the CC interest fairly dramatically.

The RBS loan is a lengthy saga in it’s own right, I’ve no idea how to calculate an early settlement figure & we’ve only had it a few months so it’s unlikely to be worthwhile anyway (would be nice to know what the formula is ‘tho, anyone?).

I’ve applied for an Alliance & Leicester 0% for a year O/D account & I’ll transfer as much of the RBS O/D as I can to it. It’ll mean I have to move £500 though A&L every month, but I’m confident I’ll manage that. I’d love to find a way to get the overdrafts on the Balance Transfer IF card, but I can’t get my head round it.

I’ve started the ball rolling with reclaiming bank charges. Tentative estimates from statements going back to 2004 suggest I could be in for about £3000, but I’m considering those eggs unhatched & very delicate at the moment.

I think that just about covers it. Having just re-read that it all sound very “matter of fact”. Actually I’m terrified! But I think we’ve got something to work with, If I can get herself’s light bulb to full power I think we’re in with a fighting chance of starting to clear some of this up.

Thanks for listening, feel free to point out what I could / should be doing differently or better, particularly with the budget. Failing that a few “there there’s” & “never mind’s” wouldn’t go amiss

MCBIRNIE25

Hi and welcome to the board. Pretty new myself, but there are some cracking posters on here who will be able to help you. Remember, people are here to listen to any problems, or if ya just wanna have a moan. Right SOA. my intiail thoughts are :-
Expenses:

Direct debits

Anglian water £34.72
ING Direct transfer[1] £51.00
Interest £31.97
Service Charge[2] £12.00
NTL(phone) £23.71 ( Too high, NTL offer basic tv, phone and broadband for 30 quid a month, or get freeview and use a cheaper provider, click on the link Martin has on the site for details)
NTL(TV) £30.50 (As above)
Mortgage £517.63
Personal Loan £229.82 what apr is this?
British Gas £62.00 this is high, any arrears? could u use a token meter?
British Gas Electric £60.00 Same as above
Mum & Dad[3] £50.00
Nor Union (Life ins) £22.94
Direct Line (Hse ins) £32.65
Council tax £113.00
Total £1271.94

Others

CC min payments £68.86
Food £300.00
Fags[4] £160.00 (Naughty naughty, try and get rid, many GPs will provide patches now)
Lottery[5] £8.67
House maintenance £80.00
Fuel £50.00
Total £667.53

Total expenses £1939.47
I dont think it will be hard to make some decent savings, people more wise than me will be able to help. Oh, and buy the OH and kids a copy of Martins book, best fiver you will ever spend:-)
Have a good one,\
MCBIRNIE25

andystev

Thanks for the reply,

NTL(phone) £23.71 ( Too high, NTL offer basic tv, phone and broadband for 30 quid a month, or get freeview and use a cheaper provider, click on the link Martin has on the site for details)
NTL(TV) £30.50 (As above)

Yes, it is higher than it could be. However, the eldest is paying for the TV, & the phone includes BB. He’s off to college in September so will likely no longer be keen to fund the TV. I’ll look at switching then. Freeview seems like a great idea to me, but then I rarely spend much time in front of the TV. The boys inform me they can’t live without FX, Hallmark & some other rubbish I’ve never heard of. Of course they pulled a crafty and convinced their Mum first. Yet another uphill struggle on the horizon.

Personal Loan £229.82 what apr is this?

7.7%, see list of debts.

British Gas £62.00 this is high, any arrears? could u use a token meter?
British Gas Electric £60.00 Same as above

Yes, both in arrears, see list of debts. They’re on monthly DD, so I’m hoping that energy saving measures will bring the arrears down & I can look at switching.

Fags[4] £160.00 (Naughty naughty, try and get rid, many GPs will provide patches now)

Well, I’ve quit (10 weeks) & she’s cut down & rolling up. The chances of her quitting are slim. And, frankly, the world isn’t ready for the fallout if she tries

Good stuff, thanks. Keep it coming.

lynzpower

I know your not sure of this, but this 80.00 for maintanece?Is that for car or home?

One thing I did notice though is this "CC min payments £68.86" You need to be paying more than the minimum payments on these if you can particulraly the ones that charge interest.

Whats the ING transfer for, a savings account? How much is in it? Can you afford, or even do you need to be saving this amount of money per month? If you could cut this down, then you could use even a tenner of it to pay off debt. BAre in mind what the interst return is on it, if you are paying a higher rate to borrow, its not really worth saving ( sorry hope you understnad its late

Aside from that you do seem to be on the right lines

andystev

I know your not sure of this, but this 80.00 for maintanece?Is that for car or home?

Both, all, general maintenance. It’s kind of a new budget; I’m hoping it’ll develop into a true reflection of what’s going on over time.

One thing I did notice though is this "CC min payments £68.86" You need to be paying more than the minimum payments on these if you can particulraly the ones that charge interest

Indeed, If you look further down the post (it’s long, I know) you’ll see my credit card debt strategy. Essentially Balance Transferring to a LOB Card @ 6.9% ish. Once I’ve got a surplus on the budget I’ll start paying off the highest interest debt first. Once the budget takes shape I hope to have debt reduction of £50.00 minimum a month.

Whats the ING transfer for, a savings account?

Transfers the monthly equivalent of the non-monthly bills, TV licence is quarterly, car tax, insurance & recovery, parking permit & ISP. Saves a big panic come the big bill.

Aside from that you do seem to be on the right lines

Thanks for that, while I was writing the original post I was half expecting a mass of responses along the lines of “Oh dear, you’re in real trouble now!”

Annie_Fanny

OK just having a look at your SOA....

Statement of Affairs

Budget (2 Adults 2 teenage boys)

Income:

My Salary £900.38
Partners Salary £753.33
Maintenance £150.00
Rent £80.00
Child Benefit £68.00
Total £1,951.71

Expenses:

Direct debits

Anglian water £34.72
ING Direct transfer[1] £51.00 I think the priority is paying off debts at the moment. Martin Lewis has written an article on this whole subject - particularly look at 'Are you ready to start saving?' http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1103213261,45760,
Interest £31.97 (What's this?)
Service Charge[2] £12.00 (For a slightly lower interest rate on your overdraft? Sounds like a total rip off especially when you can get ODs on 0% APR for a year, i.e. I hope you get the A&L overdraft! Ditch.)
NTL(phone) £23.71
NTL(TV) £30.50 (If your son is paying this why is it in the budget? I suggest ringing them and asking for some money off. Worth a try. Tell them you will switch. Same with the phone.)Mortgage £517.63
Personal Loan £229.82
British Gas £62.00
British Gas Electric £60.00
Mum & Dad[3] £50.00 (I think you should have a word and cancel this for a while and put it towards the debt with the highest APR, i.e. have a look at snowballing - more details below.)Nor Union (Life ins) £22.94
Direct Line (Hse ins) £32.65
Council tax £113.00
Total £1271.94

Others

CC min payments £68.86
Food £300.00 (Cut this down - visit the Old style forum on this site for more information.)
Fags[4] £160.00 (Ditch - I know it will be hard but ask her to visit her GP for FREE help.)
Lottery[5] £8.67 (Ditch - this equates to over £100 a year and will in effect cost you more because of the interest rates on your debts.)
House maintenance £80.00
Fuel £50.00
Total £667.53

Total expenses £1939.47

Surplus £12.24

[1] Transfer to savings account to cover quarterly & yearly bills:
TV licence, Car Tax, Car Insurance, ISP, Breakdown recovery (Why is your ISP a quarterly or yearly bill? Who is providing the service? Can't you get it through ntl?)

[2] Service charge gives a slightly lower O/D interest rate.

[3] I can stop & start this as needed, don’t you just love parents?!?

[4] I’ve quit and herself has gone on to roll-ups & cut down significantly.

[5] I know, I know. Just can’t help myself!

Debt at the end of May 2006:
(Re-listed in order of priority if you are to try the 'snowballing' technique. Have you heard of this? I will definately help crystalise everything, targeting your debt repayments efficiently etc, and will even give you a Debt Free Date! Have a look at http://www.whatsthecost.co.uk/snowball.aspx for more information)

Creditor, Amount, Limit, APR
CITI Credit Card, £807.35, £2,710.00, 20.7% (20.7% :eek: You have got to knock this one on the head!)
RBS O/D 2, £1695.19, £1800.00, 13.9%
RBS O/D 1, £184.99, £1000.00, 10.6%
Mint Credit Card, £1315.10, £3,000.00, 10.0%
Abbey O/D, £524.50, £1500.00, 9.9%, (If depositing >£1000)
RBS Loan, £15000.00,, 7.7%, 84 Month term from Jan 2006
RBS Credit Card, £720.12, £1,000.00, 0.0% ('til August 06)
Mum & Dad, £3112.10,, 0.0%

Gas, £113.50
Electric, £316.16Total £23789.01

The RBS loan is a lengthy saga in it’s own right, I’ve no idea how to calculate an early settlement figure & we’ve only had it a few months so it’s unlikely to be worthwhile anyway (would be nice to know what the formula is ‘tho, anyone?). (I thought you would just ring them up and they would give you the figure? Am I right?)

Initial thoughts and ideas:
Could you get an additional wage to pull in some more cash?

With two adults and two teenage boys in the house I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff in the house to sell (i.e. like do you need SIX pc's for instance?) Try selling on Ebay and try books, cds, and dvds on Amazon. If after this you have any tat left then do a carboot sale - fun for all the family!

Check to see if you are claiming all the benefits you may be entitled to by checking out https://www.entitledto.co.uk

Erm First Direct offer a £50 incentive for opening one of their current accounts. Open an account pay in your wages, get the incentive, then close account. Ruthless I know but needs must!

And don't worry we won't berate you - we've all been there - and that's why we are here!

Good luck - keep us updated!

Annie

tyllwyd

andystev wrote:

ING Direct transfer[1] £51.00

[1] Transfer to savings account to cover quarterly & yearly bills:
TV licence, Car Tax, Car Insurance, ISP, Breakdown recovery

How do you get on with this savings account? Does the £51 cover all those bills? Anything left over?

andystev

ING Direct transfer[1] £51.00 I think the priority is paying off debts at the moment. Martin Lewis has written an article on this whole subject - particularly look at 'Are you ready to start saving?'

See previous post. It’s to cover non monthly bills, not really savings. I put a monthly amount out of the way to make sure they’re covered.

Service Charge[2] £12.00 (For a slightly lower interest rate on your overdraft? Sounds like a total rip off especially when you can get ODs on 0% APR for a year, i.e. I hope you get the A&L overdraft! Ditch.)

Indeed. Paperwork came through for the A&L account today. The O/D is £600.00, but they do state to call once the account’s open & they may be able to match existing limits. I believe to qualify for this I need to have been in credit at some point fairly recently, but I hopeful I may be able to negotiate something workable. I’d dearly like to bin RBS.

NTL(TV) £30.50 (If your son is paying this why is it in the budget? I suggest ringing them and asking for some money off. Worth a try. Tell them you will switch. Same with the phone.)

I’ve included it ‘cos I pay the DD, he pays as part of his rent: Rent £50.00, NTL £30.00. Yes, I do intend to call NTL & talk reduction. I just need to get my head round what the other options are first.

Mum & Dad[3] £50.00 (I think you should have a word and cancel this for a while and put it towards the debt with the highest APR, i.e. have a look at snowballing - more details below.)

Yup, done that now.

Food £300.00 (Cut this down - visit the Old style forum on this site for more information.)

Cracking forum! Some brilliant ideas, thanks… I’ve already started getting fruit, veg, meat & fish from the market. Coffee now comes from poundland (I had no idea we spent so much on coffee! Halving the cost of a jar of coffee saves £30.00 a month!). Thing is, with herself not quite at full strength on the light bulb, shopping is one of my more err, interesting, challenges to cut back on.

Fags[4] £160.00 (Ditch - I know it will be hard but ask her to visit her GP for FREE help.)

Fair comment, no argument from me. If you’d like to pop round & explain it to her that’d be great. I’ll be over there, behind the riot shield Honestly, that one’s a step too far at the minute.

Lottery[5] £8.67 (Ditch - this equates to over £100 a year and will in effect cost you more because of the interest rates on your debts.)

Yes, I know. It’s my bugbear this one. I can’t bring myself to cancel it. I’ve had the same numbers Weds & Sat almost since the lottery started. I could neither face myself if the numbers came up & I’d not bought a ticket or prevent myself from checking. It must be a closet sadomasochistic tendency I need to build up to this somehow.

(Why is your ISP a quarterly or yearly bill? Who is providing the service? Can't you get it through ntl?)

It’s not really an ISP, I pay £15.00 a year for a roaming email account that I can access from any ISP. I find it very useful & the hassle of re-subscribing & notifying involved with changing my email address is probably worth £15.00 a year not to.

Re-listed in order of priority if you are to try the 'snowballing' technique.

Hopefully the I.F. balance transfer card will ease the interest burden on the credit cards. Sent the paperwork back this weekend, just waiting for the card to arrive. Thanks for the link, looks useful, I’ll have a proper play with it after work.

(I thought you would just ring them up and they would give you the figure? Am I right?)

I’m sure you are. I was just wondering if anyone knew the formula, I seem to remember it has something to do with no more than 2 months interest, but I’m not sure. Just trying to save a phone call really.

Could you get an additional wage to pull in some more cash?

Working on this. Too soon to tell if it’ll bear fruit.

I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff in the house to sell

LOL! You have no idea. This place is full of junk! How saleable any of it is I’m not sure. In the process of sorting.

Check to see if you are claiming all the benefits you may be entitled to by checking out https://www.entitledto.co.uk

I will, thank you, looks useful. Even if there’s nothing to be claimed, at least I’ll know.

Erm First Direct offer a £50 incentive for opening one of their current accounts. Open an account pay in your wages, get the incentive, then close account. Ruthless I know but needs must!

Just applied for IF credit card and A&L current account. Don’t want another credit search for a little while. If the offer’s still going next month I’ll probably be up for it ‘tho.

Good luck - keep us updated!

Thank you Annie, I will. You reply has been marvellous, I really appreciate you taking the time.

andystev

How do you get on with this savings account? Does the £51 cover all those bills? Anything left over?

The account’s reasonably easy to set up & still gives ok interest, but I’m not really using it as a savings vehicle at the moment, more of a holding pattern. Linking accounts to transfer money too is a bit of a pain, you have to send a cheque, payable to yourself. But once it’s set up I find it works really well. On line access if well laid out.

The £51.00 covers what the cost was last year, so it may be over or under by a little, depend on quote for car insurance mostly.

tawnyowls

andystev wrote:

It’s not really an ISP, I pay £15.00 a year for a roaming email account that I can access from any ISP. I find it very useful & the hassle of re-subscribing & notifying involved with changing my email address is probably worth £15.00 a year not to.

Can understand that. However, if it's actually having an email account that you can keep if you change ISPs rather than the ability to access it anywhere that you really want, then you could get a domain name off somewhere like https://www.123reg.co.uk for about 3 quid a year and then have it forwarded to the email your ISP provides. Change ISP, change address your email is forwarded to - as far as anyone emailing you is concerned, you address is still the same.

Annie_Fanny wrote:

[
Could you get an additional wage to pull in some more cash?

Agree. In fact, how about getting the boys to help out with this?

As for the other advice, definitely clear CCs, even if it means sacrificing savings to do so.
Sell all you can (it's amazing what stuff people will buy!).
Definitely get Economy 7 - just ring the leccy company up and they should send someone out within a few days. Then invest in some timer plugs (usually about £10 for four in discount stores) and set the washing machine, tumble drier and dishwasher to come on after midnight.
Maybe also think of getting the sort of surge protector that switches off everything connected to it with just one switch for the PCs (and yes, I echo the thought of why so many?? There are only 4 of you; you can't possibly use all 6 all at the same time
Could the OH at least cut down a bit more even if she can't give up - 160 quid seems a heck of a lot? It's your kids' health at stake here too - maybe you could agree that she has to go outside to smoke, which should help make it less attractive and protect the kids too?

andystev

…domain name off somewhere like https://www.123reg.co.uk for about 3 quid a year and then have it forwarded to the email your ISP provides.

Cool, thanks I’ll look into that.

Definitely get Economy 7

Already have a dual rate meter. The dishwasher has its own timer, which is nice, but I’m going to need a timer for the washing machine. I’ve also made a rule that the dishwasher only runs once, overnight. When it’s full the rest has to be done the old fashioned way. Really unhappy kids!

…I echo the thought of why so many??[PC’s]

It does seem excessive doesn’t it… The boys have one each, I’ve got a main PC & server for the home network as well as 2 “play” PC’s. This has been rationalised now, only the server’s on permanently now. I’m looking at selling the 2 extra, but they’re old machines, not really worth much.

Could the OH at least cut down a bit more even if she can't give up - 160 quid seems a heck of a lot?

To be fair, she has cut down, she went on to rollups mid last month, prior to that we spent £300.00+ on fags. The £160.00 in the budget is a guesstimate as I’ve nothing historical to base it on. Could well be less than this. As to asking her to smoke outside, I’m afraid I’m not that brave

Thanks tawnyowls, some good ideas. Much appreciated.