My SOA - Any comments welcomed

melou

Hi,

I wondered if some of you could look over my SOA. I am in debt. Enough to frighten me personally, but not much in comparison to some of the brave people on here. My lightbulb is flashing at a rate of knots as I am about to leave full time paid employment to pursue my dream career, part-time and on a contract basis and while it will definitely increase my current salary (even on a part time basis) because it is contract I need to have a safety savings net incase it slows down. I also need to take several courses over the next 2 years to progress my career and these will be funded by me – so more savings needed. And at the moment its just not happening. So advice would be welcomed.

Items in italics are my share of bills which I split with my OH. We are a household of 2 + large cat

Income

Take home pay £1752.00


Outgoings

Rent £300
Water (supply & waste) Unknown (Not had first bill yet – but they are installing a meter)
Council tax £62
Gas £10
Electricity £10
Building and contents insurance £8
Internet and Telephone £16
Mobiles £32.50 (just had to upgrade to a phone for work so some will be claimed back on expenses)
TV licence £5
Medical/accident insurance £52 will be stopping after the 14th of July as it is work connected and I am leaving)
Fares and travel £300 (will be £188.25 next month as I am going part time)
Food, toiletries & cleaning £90
Meals at work £10 – we do mostly packed lunches thanks to this board, Phew! But occasionally will not have had time to do something that day or the night before.
Pet food/insurance £10 (approx)
Clothing and footwear £100 (I know, I have to stop – I have started buying on ebay)
Hairdressing & Treatments £42.60 (I have a client facing job and have to look “groomed” at all times)
Laundry/dry cleaning £12 (I only do 4 items per month on the Morrisons special offer)
Sports, hobbies and entertainment £18.42
Eating out/take aways £60 (drastically reduced from previously)
Cleaner £32 (again – I know but both my OH and I work every hour God sends and I would lose the will to live if I then had to spend what little spare time I have cleaning the house)
Amazon DVD rental membership £4.99 (cancelling this weekend)


CC1 18.9% £1,397.84
CC2 29.9% £793.40

I have just been turned down for a post office visa card and a smile visa card so no chance of doing a BT on these sums.

I pay £225 to these cards each month the amount paid to each varies according to the snowball calculator

So, total outgoings: £1400.51 I should have loads left but…

I am starting a spending diary today because from the budget planner and from my SOA I should not be absolutely penniless each month.

I am well aware that I am in a much more fortunate position than most and I have been beavering away MSE style in the last couple of months to reduce my outgoings to their current state. I know there are obvious saves (clothes, going out) but I wonder if I am missing any other small things?

TIA

Melou

lynzpower

Hello love :wave:

As I see it with your cancellations and other efforts you will have a spare 250 ish to throw at your debts.

Also as you are going part time, surely you will be able to forego your cleaner? It is effectively like paying your cleaner on your credit card as you have CC debts. No one is saying its forever, you can restart later if you are busy and brining more money in.

How much will your new salary be ( at a guess?)

Mrs_Sparkle

Hello! I too have essential hairdresser spending that I won't/can't compromise on (if I go to a cheaper salon the colour looks rubbish after 3 weeks and the style grows out quickly- false economy).

The things that I'd say would be good to cut are the cleaner and the new clothes. I work full-time and would dearly love to have a cleaner so that my time at home is my own, however I just can't justify it. Unless you've got a huge house it shouldn't take you more than 4 hours a week to do a thorough clean and if you break that down into different tasks on different days you don't notice it as much.

I can really sympathise with the clothes spend- this is a big weakness of mine. One thing you could probably do though is go through your wardrobe and pull out any clothes or shoes you no longer wear and stick them on eBay if they're in decent condition. The money you get from selling stuff will soon add up in your PayPal account then you can have guilt-free spending on new stuff.

Good luck!

melou

Hi Lynz,

Thank you so much for your reply. I think it should be another £400ish before tax, it really depends on the hours I work. There is also the possibility that I might be able to pick up additional work from my current employer on an ad hoc 1 day a week basis. Which will boost things a bit further.

I think I am just a bit nervous about the switch from permanent to contract.

Thanks again,

Melou

melou

Hi Mrs Sparkle,

I had thought about putting them on ebay - I've only just started using it (with the help of the people on the MSE ebay board!). But I haven't quite worked out the whole selling thing yet. I was going to start taking photos of items to sell this weekend and work out the whole selling thing. It may be my salvation!

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond!

Melou

LizD_2

hi

have you thought about maybe switching to a mobile hairdresser or going to student nights? and also maybe you could see if a local college has a beauty therapy school? the sudents would practise on you, but they are usually fully supervised. i understand how you feel about changing, but you could try it and go back to your usual place if it doesn't work out

good luck

lynzpower

Melou

Its a 5p buy it now day today- maybe you can get a couple of things up??

Wonder_Girl

lynzpower wrote:

Melou

Its a 5p buy it now day today- maybe you can get a couple of things up??

Woooooooooooo :D

*logs into Ebay*

lynzpower

OOoh I hadnt looked at how that re-read lol

Wonder_Girl

lynzpower wrote:

OOoh I hadnt looked at how that re-read lol

Having used Ebay for a long time i knew what you really meant!

I have been waiting to sell some stuff that i was going to put on at the weekend but thanks to you it's going on today

lynzpower

did you get my email BTW wonder girl? Was it ok ?