Statement of affairs need help

heeeeellllllppppp

I am up to my neck in it. I borrowed money on credit cards to do up my house.
0% cards seemed like a good idea at the time a cheap way to borrow. Now I can't get anymore 0% cards and I am having to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week just to keep my head above water.
My wife is getting depressed from never having any money to buy new clothes for her and the kids.
My statement of affairs that i have pasted below is my circumstances if I don't get any extra work. If I do get extra, its about £500 a month after tax.
Not sure how to get out of this, an IVA? Bankruptcy?
I'm sooo tired of this, I don't know what to do.

Please help.
Oh and I have a hole in my flat roof, so I now have a sheet of polythene over the roof keeping the rain out

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information[/b]
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2192
Partners monthly income after tax....... 700
Benefits................................ 132.8
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3024.8

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1112
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 110
Electricity............................. 90
Gas..................................... 24
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 48
Telephone (land line)................... 16
Mobile phone............................ 40
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 20
Internet Services....................... 15
Groceries etc. ......................... 600
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 240
Road tax................................ 35
Car Insurance........................... 50
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 51
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 13
Contents insurance...................... 12
Life assurance ......................... 39
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 67
Haircuts................................ 30
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2674.12


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 190000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1900
Other assets............................ 200
Total Assets............................ 192100


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 169500...(1112).....5.69%
Total secured & HP debts...... 169500....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Smile Visa.....................10860.....218.......19.9%
Virgin Mastercard..............17890.....225.......17.9%
Barclaycard....................2700......60........18.9%
Total unsecured debts..........31450.....503.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,024.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,674.12
Available for debt repayments........... 350.68
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 503
Amount short for making debt repayments. -152.32

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 192,100
Total HP & Secured debt................. -169,500
Total Unsecured debt.................... -31,450
Net Assets.............................. -8,850

pure_dead_dopey

Hi

I am sure there will be more experienced people along shortly but I can see that there are quite a few ways you could save money on your SOA. Your groceries are quite high (mine for four adults used to be this high and are now around £320), lots of things you can do there to save some money, drop a brand, batch cook, look at special offers, I have taken to shopping in Aldi, always pretty good and then you get to do the trolley challenge at the checkout. I would also check that you are getting the best poss price on your utilities and insurances and things like mobiles, use the comparison sites and a cashback site like Quidco which is amazing. Wish I had known about it before. I don't think you are at the stage of bankruptcy but it is really good that you realised you have a problem now and are addressing it. I'm sure you will be able to overcome this. Good luck

Tixy

Hi and welcome
Well done for taking that first big step and posting your statement of affairs. I see it shows you are £152 short for debt repayments each month so I'll look through your figures to suggest some places you may be able to make up that amount.

heeeeellllllppppp wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information[/b]
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2192
Partners monthly income after tax....... 700 is OH entitled to any working tax credits? could she increase her hours at all?
Benefits................................ 132.8
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3024.8

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1112 Is this interest only or repayment
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 110
Electricity............................. 90 this looks really high - do you have arrears? have you checked that your readings are actual not estimated? are you with the cheapest supplier? have you tried to reduce your usage?
Gas..................................... 24
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 48
Telephone (land line)................... 16
Mobile phone............................ 40
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 20
Internet Services....................... 15 Overall for landline & internet you are paying £31, you may be able to get a cheaper package (talktalk have an £19 one I think, or maybe you can combine with satellie tv)
Groceries etc. ......................... 600 This is really high, you can easily make some substantial cutbacks here, most people on here would consider £400 a lot for a family of 4 (quite a lot manage on £200). Do you buy a lot of pre-prepared foods/ready meals? does it include a lot of alcohol or cigs in this amount? Try meal planning for the week ahead before you shop, and try the drop a brand challenge.
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 240 seems high, do you have a long commute?
Road tax................................ 35
Car Insurance........................... 50
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 51
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 13
Contents insurance...................... 12
Life assurance ......................... 39
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 67 you could cut back a little
Haircuts................................ 30
Entertainment........................... 0 never do anything at all? days out with kids, trip to pub etc?
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2674.12


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 190000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1900
Other assets............................ 200
Total Assets............................ 192100


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 169500...(1112).....5.69%
Total secured & HP debts...... 169500....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Smile Visa.....................10860.....218.......19.9%
Virgin Mastercard..............17890.....225.......17.9%
Barclaycard....................2700......60........18.9%
Total unsecured debts..........31450.....503.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,024.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,674.12
Available for debt repayments........... 350.68
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 503
Amount short for making debt repayments. -152.32

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 192,100
Total HP & Secured debt................. -169,500
Total Unsecured debt.................... -31,450
Net Assets.............................. -8,850

Well things don't actually look that bad, you should be able to reduce your costs to meet than £152 shortfall. If it seems like you are short by more than £152 a month then try keeping a reallu detailed spending diary for a couple of months, people often forget to factor in things like buying lunch at work, grabbing a coffee on the go, newspapers, lottery tickets, etc.

You certainly are not at a stage to be thinking about bankruptcy or an IVA, in fact I very much doubt you would qualify as for either of these you are expected to live on a fairly tight budget and so your grocery spend would be adjusted down, thereby it would appear that you can meet your payments.

Things might feel scary but if you start a spending diary and keep comparing what you are actually spending each month to this budget you should be able to make some headway with your debts. When you get extra money perhaps throw half at your debt repayments and half for an emergency fund for things like to roof/house repairs etc.

Good luck

heeeeellllllppppp

Thanks for your suggestions
I spend ages trying to get the best deal on the utilities and insurance.
We do try to do as much shopping around as we can. We have two dogs that add to the food bill.
I try to keep the heating and electric use as low as possible (not easy with two kids that like to watch tv and play on the wii).
My garden is like a derlict waste ground, one of my dogs likes destroying anything remotely shreddable, shrubs, toys, trees, paddling pool etc.
I would find a home for the dogs but for one it would break the kids hearts and one of the dogs is 17 and I don't think he'll be around much longer

pure_dead_dopey

Oh heeelp, no one would ever tell you to get rid of much loved dogs, but dogs can be fed pretty cheaply if you shop around, as well as my OH, myself and my two adult children, I also have a very large dog, I still feed all of us on around £320 by shopping around and doing the stuff suggested, so please don't worry about your dogs. They are are a really good help if you are stressed so do a bit of doggy cuddling.

Tixy

pure_dead_dopey wrote: »

Oh heeelp, no one would ever tell you to get rid of much loved dogs, but dogs can be fed pretty cheaply if you shop around, as well as my OH, myself and my two adult children, I also have a very large dog, I still feed all of us on around £320 by shopping around and doing the stuff suggested, so please don't worry about your dogs. They are are a really good help if you are stressed so do a bit of doggy cuddling.

Totally agree.

Debt_Free_Chick

Can you tell us more about your mortgage please? I'm paying less than £700 a month, interest only, for a mortgage of £300,000!!!! So your repayments seem way, way over the top.

Do you actually need two cars? Really ... could you rearrange your work/life commitments around one car only?

Groceries - even with two dogs, you could cut this dramatically.

The key thing however is ... where is your wife in all of this? Does she fully appreciate your financial situation? Your comment that she's "depressed" at having no new clothes suggests she is not fully in the picture - or, if she is, that she doesn't appreciate that she needs to compromise too. New clothes are really the least your (joint) worries. You need to make do, mend and find thrifty clothing options e.g. charity shops, jumble sales, school second-hand stalls. Before she "baulks" at this, I clearly remember sending five Cerruti suits to a local jumble sale about four years ago, so it's not as grim as she might imagine. The key is to visit jumble sales and charity shops in "affluent" areas, if she's interested in labelled stuff.

£30 a month, each and every month, seems a lot for haircuts, but it depends on what's being done and where. Is your wife having colours/foils or a cut more than every six weeks?

Presents and gifts at £67 per month is a massive £800 a year!!! Dropping it to £30 a month ought to deliver all that you need. If you're currently buying for extended family, then think about "cutting a deal" with them, whereby you both simply stop buying eachother a present. This worked in my family over 15 years ago, when everyone was relieved financially, but also as they didn't have the "what to buy" headache.

Post back and let us have some more information, please.

misscousinitt

Hi

Glad you have taken the first step and posted here...more people will be along to offer advice, but here are the things that leap out at me:

Electricity: This is really high - I understand that the kids want to play their games etc...but it could be as simple as getting them to make sure everything is turned off properly when they have finished. There are loads of tips on the OS boards for reducing your energy consumption. Read the meter (if you haven't already) and get a proper indication of how much you are using. Try to shop around again.

Groceries: WOW! Thats high. Its already been said, but meal planning, batch cooking etc... can really help. Check out the OS board for more hints and tips. So its not too much of a shock I'd try to cut this to £450 to start off with and work down from there.

Clothes: I know your OH is not happy about having much of a budget on this - but can this be cut for a little while to just essentials (maybe £25 pm). I cleared out my wardrobe before Christmas (as the rail had collapsed) and found that I had 13!!! Posh Dresses...I will not worry about buying another of those for a while. Look at what you have and make careful purchases!

Mobile: Can the package be reduced? Go PAYG? There are some good offers out there at the moment.

Presents: We buy for ALOT of people and our budget is £40 per month - so this could be reduced. There is lots of time to collect boots points, clubcard vouchers etc... to get 'free' presents for Christmas.

Hope this helps.

heeeeellllllppppp

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

Can you tell us more about your mortgage please? I'm paying less than £700 a month, interest only, for a mortgage of £300,000!!!! So your repayments seem way, way over the top.

Do you actually need two cars? Really ... could you rearrange your work/life commitments around one car only?

Groceries - even with two dogs, you could cut this dramatically.

The key thing however is ... where is your wife in all of this? Does she fully appreciate your financial situation? Your comment that she's "depressed" at having no new clothes suggests she is not fully in the picture - or, if she is, that she doesn't appreciate that she needs to compromise too. New clothes are really the least your (joint) worries. You need to make do, mend and find thrifty clothing options e.g. charity shops, jumble sales, school second-hand stalls. Before she "baulks" at this, I clearly remember sending five Cerruti suits to a local jumble sale about four years ago, so it's not as grim as she might imagine. The key is to visit jumble sales and charity shops in "affluent" areas, if she's interested in labelled stuff.

£30 a month, each and every month, seems a lot for haircuts, but it depends on what's being done and where. Is your wife having colours/foils or a cut more than every six weeks?

Presents and gifts at £67 per month is a massive £800 a year!!! Dropping it to £30 a month ought to deliver all that you need. If you're currently buying for extended family, then think about "cutting a deal" with them, whereby you both simply stop buying eachother a present. This worked in my family over 15 years ago, when everyone was relieved financially, but also as they didn't have the "what to buy" headache.

Post back and let us have some more information, please.

Hi, The mortgage is a repayment type, im locked into it until feb 2012 unless i pay £1900 early repayment fee. I did ask my current lender if I could change to an interest only option but seeing as I don't have a pension I will need some other way of eventually paying back the capital, an endowment or something similar.
We do need two cars, the kids go to school 3 miles away and there is no public transport to the school.
I have two jobs, one is local and I can ride my bicycle to it, but the other job is 65 miles away. My local job is weekends and the other is monday to friday.

The groceries, we all have packed lunches, my kids don't have school dinners. We do buy a bottle of wine and a bottle of vodka a week which is our only vice.
We don't go out often maybe, once a month tops we might go out to a pub for dinner with the family.
We buy a bulk bag of dog food 15kg for £8.99 (lasts about 4 weeks) and supplement with tinned dog food too, they have a tin a day between them.
We don't smoke.

My wife does fully appreciate the situation (thats why she's depressed!). We both work all the hours we can to try to make all the money we can, so when she does buy clothes its nornally at tesco when she does the shopping. Maybe why the grocery shop is so expensive!

I think the amount for haircuts is probably off, she doesn't go every month and she cuts my hair and the kids hair. I think that we will start the spending diaries to see where its all going.

I think your probably right about the presents. But we don't spend much on the extended family, just on our nieces and nephews. I didn't think that £100 on each person for christmas and birthday presents and cakes etc was excessive but there maybe some room for improvement. I'm not worried about getting presents.

I did forget to put down for kids pocket money and after school activities.
The pocket money is £1 a week for both of my kids and my boy does football which costs £5 a week and they both go swimming which is about £5 a week for the both of them.
I have cleared out and sold as much of our old things that we don't need anymore.

The electric is also made worse because we have electric under floor heating in 2 rooms. I'm not sure if it would be cheaper to put radiators in those two rooms run off the gas boiler, which is a condensing 98% effiecient boiler. (That system is £1800 of my debt)

Phew! hard work all this typing!!!
Anyway thanks for all the comments from everyone so far.

Frozenace

The mobile phone per month fee is also pretty high.

You could get a simplicity tariff for you and your wife and don't forget cash back...

i don't know, but 1 bottle of vodka sounds like a lot / week

Debt_Free_Chick

heeeeellllllppppp wrote: »

Hi, The mortgage is a repayment type, im locked into it until feb 2012 unless i pay £1900 early repayment fee. I did ask my current lender if I could change to an interest only option but seeing as I don't have a pension I will need some other way of eventually paying back the capital, an endowment or something similar.

Eventually you will need some way of paying back the capital, but if you went I/O for a short while (say, three years?) it will give you some breathing space with the debt. And you always have the option of downsizing at some point in the future. Switching to I/O as a temporary measure might be worth consideration .....? Provided there's no penalty fee to pay.

I think that we will start the spending diaries to see where its all going.

A really good idea :T