Sillyrabbit's facing-up-to-it-properly diary

sillyrabbit

Today's extra bonus - I calculated what we owed on the loans wrong, and we owe less! Instead of a total debt of just under £125K it is actually £121,429 and this will reduce slightly on Monday when the loan payments/mortgage payment comes out of the account

Simple pleasures, and all that! Going to try and work out my current DFD without paying anything extra and scare myself.

sillyrabbit

Just done a new SOA based on current salary and I'm surprised. I think I'm missing something but can't see what it is!!

WARNING - long post as I'm typing out what I'm thinking and working out a plan!

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 3

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1100
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1190
Benefits................................ 293
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2583

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 461
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 96
Electricity............................. 76
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 98.5
Telephone (land line)................... 33
Mobile phone............................ 35
TV Licence.............................. 11.61
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 80
Clothing................................ 10
Petrol/diesel........................... 140
Road tax................................ 38
Car Insurance........................... 127
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 40
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 433
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 30
Buildings insurance..................... 44
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 11.5
Other insurance......................... 12.61
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 45
Haircuts................................ 2
Entertainment........................... 50
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1884.22


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 120000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 4000
Other assets............................ 2000
Total Assets............................ 126000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 100783...(461)......3
Total secured & HP debts...... 100783....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
DFS............................720.......32.73.....0
HFC loan.......................7076......212.......19.9
HSBC loan......................4545......199.1.....11.9
Argos..........................500.......0.........0
Mum (car loan).................4100......0.........0
HSBC OD........................1400......0.........0
Halifax OD.....................2500......0.........0
Total unsecured debts..........20841.....443.83....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,583
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,884.22
Available for debt repayments........... 698.78
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 443.83
Amount left after debt repayments....... 254.95

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 126,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -100,783
Total Unsecured debt.................... -20,841
Net Assets.............................. 4,376

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using Firefox browser.

The way I see, the things that aren't linked to a DD/SO montly spends are:

Groceries - 80
Clothing - 10
Petrol/Diesel - 140
Road tax - 38
Car maintenence - 40
Medical - 10
Vet bills - 10
Presents - 45
Haircuts - 2 (allowed myself 2 haircuts a year at £10 each)
Entertainment - 50

Total - £425

DDs/SOs already accounted for:

Mortgage - 461
Council tax - 96
Elec/Gas - 76
Water - 98.50
Phone/TV/BB - 33
Mobiles - 35
TV licence - 11.61
Car/bike insurances - 127
Childcare - 433
Pet insurance - 20
Buildings/contents insurance - 44
Life insurance - 11.50
Home care insurance - 12.61
DFS - 32.73
HFC loan - 212
HSBC loan - 200

Total DDs/SOs monthly payments - £1904, rounding up to the pound

Total income ATM is £2583
Total spends based on above is £2329

That actually leaves me £254 a month "spare" and I'm even accounting for putting money aside for Christmas! (The SOA told me that amount but I had to work it out above to make sure it was right LOL)

Really am pleased and surprised at that. That means I can split that between the other loans we need to start paying off and start to get somewhere -

Halifax OD - 50
HSBC OD - 50
Mum - 100
Argos - 50

Total - £250

Once I go back to work we'll also have a further £300 a month to throw at the loans, or perhaps I might add an "emergency" payment to the separate account, just to give some leaway.

Oh, this has REALLY given me hope and when I lay it out for hubby tomorrow he should realise we CAN do this!! Woop woop! I think the most sensible thing would be to get the benefits paid into a savings account to cover the "extras" like tax, vets etc we need to start allowing for (£293). I need to leave the money for groceries and perhaps entertainment in the spending accountm plus petrol, clothes and haircuts - £282 a month. How to work this... hmmmm!

OK, perhaps all benefits into the spending account, then set up a SO to put £10 a month over into savings. Hubby's wages already put £100 a week over to cover my salary shortfall (plus £100 that goes direct to nursery) which I have just worked out needs to be about £86 instead, but I'm going to leave it as £100 to cover any amounts not accounted for, like an increased DD or something.

So that leaves, I think, the remaining approx £250 a month to go towards the other debts - I'm going to set up SOs each month for money to come off the ODs, money to go to the Argos card and money to mum.

Action points, so I don't forget (as it's 2am!!!):

• Get hubby to call DFS finance people and change account to A&L (Monday)
• [STRIKE]Redirect £100 payment from hubby's wages from Halifax to A&L (tomorrow - Sunday)[/STRIKE] Done
• [STRIKE]Get both benefit payments paid into HSBC spends account. (Monday)[/STRIKE] Done
• [STRIKE]Set up £10 monthly SO from HSBC spends into HSBC saves. (do tomorrow - start as of next Friday 5th March as hubby gets paid on fridays)[/STRIKE] Done
• Set up monthly SOs from HSBC spends - [STRIKE]£100 to Halifax OD[/STRIKE], [STRIKE]£100 to mum[/STRIKE] and £50 to argos. (can do this now but need to leave this a month to allow enough money to have accrued, so from 26th March) Partly done - need other details

Well done if you go this far, and at least I can now sleep easy knowing it's all allowed for with some leaway. Also going to put a)the £200 cheques and £100 CB I get into HSBC saves ready for the extra I know are coming.

Just got to explain it to hubby now LOL

Edit - decided to put all the OD payments into Halifax first as it's a horrible stupid charge and I want rid of it!

sillyrabbit

Oh, and have emailed my boss to rearrange holiday etc so that I'm still returning to work at the same time but having about a month's less mat leave - this means back to normal salary earlier!

1666hby

Well done so far. But do you really spend only £80 a month on groceries - food, toiletries, cleaning products - with four of you in the household?
Sounds more like the weekly spend to me, but very happy to be proved wrong.

sillyrabbit

Hiya - well, we've done a basic shopping list of everything we need in the house at any one time and all I'm going to do each week is top up with anything we've run out of or are getting low on. It works out to about £18 a week that I've allowed us - this week (yesteday) I spent £13.19 and today hubby is going to pick up some milk. My cost included formula! We've got loads of toilet rolls upstairs from a previous macro shop, quite a few nappies, shower gel, shampoo, toothpaste etc in the cupboard too so we shouldn't have to buy any of those for a while.

And if we do, I'll try out Lidl stuff and make sure we don't buy it all at once! So, yes, I do think it's doable - we've got loads of meat/fish in the freezer to use up and I'm a big fan of the slow cooker so we're getting lots of nice home made meals too, which last a couple of days in different forms!

sillyrabbit

Spends for today so far - 50p on mother's day card online, and £1.49 for a 2nd one (from the girls to their nanny and grandma). Hubby got £20 cash out as he was going to a carboot but only spent £1.51 of it. We'll save that cash to either go towards petrol or for the shop next week.

Edited to add a further £10 spend on body shop bits as they have a deal online ending today - £25 worth of stuff for £10 inc delivery! Mother's day pressie sorted.

sillyrabbit

Another update for today - hubby reminded me that we owe his brother in law £500 for a fishing trip that he paid for so got to account for that too Never mind, got to be done. We've agreed that we'll knock the Halifax OD payment down to £50, and not pay the Argos card £50 for 5 months (when they need the money by) and then they'll have £500 by July before they go on their hols. At that point we can up the payments to the OD and start paying the Argos card too. I'll have more money available then as I'll have my normal salary so may even be able to pay the Argos card off in a couple of payments!

Have worked out our unsecured DFD to be October 2011 - much sooner than I thought. After that, an approx mortgage free date if we plow the debt payment money into it would be 2018! Here's hoping I can knock that down even more, but not sure how much we will be able to overpay by and whether we'll *have* to move before that point and get a higher mortgage.

sillyrabbit

Today's update - we all went to the dentist, DD1 was fab and did everything she was supposed to (she's only 3!), my teeth were absolutely fine and only needed a slight stain polished off the front, and hubby's weren't actually that bad - he just needs to have a filling on top of an old one next monday to hold it together.

Bonus today - I'm still exempt from charges at the dentist! Hubby found a £2 coin in his pocket so we've put that with the cash saved for petrol, and as I had not had to spend money on my teeth we went and got a subway meal to share between us then picked up a couple of bits in Tesco.

Total spends today so far - £17.84 so just over the £16.50 my teeth would have cost.

sillyrabbit

Have now got a fab spreadsheet to keep track of DDs and regular transfers from both the accounts so I know as long as I enter each payment as it comes out, it'll tell me what's left in each account, how much we've spent of the various budgets each month, and also tallies up what hasn't been spent of the budgets too so I know if I can buy someone a present or not, or afford my tax!

sillyrabbit

Doing the delicate money shuffle today to try and balance everything out and not go into the OD on the hsbc spending account! Planned spending is £50 over known income for March so going to have to be very careful!! Got hubby's bike work to pay for too, so not really sure how I'm going to do that yet. Will probably have to take it out of the DD account unless some other money comes in.

Have got a small amount of gold to sell, which might net me a few quid but not much. Waiting for £50 of cashback, plus at least £100 more that is supposed to be ready but isn't yet - grrrr!