My SOA. Any suggestions?

cowshed-76

Hi everybody.

I joined the forums about two weeks ago and have been browsing the main site for much longer. I've now got around to doing my SOA. I'm not too worried about my debt althogh i was brought up in the "Old fashioned way" of if you don't have the money don't spend it! In my adult life i've gone off the beaten path a little and now I believe I will be much happier without the debt in the back of my mind. About 12 months ago I topped up a loan to help pay for our Wedding. (previously for cars, as a young bad male driver!!!)

Any suggestions to help get this paid off quicker will be most welcome.

Income
Salaries £1500 pm
Benefits £100 pm

Outgoing
rent £360
Council tax £122
Water £22
Gas £42
Elec £24.50
BT phone £28
Mobile £30
tv licence £11
home ins £ 9.78
Broadband £18
Bunk beds £25
Fuel £110
Shopping £200 (grey area)
Natwest loan £241.40
Credit cards £80

total: 1325 apx.

I have made some changes to start with. Sky digital, cancelled. going off on the 10th of August.

Spoke to "talktalk" about combining phone & broadband, potential to save £17pm

One CC is on 0% the other balance I am going to mave to a new card asap. I'm thinking Barclycard with the 10month 0% offer.

Thanks in advance & loking forward to your suggestions.

**purpleprincess**

Hiya!! Welcome!! :wave: you look like you're on the right track with sorting things out. Could you also post your debts and the apr's and minimum payments on your SOA, see the sticky for first time posters. Food is an area you could cut down on, see the Old Style board for ideas. Fuel is quite high, could this be cut down?

lynsayjane

cowshed-76 wrote:

Outgoing
rent £360
Council tax £122
Water £22
Gas £42 seems rather high, try uswitch then change thru quidco
Elec £24.50again you could try switching, but this looks not bad
BT phone £28what do you get for this? having mobile too seems excessive
Mobile £30cut down to minimum on contract or maybe try payg and only use when totally necessary
tv licence £11
home ins £ 9.78
Broadband £18
Bunk beds £25how much do you have to repay/term?
Fuel £110seems excessive, can you walk more places etc
Shopping £200 (grey area)am sure this can be sut down
Natwest loan £241.40
Credit cards £80

congratulations on the changes you've already made, hurts cutting sky off don't it? mine ends on the 4th

i've popped a few thoughts on your soa, hope they are of some use to you.

CLAPTON

your SoA seems a bit light in some areas

how many are there in the family...is no one else working?

you have fuel (petrol?) at 110 ...is it a company car as you have nothing in for car tax/insurance/AA/RAC/servicing etc.
you have nothing for xmas/presents/clothes/going out/takeaways/lunches at work , holidays, sports, etc etc.
your SoA shows a monthly surplus of 275 ...is that what happens in practice?

cowshed-76

CLAPTON wrote:

your SoA seems a bit light in some areas

how many are there in the family...is no one else working?

you have fuel (petrol?) at 110 ...is it a company car as you have nothing in for car tax/insurance/AA/RAC/servicing etc.
you have nothing for xmas/presents/clothes/going out/takeaways/lunches at work , holidays, sports, etc etc.
your SoA shows a monthly surplus of 275 ...is that what happens in practice?

Oh yeah, well spoted.

I do a 30 mile round trip to work each day. My car uses about £20 per week on fuel, I do drive more economically now and the fuel bill is still the same. It's my car and i do very little maintainance on it, father in law is a mechanic and he sorts out any repairs for us.

The surplus must be going on food, & clothes for the wife & kids(2). We have cut right back on takeaways recently and maybe have 1 a month, Car tax & insurance i seem to just manage with when they come around somehow!

Birthday, Christmas etc. Again I don't budget for at the moment, we just manage.

Thanks

cowshed-76

**purpleprincess** wrote:

Hiya!! Welcome!! :wave: you look like you're on the right track with sorting things out. Could you also post your debts and the apr's and minimum payments on your SOA, see the sticky for first time posters. Food is an area you could cut down on, see the Old Style board for ideas. Fuel is quite high, could this be cut down?

Hi & thanks.

My debts are listed in my sig. Are they ok there?

loobyloo1980

cowshed-76 wrote:

Oh yeah, well spoted.

I do a 30 mile round trip to work each day. My car uses about £20 per week on fuel, I do drive more economically now and the fuel bill is still the same. It's my car and i do very little maintainance on it, father in law is a mechanic and he sorts out any repairs for us.

The surplus must be going on food, & clothes for the wife & kids(2). We have cut right back on takeaways recently and maybe have 1 a month, Car tax & insurance i seem to just manage with when they come around somehow!

Birthday, Christmas etc. Again I don't budget for at the moment, we just manage.

Thanks

Well that probably explains where the surplus goes

I didn't used to budget for birthdays, clothes etc either, but you really need to if you want to have any chance of keeping your spending under control. I find now that if I just go and buy clothes I can spend a fortune, but if I know I only have say £50 to spend, I take more notice of what I am picking up. Birthdays and Christmas can really run away with money. I had my son's birthday presents to buy yesterday and came in just under budget by about £3 - yet a couple of years ago I would have spent way over.

There is a link above to national debtline and on their website there is a good example of costs to include for clothes and food per person etc. It gives you something to work on. Also includes car costs, such as how much to save for tax etc. Hope that helps.

CLAPTON

you need to budget for absolutely everything so you can see whether you are overspending or under spending and if so by how much. with the greatest respect to you, you dont 'just manage ...for car tax, xmas etc'... you borrow the money instead.

so you and OH need to start a spending diary and really find out where the money actually goes. also sit down with OH and look at all the one off spend and yearly spends...(xmas, kids birthdays are NOT a surprise etc) ..for these you need to divide by 12 and add to your SoA...you are going to have to save up these amounts each month until you need to spend them.

once you have prepared a complete SoA and see the amount of overspending you can decide what stays, what goes and what gets reduced.

can you increase your family income...can you work overtime or you/OH get a parttime /evening/weekend job ... a few hundred extra would make a real difference to the debt reduction.

luckylukey

cowshed-76 wrote:

Hi & thanks.

My debts are listed in my sig. Are they ok there?

what are the terms of your loan? And you say that one cc is 0% which one is it and what rate is the other CC at currently?

cowshed-76

luckylukey wrote:

what are the terms of your loan? And you say that one cc is 0% which one is it and what rate is the other CC at currently?

Ok, sure. My loan is with Natwest at 6.9% (I think, Will check tonight)and was a 60month loan. 13 down 47 to go...

The Natwest cc is 0% & the capital one card is @ 16.9%!!!

Thanks

all_hours

What's the credit limit on the natwest card? How long is the 0% period for? You could contact them - ask them to increase your limit + transfer what you can off capital one.

Check if you can over pay on the loan.