MeestaDimples SOA and SOS!

MeestaDimples

Hi guys,

After years of burying my head in the sand, I cannot cope any longer with the anxiety I feel when I think of my debts so have come here for help and advice. I made the mistake of consolidating debts 3 times which has pushed my total debt through the roof. At the time I thought consolidation was my only option, but it didn't change my spending habits and the more down I felt, the more I spent, spent, spent.

I don't use any of my credit anymore, and survive merely on the little cash I have which puts massive contraints on my lifestyle. I don't want a quick-fix-route and I don't want to do anything like a DMP or IVA; I simply want to pay what I owe fair and square. I'm looking for a new job in the hope of a better salary to chip away at my finances and think I have cut back everywhere I can. Anyway, here's my SOA:

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1,383

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - £375
Council Tax - £49
Gas - £12.5
Electric - £12.5
Water - £14
TV License - £5.50
Sky £10
Phone - £8
Food - £60
Sofa - £18 (finishes in February 2007)
Mobile - £36
Contact lenses - £10
Cahoot Flexible Loan - £176
HSBC Graduate Loan - £294
Virgin MBNA Credit card - £100

Total outgoings - £1,180.50

Cahoot Flexible Loan balance £8,627 (limit £8,900) APR 11.5%
HSBC Loan balance £22,064.44 APR 11.5% payment = £294 approx 6 years & 2 months left
Virgin Credit Card balance £4,852 (limit £7,000) APR 0% until Feb 2007

Total debt - £35,543.44

lynsayjane

MeestaDimples wrote:

Cahoot Flexible Loan balance £8,627 (limit £2,900) APR 11.5%

is this a boob or are you six grand over your limit?

firstly, hi and welcome to dfw! you seem to have things locked up fairly tight, my only thoughts are do you need the mobile so high when you have a house phone? i'd lower it to the minimum if you have a contract (this won't increase your term) or switch to payg.

are you contacts as low as you can get them cost wise? i think there are other threads on getting the cheapest...hopefully a contact user will be along shortly.

is it possible to pay off sofa quicker? i don't know if it would be worthwhile doing, but at least it would be one debt cleared and you can put that money towards your loans/cc's

how many do you feed for £60? you should be able to cut that down a bit with some meal planning or changing from brand names to savers items.

good luck x

black-saturn

Cant really see where you could reduce your outgoings unless you reduce the food bill a bit. Look on the Old Style board to find out more about cooking food from scratch.

loobyloo1980

Well your SOA seems pretty good actually but if my maths is right you seem to have about £200pcm 'spare' when you subtract your outgoings from your income. Is this spent on stuff like clothes, birthdays, etc? Or is it spare cash? If it is spare cash then you could be throwing extra at your debts every month with it. If it used for something like clothes etc, then you need to add it in to your budget to avoid overspending and cheating yourself into thinking you have spare money when you don't. Other than that, I can't really see where you could cut back. I think everything looks pretty reasonable.

Have you thought about snowballing your loans to see if you can pay them off more efficiently? Try https://www.whatsthecost.com (?) and see if you can save yourself some interest just by juggling how you pay your loans back. It has done wonders for me and brought my debt free date closer

cattie

If your food bill is for one person then it seems a little high. Take packed lunches to work to cut down on costs & ask any savvy friends and have a look on the OS board for ideas for cheap but tasty meals.

Try some of the cheaper supermarkets such as Lidl & Aldi, many of their items are excellent quality at a fraction of the prices charged by the major high street names.

If you cancelled Sky you would still retain the box & continue to get a few free channels with the card, or you could phone to cancel, giving the reason that it's just too expensive & they would probably offer you a reduction on the monthly cost for the next few months.

The only other area where you could cut costs seems to be with the mobile.

loobyloo1980

cattie wrote:

If you cancelled Sky you would still retain the box & continue to get a few free channels with the card

Are you sure? I know years ago you could watch some free channels without a subscription but if I take my card out now, I can't watch anything on Sky I have to admit that is one reason why I won't cancel mine, but if I could get free channels I may be more tempted .....

wanna-be-mortgage-free_2

loobyloo1980 wrote:

cattie wrote:

If you cancelled Sky you would still retain the box & continue to get a few free channels with the card

Are you sure? I know years ago you could watch some free channels without a subscription but if I take my card out now, I can't watch anything on Sky I have to admit that is one reason why I won't cancel mine, but if I could get free channels I may be more tempted .....

Hi Loobyloo1980, my brother cancelled sky and he still gets some free channels with his card.

loobyloo1980

I didn't know that!!! Hmmm, that will give me something to think about. I wonder what channels you get free. Probably not the ones I would watch, thats the problem, ha ha ha.

lollyc_2

Do you buy your contact lenses from an opticians (such as Specsavers) each month? Then try a supplier like Postoptics (https://www.postoptics.co.uk) who sell bulk supplies of all the big brand contacts.

Also, often an opticians will brand contacts as their own but they are normally from a specifiic manufacturer, which you can find out from your optician. For example, I used to buy Specsavers Monthly Disposables which are actually Coopervision's 'Frequency 55' contacts. Buying these direct from the web worked out much cheaper for me. You can also buy solutions online. You normally need to have a contact lens prescription that is no older than 1 year to be able to order online.

Hope this helps.

loobyloo1980

lollyc wrote:

Do you buy your contact lenses from an opticians (such as Specsavers) each month? Then try a supplier like Postoptics (https://www.postoptics.co.uk) who sell bulk supplies of all the big brand contacts.

Also, often an opticians will brand contacts as their own but they are normally from a specifiic manufacturer, which you can find out from your optician. For example, I used to buy Specsavers Monthly Disposables which are actually Coopervision's 'Frequency 55' contacts. Buying these direct from the web worked out much cheaper for me. You can also buy solutions online. You normally need to have a contact lens prescription that is no older than 1 year to be able to order online.

Hope this helps.

I buy mine from specsavers and will check this out for myself. Sorry, looks like I'm hijacking your thread, ooops

linniestorm

loobyloo1980 wrote:

I didn't know that!!! Hmmm, that will give me something to think about. I wonder what channels you get free. Probably not the ones I would watch, thats the problem, ha ha ha.

My uncle has just got sky+ and is giving his old sky box to my brother who's just bought a house. He's still undecided on whether to subscribe to sky, but he can get all the freeview channels and a couple more if he watches the sky box with the card but without the subscription.

Hope it helps! They probably aren't the coolest in the world, but something's better than nothing I suppose!