Invitation to scrutinise my SOA!

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hi,

I definately would put something towards your car mot/service/tax/insurance and petrol in your budget. It's not a complete budget if you haven't accounted for things you know will crop up. All your budgeting calculations will be incorrect if you don't include this now.

No point working hard paying some off your credit card to have to put it all back on there when the annual things come along. :-) Plus it's nice when that year comes around when you can pay for things out-right - no monthly payments or having to find it all at the last minute!

Also, what free minutes do you get with your contract. If your basic amount is £35 but you end up paying £70 then thats £35 of calls/texts outside of your tariff.

If you can't come down a tarriff then maybe you can go UP a tarriff, pay a little more each month and include all your calls/texts in that amount. Even if it was £45 pcm thats a saving of £25 pcm! That could go towards your car maintenance fund! Have a look at your last few bills, see how many mins/texts pcm you use on average.

Alternatively you could buy a cheap PAYG phone top up £10/£20/£30 pcm and send all your texts from that. You get 300/600/unlimited free texts on Orange PAYG plus you've still got the top up to spend on calls. Simply keep your contract for work and don't go outside the tarriff!!!!! All of these options are cheaper than £70 pcm.

Siouxsie32

RAS wrote: »

Hi

That is probably the sort of magic thinking that got you into this situation.

How do you pay for the MOT, car tax, insurance and any other maintenance? Whack it on the credit card and avoid adding it to your monthly budget?

My guess is that this costs you anything up to £1500 per year, depending on repairs.

The money has to be paid out and is a normal expense so you have to budget for it.

MOT, tax and insurance are all paid annually, definitely not on a credit card - I don't use my cards at all. They've all been paid recently so not due again until after December when my Nationwide loan will have been paid off so I'll probably do an updated SOA and factor it in at that stage. The car is well maintained and generally (touch wood) doesn't have any problems. I know it would be wise to set money aside for this but to be honest, if I had any money set side for this I would has paid it towards a credit card rather than have it sitting in the bank.

Siouxsie32

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt wrote: »

Hi,

I definately would put something towards your car mot/service/tax/insurance and petrol in your budget. It's not a complete budget if you haven't accounted for things you know will crop up. All your budgeting calculations will be incorrect if you don't include this now.

No point working hard paying some off your credit card to have to put it all back on there when the annual things come along. :-) Plus it's nice when that year comes around when you can pay for things out-right - no monthly payments or having to find it all at the last minute.

Would you suggest putting this into a separate savings account? I could do this in January when my loan is paid off. I do that at the minute with money to pay the taxman for my extra income work. It's frustrating being short of money and having some in a savings account but the taxman is someone I'd definitely not get on the wrong side of!!

RAS

Hi

It is not so much a saving account as a budgetting account for large spends. However, if you can find an instant access savings account, then that is the best place for the money. You may earn another tenner over the year.

Siouxsie32

I spoke to Egg who can give me a 3 month payment break. Does it make sense to take this break and pay the £200+ each month towards my highest interest credit card? That loan is at 6.7%APR so the consequences of the 3 month break seem far more favourable to me than to continue paying it and just paying the minimum on my cards. What do you think?

Happytogetdebtfree

Hi I don't know what to suggest by just paying the credit card off that owes 500 your only freeing up 25 a month but all the other figures are so big anyway and the fact you have a huge shortfall I'm not sure if a break from egg loan will allow for overpayments due to it been eaten up by the shortfall :-/ see what others think x

Siouxsie32

Yeah, I thought about the £500 one. But I also have one at over 30% APR. I don't really know if it's a wise thing to do or not. Or even to use it as a breathing space month. The shortfall is generally managed by the extra methods I said earlier. It's a battle sometimes towards the end of the month but I always somehow manage to make it. I'm not saying that flippantly as it is a lot of hard work but maybe paying off the £500 credit card plus the rest could be used as a breather, with any spare money going towards the other credit cards.

Or, just keep paying the Egg loan?

Not sure, open to suggestions.......