Financial mess!!

scaredy_cat_2

hi, thank you so much for everyones positive messages - despite spending over £800 at supermarkets this month i do make a meal plan and a list but then it goes pear shaped and we pop in if we don'f fancy what planned!! i also have afreezer full of meals i've cooked but often just buy something else so a more focused approach is needed!

I have run down through our money and will list spending and debts. we bank with first direct and often wanted to take them on about the horrendous charges (1 month £180 although they did half it when i sobbed on phone) but didn't realise could move with an overdraft - thanks to articles on here think might move to a&l. Am always scared about credit rating but always make payments if once or twice credit card has been late - never missed though.

Hope is set this out right and include everything - its a strange thing to share and to see in black and white

Income
husband's pay is £1162 a month after all deductions inc pension and student loan (boo)

Tax credit £367.66 ( 4 weekly so £398 monthly)
Child benefit £116.60 (4 weekly so £126 monthly)

Debts
Next - about £40 will be cleared end of month

First Direct loan - monthly payment £109.02 6.9% £4479.88 bal

First Direct cc - monthly payment min approx £16 total outstanding £1144.72 but £500 of this is owed by a friend and will be paid off aug and sept

Overdraft – about £2300 BUT £200 paid off by friend in aug and sept and £500 to be paid by insurance company someone drove into back of me excess and replacement car seats for children.

Lloyds tsb credit card - £1980.94 £50 month 0% til november ( I have learnt something on here!!) (friend owes £500 here so £50 from her and she is paying my £50 christmas club until debt is paid off)

Sister – 0% til Jan £124

Grad loan Barclays 7.9% til 2012 (sob) £78.77 a month but we transfer £90 to reduce overdraft by required amount

Overdraft on grad account - £1712.91 we think this is 0% but must be reduced by £1000 a year

Running out of time now so will do spending tomorrow as will be dreaming of this tonight now. I am always worried about changing providers with anything as i worry about being rejected and having a bad credit rating!

any help with this so far would be appreciated, many thanks

calleyw

Hi and welcome.

Until you do all your outgoings there is not much any one can suggest as we need to see where we cut your spending to help off pay off your debts.

I am sure once you post the day shift will be able to help you.

Take care and have a good nights sleep.

All I can say at £800 in the supermarket :eek: How can you afford it. You must be adding to your debt. That is one area where you are really going to have cut back. As you are never going to make any inroads to your debt. I spend between £60-£100 a month on food only for two adults who like nice huge full plates. A meal is not set in stone so you can move the meals around if you don't fancy it. So say you have spag bog down but fancy salmon have the salmon. You might like to pop over to the money saving old style.

One thing it is all about baby steps so you will have takle one thing at a time. And I would say food shopping is the biggy.


Yours


Calley

scaredy_cat_2

hi, thank you so much for everyones positive messages - despite spending over £800 at supermarkets this month i do make a meal plan and a list but then it goes pear shaped and we pop in if we don'f fancy what planned!! i also have afreezer full of meals i've cooked but often just buy something else so a more focused approach is needed!

I have included the stuff I posted last night with the knew stuff cos the reply I got said best to deal with the whole lot together .
I have run down through our money and will list spending and debts. we bank with first direct and often wanted to take them on about the horrendous charges (1 month £180 although they did half it when i sobbed on phone) but didn't realise could move with an overdraft - thanks to articles on here think might move to a&l. Am always scared about credit rating but always make payments if once or twice credit card has been late - never missed though.

Hope is set this out right and include everything - its a strange thing to share and to see in black and white

Income
husband's pay is £1162 a month after all deductions inc pension and student loan (boo)

Tax credit £367.66 ( 4 weekly so £398 monthly)
Child benefit £116.60 (4 weekly so £126 monthly)

Debts
Next - about £40 will be cleared end of month

First Direct loan - monthly payment £109.02 6.9% £4479.88 bal

First Direct cc - monthly payment min approx £16 total outstanding £1144.72 but £500 of this is owed by a friend and will be paid off aug and sept 19.9%

Overdraft – about £2300 BUT £200 paid off by friend in aug and sept and £500 to be paid by insurance company someone drove into back of me excess and replacement car seats for children.

Lloyds tsb credit card - £1980.94 £50 month 0% til november ( I have learnt something on here!!) (friend owes £500 here so £50 from her and she is paying my £50 christmas club until debt is paid off)

Sister – 0% til Jan £124

Grad loan Barclays 7.9% til 2012 (sob) £78.77 a month but we transfer £90 to reduce overdraft by required amount

Overdraft on grad account - £1712.91 we think this is 0% but must be reduced by £1000 a year

These are bills that are paid by direct debit and are regular each month

£10 Natwest – mortgage – they refunded our final payment in error
£541.19 Mortgage (Halifax fixed til march 2008 4.59%)

£70.50 Water (on meter)

£104 Council tax

11.37 tv licence

10.84 life insurance and mortgage protection

109.02 first direct loan

90 grad loan and o/d

50 tsb credit card

25 phone one tel

23 elec

2.50 charity

17.99 internet (changed this month to 1-tel £8 not free)

18 (min) first direct visa

30 house insurance

22.83 british gas service contract

30 gas

In addition in july we had general spending

Car tax - £96.25 Mot 44 fuel £70 (inc holiday to Derbyshire from devon)

Mum’s 50th birthday - £100 – present and meal

Cash?? £140 some for holiday

Children’s swimming lessons £44 (£110 per term)

Takeaway £29.05 (wedding ann)

Plus £100 general spending

and £886 in supermarket (inc cashback food and all cleaning and toiletries - horrendous i know and i will not be doing this again)

any help and suggestions appreciated thanks

Snaggles

Hello! Well done on putting your soa together - you've made the first very big step! Initial thoughts are :

Shopping - you obviously already know that spending £886 isn't affordable - I know some people manage on extremely tiny amounts per month (and I really admire them for it - I couldn't do it!) but I normally spend about £50 per week for 2 adults, 1 child, and this is plenty to pay for all food, toiletries, cleaning products and even occasionally some clothes. I think the key for you though might be setting yourself an affordable shopping budget and sticking to it ruthlessly (you could start with a slightly higher amount and then gradually reduce it down month by month as you get used to being on a tighter budget.

Water £70.50 - eeek - is that per month? Do you, like, bath in it or something?? Seriously though this sounds extremely high per month, I think my (non-meter) water rates are about £25 p/m. Do you have to be on a meter?

There seems to be quite a bit of 'lending to friend' going on, and whilst it makes me think what a nice person you must be, you need to put your own finances first now, and stop lending to others. I assume you are not charging interest on these loans to friends, so they will actually be costing you a lot more than the actual amount you are lending out. And if I was the friend, I would absolutely hate the thought of borrowing from you if I knew you were borrowing yourself in order to help me out.

Finally, have you thought about starting a spending diary - make a note of EVERYTHING you spend, and that way it's easier to see where you are overspending and where you can make cuts.

I'm sure some of the others will have some other good ideas for cutting down your expenditure - good luck with it, you're in the right place to get loads of help and support. Love Snaggles xx

Floss

Don't get cashback with your groceries - it gives a false figure for your housekeeping, which may well be £200-£300 less, if you take out this from the total.

As Snagglepuss said, start a spending diary, to see exactly where all that cash is going.

Good luck!

Lucie_2

Lloyds tsb credit card - £1980.94 £50 month 0% til november ( I have learnt something on here!!) (friend owes £500 here so £50 from her and she is paying my £50 christmas club until debt is paid off)
Stop lending to friends. You can't afford it.

Grad loan Barclays 7.9% til 2012 (sob) £78.77 a month but we transfer £90 to reduce overdraft by required amount
Charity begins at home, so stop your £2.50 donation each month & put £92.50 towards this instead. It's only a tiny amount but it will help.

£70.50 Water.
This is a lot. Are you paying for arrears? Depending on which water company you are with, they will give you £20 if they fail to come & read your meter. Check your T&Cs.

Mum’s 50th birthday - £100 – present and meal.
My Mum would have a pink fit if spent £100 on her birthday! For her 60th this year we clubbed together & bought her a bike (me, bro & sis - £25 each) and she said it was too much.

Cash?? £140 some for holiday.
You need to keep a check on where this cash is going.

Takeaway £29.05 (wedding ann)
A great positive start! Much better than going out & blowing £100 on an expensive meal when a takeaway at home is just as nice.

Plus £100 general spending
In addition to the £140 cash? Again, you need to keep a record of what this £100 is for.

and £886 in supermarket (inc cashback food and all cleaning and toiletries - horrendous i know and i will not be doing this again)
:eek: Cashback in addition to £140 cash out and £100 general spending?

2 main things jump out at me:
1) You're a lovely generous person who is happy to lend people money & buy them expensive gifts, but you really can't afford to at the minute. Give them your time & your love instead of your cash.

2) You need a spending diary to keep a tighter control over where your money is going. Write down everything you spend & it become an anti-spending deterrent " I'm not going to buy that as I'd have to write it down in my spending diary".

You will get there, but don't try to do it all at once. Good luck.

CLAPTON

well done on posting.

i'm a litle bit confused about some of the numbers but it looks a bit like this

income 1645

spending 1781 without debt repayments

debt repayments 343
Total 2124

over spending at least 470 per month

however this is only approximate and as i say i'm a bit confused about some of the figures

so lets go through in order

Income....that seems straight forward

Debts : it would probably help you if you listed ALL the debts with the amount owed, then the minimum monthly payment and then the APR
Once you have done that add up the total (depressing i know but essential) so you know the total debt and the total minimum monthly payments. e.g. you dont say how much the graduate loan is and you mention your sister but dont say how much you repay or the total amount . it looks to me total debt is about 17,000 and minimum monthly repayments are about £340 but i can't really tell from your figures.

spending
i think it is essential you keep a spending diary to see exactly what you are spending.
also think about all the other things that you're likely to spend on over the next 12 months..e.g. car tax, car insurance, MOT something for servicing, Birthday presents , xmas presents and costs, holiday spending...some small emergency fund for the unexpected things that happen..all the children cost like swimming lessons, school activies, also clothes ...everything. Add up all these yearly or one off numbers and divide by 12 to get the monthly figure.
Obviously you need to save these monthly amounts so you can afford to pay for these spends without using credit cards.

Now you will in a better position to see the balance between income and spending and debt repayments...only then can you really decide what needs to be done.

At first sight is seems that your basic spending before debt repayments is more than your income so unless you take pretty drastic action your debts will continue to rise.

As i've said you really need a more detailed and accuracte budget before really deciding what to do but you could try the following

eat from the freezer until you have cleared in down...i.e. spend as little as possible on food until then.
withdraw only a little cash at the time and make sure you write down where is went...there can be no 'general' spending anymore.

JenIttels

Also stop taking cards out when you go shopping. Only take the cash you've budgetted for the food shop so you can't overspend!

Good luck!

scaredy_cat_2

thanks for advice so far. i haven't started paying my sister back yet that is the total owed. The 1 person i have loaned money to is one very close family member and she will pay any interest too. She doesn't realise my situation but really helped me out with food in a more difficult period when my husband was a student still and i was heavily pregnant. I do realise i can't afford to do this anymore and she will more than understand. i have tried to encourage her to do this but i think i get my food spending habits from her!

i have to keep my £2.50 charity going as i am training with them and this will result in paid part time work. i do save £50 a month towards christmas and have some toys etc that i have bought in the sales. I also do buy from car boots and ebay so am not a complete hopeless case its just out of control at the moment and as the debts spiralled we were in denial really. i was too scared to look at bank statements.

Regarding my mum's birthday - i don't normally spend that much £40 on a present - but it was something we put together that we had been planning for a long time (so why didn't i save it!!) I only spend a max of £20 each on parents for christmas and £15 on my siblings.

scaredy_cat_2

we do need to be on a meter - it was put in when the house was built. But i will definitely check this out. The trouble is is my irresponsibilty stems to this too and i never check stuff just pay what they say.

floridadreamin

Just wanted to say well done on confronting the spend. People with more experience will be along to help you out. Also Lucie what a lovely post. I must admit that my first thought on the take away was you can't afford but after reading your post you are absolutely right it is far better to treat yourself with something cheap than blowing a stack of cash/cc on a meal out. Thank you for making me see things in a different light. Keep going scaredy cat it will be worth it in the end.