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Statement of Affairs

AC2007
AC2007 Posts: 34 Forumite
in Debt-free wannabe
Hi all,
I have just completed Budget Planner for the first time and it just confirmed what I already knew, we spend what we earn and have nothing left to save.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,604.03
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 187.75
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Monthly Expense Details
In Your Home
Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.32
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Cleaning Products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.50
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135.00
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.33
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158.68
Overdraft Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.38
Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.16
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662.92
Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.54
Mortgage Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85.21
Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101.32
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539.00
Drinks for Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65.00
Motoring & Public Transport
Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238.33
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.33
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42.24
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00
Rail/Bus/Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.00
Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Debt Repayments
Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00
Hire Purchase Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Savings & Investments
Pension Payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Buying Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mini Cash ISAs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump Sum Saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family
Pet Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83.33
School Meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.00
Pocket Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00
Nappies/Baby Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry Cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.67
Children's Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.50
Baby Sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
5-a-sides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.00
Entertainment
Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57.50
Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00
Cinema/Theatre Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Big Days Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (eg Anti-virus etc). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.00
Clothes, Health & Beauty
Complimentary Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.33
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00
Beauty Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Healthcare Cashplans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Medical Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48.00
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.33
Education & Courses
University Tuition Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big One Offs
Funeral Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Winter Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70.00
Odds & Sods
Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.88
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Charity Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00
Union Fees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.35
Camelot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.00

Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,791.78

Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,750.27



Cheers
AC
«1

Comments

  • KrazyKel
    KrazyKel Posts: 492 Forumite
    Hi
    Im sure someone will be able to help more and give advice soon!
    Just wanted to say good luck!

    There are quite a lot of things on your SOA which can be reduced

    Over £100 a month on Mobile phones, plus £50 on Landlines - Could you drop a price bracket with the mobiles/cheaper contract or even Pay as you go?

    Electricity and gas seem high - could maybe look at comparison sites to get lower.

    Food/Shopping/Drinks for home - how many is this for? Looks very high! - £600 a month combined! :eek:

    Car maintence - £150 a month? Also seems very high! :eek:

    Eating and Drinking out - £160 a month - this can be cut back
    Also Sky/Satalite TV - Maybe think switching to Freeview or even dropping some channels to a cheaper package to save some money!

    Christmas + Birthday = £120 a month! is a lot to spend every month!
    Clothes = £130 a month too seems a lot

    If you are buying lots of clothes, have a sort out of all your old ones and maybe ebay them! can bring in extra money and clear some space too!

    Others will be along with more advice soon too!
    Good Luck :) :beer:
    Make £10 a day Challenge June - £170
  • savingwannabe
    savingwannabe Posts: 16,622 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    Hello AC

    You earn a great salary but are paying for a lot of things that seem to be wants rather than needs.

    Both phones seem to be really high. Can you get PAYGs? Reduce your cable and phone bills - ring em up say you want to leave and see if they will offer you discounts.

    Try to find a cheaper supplier for gas and electric.

    Food shopping is v expensive. Can you go to a cheaper supermarket like AS*da or even Li*l etc. Drop a brand buy snacks for work like choc bars from there rather than paying extra in a vending machine.

    Can you make sandwiches for work? for the kids?

    Do you really need to spend about £50 for clothes for work? You must have loads of nice clothes.

    Keep a spending diary so you monitor what you spend otherwise it is easy to fritter money away.

    This is just some of the things i changed and in the short time i have been on MSE it has made a difference.

    £26 on lottery. Crumbs that is almost a pound a day. Almost £300 a year. Crumbs!!!!Enough for a holiday!
    Aiming for a minimal spend 2022
  • savingwannabe
    savingwannabe Posts: 16,622 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    EEEK forgot to say goodluck and well done in posting. You will make lovely friends on here. And we are on here as we want to control our spending too.

    big hugs, welcome,

    :j
    Aiming for a minimal spend 2022
  • BLT_2
    BLT_2 Posts: 1,307 Forumite
    savingwannabe wrote: »
    EEEK forgot to say goodluck and well done in posting. You will make lovely friends on here. And we are on here as we want to control our spending too.

    big hugs, welcome,

    :j

    She's lying, we all hate you already cause you earn 3600 pounds a month after tax :D
  • beanielou
    beanielou Posts: 99,252 Ambassador
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Academoney Grad Mortgage-free Glee!
    You have had some great advice so far.
    As has been pointed out some of your expenses are eye wateringly high.
    Have you just got one credit card?
    I am a Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on Mortgage Free Wannabe & Local Money Saving Scotland & Disability Money Matters. If you need any help on those boards, do let me know.Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any post you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button , or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com. All views are my own & not the official line of Money Saving Expert.

    Lou~ Debt free Wanabe No 55 DF 03/14.**Credit card debt free 30/06/10~** MFW. Finally mortgage free O2/ 2021****
    "A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of" Jane Austen in Mansfield Park.
    ***Fall down seven times,stand up eight*** in ~~Japanese proverb.     ***Keep plodding*** Out of debt, out of danger.
    One debt remaining. Home improvement loan. 19months left.
  • savingwannabe
    savingwannabe Posts: 16,622 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    BLT is a cheeky moo. But i am sure he will think of active ways to help you. Come on BLT........
    Aiming for a minimal spend 2022
  • AC2007
    AC2007 Posts: 34 Forumite
    Guys,
    Thanks for the replies so far.
    KrazyKel - Yes the phones are high and are based on the last 3 months. We have 4 phones on contract and I have now reduced 3 of them to £10, £12 & £15 which should help going forward.
    Gas & Electric is doing my head in. We live in a modest 3 bedroom house but according to Atlantic, our readings are correct and I am over paying as they were undercharging me foe a while.
    All four of us have sandwiches probably 3 out of 5 days, but will still be looking to cut the costs.
    Car maintenace is a catch 22 as we run an older less economical car and I have struggled to get a loan to purchase a new car as when my own business collapsed 5 years ago I had to sign a protected trust deed to save the family home.
    Work clothes are for my wife and I who both work in offices where we are constantly meeting clients so we do hwve to dress smartly.
    Christmas & Birthdays is limited to £25 per present but we have a lot of close relatives and have already cut out the adults.
    :beer:
    Savingwannabe
    We realise that between us we have a decent income but we do not seem to live an excessive lifestyle and the week before payday is always a struggle.
    The spending diary is a great idea, thanks for that.
    I am taking this Friday off to try and phone round my suppliers to get cuts.
    Cheers:beer:

    BLT
    As I said we are aware that we have a decent salary, but we are still not able to save, hence spending the day budgeting. Thanks for your support.:beer:
  • AC2007
    AC2007 Posts: 34 Forumite
    beanielou wrote: »
    You have had some great advice so far.
    As has been pointed out some of your expenses are eye wateringly high.
    Have you just got one credit card?

    I don't have a credit card because of prevoius experiences, my wife has one which is our only loan repayments so we are trying to get it down ASAP:p
  • BLT_2
    BLT_2 Posts: 1,307 Forumite
    I think you may have overestimated a number of your bills to be honest, either that or you need a new car. 1800 pounds a year on car maintenance is somewhat excessive and 57 pounds a month on satellite TV is also quite a lot. If you analyse the SOA you are clearing living well, eating out when you want etc etc. The only way you are going to save is by shopping more selectively and reviewing your entertainment.
  • elfen
    elfen Posts: 10,213 Forumite
    Ok, the drinking and eating out budget needs to be halved - is that a possibility at at?

    Also, can the presents be dropped further, say to £15-20 then you'll be savong more money.

    On the groceries, could you meal plan and drop a brand and see how much that changes it? Do you have a budget for food or is it pop in whatever you want.
    ** Total debt: £6950.82 ± May NSDs 1/10 **
    ** Fat Bum Shrinking: -7/56lbs **
    **SPC 2012 #1498 -£152 and 1499 ***
    I do it all because I'm scared.
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