A. lurker's SOA + Debt Diary

spaghetti_monster

Hi there!
Have been doing a lot of lurking of late but have thought that now is the time to give myself an extra kick up the behind (and maybe you can help me!!! figuratively speaking.....)

One of the things that has spurred me on is that although there has been much talk of me and my boyfriend moving in together, the details have now been decided: I'm going to move in with him - which involves moving to Holland!

So...I really want to try and get rid of as much debt as possible by then. I'm going to work fulltime for the rest of the year, get Christmas out the way, then pay the rent in January and use this month as a time to pack everything up and move.

I have always resisted doing an SOA as I'm a freelancer with lots of last-minute work and never have exact figures in my head of how much money comes in. Also then loads comes in but it has to last a while.

Lurking on MSE has changed my way of thinking a lot - also seeing that there are organised freelancers out there!

So I'm going to try and get rid of the last traces of my wishy-washy thinking and finally do an SOA.......(gulp...off to find paperwork..)

Alex x

lynzpower

:T

YOU can do it!!!

Toomuchdebt

Looking forward to seeing your SOA and congrats on your forthcoming move

spaghetti_monster

OK here goes. Having lurked for so long you'd think I know what to do, but let me know if anything is left out.

Salary: £1200 (approx)

Outgoings:

Rent £350
Council Tax £50.50
Electricity £15.50
Water £12.37
TV £5.05
BT line rental £7
18185 £6
Internet £23.99
Mobile £50
Food/groceries £106
Travel £110
Travel (to/from NL) £75
hiking/fitness £45
going out/ents £65

Work costs:
insurance £15
diary £45.04
union £10
NI £10
equip/ training/repairs £85

Total: £1086.45


A few notes:

- I have 0% overdraft with Alliance and Leicester up to £550 - I usually end up using all of it.

- Have recently paid off a loan (in sig), minimum payment on CC is £55

-I've had the internet for over a year, but it seems that for all the good prices you have to sign up for a year and obviously I'm off in January.

- stuck in a mobile contract for another couple of months, then I'll go PAYG. I just can't seem to get it to go below £40!!

- my boyfriend and I used to see each other once every week/10 days but have been trying to go longer since after Christmas (every 2/3 weeks)

- we have a system that I pay for everything here and he pays over there (to avoid changing currency). So although grocery and travel figures are sometimes for 2, there are weeks when I don't pay anything, so I think it balances out.

It all looks very tight I know, but I'd love to be able to pay as much as I can off the CC before the end of the year!

freda

If you want to pay off the credit card by Dec paycheck, you need to pay c.£450 each month on it.

At the moment, you have c.£180 curplus, so you need to 'find' £270 each month.

A few questions:

- am I correct in assuming you are sharing a flat, so the costs are all half of the total bill?

- are you paying PPI on the credit card?

- can you increase your income, i.e. part time bar work, supermarket work, babysitting, seasonal work at xmas?

- do you have any savnigs/investments?

- what is the £110 travel line for?

- are all the work costs related to your business? If so, they should be being paid for by the business, not you?

IDEAS TO SAVE from your SOA:

181815 - is this for calls to NL? If your bf has broadband, use skype, its free!

Internet - you can get this for £15, even £10 these days.

Mobile - do you really need to use this? Could you get PAYG and use landline, email, skype instead?

MISSING FROM SOA:

Savings for presents etc at xmas
Medical/dental costs
Savings for cost of going abroad next year (i.e. removal costs, flights etc)
Ents/going out
Pension contributions?

spaghetti_monster

Hi Freda,

thanks for flagging up those things. Will try to answer a few:

- I do share a flat, so elec, water, BT are the figures I end up paying (ie. half)

- is PPI insurance?? I'm pretty sure I'm not paying anything extra

- no savings/investments

- £110 travel is all my travel expenses (apart from trips to the Netherlands). I'm London based, have no car and travel a lot for work.

- work costs - I'm my business really, IYSWIM?! These costs are tax deductible, but I put them in as I have to allow for them in my budget

- I use 18185 for landline and occasionally to call bf. We do use Skype most of the time (sometimes his computer doesn't seem to work!)

- would love to have cheaper internet - but just for 4/5 months? Everything I've seen is to sign up for a year

- mobile is essential for work. As I'm stuck in a contract (with T-mobile) I've tried to get the cheapest plan and have lots of loyalty discounts and try to be sensible about how I use it but it still ends up so expensive. But less than 2 months to go I think on the contract.

Have to go out now, but will put the missing figures in when I get back.

Thanks!
Alex

spaghetti_monster

Morning!

Don't know how, but somehow forgot about my overdraft!!!:doh: so I've out that in the SOA

Have also added a going out/ents figure.

Quite a lot of the figures (including the going-out one) are from my spending diary I kept from Jan to May 2006. I think I can really tighten up the going out and fitness figures. (Have also restarted the spending diary)

regarding presents and Christmas - I've never saved for these:o but I'll try to work out for just this Christmas and look for present ideas on the OS board. No birthdays before that (only mine!:D )

Unfortunately have never had, started, saved for or thought about a pension

I wish there was a smiley singing "la la la" with fingers jammed in ears - this is what I would use in a sentence with "dentist". I really need to go, but my dentist did a bit of a poor job last time and although I'm dead lucky that he's cheap (NHS), I don't fancy going back. So I need to pull head out of sand and see if I can find another (cheap-ish) one.

OK, so if anyone has any ideas how I could save a few quid here and there, or ideas maybe for organising myself better, that would be great!

Thanks for reading!
Alex x

Verbatim

You're doing really well. great stuff.

spaghetti_monster

Hi there,

Thought I would turn my earlier thread into an occasional debt diary - I'm feeling quite positive at the moment and thought it might keep the motivation going to do the odd post. I also want to keep referring to my SOA and try and keep some of the figures down a bit (going out/food etc)

As well as trying to pay as much of the CC as possible this year, I also want to try and reduce my overdraft - so I plan to keep asking the bank to reduce the limit bit by bit.

I'm also feeling very motivated in an OS way - I think I can shave a few quid off food bills (even yesterday went to a work training day with free food all day!!;) shame this isn't every day.....)

Bit of a longer term thing - I'm clueless regarding e-bay So I'm gonna find out how that all works. I'll have a lot of things to sell I think when I sort out my stuff for moving.

Oh Sh@t! Have to work out moving costs too.........


Well, there's a start! Have a good day everybody!

Alex x