A sorry state of affairs....

MrsNotAPenny

new total £20.01! Happy Happy! :j

Keeping_Positive

hello :wave:

You seem to be doing really well. There will always be ups and downs but damage limitation is the key. Well done on the ebay sales.

For birthdays I look out for good deals and stock up where possible ie cheap coloring sets or other half price deals. My family will get a fair bit of bodyshop this year thanks to the 50% off earlier this year. It also helps for those times when you are skint and a birthday crops up.

MrsNotAPenny

Household Information[/b]
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1150
Benefits................................ 370.8 (made up of JSA, CTC,CB)
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1520.8
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 350
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 110 (over 11 months)
Electricity............................. 30
Gas..................................... 48
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 20
Mobile phone............................ 40(payg,2 of us)
TV Licence.............................. 11.66
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 35(reducing to £25 Nov 2010)
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 220(this is a massive reduction!)
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 55
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 0 (forgot to add £20 here!)
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0(09 plate, no MOT)
Car parking............................. 10(This is probably an over estimate)
Other travel............................ 5
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0(apparently covered by rent)
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40(£20 lovetoshop vouchers,£20 supermarket stamps - finishes Oct, restarts Jan)
Haircuts................................ 0(DIY jobs!)
Entertainment........................... 0(Honestly! Mr works antisocial hours and we have toddler + bump)
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0(I know, I know)
Total monthly expenses.................. 984.66

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 6000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 6000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Loan...........................6500......105.......6.5
Car............................7500......155.......10
CC1............................2550......79........15.4
CC2............................167.......9.........19.9
O/D2...........................300.......0.........0
O/D1...........................600.......0.........0
Reid...........................1300......41........0
Total unsecured debts..........18917.....389.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,520.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 984.66
Available for debt repayments........... 536.14
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 389
Amount left after debt repayments....... 147.14
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 6,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -18,917
Net Assets.............................. -12,917
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.[/i][/font]

So taking into account £20 car insurance, we should have £127.14 pm left. I think a spending diary might be in order because we don't have this at the end of the month. I know we're almost cut back to the bone, but any suggestions will be appreciated!!

Our income will be altered soon (I'm not sure which way though ) because i'll have to come off JSA in October and apply for Maternity allowance, which I should be entitled to but i don't want to count on it until I have written confirmation that we'll be getting it.

I'm so mad at myself! I wish we had been more sensible when we were both working full time, without kids/loan/car loan/furniture finance and I'm even more mad that I consolidated, not once but twice! In fact If I'd only consolidated the once (which I did originally to pay off £1,600 interest free student overdraft!! FOOL!) we'd be loan free by April 2011. That makes me so mad at myself and possibly a little at the bank. I only phoned for a balance and the girl said 'you know you're guarenteed a top up (from 4k) to £12k' we were both working and I thought 'why not?' DOH! We have nothing to show for it, except £105 DD that is going to come out until September 2016! 2016!! For the love of scones, what was I thinking??

AND my debt is higher that I thought it was!! Urgh!!

Right, I feel a bazillion times better now :rotfl:

(I also forgot to add the £6.95 bank account fee and the £5 ish we get charged on the larger overdraft, so that accounts for £11.95 of our 'surplus')

MrsNotAPenny

Ok, I might not get a chance to post before September, so I'm doing this now before I forget:

NSD for Sept: 10

and I'm going to start PAD-ing .

Happy Sunday!x

bast

God if i had hindsight I would be worth a fortune..... You really are doing well....

mooomin

MrsNotAPenny wrote: »

Household Information[/b]
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details

Partners monthly income after tax....... 1150
Benefits................................ 370.8 (made up of JSA, CTC,CB) Will you get more benefits when Bump arrives?

Total monthly income.................... 1520.8
Monthly Expense Details

Rent.................................... 350
Council tax............................. 110 (over 11 months)
Electricity............................. 30
Gas..................................... 48
Water rates............................. 0 Are you in Scotland? I know in Englandshire this is normally separate
Telephone (land line)................... 20 Reduce! I'm on £11.99 with Virgin Media
Mobile phone............................ 40(payg,2 of us) Oddly, a contract might be cheaper! I know that Orange allow you to have a "magic number" you can call without affecting monthly minutes, so if you and Mr Penny had this you could call each other for free (Assuming he's who you want to talk to the most :rotfl:)
TV Licence.............................. 11.66 Are you paying it monthly? You said TV Licence was upcoming...
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 35(reducing to £25 Nov 2010)
Internet Services....................... 0 No internet? :eek::eek:
Groceries etc. ......................... 220(this is a massive reduction!) Not bad, but I know from experience this could be reduced. At one point I was feeding two of us + two cats for £170 (and I know people who would have thought of that as wildly extravagant!)
Clothing................................ 0 Really? Even with a wee one??
Petrol/diesel........................... 55
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 20
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0(09 plate, no MOT)
Car parking............................. 10(This is probably an over estimate)
Other travel............................ 5 What's this one for?
Contents insurance...................... 0(apparently covered by rent) Make sure it is!!
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40(£20 lovetoshop vouchers,£20 supermarket stamps - finishes Oct, restarts Jan)
Haircuts................................ 0(DIY jobs!)
Entertainment........................... 0(Honestly! Mr works antisocial hours and we have toddler + bump)
Emergency fund.......................... 0(I know, I know)Don't beat yourself up about this, better to reduce your debt at 16% than have savings at 0.5%!
Total monthly expenses.................. 1004.66

Assets

Car(s).................................. 6000

Total Assets............................ 6000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Loan...........................6500......105.......6.5
Car............................7500......155.......10
CC1............................2550......79........15.4
CC2............................167.......9.........19.9
O/D2...........................300.......0.........0
O/D1...........................600.......0.........0
Reid...........................1300......41........0
Total unsecured debts..........18917.....389.......-

Overdrafts should have some kind of rate or daily fee, make sure you consider this!

Monthly Budget Summary

Total monthly income.................... 1,520.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 984.66
Available for debt repayments........... 536.14
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 389
Amount left after debt repayments....... 147.14

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 6,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -18,917
Net Assets.............................. -12,917
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.[/i][/font]

So taking into account £20 car insurance, we should have £127.14 pm left. I think a spending diary might be in order because we don't have this at the end of the month. I know we're almost cut back to the bone, but any suggestions will be appreciated!!

For the love of scones, what was I thinking?? An excellent turn of phrase, and one I will probably steal

AND my debt is higher that I thought it was!! Urgh!! That's the Lightbulb moment right there. The Urgh feeling. Now, to kick it's @ss :T

Right, I feel a bazillion times better now :rotfl:

(I also forgot to add the £6.95 bank account fee and the £5 ish we get charged on the larger overdraft, so that accounts for £11.95 of our 'surplus') Why do you have an account with a £6.95 fee? What do you get for your money?

MrsNotAPenny wrote: »

and I'm going to start PAD-ing .

Woo :T I love PAD - I had nearly £10,000 of debt in November 2008 and should be debt-free at the end of this year. I swear it's all down to PADding. I would never have thought that it could be this addictive.

I have gone through your SOA and made some suggestions, don't worry about them being in red, I come from a family of teachers - I don't have the patience to teach but seem to have inherited the love of a red pen

More suggestions shortly, coffee required!

mooomin

Hello again!

You seem like you really want to do this, and it does look as though you have a surplus, so here's some other suggestions that I have used on my road towards debt-freedom.

Toluna - this is a survey company where you can earn points and redeem for Amazon vouchers - it takes quite a while to get them but when you're on a roll it's good. I have redeemed £40ish this year, and haven't done any for ages

Music Magpie - use them to sell old CD/DVDs that you can't sell on Amazon. If you visit them via Quidco you can get cashback on the amount you make as well.

Amazon - you can sell a lot of things on here, but it's good for rarer books/CDs/DVDs. It takes a while, but I will check the price on Amazon then if it's very little (Some things are only a penny!) then I will send to Music Magpie. Remember that Amazon have a set postage charge, so it can be costly to sell heavy books.

Quidco - I love them! I have received over £450 since my LBM for things I would have done anyway like home insurance and mobile phones. For example, if you took a £20 per month phone contract you would be paying the same as you do now for PAYG, would get a new phone you could potentially sell, and could get up to £150 cashback via Quidco depending on the provider. If you need help with it just ask.

Hope these links are of use to you! If you're not with Quidco/Toluna and want a referral to them just PM me and I will send you a link. Good luck with your journey to being Debt-Free!!

MrsNotAPenny

Thank you very much FF! Very kind of you to take such time to reply. I'm not sure I'm doing the quote thing right, so I'm going back to basics with the ol' 'copy and paste' method!

Monthly Income Details

Partners monthly income after tax....... 1150
Benefits................................ 370.8 (made up of JSA, CTC,CB) Will you get more benefits when Bump arrives?
I should get more child benefit, £13.20 a week more, so another £52.80. CTC, I'm not so sure. I think I probably will, but trying to call tax credits to get an idea is a nightmare at the moment!
Total monthly income.................... 1520.8
Monthly Expense Details

Rent.................................... 350
Council tax............................. 110 (over 11 months)
Electricity............................. 30
Gas..................................... 48
Water rates............................. 0 Are you in Scotland? I know in Englandshire this is normally separate
Yes, we're in Scotland Just over the bridge for you!
Telephone (land line)................... 20 Reduce! I'm on £11.99 with Virgin Media
This is including our broadband, with the post office. We don't even have to pay BT for the line rental, which TalkTalk wanted us to, we're not in the area for Virgin or BT and Sky were working out more expensive
Mobile phone............................ 40(payg,2 of us) Oddly, a contract might be cheaper! I know that Orange allow you to have a "magic number" you can call without affecting monthly minutes, so if you and Mr Penny had this you could call each other for free (Assuming he's who you want to talk to the most :rotfl:):D This is another area I'm kicking myself about. We actually have PAYG that you pay monthly(*confused*) and the problem which swapping is that we are on iPhone 'simplicity' PAYG through this. I have called O2 about this and they say it can't be reduced because of us having iPhone handsets - which we stupidly bought PAYG when I got a bonus in March. Oh what I'd do to have that money back now!

For our £20 each a month, we get unlimited internet, 300 free minutes and 600 free texts - including picture messages. I'm thinking about ditching the land line and just paying for the broadband.
TV Licence.............................. 11.66 Are you paying it monthly? You said TV Licence was upcoming...
Normally we pay yearly, but we couldn't this renewal, so we're paying quarterly, which works out about 11.66 pm.
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 35(reducing to £25 Nov 2010)
Internet Services....................... 0 No internet? :eek::eek:
It doesn't even bear thinking about!!
Groceries etc. ......................... 220(this is a massive reduction!) Not bad, but I know from experience this could be reduced. At one point I was feeding two of us + two cats for £170 (and I know people who would have thought of that as wildly extravagant!)
OS boards are my second favourite at the moment. I'm keeping every recipt this month, see what I can shave off. The most expensive items are nappies, which I'm soon to be having two lots of!

This accounts for at least £20 of this budget and Hubby's tobacco (bless, him he's trying to stop and is compromising at the moment with tobacco instead of the ciggies!) We do get people to bring it back for him from holidays, but we do have to buy it at the shops sometimes. I think probably about £37.50 of the shopping budget is for this.
Clothing................................ 0 Really? Even with a wee one??
We are STILL using clothes and toiletries we were given as gifts from when Toddles was born. My Mum buys him his Clarks shoes(I think she's worried I'd ruin his feet with cheapo Primark numbers,I'd buy him clarks anyway!) I have dug out old maternity clothes from last time, Mr is always in works uniform, but has just had some TShirts 'donated'! And Mum has just bought Toddles loads of Tshirts for next year.
Petrol/diesel........................... 55
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 20
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0(09 plate, no MOT)
Car parking............................. 10(This is probably an over estimate)
Other travel............................ 5 What's this one for?
Mr has to get the bus to work once/twice a month
Contents insurance...................... 0(apparently covered by rent) Make sure it is!!
Will do
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40(£20 lovetoshop vouchers,£20 supermarket stamps - finishes Oct, restarts Jan)
Haircuts................................ 0(DIY jobs!)
Entertainment........................... 0(Honestly! Mr works antisocial hours and we have toddler + bump)
Emergency fund.......................... 0(I know, I know)Don't beat yourself up about this, better to reduce your debt at 16% than have savings at 0.5%!
Total monthly expenses.................. 1004.66

Assets

Car(s).................................. 6000

Total Assets............................ 6000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Loan...........................6500......105...... .6.5
Car............................7500......155...... .10
CC1............................2550......79....... .15.4
CC2............................167.......9........ .19.9
O/D2...........................300.......0.........0
O/D1...........................600.......0.........0
Reid...........................1300......41....... .0
Total unsecured debts..........18917.....389.......-

Overdrafts should have some kind of rate or daily fee, make sure you consider this!
O/D1 has a rate of 18.90 EAR, I've just checked. Works out about £5 pm, I mentioned that lower down I think. The O/D2, it's BOS (and I use to work there :eek: it's the stupid account with interest free £300 overdraft (£1 a day charge over £300)costs £12 ish a month. They obviously haven't realised they've made me redundant and so charging me staff rate for this still

I think, I haven't bothered to do anything about it though or in fact read the paperwork they sent, it covers travel insurance(hahahaha!) mobile phone insurance(should probably use this) RAC cover rings a bell and some other stuff. I'd love to pay this off, cut all ties.
Monthly Budget Summary

Total monthly income.................... 1,520.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 984.66
Available for debt repayments........... 536.14
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 389
Amount left after debt repayments....... 147.14

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 6,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -18,917
Net Assets.............................. -12,917
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.[/i][/font]

So taking into account £20 car insurance, we should have £127.14 pm left. I think a spending diary might be in order because we don't have this at the end of the month. I know we're almost cut back to the bone, but any suggestions will be appreciated!!

For the love of scones, what was I thinking?? An excellent turn of phrase, and one I will probably steal
I have bucket-loads of these silly sayings!

AND my debt is higher that I thought it was!! Urgh!! That's the Lightbulb moment right there. The Urgh feeling. Now, to kick it's @ss :T
:rotfl:
Right, I feel a bazillion times better now :rotfl:

(I also forgot to add the £6.95 bank account fee and the £5 ish we get charged on the larger overdraft, so that accounts for £11.95 of our 'surplus') Why do you have an account with a £6.95 fee? What do you get for your money? ABOVE


Right, I think I covered everything!

Again, thank you so much!x

Pinky15

Just came across your diary and wanted to say hi!!
You sound focused and very organised. Well done for plucking up the courage to sort out your debts and post your SOA:):)

MrsNotAPenny

Pay day is 3rd September, 3 'dinners away'

Tuesday: Mac cheese
Wednesday: Potato bake
Thursday: Something with eggs(I'll check out OS because we've dozens of the beggers) homemade wedges and beans

I'm feeling really positive about this DFW malarky (wonder if my car will run off this new found motivation....):D