Out of Hiding

Triggles

Definitely do not do a payday loan!!! If you are even considering a payday loan, then you shouldn't be putting ANY money aside for holidays and such - you should be taking care of priority debt and bills FIRST. If you are having difficulty holding onto your cash during the month (such as grocery, etc), then take it out in cash, divide it up into weeks (so you don't blow it all at the beginning of the month!) and put the money for each week in a marked envelope. Seal them, and only open the one for the current week. Once it's gone, it's gone. So plan accordingly!!!It makes it sooo much easier to see where the money is going!

property.advert

Eat the freezer and cupboards empty but avoid the parasitic pay day loans.

Hannah_10

Pack in the holiday and the satalite TV, then half the pressie budget and the clothing budget. You save £218 a month, which is £2,616 a year- just for that!

Add that to the £244 your SOA says you've got free and that's £462 a month.. at that rate you're debt free in seven months, call it nine though to allow for a bit of interest as you didn't put any APRs in.

That means come May you can start saving for a holiday again. You could try camping (with a borrowed tent/kit) which can be a laugh, it's certainly popular enough with young people in Newquay in August. You'd have 4 months to save (and nearly £500 a month spare money) and it wont even cost you £200 including petrol and food if you're savvy about it. You can get A LOT of beer money and surf lessons for the £1200-£1800 spending money you'll have free.

You have a think about it.

MFWannabe

debtfreegonnabe wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1000
Partners monthly income after tax....... 800
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1800
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 400 actually 300 but paying off arrears, just month and its cleared
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 130 actually 80 paying off arrears - when do you finish paying arrears?
Electricity............................. 190 ? very large, I never seem to clear this, I always seem to get large bills and i don't feel i use it excessively, this includes my gas too, gas is the biggest part - You need to go on comparison sites and see if you can get this cheaper; this is a huge amount
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 30 includes broadband bt
Mobile phone............................ 25
TV Licence.............................. 11
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 48 - Either get rid altogether and go freeview or freesat; or cut the absolute minimum package
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 200 planning on trimming this some what
Clothing................................ 50 trimming this too - Could cut this in half; use what you already have for now until debts are cleared
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 21
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 15
Car parking............................. 20
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 20
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 10
Life assurance ......................... 40 - Do you really need this? Your property is rented and you have no dependants
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, Christmas etc)...... 50 - you need to cut this right down to say £20. Explain to people that you can't afford to buy for everyone
Haircuts................................ 6
Entertainment........................... 50
Holiday................................. 120 usually have at least to holidays a year - This needs to stop until you've paid the debts off. can you imagine how much quicker you would clear them if you put this £120 towards them. Once debts are paid you can then start saving this every month again
Emergency fund.......................... 0 :eek: very very bad i know
Total monthly expenses.................. 1556[/b]

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 2000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
welcome........................600.......0.........0
provident......................1800......0.........0
payday loan....................650.......0.........0
Total unsecured debts..........3050......0.........-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,800
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,556
Available for debt repayments........... 244
Monthly Unsecured debt repayments....... 0
Amount left after debt repayments....... 244
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 2,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -3,050
Net Assets.............................. -1,050



These are just estimated amounts, but very close. As you can see, lack of money not the problem, its my wastefulness :eek:

DFGB

Hi
I have put some notes in your soa. You really could make some savings there and get those debts paid off. You can't really justify having 2 holidays a year and then be getting into arrears with council tax and rent!! This really needs to stop; put this £120 towards debt repayments and get them paid as quickly as possible.
Once you've paid debts and arrears then you can look at how much money you have left over every month after normal expenses.
You haven't put in how much at the moment you put towards your debt repayments? Or the APR's?

katsu

Electricity - go to the local library and see if they have OWL meters for lending (some councils do). These are gadgets you clip on to your electricity cables inside the house by the meter (youi can see them in the Supermarkets for around £20). Then you can input details from your bills on your tarrif and it will give you live information on how much electric you are using. You can then do things like turn stuff on and off to see what are your big consumers.

Might help you reduce your usage as your bills are so high.

Have you checked that your hot water tank has the immersion heater switch off (heat water with your gas central heating, the electric switch is like boiling a kettle constantly so very dear)? Checked your hot water tank is set to 60 degrees, energy saving bulbs and not using standby etc?

debtfreegonnabe_2

Hiya Freez and Katsu, Thanks for reading and posting. I think I need to explain a couple of things, reading other peoples SOA think I have done mine wrong.

I do not put holiday and clothes money into an account and then use it on those things. That is the amount my holidays cost me monthly and clothes money is how much i spend monthly on clothes. So I do not have that money sitting in a bank account and not paying my debts. I agree all the same, it shouldnt be getting spent on either of these till debts are paid. So you's will be thinking that gives me more spare money a month, true. thats where my problem lies, I just spend spend on stuff I dont need or can buy cheaper !!!!! If I perfect and didnt I would not be in this mess. I have stopped (so far) wasting money, which is why I am going to try very very very hard to get through September with no pay day loan.

OMG yeah I need my life insurance, another explanation on looking at my bank statements its less than £35 per month and its joint for both me and OH and OMG if I didn@t have it and something happened, what we bury each other with ?

£190 is for gas and electricity biggest part being gas. I have already been advised that because of how much sky I pay I should be able to get free braodband with them, lika a 3 in 1 deal, so I am going to look at that.

council tax arrears will be clear and all upto date by the time I receive new one next April.

I have put on the bottom of my SOA lack of money is not the problem, its my wastefulness, which I am now putting in order.

I plan to be totally debt free by my birthday April 2011

DFGB

debtfreegonnabe_2

Off tomorrow on a weeks holiday. Its not so exciting now, since I have been posting and chatting and realizes how stupid I have been. But its all paid for now. I will return all ready to tackle everything ahead of me. Although I have started now.

Confession I did waste £6 yesterday. I passed a shop that sells end of range catalog clothes etc. Bought 4 tops for £6 two of which were fab and had been reduced £1.50 and everything was half the final price for the day, so got them for 75p each :j

I also intend to come back with money to use on my return. I am going to continue to watch my money on hoiliday too.
No holiday tat or waste, my house already has quite a lot of unused stuff in it. Thats another area to tackle on my return.

Happy money savvying, catch up with you all soon

Young and Free keep up the good work

DFGB

Hannah_10

debtfreegonnabe wrote: »

OMG yeah I need my life insurance, another explanation on looking at my bank statements its less than £35 per month and its joint for both me and OH and OMG if I didn@t have it and something happened, what we bury each other with ?

You would bury each other from the money each of your families would contribute, or by aranging a repayment plan with the funeral director, like other people have to do. Some people die at very inconvenient times, like when they're still nine years old and Mummy's half way through a divorce and totally on the edge of the abyss... Other people find the fees none the less.

If you want to get out of debt it means living, like other people do, under your current spending levels.

Although people will, rather inconveniently, start dying even from before they are born, the chances of you dying before you are of pension claiming age are generally pretty remote. The chances of that happening before you get out of debt are even more remote.

Yes other people average out thier holidays etc over the year. Plenty of people don't have holidays at all actually, it's not a right.

If you want to continue to live in such a way your debt repayments scare you then that is a choice you may make, you have every right to and that's fair enough; but by posting here asking for advice you will get just that. I don't think "OMG"-ing the other two MSE'ers for thier trouble was really required or fair to them.

debtfreegonnabe_2

I would not put my family in the situation of maybe getting themselves into debt to pay for my funeral. As I have said Right from the very start my issue is NOT that I do not have sufficient monies to pay my way, more that I need to organize and prioritize. I am here just as you are for help and support. Your post knocked me and not for the reasons you may think. I am fully aware of what I have done and will put it right, I wanted to press the abuse button but thought that unfair as you have given a lot of people good advice. If your responses to my post cant be a little more friendly, please don't reply to any. We are all different but here for the same reason, help and support and not to be made to feel bad, which is how you have made me feel, intentionally or not.

Hope you continue well on your journey.

DFGB

Hannah_10

So hold up, you can go overboard on other people but you can't be pulled up yourself?