SOA-Sorry I know it's sat'day night, does anyone have any inspirational ideas please?

isa

Right then... (deep breath)

Lightbulb Moment :idea: 07/06

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £652.46
Tax Credits - £361.45
Child Benefit - 71.50
Maintenance - 162.50

Total - £1247.91

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - £420
Council Tax - £78
Water - 31.84
Gas - £22
Electricity - £47
TV License - £11.37
Phone (land) - £18.00
Phone (mob) - £25.00
Food etc - £260 (includes school & work pack-ups and cigarettes ( :embarasse ))
Car/Travel - £97.58 (includes insurance, tax, petrol, mot, RAC)
Internet - £12.49
Childcare - £100
Clothing - £15 (a guess at an average, I try to get stuff from ebay/freecycle/friends)
Emergencies - £15 (usually the car or the cat)

Total: £1153.28

Amount left for Creditors - £94.63

Debts:

Cahoot Flexi Loan – Balance £7160.71 APR 9%
HSBC Loan – Balance £5772.15 APR 9.9% (I think)
HSBC Overdraft - £2688.77 (limit £2000) APR 14.8%
Tesco Credit Card - £0 (!) (limit £2300) Transfers 6.9%

Total Debt: £15620.86

Pro-rata monthly payments offered (and refused):
Cahoot Flexi Loan – £43.40
HSBC Loan – £34.98
HSBC Overdraft - £16.25
I'm making these payments despite refusal of my offers

On the bright side...
Charges being reclaimed from MBNA - £447.55 (includes interest & court fees) Still waiting to hear, they've got til 2nd Oct to respond
Charges to be claimed from HSBC - £1759.10 Not started yet
Ebay profit since July 06 - £363.79
£2 coins saved - £50

I've dumped Sky, reduced my gas & elec, reduced my RAC, reduced my car insurance and I'm selling everything I can on ebay (gonna do a car boot with the stuff that doesn't sell).

I'm going to be applying for the HSBC charges, just waiting to see if the MBNA one goes ok (I'm a bit scared)

Have spoken to the CAB, the national debtline & I'm waiting to talk to the CCCS (13th oct), not sure whether they'll be able to sort me a DMP as I've got less that £100 left for creditors, hoping they will tho.

Don't want to move anything to the cheaper Tesco card til I know what's happening with CCCS, if they can't get my charges & interest stopped then £2300 of overdraft could go on there and be cheaper

Have spotted a cheaper mobi deal so am hoping to haggle orange down as my contract's up.

I did quit smoking for 3 months but have started again, intend to get back on the patches

Was considering insulating the house (I have to rely on free-standing heaters so elec is quite high) but I rent and the owners are thinking of selling in july so there doesn't seem to be much point. The impending homlessness is something else to look forward to... :rolleyes:

Does anyone have any suggestions for anything else I can do? Or spot anything I've missed?
Any help at all would really be appreciated

Isa

loulouloulou_2

Hi there,

you seem to be doing okay and its good you've dumped sky tv and all that!!

Your phone deal, you mentioned is with orange.... well i have a pay as you go orange mobile phone.

I only top up £15.00 a month and just for topping up £15, you get 3000 free evening and weekednt text messages!! PLUS you can buy extras with the £15 for cheap talk time - i never even use the whole £15!!!

The car bootys always help too - i've done about five now and some people really will buy anything!! and its quite a fun monring out (no, really) me and my fiend get together and when it was warm we got some chairs out and its not a bad morning!

Good luck, i'll see if i can think of anything else (my debts just as bad - your not alone!x)

loulouloulou_2

I know it seems a bit harsh aswell, but maybe the food bill could be reduced ('specially the smoking...tut tut!!!)

my boyf is good, he's made shed loads of casseroles, and stews and we've frozen them all... and suprisingly they're really tasty (thats why he cooks and i dont!!)

Morrisons is really good for shopping if you have one near you. Loads of BOGOF's and deals,

:beer:

lynsayjane

ok first off :j for posting your soa, big scary step over and done with!!!

you seem to be making a good start on cutting down your outgoings. i'm somewhat concerned about your utilities, but even more so when i saw you'd reduced them. i'd start turning off all things when not in use and doing what you can to cut down as much as possible. put on jumpers and turn the heating down.

how many of you are there in the house? £260 seems an awful lot for food, nip over to the old style board for ideas, i've never eaten better and am feeding myself on £10 a week. (and i dont think i need to mention the other thing spent in this catagory:rolleyes: , it's better for you and the kids and your finances!)

i see your in debate over your tesco card...if you dont bt your od what are you planning on doing with the card? i'd be tempted to shift my od regardless then it's one less scary creditor for cccs to haggle with.

good luck, and don't leave us!

freda

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - £420
Council Tax - £78 As a (I assume) single parent, do you get the single person's discount?
Water - 31.84 Meter or rates? Seems a bit high? Would you be better on a meter?
Gas - £22
Electricity - £47 Seems high, concentrate on doing lots of little things to reduce useage, i.e. no elec heaters, don't leave things on standby, don't leave lights on, heat the oven for multiple meals instead of lots of times separately.
TV License - £11.37
Phone (land) - £18.00 May be poss to reduce slightly with BT line rental only (£10.50) plus 1899.com for 3p per call?
Phone (mob) - £25.00 Do you really need this? Could you not get by with a PAYG for total emergencies only?
Food etc - £260 (includes school & work pack-ups and cigarettes ( )) High for one adult, one child (I assume thats what your family is?). Check out the Money saving old style board for loads of ideas.
Car/Travel - £97.58 (includes insurance, tax, petrol, mot, RAC) How much of this is petrol?
Internet - £12.49
Childcare - £100
Clothing - £15 (a guess at an average, I try to get stuff from ebay/freecycle/friends)
Emergencies - £15 (usually the car or the cat)

Other things:

You are missing:

Savings for xmas/birthdays
Going out / entertainments / days out for the kids in holidays
School trip costs / pocket money
Medical / dental / optician costs - even on the NHS this isn't free

Are you saving each month for things like car tax, MOT etc, so tht when the bill comes in the money is there?

Are you keeping a spending diary to make sure your SOA is accurate?

I did quit smoking for 3 months but have started again, intend to get back on the patches

Get a prepayment certificate for prescriptions and get the doctor to prescribe these for you. Cheaper than buying them on or off prescription.

Was considering insulating the house (I have to rely on free-standing heaters so elec is quite high) but I rent and the owners are thinking of selling in july so there doesn't seem to be much point. The impending homlessness is something else to look forward to...

Unless you know for sure that you'll be in a rented house for a long time, it is not sensible to spend lots of your own money on it.

Can you use the oil filled heaters instead of the elec ones, they are much cheaper.

If you are going to have to move, I'd strongly suggest adding a line to your SOA to save a few hundred for moving costs - i.e. deposit (may be larger than you are used to as your credit rating is damaged), removal van, any agency costs etc. This may mean you have to reduce your pro-rata payments to your creditors. Or, depending how much you spend on fags, you may be able to save the money you would have spent on them.

CLAPTON

it seems to me your budget is already too tight ... you have no child 'fun' costs, no presents/kids parties/xmas costs, clothes cost is too low and i doubt if you can live on this budget for an extended period of time.

so in fact i don't really think you have 94.63 for creditors really.

so i would suggest you consider

a. open a new bank a/c (unrelated to any of your debts) and make sure all you income goes into it

b. stop paying your creditors

c. write to your creditors and explain the situation and say you can only afford a token payment say £5.



also may i say you are doing a great job with your budget but unless there is something on the horizon that will improve your financial situation, you have to be able live year in year out on this budget.

isa

Hi, thanks for replying

Yeah, here's only me & my daughter in the house so the food bill is pretty big, it includes loo roll & wash powder & all that kind of thing but I always buy the cheapest.
I'm growing veg in the garden too & had loads of success, I love it - this is the first garden I've ever had, I've turned into a right garden bore - I'll have to get an allotment if they evict me!
It's the smoking that's costing so much and I've really got no excuse, I get free patches etc. cos of the tax credits. I'm just being a wuss cos the nurse was so nasty when I failed

We've already started turning off lights as we leave rooms and turning stuff off at the plug when we're not using it, I've got a big furry blanket for my bed and I had a great big door curtain from freecycle

My orange contract's £20, but I do tend to go over by a bit. I spotted one on '3' that's only £12.50 so I think if orange can't match it I might go to them.

The car costs, about £20 a month is petrol, when it's nice we can walk up to school but it's 45 mins away so if the weather's awful I do tend to get in the car. Have thought about getting rid altogether & buying a bus pass?

You are missing:

Savings for xmas/birthdays
Going out / entertainments / days out for the kids in holidays
School trip costs / pocket money
Medical / dental / optician costs - even on the NHS this isn't free

I'm really worried about including these, (I do get doctor dentist etc free tho) the banks already said I had too much for clothes/internet/emergencies, when the cccs goes through it with me will they add these things on?

isa

Also, I've opened a new current account at A&L and moved all my incomings and my bills so i've got control now (more or less lol) over what happens

benbenandme

Only other suggestion I can make is to check out the mystery shopping / quidco / pigsback / survey sites ... all the cash/vouchers I get from these goes into my piggyban and is saved religiously for Christmas so I don't have to budget for it during the year. Tonight I have done a mystery shop for a well known fast-food delivery place and basically they have paid me to call up, order a pizza and have it delivered and eat it!! I couldnt afford one normally on my budget and it tastes better when you know you didnt have to pay!!;)

EllsC

Hi,

I'm having a fun filled Sat too!

I haven't read all the replies but your two loans seem to have quite high interest rates - can you shop around for lower ones or are you tied in to these? I have an £8000 loan from Cahoot too at 5.9%.

EllsC

isa

Hiya, I can't get a better rate loan, I did try before things got too bad but I guess my credit rating was already a bit poor