Lots of debt

busylittlehoneybee

Hey everyone, I know things aren't good for us as far as money goes, and although we have been tackling it head on for 3 years together (many more before we put our finances together, but thats a whole other story!)

We keep having slip ups and deciding we deserve treats that we really can't afford, we both know it can't go on like it, but can't seem to control it as well as we really should. I have set up a few budgeting accounts (car expenses, food expenses and bills) which are beginning to help. I've worked it all out on 5 week month, so some months there is more spare than my SOA says. Unfortunatly we're stuck in phone, sky and mobile contracts for up to a year (and more) for some of them Some of the bills (rent, council tax and water) come straight out of my husbands wages.

In April I know we have to pay out £5000 and I am really worrying about where its going to come from. I know we've been pretty stupid. I am very stressed, the doctor has tried to sign me off work, but I am so worried about redundancies etc that I don't want that on my record. Sorry for waffling on, heres my SOA...

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................ 1200
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1050
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2250
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 210.1
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 23
Gas..................................... 30
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 27
Mobile phone............................ 135
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 53
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 250
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 250
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 30
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 8.08
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 5
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 125
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 50
Account Charge.......................... 17
Total monthly expenses.................. 1225.3

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

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 5440.55..(210.1)....5.9
Total secured & HP debts...... 5440.55...-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Tesco Loan.....................8453.52...352.2.....7.19
Egg Loan.......................6452.15...275.......7.66
Lloyds Card....................2783......60........0
Family.........................3000......0.........0
DFS............................2433......0.........0
Lloyds Overdraft...............2800......0.........12.3
Barclaycard (Me)...............2778.3....68........0
Post Office Card...............2233......58........0
Barclaycard (Him)..............2440.36...55........0
Total unsecured debts..........33373.33..868.2.....-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,250
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,225.3
Available for debt repayments........... 1,024.7
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 868.2
Amount left after debt repayments....... 156.5
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -5,440.55
Total Unsecured debt.................... -33,373.33
Net Assets.............................. -38,813.88

ms_london

Hello busylittlehoneybee, welcome to MSE!

Well done on posting your SOA. It looks as though there are quite a few gaps in your budget though - nothing for rent / mortgage, council tax and a few other items. You obviously have a car but have nothing down for road tax / car insurance.

Your mobile cost is VERY HIGH. Is this for standard line rental or including recent call charges? If the latter you need to get this cost down! Your groceries are quite high, is this for just the 2 of you, or do you have a family? Petrol is also high.....

What is the £5,000 for that you need in April? There are quite a few APR's that are missing above, is this because you didn't have them to hand, or are they 0%?

If you can work out a proper budget first of all, then you can work out what you can afford to repay to your creditors each month and go from there, contact them all etc and work out a proper repayment plan.

All the best, and I am sure more people will be on here to post xx

busylittlehoneybee

ms_london wrote: »

Hello busylittlehoneybee, welcome to MSE!

Well done on posting your SOA. It looks as though there are quite a few gaps in your budget though - nothing for rent / mortgage, council tax and a few other items. You obviously have a car but have nothing down for road tax / car insurance.

Your mobile cost is VERY HIGH. Is this for standard line rental or including recent call charges? If the latter you need to get this cost down! Your groceries are quite high, is this for just the 2 of you, or do you have a family? Petrol is also high.....

What is the £5,000 for that you need in April? There are quite a few APR's that are missing above, is this because you didn't have them to hand, or are they 0%?

If you can work out a proper budget first of all, then you can work out what you can afford to repay to your creditors each month and go from there, contact them all etc and work out a proper repayment plan.

All the best, and I am sure more people will be on here to post xx

Hi ms_london, thanks for taking the time to look for me My husband is in the forces so rent, council tax and water is paid straight from his wages. I travel a long way to work, so use £50 per week on petrol. I put £300 per month into the car account, so (hopefully) there is going to be enough in there for tax and insurance when they are due next year.

Groceries is for two of us and a labrador who eats a lot! I don't like her to suffer because we're rubbish with money. £50 per week, it includes her flea and worm stuff and treats. And I'm a lot of a comfort eater

The mobiles is an example of our stupidity... Two contracts each because we couldn't wait for the old ones to run out. The cards are currently at 0%, but they start running out in the next few months and I can't see us paying them off or getting new ones. On re-reading paperwork, its actually £4000 that I need in April to pay off the car.

slummymummyof3

busylittlehoneybee 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................ 1200
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1050
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2250
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 210.1
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 23
Gas..................................... 30
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 27
Mobile phone............................ 135 Contact mobile phone company & tell them you are struggling and see if they will let you reduce the contracts down.
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 53 As for mobile phones - I know you are in a contract period but they might reduce if you explain hardship
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 250 Try Aldi/Lidl if you have them nearby as you will save a small fortune even on just the basics alone
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 250 Any chance you could lift share with anyone?
Road tax................................ 0 ????
Car Insurance........................... 0 ????
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 ????
Car parking............................. 30
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 8.08
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0 ????
Life assurance ......................... 5
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 125 Bin this and throw it at your debts
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 50 You need to be throwing this at your debts as this is your emergency!
Account Charge.......................... 17 Fee paying account or overdraft fees?
Total monthly expenses.................. 1225.3

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

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 5440.55..(210.1)....5.9
Total secured & HP debts...... 5440.55...-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Tesco Loan.....................8453.52...352.2.....7.19
Egg Loan.......................6452.15...275.......7.66
Lloyds Card....................2783......60........0
Family.........................3000......0.........0
DFS............................2433......0.........0
Lloyds Overdraft...............2800......0.........12.3
Barclaycard (Me)...............2778.3....68........0
Post Office Card...............2233......58........0
Barclaycard (Him)..............2440.36...55........0
Total unsecured debts..........33373.33..868.2.....-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,250
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,225.3
Available for debt repayments........... 1,024.7
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 868.2
Amount left after debt repayments....... 156.5
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -5,440.55
Total Unsecured debt.................... -33,373.33
Net Assets.............................. -38,813.88

Some ideas for you in red above. Do you take packed lunches to work or buy lunch at work? This can save a lot of money.

slummymummyof3

Frontline and drontal worming stuff etc is loads cheaper online from company's such as petmeds. What sort of food do you feed dog? Have you got a Countrywide store nearby as they stock lots of different ones and regularly have 20% off various dry foods.

MrsTinks

Reduce the dog food cost by bulk buying or if you have a costco membership buy from there. I buy Arden Grange (good quality food!) online from vetsuk.co.uk I think it is - the lamb and rice one works out cheap and if you buy enough (think it's 2 bags) you get free delivery too...
Labs also have a habit of being overweight very easily - if she is then look at bulking out the food with calorie empty fillers like left over veg and rice etc. Raw carrots are often loved by dogs because they taste sweet and crunch

I can't see anywhere that you can find £4k from... Unless you can get £666 surplus for the next 6 months you're going to struggle on that one... is the car worth that? Would it be more sensible to hand it back and buy something MUCH cheaper? A lot of second hand cars in very good nick out there for less than £1k

Hannah_10

The best days of my life were as an army wife, and if you are able to budget well, you'll find quarters to be seriously cheap living. Lets see what we can do with your SOA...

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................ 1200
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1050
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2250 << This seems alright but actually, it's not a lot for two full time working adults. Consider taking another job or finding another source of income too. Lets say you could make £40 a week extra doing Avon or something, well on your 5-week month SOA then that's worth £200 a month. Also a lot of lads find extra pocket money working the doors of local pubs. He'd need his CO's permission but provided his working hours honestly allowed for it that wont be a problem. £40 is less than a doormans take-home per night.
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 210.1 << Car HP?
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 23
Gas..................................... 30
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 27
Mobile phone............................ 135 << 4 contracts is a horribly uneccessary expense. Ring the two you are not using and have them set to the cheapest tariffs, even on a contract you can get them to lower the tariff most of the time. Then ring the ones you have and find out about cheaper tariffs. When they expire replace with PAYG instead (you can keep the same numbers and handsets). If you go on the right PAYG you can get free texts. Use them only for texts and incomming calls, keep the calls for the landline. Aim to get this to £80 for now by speaking to the contract providers and saying you're broke, how far can you reduce it. Hit target and that'll free up another £55.
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 53 << If you call them and say you want to find out how to leave because you can't afford it anymore they will offer you the moon on a stick to keep you. Try it, you should be able to half this without much effort. Aim for £35 or less (frees up another £18).
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 250 << We have challenges here for comfort eaters, like the weekly shop one or the old-style dieting one. It's not food you need Honey, it's love, the labrador is the place to turn when you're feeling low (I have a collie personally). Lets say you can take £40 a month off this relatively painlessly by joining some challenges and hugging the dog more.
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 250
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 30 << Strictly neccessary? Could you perhaps use on-street parking and walk a little way? I'm gonna take a guess that some days you'll get parked, soe you wont, so lets say that a tenner can come off this.
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 8.08 << If you're very honest this probably is what a middle sized dog costs, although a little can be saved buying food in bulk and hitting the net for things like wormer and flea preventatives.
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 5 << His squaddie-cover I presume?
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 125 << No, this is high, I know the lifestyle puts pressure on you to go out and stuff, but this is on top of four phone contracts and a sky bill too. You're either gonna have to really limit how much you go out, or take up drinking lime cordial at 20p-60p a glass. See if you can get it to £100 as a starter.
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 50
Account Charge.......................... 17 << This is totally unneccesary too. When the overdraft is clear you want to think about going to a basic account. People tend to assume these have no facilities, like internet banking and stuff... yeah they do. The only thing they don't have is any possibility to go into debt. They are the best thing I never did when I was where you are now. I think this ought to be zero (got to pay the overdraft first though).
Total monthly expenses.................. 1225.3

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0<< you do need a value for this really, you can get one here http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/prices/#manu=2514&model=1323
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 0

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 5440.55..(210.1)....5.9
Total secured & HP debts...... 5440.55...-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Tesco Loan.....................8453.52...352.2.....7.19 << Priority No. 3
Egg Loan.......................6452.15...275.......7.66 << Priority No.2
Lloyds Card....................2783......60........0
Family.........................3000......0.........0
DFS............................2433......0.........0
Lloyds Overdraft...............2800......0.........12.3 << Priority No.1 because A- it has the worst interest and B- it incurs charges of £17 a month.
Barclaycard (Me)...............2778.3....68........0
Post Office Card...............2233......58........0
Barclaycard (Him)..............2440.36...55........0
Total unsecured debts..........33373.33..868.2.....-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,250
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,225.3
Available for debt repayments........... 1,024.7
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 868.2
Amount left after debt repayments....... 156.5<< Do you actually see a suplus?
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -5,440.55
Total Unsecured debt.................... -33,373.33
Net Assets.............................. -38,813.88

Ok so all in I see the potential to find another £325 a month to repay your debts with without you really feeling the lifestyle changes too much. That does include the £17 bank charges though, so it'd be £308 until that overdraft was gone.

That means snowballing is an option for you. This is good news as snowballing is probably the best way to get out of debt. Everything else involves more aggro, snowballing is all very amicable. It basically means you pay the minimums off every debt you have and you use what you have left against the most expensive debt (priority No.1) . When you've cleared No.1 you take on No.2 with all the money you were throwing at No.1 too.

So, lets say we have £308 for now, add that to the £156.50 surplus your SOA already shows and you get £464.50 a month to snowball with. So I put that into the snowball calculator at whatsthecost and I got this bottom line

It will take you 54 months to pay off these debts if you snowball correctly. During that time, you'll pay £2,288.00 in interest.

Right so in very plain English, if you make some lifestyle changes and you snowball well you're going to be clear of the whole £39k in a pretty short time and pretty cheaply but...

You WILL have to make lifestyle changes to pull this off. It's your call.

I couldn't help also noticing that you had a lot of debts on 0% cards or that there were no repayments going on at all. This is unlikely to stay this way for the next 5 years. At some point you're going to have to pay these off or face interest. This means at the point there starts to be interest on the DFS purchase, or the Post Office card, or when your family want thier loan repaying... Then you're going to have to come back and put the figures into a snowball calculator again.

So in reality, you're not going to get this all cleared in 4 1/2 years after all. Nor are you going to get away with just £2.3k of interest, but for now snowball as hard as you can with what you have and review the situation as and when something changes.

In addition you left out two categories I really don't believe you can keep at zero... Clothing and presents. Ok so this month you might not need any, but in the long run you will. I suggest you make further cuts in your expenditure again to fund those (like taking pressies off the entertainment budget) because you aren't goint to get away with snowballing unless you make a mission of it ASAP.

Which brings me to the next thing, where are you going to get £4k. This is a really big problem, you've got £39k of debt already, at some point you have got to stop. I suggest you set yourselves the challenge of earning another £625 each 5 week month until April to save the £4000. I would bank that in a bank in a bank who is part of a banking group you don't owe a penny to because of the right of set off, at first glance I can't see debts that could be [STRIKE]stolen[/STRIKE] "set off" from accounts held at... Co-Operative bank, Smile, First Direct, HSBC, The Midland Bank, Clydesdale or Yorkshire Banks, The Nationwide, Abbey, Alliance& Leicester, Cahoot and Santander or from Barnsley/ Britannia/ Chelsea/ Cheshire/ Derbyshire/ Dunfirmlineshire/ Scarborough or Skipton Buiding Societies.

Given my snowballing figures were based on you guys earning another £200 a month as it was. The additional £125 a week makes a total of another £165 a week from now until April. I am aware how large an amount that is. It is going to be difficult.

Mis-accounting was another mistake I made. I also thought that if I over accounted for the length of a month, or the amount I should put in a pot or whatever that I was doing myself a favour. What I learned (the hard way) was that mis-accounting only caused me greater trouble, it was a way of keeping my head int he sand longer. I'd put £30 aside to pay for something that was, say £26.82 or something... Then after a few months I'd not really be sure what I had where. Mis-accounting is one of those things that seems like a really good idea but isn't. I suggest you stop doing that right away and go the opposite way, aim for total accuracy, to the penny, on either a 30 day month, or a calendar month. You're not doing yourself any favours by shying away from the real numbers, take my word for that.

The real numbers show a very finely ballanced situation which could become very precarious very fast and needs to be dealt with as hard as possible to get it under control while you still have some of the 0% rates to keep it under control. If those 0% rugs are pulled from under you your debt will rise faster than you can pay it. If that happens it's a one way ticket to insovency.

Time to lose the illusion of control and go for real, enduring control. Get down to the very unpleasant hard graft and clear this lot off before it bites you.

looktothefuture

Didn't want to read and run so EVERYTHING Hannah10 said I back 100%! Whoa... great post Hannah!

Busylittlehoneybee, you can do this!

herewegoagain2010

Well done for posting your SOA Busy. I'm afraid I can't give you much advice on the debt side, apart from cut down when you can and try and reduce ALL outgoings.

My other half is in the RAF and my advice would be to sit down together and double check all your pay slips and claims. Sometimes mistakes are made and it's always worth checking just in case.

* Is your qrt charged at the right rate? You'll need to speak to housing to check the grade against the pay slip?My friend's hubby paid a grade 1 qrt on a grade 3 for 2 years before she twigged

* Has hubby been away on any courses recently or excerises? Is he owed any IE or LSA? The IE's are paid for 24+ hours and depending on his role the LSA is normally paid after 10+ days, but could be 7 in certain jobs.

* Do you have a garage too? If you do, try and get rid of it. Clear all your junk at a boot sale You could save yourselves around £20-£25 a month on your rent.

* Does your hubby do the sports lottery? Could save you £10 a month.

* Not sure what service he's in, or his trade. I know a lot of people might be offended at this suggestion, but could he offer to go on det. It's not for everyone and like I say I'm not sure if this is even an option. My best friend'd hubby did 4 months away and with the op bonus and LSA paid their credit cards off. It's not an easy option, if he can. It might give you some breathing space whilst he's away. You'll save money on food, electric etc with him being away and he'll get a daily Seperation Allowance.There's always the Tax bonus he in goes to threatre. It seems easy on paper, but time apart never is. Might be worth looking into though, to get near the 4K for the car.

* Are there any overseas posting for his trade? The LOA's aren't as great as they used to be and it'd mean you leaving work, but it's a great chance to save some money. Again, it's not for everyone and leaving family and friends for 2-3 years is hard, but it might not be an option.

I'm sorry I can't help on the debt advice much. We've just paid our debts off and at one point I thought we'd never get there. My hubby's first wife left him with 30k+ and it's been a long slog for him. Together we've tackled 12K and it is hard, but there's always a light at the end of tunnel. Well done busy and keep working at it. Make sure your hubby is on board and PM if you have any questions and I'll try and help. You're not alone xxx

HappyMJ

busylittlehoneybee wrote: »

I've worked it all out on 5 week month, so some months there is more spare than my SOA says.
TV Licence.............................. 12.12

It's rather confusing doing a 5 week month. It's much better doing a calendar month. For example just taking this 1 expense if paying quarterly direct debit in advance over 5 weeks this would be £14.50 and not £12.12 so go over everything again and calculate everything as if were monthly. Round income and asset figures down to the nearest pound and expense and debt figures up to the next pound.

busylittlehoneybee

Hi everyone, thanks for all the advice My head is spinning a bit today, didn't get enough sleep last night and this is all on my mind today.

slummymummyof3 wrote: »

Some ideas for you in red above. Do you take packed lunches to work or buy lunch at work? This can save a lot of money
Frontline and drontal worming stuff etc is loads cheaper online from company's such as petmeds. What sort of food do you feed dog? Have you got a Countrywide store nearby as they stock lots of different ones and regularly have 20% off various dry foods.

I take lunch with me to work, so that doesn't cost much and husband gets to go home for work most days. I feed her bakers complete, but only but it when its on offer, either at the supermarket or pets at home. Petmeds looks good, but the flea stuff she has is prescription only for some reason. I give her the lungworm prevention stuff as she has a habit of eating things she shouldn't!

MrsTine wrote: »

Reduce the dog food cost by bulk buying or if you have a costco membership buy from there. I buy Arden Grange (good quality food!) online from vetsuk.co.uk I think it is - the lamb and rice one works out cheap and if you buy enough (think it's 2 bags) you get free delivery too...
Labs also have a habit of being overweight very easily - if she is then look at bulking out the food with calorie empty fillers like left over veg and rice etc. Raw carrots are often loved by dogs because they taste sweet and crunch

I can't see anywhere that you can find £4k from... Unless you can get £666 surplus for the next 6 months you're going to struggle on that one... is the car worth that? Would it be more sensible to hand it back and buy something MUCH cheaper? A lot of second hand cars in very good nick out there for less than £1k

Shes quite lean, so don't have too much problem there-yet, she'd happily eat herself to death, I'm sure! The car is currently worth about £5585 (thanks Hannah_10 for the link), so I think its worth paying off and selling on. Just got to work out how. My dad is looking for something cheap, reliable and economical for me for when it goes.

Hannah_10 wrote: »

The best days of my life were as an army wife, and if you are able to budget well, you'll find quarters to be seriously cheap living. Lets see what we can do with your SOA...


Ok so all in I see the potential to find another £325 a month to repay your debts with without you really feeling the lifestyle changes too much. That does include the £17 bank charges though, so it'd be £308 until that overdraft was gone.

That means snowballing is an option for you. This is good news as snowballing is probably the best way to get out of debt. Everything else involves more aggro, snowballing is all very amicable. It basically means you pay the minimums off every debt you have and you use what you have left against the most expensive debt (priority No.1) . When you've cleared No.1 you take on No.2 with all the money you were throwing at No.1 too.

So, lets say we have £308 for now, add that to the £156.50 surplus your SOA already shows and you get £464.50 a month to snowball with. So I put that into the snowball calculator at whatsthecost and I got this bottom line
Right so in very plain English, if you make some lifestyle changes and you snowball well you're going to be clear of the whole £39k in a pretty short time and pretty cheaply but...

You WILL have to make lifestyle changes to pull this off. It's your call.

I couldn't help also noticing that you had a lot of debts on 0% cards or that there were no repayments going on at all. This is unlikely to stay this way for the next 5 years. At some point you're going to have to pay these off or face interest. This means at the point there starts to be interest on the DFS purchase, or the Post Office card, or when your family want thier loan repaying... Then you're going to have to come back and put the figures into a snowball calculator again.

So in reality, you're not going to get this all cleared in 4 1/2 years after all. Nor are you going to get away with just £2.3k of interest, but for now snowball as hard as you can with what you have and review the situation as and when something changes.

In addition you left out two categories I really don't believe you can keep at zero... Clothing and presents. Ok so this month you might not need any, but in the long run you will. I suggest you make further cuts in your expenditure again to fund those (like taking pressies off the entertainment budget) because you aren't goint to get away with snowballing unless you make a mission of it ASAP.

Which brings me to the next thing, where are you going to get £4k. This is a really big problem, you've got £39k of debt already, at some point you have got to stop. I suggest you set yourselves the challenge of earning another £625 each 5 week month until April to save the £4000. I would bank that in a bank in a bank who is part of a banking group you don't owe a penny to because of the right of set off, at first glance I can't see debts that could be [STRIKE]stolen[/STRIKE] "set off" from accounts held at... Co-Operative bank, Smile, First Direct, HSBC, The Midland Bank, Clydesdale or Yorkshire Banks, The Nationwide, Abbey, Alliance& Leicester, Cahoot and Santander or from Barnsley/ Britannia/ Chelsea/ Cheshire/ Derbyshire/ Dunfirmlineshire/ Scarborough or Skipton Buiding Societies.

Given my snowballing figures were based on you guys earning another £200 a month as it was. The additional £125 a week makes a total of another £165 a week from now until April. I am aware how large an amount that is. It is going to be difficult.

Mis-accounting was another mistake I made. I also thought that if I over accounted for the length of a month, or the amount I should put in a pot or whatever that I was doing myself a favour. What I learned (the hard way) was that mis-accounting only caused me greater trouble, it was a way of keeping my head int he sand longer. I'd put £30 aside to pay for something that was, say £26.82 or something... Then after a few months I'd not really be sure what I had where. Mis-accounting is one of those things that seems like a really good idea but isn't. I suggest you stop doing that right away and go the opposite way, aim for total accuracy, to the penny, on either a 30 day month, or a calendar month. You're not doing yourself any favours by shying away from the real numbers, take my word for that.

The real numbers show a very finely ballanced situation which could become very precarious very fast and needs to be dealt with as hard as possible to get it under control while you still have some of the 0% rates to keep it under control. If those 0% rugs are pulled from under you your debt will rise faster than you can pay it. If that happens it's a one way ticket to insovency.

Time to lose the illusion of control and go for real, enduring control. Get down to the very unpleasant hard graft and clear this lot off before it bites you.

Thanks for taking the time tolook so hard for me, that really helps. I'm an army wife too, we're on detachment to an RAF base though. First of all the avon idea-I think that could work! I work 13 hour days, so don't have time for much else, but I have noticed that since we've been here we haven't had an avon book. I am looking into it, as we are behind the wire I don't know if I'm allowed to put stuff through peoples doors, but I am going to find out. There is no spare time for him to get another job unfortunatly, he is studying towards a degree as well as work, at least the army pay for that though.

I have tried speaking to the phone people, but the contracts we signed mean we can't change the tarriffs apparently. Sky is tied into a contract, but I will try them.

The groceries-I will try to take it down to £40 a week, maybe £30. It'll be cheaper next month as my husband is away. The whole parking thing is just me putting £300 a month into a car account. I rely on whatever is left over to go towards tax, insurance etc... I drive 50 miles a day to Cambridge, which is awful for parking. Generally I can park at work a couple of times a week, but mostly I have to get the park and ride in the last 3 miles. I have worked out I could take a £3k a year pay cut if I didn't waste all this money on transport!

The life assurance is for me, if anything happens it would cover the debts and not much else! We paid for his kit and contents insurance up front, due in April. The entertainment is basically £50 per month each, he smokes his, while I save mine for junk food, clothes etc Not actually entertainment, but couldn't work else where else to put it! We're telling our family that we can't do presents this christmas or for the forseeable future. Not looking forward to that... The £25 is lottery, which I know is unnecessary. Better cancel it.

Any surplus stays in our bills account, which is the one with the overdraft, so I don't see it as such, but it is going down slowly. DFS payments start at £202 a month from next June, which will take up where the car leaves off in April. I generally try and find £500-£1000 for family a year, thats how I'm so overdrawn right now. The barclaycard (his) is the one that needs paying off, in Novemeber it stops being 0%. If I can clear it then we can use it for 6.9% life of the balance deal.

Sorry If i've missed anything, you've been so helpful, but my head is all over the place right now

looktothefuture wrote: »

Didn't want to read and run so EVERYTHING Hannah10 said I back 100%! Whoa... great post Hannah!

Busylittlehoneybee, you can do this!

Thank you

herewegoagain2010 wrote: »

Well done for posting your SOA Busy. I'm afraid I can't give you much advice on the debt side, apart from cut down when you can and try and reduce ALL outgoings.

My other half is in the RAF and my advice would be to sit down together and double check all your pay slips and claims. Sometimes mistakes are made and it's always worth checking just in case.

* Is your qrt charged at the right rate? You'll need to speak to housing to check the grade against the pay slip?My friend's hubby paid a grade 1 qrt on a grade 3 for 2 years before she twigged

* Has hubby been away on any courses recently or excerises? Is he owed any IE or LSA? The IE's are paid for 24+ hours and depending on his role the LSA is normally paid after 10+ days, but could be 7 in certain jobs.

* Do you have a garage too? If you do, try and get rid of it. Clear all your junk at a boot sale You could save yourselves around £20-£25 a month on your rent.

* Does your hubby do the sports lottery? Could save you £10 a month.

* Not sure what service he's in, or his trade. I know a lot of people might be offended at this suggestion, but could he offer to go on det. It's not for everyone and like I say I'm not sure if this is even an option. My best friend'd hubby did 4 months away and with the op bonus and LSA paid their credit cards off. It's not an easy option, if he can. It might give you some breathing space whilst he's away. You'll save money on food, electric etc with him being away and he'll get a daily Seperation Allowance.There's always the Tax bonus he in goes to threatre. It seems easy on paper, but time apart never is. Might be worth looking into though, to get near the 4K for the car.

* Are there any overseas posting for his trade? The LOA's aren't as great as they used to be and it'd mean you leaving work, but it's a great chance to save some money. Again, it's not for everyone and leaving family and friends for 2-3 years is hard, but it might not be an option.

I'm sorry I can't help on the debt advice much. We've just paid our debts off and at one point I thought we'd never get there. My hubby's first wife left him with 30k+ and it's been a long slog for him. Together we've tackled 12K and it is hard, but there's always a light at the end of tunnel. Well done busy and keep working at it. Make sure your hubby is on board and PM if you have any questions and I'll try and help. You're not alone xxx

Thank you. He wants to go to Afghan, he has quite a safe job, so it wouldn't be a huge worry, although still never safe. Sadly, we're here on detachment from the regiment so no chance of him going anywhere. He could do with making some sacrifices himself, he doesn't take it as seriously as I do. He's off on course for 4 weeks at the end of the month, all I could think was how much that was going to cost us (£150 out of my monthly food budget) but if they will pay him extra that will help Hopefully this will lead to his promotion, which will clear us another £250 per month. I've moved a long way from my family for this, I am very lonely most of the time. On the brightside though, in the 18 months we've been married, we've cleared 18k of debt. Just seem to be stuck right now.

HappyMJ wrote: »

It's rather confusing doing a 5 week month. It's much better doing a calendar month. For example just taking this 1 expense if paying quarterly direct debit in advance over 5 weeks this would be £14.50 and not £12.12 so go over everything again and calculate everything as if were monthly. Round income and asset figures down to the nearest pound and expense and debt figures up to the next pound.

I pay the TV licence monthly and thats what they take. The only things I work out are food and car. I put £300 into the car account each month and any surplus is left in there for tax, insurance, servicing etc... I put £50 per week into the food, anything left in the bills account is paying the overdraft.


I'm really sorry if I've missed anything anyone has said, I'm just a bit wobbly, but I am so grateful xxxxx