40 and Foolish!

MFWannabe

NewLeaf wrote: »

.... sticks toe in some remarkably hot water! :eek:

I always read these diaries and now finally am doing one for myself & OH. Just did a SOA and for 2 high earners what we have to show for it is absolutely shocking, so here we go on a mission to get rid of the debt and save like there is no tomorrow. Just as an FYI in case anyone reads this and wonders why there are 2 cars accounted for and £0 in petrol, it is because my company pays for the petrol. OK... deep breath and:
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 3
Number of children in household.........
Number of cars owned.................... 2
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 4300
Partners monthly income after tax....... 6800
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 1500
Total monthly income.................... 12600
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1600
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 95
Electricity............................. 85
Gas..................................... 60
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 30
Telephone (land line)................... 30
Mobile phone............................ 60
TV Licence.............................. 11
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 42
Internet Services....................... 30
Groceries etc. ......................... 270
Clothing................................ 100
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 30
Car Insurance........................... 110
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 30
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 200
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 50
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 35
Buildings insurance..................... 60
Contents insurance...................... 60
Life assurance ......................... 11
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 100
Haircuts................................ 20
Entertainment........................... 20
Holiday................................. 190
Emergency fund.......................... 170
jadwiga................................. 756
Total monthly expenses.................. 4255

Assets
Cash.................................... 9000
House value (Gross)..................... 475000
Shares and bonds........................ 70000
Car(s).................................. 3500
Other assets............................ 8000
Total Assets............................ 565500

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 280000...(1600).....1.75
Total secured & HP debts...... 280000....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
egg............................12700.....321.......21.07
natwest1.......................4200......102.......17.8
natwest2.......................6700......140.......17.8
kitchen........................1900......75........0
boiler.........................1000......28........0
mbna...........................1400......60........20.5
tesco..........................5600......88........16.7
Total unsecured debts..........33500.....814.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 12,600
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 4,255
Available for debt repayments........... 8,345
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 814
Amount left after debt repayments....... 7,531
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 565,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -280,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -33,500
Net Assets.............................. 252,000
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.

hi
welcome to the board. Your soa is not really extravagant for such high earners. as another poster has advised; look at combining satellite, phone and internet; this will certainly work out cheaper. There's no point giving companies your hard earned cash if you don't have to!
With reference to your housekeeper; i would try and keep this if i were you. You can afford this on your wage; especially once you have paid off your debts and found out what you are doing with the excess you should have left over each month. As you said it is very difficult to find someone you trust enough to leave in your house with your dogs and you appear to have found them; so you have peace of mind when you have to work away.

with reference to the debts to pay off first; you have kitchen and boiler written down with no interest; is that correct?
If it is correct then i would use the 9k in savings to pay off the mbna card and either the Natwest 2 or a chunk off Egg. I would then pay extra chunks (as much as i could) off the next highest APR and so on until i was debt free.
If you find out where your excess money is going that you should have left over every month and paid this towards your debts you should be out of debt in 6 months time

NewLeaf_2

thanks all for your kind supportive posts.

Spoke to OH last night about the SOA and the suggestions made here, as well as had a chat about the fact we both have about 20 suits, and a whole bunch of "excess" we don't need, and how we would like to live with less "stuff". We would also like to be MF sooner than later.

The plan of action (please feel free to comment)

I get paid the 28th of every month, OH the last friday of every month. It seems sensible to take care of the smaller stuff immediately so:

By the end of the month pay off:

Boiler
MBNA

which will free up £88 more to go to scrambled egg

we will pay off 1/2 the kitchen this month as well

My mother's signifigant elderly birthday is the first week of October which I am giving for her and 30 of her closest friends (ha!) in her far away country which is costing $55/pp plus 18% gratuity and 6.75% sales tax. Flights for OH and I have been paid already.

I have put in a call to the IT dept of my company relating to the internet/phone/tv situation. I have a complicated home set up that is a double router situation for direct very secure access to my company's network. So for TV I have virgin and phone and internet BT. It would be good to combine everything as stated. As long as I can move away from BT for my home office setup, I should be good to go.

We also discussed the 2 car situation (stupid) as one of the cars was driven maybe 5 miles last month, and not because the other car wasn't available, basically just to make sure it wasn't dead.
So since the insurance, parking permits, MOT etc is all paid until Feb, our aim will be to dump both cars for 1 hybrid car to be greener, less use of petrol and the associated savings.

Regarding all these clothes/belongings: If it is designer we will sell on ebay, if not, cancer research uk for clothing, freecycle for everything non-clothing.

question for anyone reading, when you set your debt free date, are you using some type of tool/calculator to figure it out?

Thanks!!

pjcox2005

Fair enough to stay on this board if you want to live a more frugal lifestyle and perhaps live with less possesions, or even to frame your thoughts but I can't help but think you are on the wrong board if not.

As mentioned above your SOA isn't extravagant considering the wages you earn, so for example having a housekeeper seems fine it it makes your life easier. Likewise you don't have a debt problem, as mentioned if you cash in a proportion of your shares/bonds you'd clear the debt straight away.

I would have thought you would get more benefit from say the savings/investments board or even better maybe an independent financial advisor. The reason for this is you need to work out a plan for what you want to do with your 'excess' income and how you get the most suitable return from this. You mentioned that you want to be mortgage free but given the interest rate is only 1.75% then you may get a better return through other investments first (even simple starting points like ISAs) and then when you come to remortgage you could just pay off a lump sum. Same logic applies to paying high interest rates whilst having the means to clear them.

Just a thought anyway.

NewLeaf_2

Pjcox, I will also look at the savings/investments boards.

Some more about us, we have no children, but do have interest in charities and would also like to leave an amount to that in our testaments.

Additionally if we lead a more frugal lifestyle, we will have more time to focus on time spent with each other, the dogs and important things rather than being bogged down with a bunch of stuff we dont need

NewLeaf_2

Also, I may not have a debt "problem" to some people but I thought this place for people of any income who want to be debt free?

xx

BEAT_THE_DEBT

Like i said earlier mse forums are for everyone you are more than welcome here!!xx

BEAT_THE_DEBT

Like i said yest mse if for everyone you are more than welcome here.x

NewLeaf_2

so I figured out that my company offers some voucher scheme where by you can purchase say £100 of waitrose vouchers and they send you £106 worth of vouchers so basically a 6% savings over using cash. The issue is that you can only buy the vouchers in increments of £100 and then making sure to use them when I usually use tesco. Tesco is a drive for me and waitrose is across the street so I will save some money in Petrol. This week I will give it a go and see if Tesco still comes out on top.

NewLeaf_2

Hello All I am doing a restart of this diary as OH was made redundant and is now on a much smaller salary. In the mean time whilst I have been away I have paid off the kitchen and boiler and MB*A but also added to some other debts.

I was able to roll most of it onto the 0% barclay card.

The reason I am restarting is because of Piquant, Happy Now and Brizzle,

They made me realize that just because you have decent earnings it doesnt mean you are a financial wiz and that you can't want to be an MSE.

So frugal things I have done today:

Done wash and hung it out
walking instead of "entertainment" The sun is more entertaining than anything!
Cooking lunch at home

sunshinesquirrel

Hi New Leaf

Welcome back. Sorry to hear OH been made redundant - at least he's managed to get another job - albeit with a smaller salary.

Well done on what you've managed to pay off so far. Hopefully, using your diary, you'll be able to keep the momentum going and get rid of some more.

I'm normally a only a lurker/subscriber on these boards but always read with interest (picking up lots of useful tips along the way!)

I'm having a day much the same as yourself - washing hung out, baked a cake and made a huge pot of soup and the sun is shining here too so OH is out doing a bit of DIY in the garden.

Have a good sunday - looking forward to hitching a ride on your debt free journey

SS

x