New member New problems please advise!

annibee

Hi everyone :wave:

Firstly I am new to all this so please bear with me if I dont use all the right lingo and if you post replies with acronyms could you please say what they stand for....sorry.

Secondly. I am really sorry if i start to ramble i have so much i need to get out that im worried if i open the floodgates i wont be able to stop lol

Thirdly- Any advice will be welcomed

Ok Here goes......

I moved to Essex from the North Last year (to be with man of dreams.....he is still dreamy and i am still here with him!!)

I am 23 and before I moved here I had never had a Credit Card/Loan/Store Card/Overdraft etc etc

Dream man is 24 - Has lots of Debt - well for someone whos never had any i feel its a lot. Didnt know about this until Just before we bought (yes ill get onto this in a minute) our house.

One day i ask why he never has money when he is earning a reasonable amount (24k annum), he explains due to cards/loans/etc I ask how much he owes......he doesnt know. He has been paying set amount to his mum to distrbute and left her in charge. We discuss and he agrees we need to take that control back so we can see where we stand. He owes around £15,000 not including a large student loan this is taken before tax from his wages anyway so it doesnt really affect us as its a small amount a month)

We are both shocked at how much is owed however as I have always been fairly good with Money and Organising things (ok a bit monica from friends perhaps :rotfl:) I agree to sort it out so we know whats what. Hes paying ridiculous amounts of interest on things but he can not get credit due to the current climate and the amount he owes.

I got a couple of onine shopping accounts and a contract phone to help boost my non existant credit rating to help in our mortgage app

We then bought a house luckily a reletive lent us the money for the deposit on the basis that we will pay back a month we explained what we could afford and thought everything was agreed. Moved into house in Feb and in March Reletive wanted all money back...........:( I took out loan and paid half back which we both pay monthly. We also paid off some of the smaller debts of my mans. Reletive will be expecting other half (8k) in March 2011.

Situations have now become a little harder.

I have a little boy who is 2 and a half and childminding fees are astronimical in this area. However we now have another baby on the way which we are soooo happy about problem is ill have to go on maternity leave in february and therefore will not have my full wage (23k) coming in to help us....starting to panic a littl e about what on earth we will do. we have been getting tax creds however they will stop in April :eek: (I like these faces!)
Darling Mans job is contracted to March so we are trying to get him another one but thats a wee bit stressful the nearer we get.....also i work in the public sector and face losing my job before maternity leave :eek:

I am quite good at saving and getting freebies and bargains so any challenges anyone may know im well up for trying (ie - I briefly read the loose change challenge and i will be attempting that one!)

To give you an idea of how i canbe save savvy some things i have done myself -

Last year I opened a Savings account with a one year fixed rate if you make no withdrawls - Saved £25 a month and when I came into an extra £150 added that in there and therefore for my Christmas Shopping budget we now have £525 to be released next month :T - so proud of myself!

I go to the points events at boots especially at christmas and therefore all of 2010 i have bought all my purchases from boots on my advantage card :cool: - in fact i have some bits to pick up today probably about £40 worth but i have £95 on my advantage card so no money spent.

I also have the motto why pay more if i can get it cheaper elsewhere:p I live for money off vouchers and discount sites!

I was on a £35 per month Phone contract - I am now on a £25 per month one wahooo - and i got a free phone and xbox!!

Sorry to have gone feel free to ask questions, give advice or just be here. To be honest itll just be nice to talk to some people who may have similar issues going on as the stress is killing me!
Also boyfriend pays his debts each month but has adopted a "theres no point in worrying when theres nothing i can do" attitidue which is a little irritating to me - An experienced and top Worrier.

Ok off to count our change to see what can be paid with that

Anni x

annibee

I wrote more than i thought....sorry

Tixy

Hi annibee and welcome to MSE

Congrats on the new baby bump.

It does sound like you are adopting a sensible approach overall to finances. And good to see you are considering what will happen next spring rather than waiting for it all to happen. At least it will give you a bit of time to prepare.

What I think would be a useful thing is to write out a financial statement of affairs as things stand now. If you can post on here we can see if we can find areas in which you can save any money right now (by switching providers or similar). Then once you have that budget sorted you could then try to work on a statement of affairs for how things will be once you go on maternity leave and the tax credits etc stop. That at least should show how much of a shortfall you might have and hopefully people may be able to make some suggestions as to how you can cope once you have the drop in income.

Here is the statement of affairs link we use - http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Barricade

It would be very much worth you doing a SOA (Statement of Affairs).
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Include your partners debt where you can, and we'll see what we can come up with!
Well done to both of you for wanting to take control and bring the debt to zero!

annibee

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1200 – Although is a bit variable sometimes I come away with anything up to £1500 as they pay towards my petrol
Partners salary - £1331
Benefits - £656 (£80 Child Benefit, £576 Tax Creds)

Total - £3187

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage - £706
Council Tax - £134
Childminder - £800
Gas and Electric - £96
TV License - £11.87
Sky £50 although varies due to phone
Phone - £11
My Mobile - £25
Partners Mobile - £10-15
Food - £300
Car Insurance - £149.74
Petrol - £120 (I drive a lot for Work and At the end of every month I drive my son to see his dad (326 miles)
Life Insurance £20.29
House insurance - £42.36
Water - £30
Halifax Loan - £189.25

Total: £2700.51

Virgin CC – Balance £3500 (limit £3500) Minimum Monthly Repayment £90

M&S CC – Balance £1180 (Limit £1500) Minimum Monthly Repayment £26

Tesco CC – Balance£1100 (Limit £1200) Minimum Monthly Repayments £26

Northern Rock Loan Balance £4000 (was 10000) Pay £210 per month will be paid off May 2012

Halifax Loan – APR 12% 84 Months from Feb 2010 pay £189.74 Per month

Overdraft - £1879 (limit £2000) £60 per month

HMRC Tax overpayment £30 per month till June 2011

DWP Overpayment £33 per month till December 2010

Next – owe about £300 (bloody dyson) pay £50 - £70 per month

Thats pretty much it, Thanks for your replies

annibee

There also seems to a lot of random things cropping up each month needing money.......car tax this month £155 MOT needs doing next month....

Also as my son see's my mum (she lives in scotland!) we need to buy plane tickets sometimes this comes up to about £150 (at most) per time. and he sees her probably 4 - 5 times a year

Barricade

Are you paying for a private child minder, or are they going to a playgroup? Is it the fee you are paying, or are you paying by childcare vouchers?

I'd cut down on your sky, and the phone usage.. if your calling mobiles, would it not be cheaper to ring from your mobiles?
Are you on a package that allows free local and national calls?

£300 for groceries is expensive. Myself and my partner manage on £110 per month. Look at alternative brands.. supermarket own brands can be just as good.

Your car insurance is insanely high.. works out to £1400 per year. What are you driving? A mercedes?! Look at possibly changing the vehicle to something with a cheaper insurance bracket.. or look at changing insurance when renewal is up!

You list the credit cards, but not the APR you are currently paying. Can you add these to it? It will give us an idea on what needs sorting first, and whether any can be changed to 0%

Tixy

Hi

Thats a good start but it might help if you use the calculator here - because then you put in a monthly estimate for costs that you don't incur each month (so for car tax & car maintenance estimate the annual cost and then budget 1/12 each month). You could also do the same for travel in your case so that you budget for those plane tickets. It also reminds you to put in costs for things like clothing, haircuts, presents etc.

From the info you have put so far the car insurance stands out as very high. Is there a particular reason its so high? Do you shop around at renewal time? do you know about cashback site for online spending?

The other item that seems high is your grocery cost. I think you could really work at reducing this down quite a bit by changing your shopping habits. Try meal planning for a week ahead before you go shopping. Try martin's drop a brand challenge and if you find you buy convienence type food due to working long hours then try cooking more meals from scratch which work out much cheaper, plus you could try batch cooking meals at the weekend and then freeze them so they are quick to do on a working day.

annibee

Barricade wrote: »

Are you paying for a private child minder, or are they going to a playgroup? Is it the fee you are paying, or are you paying by childcare vouchers?

I'd cut down on your sky, and the phone usage.. if your calling mobiles, would it not be cheaper to ring from your mobiles?
Are you on a package that allows free local and national calls?

£300 for groceries is expensive. Myself and my partner manage on £110 per month. Look at alternative brands.. supermarket own brands can be just as good.

Your car insurance is insanely high.. works out to £1400 per year. What are you driving? A mercedes?! Look at possibly changing the vehicle to something with a cheaper insurance bracket.. or look at changing insurance when renewal is up!

You list the credit cards, but not the APR you are currently paying. Can you add these to it? It will give us an idea on what needs sorting first, and whether any can be changed to 0%

I pay a private childminder but as I stated i get 144 Child tax creds at the moment toward this so my actual cost is about £36 per week. If i go to a cheaper one ill get less so it works out the same as would if i dropped it a day so until April this is the best solution

The sky i think we should cut down as we currently have the bog standard and movie channels but Im sure we can live without for a year. The calls have been to child maintainance and HMRC at their insane call rates - unfortunately Child Maintainance have been dealing with my case for 2 years but havent quite managed to get around to sorting it which meant weekly stressfull calls....I still havent got anywhere so I dont call them anymore its just not worth it lol. e never make any outgoing calls from the phone apart from 0845 numbers which are more expensive from my mobile unfortunately.

Groceries is where are problems are we do spend a lot and i will definately look into your seuggestions. .... this isnt just on food though this is also nappies and baby stuff also presents as my between our familys we seem to have 2 birthdays a month!!

The car - :rotfl::rotfl: I wish i could afford a mercedes :rotfl: unfortunately I have only been driving a year and a half and im under 24 so thats one reason. The other is i used to drive an MGZR (classed as a modified car) I got my insurance and topped a one year no claim because my previous insurer wouldnt insure me on that car (I had a corsa first £111 per month) I ended up with this other company who charged the best at that time. Then My car had to be sold so i bought a Ford Focus thinking nice family car my insurer where going to put my insurance up like an extra £100 a month :eek: and to leave them i had to pay £250 then i found this company which is the price i pay now....i did shop around but i shouldve researched more about types of car... Im keeping this one till i get my one year no claim bonus and then they say it will cut by half... I also have to be insured by a company that will cover for my business use as well as i regularly have other people in the car with me so it needs to be fully comp (my company told me all this after i started lol) In hindsight i shouldve bought a corsa again and we are looking into that for the next car however it needs to fit the big pram and children in (and maybe my boyfriend!):rotfl:

Im not sure of the APR at the moment ill have to dig out boyfriends statements.....I shall do this at some point today.

bargainbetty

If your company require you to cover your vehicle fully for business use, don't they provide some level of help for that? Surely they cannot force you to spend money to work for them?

Shop around for your house insurance - that seems pretty high too.

Just to clarify - is that two Halifax loans? The numbers are close enough for it to be a repeat, but I wanted to check.

Good luck

annibee

bargainbetty wrote: »

If your company require you to cover your vehicle fully for business use, don't they provide some level of help for that? Surely they cannot force you to spend money to work for them?

Shop around for your house insurance - that seems pretty high too.

Just to clarify - is that two Halifax loans? The numbers are close enough for it to be a repeat, but I wanted to check.

Good luck

My company pay me £80 a month for Car use which includes any excess for the insurance and general wear and tear...ive included that in my Statement for what i earn monthly

Just one Halifax loan sorry.

Home insurance - I bought through Halifax to get the £50 bonus..... do you think im stuck in a yearly deal or maybe I can get cheaper then...either way it will be up for renewal in Feb so I can deffo look around if you think i may find cheaper. Thank you