I think this might help.

tbourner

I'm now 29, need to grow up before next year!!

tbourner

Now lost another percent and a half due to Christmas (see sig)! Nearly went over my OD limit as well :doh: .
Still, new year and new hope. Company bonus should be coming in Febs pay pack, and then we find out if we get a department one as well (probably not though).


Here's my updated SOA, pretty accurate now apart from still using an average from my spending diary for things like 'Pet Working Equipment', which for example we bought a scooter to run on over a year ago and the average is still dropping from that! Plus Zoe's been quit smoking for 6 months now so that's slowly dropping as well which is nice, should reduce our life insurance next year too.


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
Total monthly income.................... 2801[/b]

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 661
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 93.33
Electricity............................. 36
Gas..................................... 31
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 24.42
Telephone (land line)................... 21
Mobile phone............................ 90
TV Licence.............................. 12.13
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 22
Internet Services....................... 18
Groceries etc. ......................... 190
Clothing................................ 15
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 18
Car Insurance........................... 45
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 65
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 60
Buildings insurance..................... 13.93
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 25.4
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 30
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 30
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Takeaways............................... 30
Cigs and alcohol........................ 40
Pet working equipment................... 55
Pet Food................................ 50
Total monthly expenses.................. 1776.21

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 130000
Shares and bonds........................ 500
Car(s).................................. 1500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 132000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 113000...(661)......5.99
Total secured & HP debts...... 113000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Santander......................2000......110.......11.7
NatWest Loan...................9500......267.......6.9
Lloyds Loan....................5900......206.......11.5
Overdraft......................3000......20........12.23
Lloyds CC......................1800......35........15.9
Barclaycard....................1800......35........15.9
GE Money Loan..................1700......50........22.25
Northern Rock Loan.............28000.....170.......5.99
Total unsecured debts..........53700.....893.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,801
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,776.21
Available for debt repayments........... 1,024.79
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 893
Amount left after debt repayments....... 131.79

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 132,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -113,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -53,700
Net Assets.............................. -34,700


Yes I know we spend £165 a month on dogs, we're not getting rid of them.

jwil

The things that stand out for me tbourner are the mobile phone bills, and satellite/internet/phone - could you reduce/change the contract on the mobiles and maybe bundle the internet, phone and satellite?

Did you get a copy of the takeaway secret in the end? Mine arrived at the weekend, and it looks good! I haven't tried anything yet though.

Of course you are not getting rid of the dogs, but have you checked that you are getting the best prices for insurance, food, other bills?

Are you snowballing your debts to clear them quicker?

Good luck with it, you are still ahead with your percentages!

moo2moo

How long do you have to go on the loans? and how brutal do you want suggestions to be? With an income of almost 3 grand a month for two heatly adults you shouldn't be struggling as much as you are.

Firstly do you actually have a monthly surplus? and if so what do you do with it?

You're biggest expenses (after debt repayments) are all frivolous things which together total £281. Thats a third more than you're spending on fodd each month. Ditch Sky, cook more often, if you really have to have takeout then spend a fiver on the supermarket grab bags and heat it in the oven.

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 22
Internet Services....................... 18
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 30
Entertainment........................... 30
Takeaways............................... 30
Cigs and alcohol........................ 40
Telephone (land line)................... 21
Mobile phone............................ 90

If you really wanted to you could easily free up £300 a month just by cooking from basics rather than jars and ditching some of the frivolous stuff.

I can understand not wanting to get rid of your pets but do you really need to spend as much on them as you are doing?

tbourner

jwil wrote: »

The things that stand out for me tbourner are the mobile phone bills, and satellite/internet/phone - could you reduce/change the contract on the mobiles and maybe bundle the internet, phone and satellite?

We do love our TV, we don't go out pubbing and clubbing so having music on demand for free with Virgin and that kind of thing is important to us - I know that's a cop out really but it's not something we could give up easily. I've saved a few quid on the phone bills and bits recently and our contracts with mobile are due to run out in July so we'll be going sim only and hopefully saving quite a bit.

jwil wrote: »

Did you get a copy of the takeaway secret in the end? Mine arrived at the weekend, and it looks good! I haven't tried anything yet though.

Didn't get that book in the end, I still want to but it's trouble persuading the wife that it'll be as nice as the 'real' thing!

jwil wrote: »

Of course you are not getting rid of the dogs, but have you checked that you are getting the best prices for insurance, food, other bills?

Insurance is cheaper than we'd like as we'd rather have more cover, but now we have 2 large dogs and a cat we can't afford to have the best cover any more - we're keeping the cover that allows rollover illness into following years though.

moo2moo wrote: »

How long do you have to go on the loans? and how brutal do you want suggestions to be? With an income of almost 3 grand a month for two heatly adults you shouldn't be struggling as much as you are.

It's just too much debt, we're paying over £800 monthly not including mortgage!!

moo2moo wrote: »

Firstly do you actually have a monthly surplus? and if so what do you do with it?

We do, but it only seems to be £103, not sure where that £28 has gone!! I think it's because some of the things on the SOA are from the spending diary, so the £50odd for pet stuff we don't actually spend monthly or save or anything, it's just a falling average from a few big purchases over the last 18 months - maybe it's not a true representation but I like to keep it in so I know how much damage I've caused in the past (if that makes sense?).
//edit: Anyway the surplus of £103 goes onto the credit cards and overdraft, I'm paying £55 off Barclaycard, £70 off Lloyds and £70 off overdraft each month. That's not good for snowballing but the interest rates are the same on the 2 cards and I like to pay more off my overdraft at least for the moment so I don't go over it and get in trouble with the bank.

moo2moo wrote: »

You're biggest expenses (after debt repayments) are all frivolous things which together total £281. Thats a third more than you're spending on fodd each month. Ditch Sky, cook more often, if you really have to have takeout then spend a fiver on the supermarket grab bags and heat it in the oven.

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 22
Internet Services....................... 18
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 30
Entertainment........................... 30
Takeaways............................... 30
Cigs and alcohol........................ 40
Telephone (land line)................... 21
Mobile phone............................ 90

If you really wanted to you could easily free up £300 a month just by cooking from basics rather than jars and ditching some of the frivolous stuff.

See other reply above, we should cook properly really but with running the dog rescue we have very little spare time. We need to get into slow cookers I think and have more stews!

moo2moo wrote: »

I can understand not wanting to get rid of your pets but do you really need to spend as much on them as you are doing?

The dogs are our life, as I said it's a confusing figure in the SOA, the scooter we bought over a year ago was £240, so that rolling average is slowly going down, backpacks a few months back were £35 each. It's not like we go and blow £50 a month on toys and chews!

jwil

tbourner wrote: »

We do love our TV, we don't go out pubbing and clubbing so having music on demand for free with Virgin and that kind of thing is important to us - I know that's a cop out really but it's not something we could give up easily. I've saved a few quid on the phone bills and bits recently and our contracts with mobile are due to run out in July so we'll be going sim only and hopefully saving quite a bit.

That's fair enough, but can you not get a bundle with Virgin for all of those things? My BIL has phone, internet, TV with Virgin and I'm sure he's paying a lot less. You could probably even get your mobiles with them too if you wanted to.

tbourner wrote: »

Didn't get that book in the end, I still want to but it's trouble persuading the wife that it'll be as nice as the 'real' thing!

Like I say, I haven't tried any yet, but the care that's been taken with the recipes, I reckon they are going to be good. Is there any particular takeaway meal you are both keen on?

tbourner

jwil wrote: »

That's fair enough, but can you not get a bundle with Virgin for all of those things? My BIL has phone, internet, TV with Virgin and I'm sure he's paying a lot less. You could probably even get your mobiles with them too if you wanted to.

Oh sorry, they are all bundled with Virgin, I just separated all the individual costs. We have XL TV but the lowest broadband and the talk anywhere 200 phone (which I think is £8 above line rental or something but we phone mobiles and 0845 numbers so it was the best option). We don't have any movie packs or anything like that and just one box. Not too extravagant IMO, it's just we've been with them so long we're now on the most expensive 'no deals' pack they have I think!

jwil wrote: »

Like I say, I haven't tried any yet, but the care that's been taken with the recipes, I reckon they are going to be good. Is there any particular takeaway meal you are both keen on?

We both love Chinese, sweet and sour chicken, egg fried rice and chow mein.

jwil

You could always phone up and tell them you're thinking of moving to Sky, and see if they'll give you a better offer. I've seen people do that on here and get some good discounts!

I'll check the book and see if there are those recipes in there.

tbourner

Had a pretty good appraisal at work, so I'm getting a nice bonus and hopefully will be getting a bit of a pay rise as well. So that's good and hopefully can pay off that GE Money loan in a few months!

Bad news is the wife is still off work with depression/agoraphobia, 2 months left of full sick pay and I don't think we can last on half pay. She's doing well but it's touchy whether she'll be right to go back to work or not yet. Will just have to cancel everything and try to help her as much as possible - not wanting her to know about the money is hard though as I know it'll pressure her to go back when she's not ready.

tbourner

Signature updated for the month, might post my monthly SOA in a bit as well. Nothing much MSE done in January though. Wife signed off for another 3 weeks, that takes us up to the 6 months - might have to ask for a mortgage holiday if she's still off after that.