Re-posting SOA

thecornflake

I posted this a while ago but quite a few things have changed - some good, some bad, so I thought now I've actually got all the information I'll post it again.

This should be a complete monthly budget -

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Utility bills -

Gas/Elec (Powergen) - 45
Water (Southern Water) - 17
Council Tax - 92
Phone Line Rental (BT) - 32
Broadband (Tiscali) - 12.99
TV Licence - 10.99
Phone Calls (Primus) - 10

Other Bills -

Car Insurance & breakdown (Privilege) - 50.94
Satellite (Sky) - 28.75
Life Insurance (Direct Line) - 7.50
Natwest Adv Gold account fee - 10

Unsecured Borrowing -

Egg Credit Card - 135 (5490 remaining)
MBNA Credit Card - 5 (297 remaining)
Mint Credit Card - 92 (4150 remaining)
Personal Loan (Northern Rock) - 123 (10000/8 years? est remaining)

Secured Borrowing -

Mortgage (Natwest, fixed rate) - 566
Sec Loan (Black Horse) - 257 (17500 remaining)
GE Money (Conservatory finance) - 67 (3000 est remaining)
GE Money (Double Glazing finance) - 45 (3000 est remaining)

Groceries etc -

Petrol - 160
Groceries (Asda) - 150
Frozen (Iceland) - 60
Tobacco - 40

Salary - around 2000

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Basically using the proper figures (I rounded a couple) I work out as having -100 each month.

We are currently trying to sell our flat and move to rented house (900 on secured loans versus 750 rent) as we are waiting for my parents to sell their house and give use some money to enable us to buy a house. As it is taking a while we figured we might as well sell and then rent until the money comes through from the sale. Then we will hopefully be back on a mortgage and would have cleared all of our other secured debt. This should leave around 5-7000 after selling to pay off probably one of the cards as well.

However until that happens we're a bit stuffed. I've checked I'm getting the best deals on most of the things above, except cards where I don't have good enough credit to do a transfer to a new one.

I do also intend to start claiming charges back but ironically I can't spare the money for the court fees at the moment. I know Natwest owe us at least 12000 for the last 6 years but I also want to change bank accounts before I do that in case they close our account and doing that this close to xmas is too scary to think about!

I work full time and my wife works Saturdays although she recently broke her ankle and can't do any more during the week. Plus we'd have to pay for childcare anyway.

I am trying to get some more web design work in my spare time but so far nothing's really happening there (I'm an IT techie by day).

Any suggestions would be great - things I haven't thought of perhaps?

toontastic

Why are you paying an account fee of £10 to natwest ? Fancy giving up smoking How many are you feeding on £210 a month ?

thecornflake

toontastic wrote:

Why are you paying an account fee of £10 to natwest ?

I know, but the account meant I got a better deal on my mortgage when I re-mortgaged a couple of months ago (from another NW mortgage) as the previous fixed rate ended and I couldn't get one elsewhere.

Now I do want to swap accounts, but I'm not sure I'll pass credit checks with another bank. I will be speaking to NW about dropping the account down to a standard one without the fee.

toontastic wrote:

Fancy giving up smoking

I'm trying. My wife gave up last year using Allan Carr's excellent book, I keep putting off reading it for some reason.[/QUOTE]

toontastic wrote:

How many are you feeding on £210 a month ?

Me, my wife and our 3-year-old. I try every month to drop the food bills and can't seem to get it lower than it is at the moment. We do cook meals rather than convenience stuff most of the time as well. I'm doing the monthly shop this weekend so I'll have a look round here to see if there are any good tips before I go.

Another thing I'm planning to do which I didn't mention is sell the car and replace it with a diesel which will hopefully save on the petrol costs.

James240

have u had a look on the oldstyle boards at all? as im sure they will be more than happy to help you get your food bill down

Welshlassie

£160 per month for petrol is pricey I do 20k+ miles a year and don't spend that much - can you walk, get public transport, combine trips into one journey so you save petrolthat way.
You should consider giving up smoking.
£42 on the phone is alot, I though BT line rental was about £11.50 per month how come you pay £32 plus £10 in phone calls.
The sky amount sounds like you only have a low package, can you dump it completely and get freeview?

What about all your other expenses, clothes, gifts, holidays, house insurance, mobile phones??

jackieb

You can get the basic Sky package for £15.

I'm £38 a month for my BT line rental and broadband combined. My phone calls are with Tesco and cost less than £20 every 3 months.

jackieb

double post - sorry

thecornflake

Welshlassie wrote:

£160 per month for petrol is pricey I do 20k+ miles a year and don't spend that much - can you walk, get public transport, combine trips into one journey so you save petrolthat way.

I do 35-40k a year. I do make sure I'm buying petrol from the cheapest station on my routes. When I do business I claim back at 45p a mile and obviously make a bit of profit but unfortunately this doesn't happen very often.

Welshlassie wrote:

You should consider giving up smoking.

Yes, I figured I'd get a few comments about that. I shall dig out the book and start reading tonight.

Welshlassie wrote:

£42 on the phone is alot, I though BT line rental was about £11.50 per month how come you pay £32 plus £10 in phone calls.
The sky amount sounds like you only have a low package, can you dump it completely and get freeview?

Sorry - the BT amount is for 3 months rental at 11(?) a month.

The Sky amount takes into account 1 box office movie per month (hey I've cut down a lot) plus the non-direct debit fee of £4 - They're having trouble re-setting up the DD after the bank cancelled it a while ago.

Welshlassie wrote:

What about all your other expenses, clothes, gifts, holidays, house insurance, mobile phones??

Buildings insurance is covered by the freeholder (leasehold flat). We don't currently have contents (I know, bad). No holidays or new clothes for the last year or so. We only get each other cards for birthdays and I'm not sure exactly what's going on at xmas.

Mobile phones I did forget to allow for - £10 each per 2 months (payg).

I also forgot car tax (160/year / 12 = 16/month).


EDIT: I guess my replies may sound a bit off, I am really up for changing things and saving and I appreciate all the advice so in case you get the wrong idea about my attitude I thought I'd better say that.

toontastic

On the box office movies, can you not sign up to the movie rental companies and just tart them so you never have to pay? Use quidco and you can make money from them even.

toontastic

On your unsecured borrowing are you paying the min on each loan ? Do you have the APRs for these ? Could you move anything over to 0%?

toontastic

Are you in an NTL area so you could combine, phone, BB and TV for £30 and once again use quidco for cash back. Are you using quidco at all for purchases ?