Please help with SOA thanks in advance.

purple_butterfly28

Hi Tangyfog
I'd look into reducing the mobile phone bill £80 a month seems a bit steep or is that both yours and your wifes?
If your about half way through a contract you can normally negotiate lowering it, if not there are plenty of cheap pay as you go tarriff's out there. Try O2 sim only or Giff Gaff sim only deals fairly cheap.

Also I reckon if there's only 2 of you you could lower your groceries bill. I do 2 people on around £120 for main shop and then £40 for extra bits and pieces a month. Meal planning will become you and your wifes new friend OS board is good for this.

Also is the Payment Protection Insurance with your loans as there is a big section on here about reclaiming and being ripped off :mad:. I've just started the reclaiming process on credit card PPI. You can shop around for cheaper versions of this if needed.
For your petrol costs try petrolprices.com to find the cheapest in your area and even the driving tips Martin suggests, it may shave off a few pennies/pounds each month! :money:

Gas and electric do a comparison which could throw up some cheaper options.
If you go through quidco or topcashback (cashback sites) to use a comparison site like go compare you could eventually get a little money back. Also those sites quite often have cashback deals on if you do end up changing supplier so maybe some more money :T
Could also come in useful for when you do your car insurance

Hope you can save some money and help out your wife's mum it's never a nice thing for someone far away being ill.
Good Luck!

tangyfog

Many thanks for the feedback.

2 mobile phone contracts that have been signed up for 24 months. Both are required for work and family. Wife Phone home to alot to her family abroad, otherwise she get down. The contract allow her to talk for 2000 mins a month abroad. My phone is for work.

£20 a week for eating out/entertainment for weekend is that too much for two people? mac donalds cost £10 for two people or am i doing something wrong? So £80 is 4x£20. We go out 1 day each week to cheer ourselves up while we are paying off the debts.

£16 of the £96 is for my online subsription for 2 people for online gaming so we can stay home for the rest of the week and play computer games to keep us busy.

Car is needed for works as have a small business as market trader and need to move stock. so public transport is a no no. Parking is need nearby as we cant move stock if we are 20 minutes away from the market.

Electric is on dual time i.e we wash clothes in the midnight as its 5p kwph. rather than 14p day time.

Car insurance is high as she is new driver and does has uk passport, they charge more if you dont have uk passport. something to do with doing a bunk so they charge more just you do a disappearing act on them!

Mortgage holiday could be possible as I have 3 month allowance but I used 1 month already as I need to get out of my overdraft and set my payment to the middle of the month rather than at the end.

I could cut back on entertainment for a bit but I dont think I would like to not go out that once a week as it a bit of stress relief from work etc and its helps to take time out.

Thanks for the input so far.

beecher2

Find free entertainment - there's plenty out there. You don't need to pay for online gaming either - that's a luxury you can't afford.

Mrs_Arcanum

If your wife is calling her family a lot would it be worth looking at Skype or one of the cheap overseas call providers.

sgoode

tangyfog wrote: »

Wife Phone home to alot to her family abroad, otherwise she get down. The contract allow her to talk for 2000 mins a month abroad.

My wife phones home a lot (to China) using our BT phone and it costs less than it does to phone next door (0.5p/min I think). She uses the free access numbers that are detailed on this site (http://callchecker.moneysavingexpert.com/intcallchecker/). That could save you some money.

RAS

You need to separate out your home and business expenses properly.

tangyfog wrote: »

2 mobile phone contracts that have been signed up for 24 months. Both are required for work and family. Wife Phone home to alot to her family abroad, otherwise she get down. The contract allow her to talk for 2000 mins a month abroad.

Your wife needs to start to understand that either she get money to help her family or money to pay for phone calls, not both.

tangyfog wrote: »

My phone is for work.

In which case it is a business expence not a household expense.

tangyfog wrote: »

£20 a week for eating out/entertainment for weekend is that too much for two people? mac donalds cost £10 for two people or am i doing something wrong? So £80 is 4x£20. We go out 1 day each week to cheer ourselves up while we are paying off the debts.

You cannot afford to spend money to cheer yourselves up when you are paying debts, you certainly cannot afford to spend money on ents if you are thinking about increasing your debt.

tangyfog wrote: »

£16 of the £96 is for my online subsription for 2 people for online gaming so we can stay home for the rest of the week and play computer games to keep us busy.

You cannot afford this.

tangyfog wrote: »

Car is needed for works as have a small business as market trader and need to move stock. so public transport is a no no. Parking is need nearby as we cant move stock if we are 20 minutes away from the market.

In which case the car, fuel and parking are business expenses, not generally household expenses.

tangyfog wrote: »

Electric is on dual time i.e we wash clothes in the midnight as its 5p kwph. rather than 14p day time.

In which case, what is eating up the day-time electrical power, because your bill is high for two people?

tangyfog wrote: »

Car insurance is high as she is new driver and does has uk passport, they charge more if you dont have uk passport. something to do with doing a bunk so they charge more just you do a disappearing act on them!

So she needs to come off the insurance for a while; perhaps until she has a UK passport.

tangyfog wrote: »

Mortgage holiday could be possible as I have 3 month allowance but I used 1 month already as I need to get out of my overdraft and set my payment to the middle of the month rather than at the end.

Securing debt is a silly idea.

tangyfog wrote: »

I could cut back on entertainment for a bit but I dont think I would like to not go out that once a week as it a bit of stress relief from work etc and its helps to take time out.

You need to find cheaper ents and free ones then. Running, footie with mates, walks, an allotment, anything that is low cost or free.

purple_butterfly28

I was just about to suggest Skype aswell or also seeing if you can get a beter dealing for calling overseas on your home phone package.

As for the eating out once a week i'd look at the vouchers page on this site. I always try to use vouchers where possible for eating out. If you don't have access to a printer at home some libraries let you for a small cost (or a nice friend or relative).
Sign up to websites for the places you eat at = vouchers for birthdays and when they have promotions on.
Also the tastecard often has 3 month free promotions and they have good 241 offers and 50% on loads of restaurants. check it out at tastecard. co. uk (currently a 30day free trial keep an eye out for martin's e-mail when it's a longer trial)
It might not seem too bad £10 per person per week but that means that your food/groceries spend for the month is approx £330!!! :eek:
Which also means that meal out once a week is actually 1/4 of your food/groceries budget for that week and also works out as 2x as much as you spend on food for 2 people for 3 meals a day for the rest of the week....
sorry :A just trying the Martin demotivator technique.
But eating out is nice sometimes so maybe if you cut back your groceries bill by £50 a month that would cover 2 1/2 meals out

For the money you should have leftover each month I personally say that the spending diary is the best way forward. It helps track every little penny so you can see what is eating up your money.
That 50p chocolate bar or pack of £2 coffee or £3 sandwich from the garage when your on the road may not seem much at the time but do that 3 x a week and it's £66 a month!
I found these type of shock :eek: tactics really helped me.

dancingfairy

I wasn't suggesting that the OP turn large chunks of unsecured debt into secured debt - I merely suggested having a couple of months off the mortgage to pay for the operation. Yes the OP is in a very sticky situation and it' very precarious. Unfortunately we do not know what the condition of the mother in law is and how vital the operation is so I assumed that it was very important if not an emergency , we also do not know how much it costs- clearly though the OP needs to be aware that they also need to look after their own family and really needs to start making some serious inroads on the debt.
It does appear that they have been very unlucky recently though with the car and the washing machine breaking down which certainly hasn't helped.
I would really not suggest taking out any further loans though but certainly some money can be retrieved from the SOA.
df

tangyfog

I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have taken time out of your lunch to give me some good advice. Much appreciated.

I will look into all the suggestions and try to cut back where I can.

Hopeful everything will work out well. I dont think I want to take out any more big loans though. So cutting back will be my next approach.

I will definitely use the 241 vouchers as DH birthday is coming up!

fleitner

£57 a month for TV (cable + tv licence) - if you stop watching TV you can save a fortune.

(I did this a while ago and even the tv licencing guys stopped sending letters after they got convinced that we really don't watch TV)