Fed up with debt

[Deleted User]

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1 is this one child already, so the new baby will mean 2? no this will be with baby coming
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1733 Any way to increase? Over-time? yes as this is the minimum i nhope to earn that's great news, any additional income should be paid towards the debt that's costing you the most in interest
Partners monthly income after tax....... 560 Is this temporary whilst on maternity leave, or is this permanent? yes just tempory again this is great as when she goes back to work (whatever additional income there is after childcare costs can be paid towards the debt costing you the most in interest)
Benefits................................ 128 what's this? Are you claiming all that you are entitled to? Are you including any additional benifits you will get once the baby arrives?this is what i worked out we could claim
Total monthly income.................... 2421

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 436
Management charge (leasehold property).. 38
Council tax............................. 103 Are you currently paying this over the usual 10 months? Is so ask your council if you can spread over 12 months as this will bring down the monthly payment
Electricity............................. 35 Although neither this nor gas is high check that you are on the cheapest tariff for your area (check every 6-12 months) and if switching is cheaper try and go through one of the cashback sites (Quidco, topcashback etc)
Gas..................................... 35 as above
Water rates............................. 40 are you on a meter, would a meter be cheaper if not already on one?
Telephone (land line)................... 15
Mobile phone............................ 50 Very high, you already have a home phone - if in contract see if you can downgrade your tariff, if/when out of contract compare SIM only pay monthly, and PAYG deals - there are some good ones around for £10 pm depending on usual usage this is for 2 mobiles - this is still high for two - if when out of contract shop around for better deals
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 30 What does this include - see if combining with home phone and internet would be cheaper - also consider switching to freesat/freeview this is combined on sky - if you get freesat/freeview you could get home phone and internet for £20 pm (talk talk)
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 400 This is very high for two adults and one child - try reducing it by a bit (say £50) every month until you are down to around £200 pm - drop brands, meal plan, batch cook, try the cheaper supermarkets - Lidl/Aldi. And take a look over on the old style board foe hints, tips and advice we have tried reducing but my wife likes fresh food and lots of fruit and salads at the moment. We too also eat plenty of fresh food - and we cook everything from scratch, we spend approx £100-£150 pm (two adults - all meals) so I am sure that this can come down a bit at the least - try dropping brands or shopping for fruit, veg and salad ingredients at lidl/aldi
Clothing................................ 0 should probably be somethting here - even just for the child
Petrol/diesel........................... 80
Road tax................................ 22
Car Insurance........................... 35
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10
Buildings insurance..................... 0??covered as we pay service charge
Contents insurance...................... 20 does this also include buildings?
Life assurance ......................... 9
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 30
Haircuts................................ 0 never?wife cuts my hair and do you cut hers? If not, see if there's a college near by that does trainee cuts as she'll get them at a fraction of the cost if not free
Entertainment........................... 50
Total monthly expenses.................. 1500

Assets
Cash.................................... 0 where's the cash that you keep for yearly bills - car maintenance etc, are you actually managing to save this for when it's needed?No we never save!!!:( hopefully once you you have done your spending diary and adjusted your SOA you will be in a position to start doing this - it's a good idea to have even a little in emergency savings to cover unplanned/unexpected expenses as well as yearly bills - that way you become less reliant on CC's and DD's
House value (Gross)..................... 125000
Car(s).................................. 4000
Total Assets............................ 129000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 100000...(436)......
Total secured & HP debts...... 100000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Are you not being charged anything for having these three overdrafts?yes but didnt know the rates Once you figure out the rates, list them from high to low (ie those costing you the most in interest to those costing you the least and put all the surplus you can find in your SOA towards the one costing you the most (ensuring that you continue to pay the minimum towards all others) and you will soon see the debts drop off. This method is called "snowballing" and at the bottom of the page where you filled in this SOA these's a Snowball calculator - once you've worked out the APR on your debts you can use the calculator to help you to prioritising you debts - it's also very motivational
lloyds overdraft mine..........440.......0.........0
lloyds overdraft wife..........1090......0.........0
lloyds overdraft join..........700.......0.........0

You really need to find out what the APR's are on these in order to prioritise - also are the payments that you have made the minimum payments allowed?yes all minimum payments and interest rates r hard as percentage of them r 0% but as we have put more on them some is interst:o
next...........................900.......50........0 I suspect that this is the debt costing you the most (store cards tend to have high APR's unless you are on a promotional rate) and you should put all your SOA surplus towards this until cleared, then move on to the next highest costing debt - this time putting all SOA surplus + next previous minimum payment (£50) towards it - this is the quickest way to pay off debts and also the method that means you pay the least interest back meaning more of your payments are actually clearing the debt rather than merely covering the interest charged
halifax c/c....................3072......80........0
virgin c/c.....................4784......80........0
virgin c/c.....................3146......80........0
tesco loan.....................2300......215.......0
lloyds loan....................6013......265.......0
Total unsecured debts..........22445.....770

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,421
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,500
Available for debt repayments........... 921
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 770
Amount left after debt repayments....... 151 Well this is great, you have a monthly surplus left at the end of the month to throw at the debt that is costing you the most in interest. However, you mentioned earlier that you are not meeting all of your financial commitments every month - this suggests that your SOA may not be accurate - are you sure that you have included all your monthly spends? Perhapse you need to keep a spending diary for a month or two, or have a look at you past bank statements and see if there's additional spending. Keep a note pad with you noting down all spends that are made from coffees and newspapers to the mortgage and everything in between, and you will soon see where your monthly surplus is going.yeah i think ur right that i need to keep a spending diary as we never have anything left over well worth it, when I tried it I found it very revealing about my spending habits:rotfl: - also worth a look if you have, even small, regular spends (this will help you decide how "essential" they are: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/protect/demotivator/

(My daily snack from the vending machine at work was costing me £125 a year and over 5,000 over my working life!:eek: - very scary!)

Total assets (things you own)........... 129,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -100,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -22,445
Net Assets.............................. 6,555

Hi,

I have made some comments above, I hope that they are of some use.

Thanks for looking over [/QUOTE]

Good luck with it - I hope you manage to balance the budget and are debt free soon.

And congrats on the new addition to your family (I forgot to say in my previous post!)

D9