Our first SOA

Poppy9

Is your mortgage on a discounted deal. If not, can you change to one without penalty?

Life insurance seems very high. Look for term assurance as this is much cheaper. OH and I pay less than £25 per month to cover both our lives as we have cover with our works pensions too.

Internet. I asked AOL for cheaper deal - was paying £17.99 per month for silver BB. They offered me £9.99 per month straight away.

My BT line rental and calls is £15 per month. I use the free minutes with my 100% cashback contract mobile phone for most calls. I also sell my phones as soon as 12 month contract up and I have a new cashback deals.

Do you have anything to sell. Maybe duplicate/unwanted wedding presents, clothes, shoes etc bought for wedding, CDs, DVDs. Be ruthless.

Dump sky and get a freeview box.

pollyanna24

Pet insurance £120 a month?!! Blimey, that isn't just high, that's mad! Why is it so much? Even when my beloved doggie was spending lots and lots of time at the vet, his insurance wasn't that much!

Tizzi

2 middle aged dogs and a cat. Both dogs have been hospitalised at different times (illness, not accidents), totalling about 6 admissions over the years. One of the dogs is on expensive daily medications as well.

The insurance company has changed underwriters and is now fairly renowned amongst vets for trying to force people out for claiming too much.

So, that's why it's currently £120/month! And they've succeeded too - they've priced us out of being able to continue with the insurance... :rolleyes:

Penny-Pincher!!

Definite easy cuts can be made too:

Sky-reduce package or get freeview
Food-How many is this feeding?
Car Insurance-look around
Gas & Elecric-see other posts
Pet Insurance-You cant afford this

You need to get that OD paid ASAP..at nearly 30% thats too high!

PP
xx

david_hellier

Hi and welcome. According to my figures you have £167.68 per week to spend on food and anything else. To prevent immediate overspend, I suggest you write this amount in a little book each Monday and keep a track of what you spend by subtracting. If you have any over at the end of the week, put it towards your most expensive debt, the overdraft.

You are not in a position to save, so put all your savings to the od. A £50 pm payoff is included in my figures. Stop using CCs for any more purchases. Consider changing your bank account; the od rate is unacceptable. Otherwise, it's all managable.

Good luck here are the figures:

income weekly monthly
self 1850.00
partner 784.00







total 0.00 2634.00 divide by 4.33
£607.85

£607.85 total weekly income

spend weekly monthly
rent/mortgage 770.00
council tax 130.00
elec 40.00
gas 70.00
water 48.00
secured loans 0.00
TV licence 12.00
fines 0.00
sky 43.50
phone 35.00
mobile 26.00
car ins 55.00
petrol 120.00
car finance 102.00
pet ins 120.00
0% deal 67.00
internet 14.50
health 4.40
cc payments 200.00
od payoff 50.00










total 0.00 1907.40 divide by 4.33
£440.17

£440.17 total weekly spend

Start= income - spend = £167.68 per week

TrickyDicky

If you put all the savings into the overdraft, then you will reduce your monthly interest spend which is currently around £120? to around £60. Plus this overdraft can become your "emergency" fund if you really need it, unless this overdraft is over your limit.

FOr your pets: do you have any friends that would love a pet? this could reduce your monthly spend by quite a bit (insurance, food) and if the friend is close enough you can still go and see them.

Car insurance: Im 24 on a 1.6l car and the cheapest I got was £450/year with 1 years no claims doing 15000 miles a year. Im sure you could find something cheaper. https://www.confused.com is useful, but when you get quotes from here (or elsewhere) dont forget to ring round to try and reduce them further.

Baggiebird1nil

Don't forget to sign up for Quidco for insurances,gas/electric. Can make a nice little sum on there.

Tizzi

Thank you all for the advice, and also for the very useful financial breakdown of our weekly expenditure/money available!

I've printed out all your replies so far to show to my husband, and work out our 'plan of attack' for the debts.

Oh, and the pets are here to stay. Despite the considerable amount they cost us, we're really very fond of them all.