Sparkerly's SOA

the_cat

Sparkeley - do you really only spend £20 a month on petrol? If yes, consider if it is really essential for you to keep a car. Once you factor in insurance,mot,services,tax,repairs etc your cost per mile must be pretty high! And that is without factoring in depreciation or the interest you could save if you used the money to pay off debts instead.....could you make do without and free up some capital to blast one of the debts?

pmlindyloo

As usual the folks on here have given wonderful advice.

I read this thread with great interest as it could have been my situation a while ago.

My OH earned a very good salary and so did I. We never really thought about money because we had plenty (or so we thought!)

My OH (self employed) was then hit by the recession and money became an issue As someone else has suggested to you I became the 'financial director' for my household.

I found this site and although I never posted I became an avid reader and 'digested' everything that was said.

The first thing I did was to go through our bank statements and looked at the DDs. What were they for? What did they cover? Did we really need them? I found DDs going out that I had no idea we were paying !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was totally ruthless and cancelled anything that I could (watch for terms and conditions/early repayments etc)

Then I checked all our utilities, mobile and landline phones, insurances to see if we could make any savings (again need to check terms and conditions)

Next I tackled the groceries. (wonderful threads on here to help). If there was a cheap deal to be had I got it!

I joined Quidco and used it to change utilties, phones, insurances and get cashback.

I became a Moneysavingexpert and bored my family and friends rigid!

A couple of years down the line and the whole family are converted. My children are regular savers and always (well perhaps not always, they are in their early 20s, single and enjoying life!) look for the best deal.

I can honestly say that I wished I had been more savvy in the years before. Things are much better now financially and we can ease up a little, but our mindset has totally changed.

Bit of a long post but just wanted to say I found the whole experience uplifting, even addictive!

So the very best of luck!

anh1904

Well done on recognising you have a problem now (with less than £20k debts to boot).

You can clearly make sufficient savings to manage your lifestyle, but none of them are likely to be easy, and only you can decide if the lifestyle you live and enjoy now, is worth the deepening trench of debt you will be climbing further into if you wish to continue.

People have choices, as they say.

Sparkerly

LillythePink wrote: »

it's not as easy as it sounds being in the CI - downgrading a house would still cost a lot of money, buying it would as would all of the fees that we have to pay (roughly 4.5% of the house price in Guernsey don't know about jersey)

Not only the cost, but I have put blood, sweat and tears into renovating our home over the last year and could not consider selling it unless it was a last resort.

Sparkerly

Wow Domino9 lots of hints and tips there.

Can't extend mortgage as extended as long as we can already.

Food definately needs cutting back.

We don't have MOT or car tax here.

Phone bill covers, house phone, 2 mobiles for the kids and broadband.

The 0% loans will remain that way for the length of the loan.

Thanks for the hope that you have given me in seeing that a few changes will make all the differences - but I will do a more full SOA to see the true extent. Might wait til later until after a glass of wine!

As for getting a job I am currently looking to go back to work and have applied for a few, just waiting to hear back.

Sparkerly

the_cat wrote: »

Sparkeley - do you really only spend £20 a month on petrol? If yes, consider if it is really essential for you to keep a car. Once you factor in insurance,mot,services,tax,repairs etc your cost per mile must be pretty high! And that is without factoring in depreciation or the interest you could save if you used the money to pay off debts instead.....could you make do without and free up some capital to blast one of the debts?

Difficult one this as yes we only spend £20 a month on petrol - we live close enough to town/schools do not need to use it often, but we do need to use it at times and I don't know how we would cope without it. We have already sold one car.

Think I need to give this a bit more thought!

WASHER

How much is the car worth you currently have? Could you downgrade it to a cheaper one?

WASHER.x.

Sparkerly

:j After taking the first plunge in facing my debts and receiving great advice on here, I plucked up the courage to speak to the gas company and they have agreed to reduce our monthly dd to £79 down from £117. Can't believe how easy it was to do.

Gonna give Sky a try after speaking to OH.

Huge thanks to all :T:T:T

anh1904

Sky at £63.85 PLUS £55 on phone is very high. We have the all in cable package and pay less than half that amount, so you can categorically reduce this amount. If you get rid of Sport and/or Movies, then you can save most of it.

Your insurances are something that you really need to do some sort of cost benefit analysis on - is the further debt pile they are helping create justified in the eyes of the whole family and what they will ultimately forego in the future when you finally start repaying.

You could argue the same about school fees, Gym, Takeaways .... nearly £1500 in total every month all in, which gives you plenty of room to manoevre, IF you really want to.

[Deleted User]

Sparkerly wrote: »

Difficult one this as yes we only spend £20 a month on petrol - we live close enough to town/schools do not need to use it often, but we do need to use it at times and I don't know how we would cope without it. We have already sold one car.

Think I need to give this a bit more thought!

If you NEED it at times, but not most of the time consider whether a hire car would be worth it for the odd day away? (no idea average car hire prices where you are). Or if only use for occational shortish journeys would taxi's be more convenient?Might be worth considering.

Or alternatively, downgrade, or see if there are car share options where you are.