Give me a kick up the *** I need it!

Sharon87

So my debt peaking at it's highest (ignore my sig it's out of date!) I'm over 4K in debt!!

I have been earning a fair bit of money the past 2 months (not right now, been out of work for almost 2 weeks, but got some on Monday) But I'm spending SO much money on going to music gigs and festivals.

I'm planning on going to Sonisphere festival, but can't really see if I can afford to go anymore! I've done a rough SOA below with my average income based on last tax year. I work temp contracts so can vary massively. I earned £1750 pre tax last month! But £1000 pre tax the previous month. This month set to be lower than £1000.

I'm learning to drive (starting tomorrow) I've recently saved £450 towards this.

Just tell to stop spending! I'm moving out in September and will need extra cash to move.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1
Number of children in household.........
Number of cars owned....................

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1000
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1000

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 510 - all bills included
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 0
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 22
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 4 - my share of Premier Sports
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 100
Clothing................................ 30
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 80
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 0 - haven't had one in I don't know how long
Entertainment........................... 100
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 60
Driving Lessons......................... 100
Total monthly expenses.................. 1026


Assets
Cash.................................... 450
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 450

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
HSBC OD........................1250......18........19.9
Halifax CC.....................1840......18.4......0
Natwest OD.....................350.......3.........19.9
Brother - Argos Card...........495.......0.........0
Mum............................660.......0.........0
Total unsecured debts..........4595......39.4......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,000
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,026
Available for debt repayments........... -26
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 39.4
Amount short for making debt repayments. -65.4

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 450
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -4,595
Net Assets.............................. -4,145

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

atush

You are being an idoit I am afraid. Is that too harsh or should I kick you harder? You did ask us for a good one.

You have 450 that should be going towards debt, not DL's. You have no money for either a car or the petrol to put in one. And No festivals, are you mad????

At least pay off your overdraft as it is one of your two highest rate debts at 19.9 apr. Then attack the other one that is that rate.

No festivals or DLs until you pay off those two. Then give yourself a little treat.

I am sure with your profligacy you have things you don't need or use. Sell them on Ebay.

Trajal

*kick* how's that

Seriously, the couple of points I noticed in particular were learning to drive, and entertainment.

Now I know full well what it's like to want to drive, believe me, but at the moment you really can't afford it.

I understand and appreciate that you've paid for that, however bear in mind that the moment you get your license you will want to get a car. Which means more debt, probably in the form of a secured loan, and then maintenance costs, as well as insurance, MOT, etc.

The moment you get a car, you will never stop putting your hand in your pocket. I'd suggest that you discard learning to drive unless it is an absolute requirement for work (which I'm assuming not) and leave it until you're on a better financial footing.

This will avoid having to spend that saving you've built up - which can be used to pay off debts, and, as well as defer the costs of a car, which frankly will get painful on your income.

Entertainment could probably take a small hit, if you're struggling to save, cut it in half, it'll add up soon and make a big difference, and there's loads of stuff you can do for that amount (if you live in Bristol or cardiff i can provide you with a map of which pubs have £ a pint nights for every night of the week haha).

You may also want to put a cap on your emergency fund, and start siphoning half that cash into debt repayments. Have you considered snowballing the debts with the calculator? It'll free up a lot of cash if you have just a few extra austerity measures, and with your levels of debt you should be able to pay it off in no time.

Oh and forget buying clothes for six months, I'm sure you won't outgrow your current wardrobe That alone will save you £180.

kaz0705

Erm, exactly what atush said. Unless you NEED to drive for your job then driving lessons will need to wait. What are you going to do, pass your test then buy a car on HP and then pay for petrol on credit each month? And insurance? And Tax? Its just so expensive. And if you're anything like me, you'll need a lot more than £450 to learn to drive.

Likewise, Sonisphere tickets... Well, I wanted to go too. But I can't afford the ticket let alone the weekend of buying food and drink (ok, mostly drink). Its just not a practical option. The soonest-to-end tickets on ebay has 13 bids and is going for £180. Could do with that, eh?

Whereabouts do you live? There are a million decent smaller festivals. Last year, instead of the big festivals, I went to Endorse it and it was brilliant. A much nicer atmosphere and, ok, I didn't see any bands I'd heard of but the ones i did see where so much fun.

Unfortunately you know as well as everyone else here that if you want to pay of debt you have to stop living beyond your means and 'treating' yourself to £400 weekends at festivals (give or take).

Bottom line: continue 'treating' yourself to gigs and festivals and go further into debt. Or stop seeing them as a treat and start seeing them as a black cloud of debt (which for you they are) and start living within your means and paying off debt.

Erm... that plain enough? :-)

kaz0705

As mentioned above, totally do a snowball calculator. It AMAZED me and gave me a big kick to see how quickly I could be debt free when i used one!

Sharon87

Well I'm learning to drive to give me better job prospects. I work in TV and people have said well if you could drive I'll give you the job... I've had some lessons before at uni. Driving lessons are really non negotiable. I did plan to do 2 lessons a week, but can't afford that, so it's down to 1 lesson a week, I've saved for the past few months to give me a driving lesson emergency fund. I'm not planning on buying a car (I live in London so the insurance will be about 2k!). I plan on putting 10% of my income towards the driving lesson fund, which is what I've been doing, plus a bit more on better paid months!

I'm already going to Reading Festival, managed to bag some free stuff from an old production (camping bag, solar lights.etc) I only need to buy a cheap tent now. It seems as if Sonisphere will be a no go. That means I won't be seeing You Me at Six AGAIN, had 4 opportunities where I could have seen them. First one I had to sell my ticket due to a job.

Bright side if I don't go Sonisphere and get iTunes Festival tickets (free) for My chemical romance I can go see them (same weekend as Sonisphere).

I agree on the clothes, no more, in fact I have some old ones lined up to sell on ebay.

I want to enjoy my youth whilst I have it, but don't want to get into debt trouble. As it stands my credit rating's good. I have other overdrafts that are not getting touched (Halifax £1 day to use).

I am owed £350 by my brother for various things like Reading tickets, so that'll go towards my Natwest overdraft (which is actually £250, not £350).

My emergency fund is not just that, it's going towards the £495 debt that's interest free at the minute. My house was burgled and I had to replace my laptop and camera, so my brother used his 0% deal for 9 months on his Argos card. I have £110 in going towards paying this off. Needs to be paid off by Xmas or it's backdated 30% odd interest! This will be the priority debt.

I'm off now to meet friends at a really cheap rock pub in central London (I know unheard of!) 1 alcoholic drink for me the rest diet cokes or water! (well I am driving tomorrow).

Thanks for the kick. I'll tell my friends I'm not going Sonisphere (unless I come into some money)

[Deleted User]

Sharon87 wrote: »

So my debt peaking at it's highest (ignore my sig it's out of date!) I'm over 4K in debt!!

I have been earning a fair bit of money the past 2 months (not right now, been out of work for almost 2 weeks, but got some on Monday) But I'm spending SO much money on going to music gigs and festivals. This spending needs to stop until you are debt free and you can save up to go

I'm planning on going to Sonisphere festival, but can't really see if I can afford to go anymore!
I think you need to sell that ticket and throw the proceeds towards your debt - there is always next year when you are debt free and you can save up in advance to go
I've done a rough SOA below with my average income based on last tax year. I work temp contracts so can vary massively. I earned £1750 pre tax last month! But £1000 pre tax the previous month. This month set to be lower than £1000.
This is a bad idea - you need to work out your SOA based on the lowest amount of income you could/are likely to earn (and anything above and beyond that can go to overpay on debt, and once debt free be saved for the things you really would rather your money was spent on - if you don't work out your SOA this way your SOA will not balance some months and you will be taking expensive steps backwards in your debt free mission on these months. You just need to have a bad few months and you'll be going backwards instead of forwards (from a debt free point of view)

I'm learning to drive (starting tomorrow) I've recently saved £450 towards this.
I agree with other posters that you just can't afford it right now. You are better off keeping the cash until you are debt free and you are in a position to pay for lessons, exams, and once you pass a car, insurance, tax, MOT, petrol, maintenance, breakdown cover, car parking. You just can't afford it, no matter how much you want it.

Just tell to stop spending! I'm moving out in September and will need extra cash to move. stop spending, if you carry on as you are you will be in a very bad state and things will not improve until you do decide to stop spending

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1000
Total monthly income.................... 1000

Monthly Expense Details
Rent.................................... 510 - all bills included
Mobile phone............................ 22 Do you use all the mins and texts included, or could you downgrade to a cheaper tariff? Remember that you can make calls for free from SKypee (from the internet). There are some good PAYG and SIM only contracts for £10pm
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 4 - my share of Premier Sports
Groceries etc. ......................... 100 You can probably cut this back a bit - meal plan, batch cook, drop brands, shop in lidl/aldi, only buy what you really need
Clothing................................ 30 perhapse keep this to essentials only until debt free, if you have been spending this up to now your wardrobe must be full - have a good clear out and put what you no longer wear/doesn't fit on e-bay (free listing this weekend I believe) and put the proceeds towards debts
Other travel............................ 80 (what does this cover, and can it be done cheaper? weekly, monthly, yearly, season pass?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 0 - haven't had one in I don't know how long check out local colleges for free/cheap trainee cuts
Entertainment........................... 100 this is very high, cut it back
Emergency fund.......................... 60
Driving Lessons......................... 100
Total monthly expenses.................. 1026


Assets
Cash.................................... 450 this is for your driving lessons, where is your emergency fund? I think you need to pay this towards your debts
Total Assets............................ 450

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
HSBC OD........................1250......18........19.9 both this debt and the debt below need to be your priorities as they are costing you an enormous amount in interest
Natwest OD.....................350.......3.........19.9
Halifax CC.....................1840......18.4......0 is this really 0%, if so when does the 0% end and what will the APR be then?
Brother - Argos Card...........495.......0.........0 as above
Mum............................660.......0.........0
Total unsecured debts..........4595......39.4......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,000
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,026
Available for debt repayments........... -26
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 39.4
Amount short for making debt repayments. -65.4 I think that you can easily make this up and more so that you can not only make your income meet your expenditure but also so that you can overpay starting with your most expensive debts -
mobile (£12), groceries (£20), clothing £20), entertainment (£50), driving lessons (£100) TOTAL = £202 - pay this towards the debt that's costing you the most in interest every month combined with any extra income that you can make - you'll soon be debt free.

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 450
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -4,595
Net Assets.............................. -4,145

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Hi,

I have made some comments above, hope they help.

D9

Sharon87

Domino9 wrote: »

Hi,

I have made some comments above, hope they help.

D9

Hi the 0% Halifax ends September. My aim is to balance transfer (I've hid away the CC already so no spending on it). My Credit rating seems good so far, no defaults, no missed payments or over overdraft limits.

The 0% for the Argos card ends in December. There's £110 in the fund so far.

Luckily I haven't bought the Sonisphere ticket yet. I've already stated I've got some clothes ready to be listed on ebay (ooh free listing weekend, thanks for the heads up)

I'm not intending to buy a car, just to learn to get a better job. 24 is leaving it a little late for my career anyway.

My phone's still in contract for another 17 months or so, (stupid 24 month contract, but I'm happy with the tariff anyway)

£80 travel is for work when I'm working full time. So will reduce if my income that month reduces. It's on oyster so the cheapest it can be. I get the bus back from work so weekly travel cards aren't cheaper.

I would do an SOA of worst possible month - basically not working at all so that will consist of housing benefit and JSA. In these times I don't spend £100 on entertainment! And that's what the savings for driving lessons are for, so I can still learn when I'm not working, so I don't waste money stopping and starting.

chuckley

whats ur utter desperation to go to festivals?! im not going glasto this year coz well theres more to life and i cant honestly afford it. Could afford the last 2 but went anyway. this time i put down the deposit and then thought 'no i really cant afford it', so gave it up. yea i lost £10 in admin but the saving of over £500 towards clearing debt/more important things in life is making me realise the better decision.

also ur car situation sounds wrong. u live in london, desperate 4 a car but claim u wont be buying straight away anyway?? office jobs that require someone to drive r usually out in the sticks so unless its a MUST, dont bother. sounds to me like ur tryna 'fit in'. not everyone drives and the ones that do, not all of them can afford to.

u need to stop 'treating' urself as ur IN DEBT!!!!!! u dont deserve any treats apart from a new DVD/game or night out every once in a while (not a 700+ festival) AFTER uve started making movements @ reducing ur debt.

kaz0705

AH, Sharon, you sound like a girl after my own heart (off to a cheap rock club in London- nice!).

But your comment about enjoying 'your youth' whilst you still can makes me think that you're a wee bit younger than me. I turned 29 last year but I'm still going out and going to festivals and enjoying myself... I just don't pay for it on credit anymore!

I Know Reading's awesome and I KNOW what its like when certain bands are playing who are amazing live... BUT, think about it: £200 for a ticket is 1/5 of your monthly wage. ONE FIFTH!

I'm not saying 'don't go', just, maybe, be a bit realistic with yourself about how much all the fun is actually costing.... And like I said, Endorse was awesome and a good friend of mine is a music magazine editor and her favourite festival ever is End of The Road. Doesn't have to be a big commercial one if you're willing to try out new music. The additional advantage of small festivals is that bags rarely get searched on the way - helps with the MS! haha

Hope you had fun tonight and didnt succumb to more than one drink (I always do!) and good luck!

Kaz
x

Sharon87

chuckley wrote: »

whats ur utter desperation to go to festivals?! im not going glasto this year coz well theres more to life and i cant honestly afford it. Could afford the last 2 but went anyway. this time i put down the deposit and then thought 'no i really cant afford it', so gave it up. yea i lost £10 in admin but the saving of over £500 towards clearing debt/more important things in life is making me realise the better decision.

also ur car situation sounds wrong. u live in london, desperate 4 a car but claim u wont be buying straight away anyway?? office jobs that require someone to drive r usually out in the sticks so unless its a MUST, dont bother. sounds to me like ur tryna 'fit in'. not everyone drives and the ones that do, not all of them can afford to.

u need to stop 'treating' urself as ur IN DEBT!!!!!! u dont deserve any treats apart from a new DVD/game or night out every once in a while (not a 700+ festival) AFTER uve started making movements @ reducing ur debt.

I really want to go to a festival because I've never been before. Want to experience it and also the bands I love are playing. They don't cost £700, £200 for ticket, £100 max spending money, £30-£40 for tent (had everything else anyway) So that's £340 for 4-5 days.

I'm not desperate for a car, just to learn to drive as I've been turned down for so many jobs just because I couldn't drive. I am more than capable and experienced for those jobs apart from that 1 aspect. If not I'll be stuck in the same role earning the entry level wage for the next 3-5 years! I'm looking at it as an investment. Learn to drive = moving up the career ladder = more pay = debt free and be able to enjoy myself!

I was planning on going Download last weekend, but decided I couldn't afford it, so I have some self control. I paid for Reading out of my wages, not credit. I know it could have gone towards debt, but I did pay off £200 debt that month as well (was a good month!)

I just need to make sure I don't spend on my credit card. I've managed to reduce my overdraft limit by £50 (not much but still better than nothing) but HSBC charge if you do more than 1 once within 6 months. I'm starting to use my Natwest bank now, but the £250 overdraft is from being owed money, which I should get back soon.

I use to be really good at not spending money, but now I've discovered gigging and clubbing and having a social life, even though I don't spend loads on each time (£20 clubbing, between £6-£30 for a gig) it all adds up! I guess I don't like saying no a lot, because I always use to and then I had no life whatsoever. I feel like I'm living my teens, because I never did when I was actually a teenager.

Ironically it's since I've been earning more, I've got into more debt, as I spend more! I think I'm going to count how much gigs have cost me since I started going to them last may, might be frightening lol

Might join the NSD club again. What a ramble.