Time to get rid of some debt! :)

fd1972uk

Nice little area of the forum I must say to give encouragement and the likes and hopefully share in a lot of success.

Have some headaches with debt, however trying to look on the bright-side of stuff. Obviously everything swings around jobs, so I'm thankful of having one, but obviously no-one knows what the future holds in terms of what's around the next bend in jobs.

In terms of debt the most notable ones we have are:-

A loan from Tesco that has 6 years to run. This is just something we need to keep on top of, un-protected.

I also have a car which is £260.00 per month and I pay that off in Jan'13. Only bummer is with the car I work in Livingston and commute from Glasgow so I'm filling my car up around £60 per week. Have thought about changing cars for something more economical, but obviously means I'm tied down again for 5 years, although saving possibly with slightly lower payments and fuel could leave me £100.00 or near better of a month. But think waiting till I pay the car off I get an extra bonus of £260 per month saving and just use the car to it's max or at least use as a trade-in further down the line.

We also have Credit cards amounting to £4k. Have moved over to 0% balance transfers for 19/20 months so hoping that will give us the time to get that out the way (we look to pay around £200 per month). We've been quite good with the cards lately, only an emergency use.

So basically the idea is to get rid of that not far off £10k debt away which would release upto £400 a month for us.

We are living very tight with only around £175.00 per week to keep us going which obviously has to see us buy food, fuel etc etc, but we do have a little for some treats like a night out every now and again. Also we put money away for our Daughter's saving (only a very paltry amount per week) and also another small amount to try and take care of birthdays and help towards Xmas.

The reason we got into debt? We got married and enjoyed our trips abroad, but now we've as we call it in Glasgow 'screwed the nut' and won't be off on holiday for a couple of years at best.

So hoping that at the start of 2013, we'll have this load of debt off our head.



FD

bottleofred

Hi fd1972uk and welcome to the forum,

If you post your statement of affairs you'll get loads of tips/advice on how to save cash, which can then go towards the debts. You'll find the link near the top of page 1 on the debt free wannabe forum.

Good luck

Red

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hey FD,

Welcome to the board!

You know what folks will say next? We need to see full income/outgoings summary so we can suggest ways to save money and so you have a budget to stick to.

Fill this template in http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html and post it up here!

Keep us updated!

atush

Post an SOA for us. Statement of affairs with all incoming and outgoings. Then we can help you shave off some spening and reduce costs to pay off your debt even faster.

edinburgher

No chance of selling off the car and buying a banger that just about runs?

Glad to see you've screwed the nut (or as it's called in MSE-land, your 'Lightbulb Moment'/LBM)

fd1972uk

Thanks all, I'll look at that calculator thing and put up the details.

Edin - You obviously take your chances with an older motor too, the problem there though is selling off my car will not clear my debt, so I'll still be paying off maybe £2-3k of what's left on my current balance and then I'd need to get a motor on top of that. Also on top of that with the price of fuel, the older the car the poorer return in mpg I'd probably get.


FD

fd1972uk

[tt]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1443.29
Partners monthly income after tax....... 815.62
Benefits................................ 133.25
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2392.16
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 290.5
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 544.7
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 143
Electricity............................. 45
Gas..................................... 77
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 24
Mobile phone............................ 20
TV Licence.............................. 24
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 43.42
Internet Services....................... 15.92
Groceries etc. ......................... 175
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 261
Road tax................................ 13
Car Insurance........................... 40
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 15
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 28.1
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 33.34
Other insurance......................... 25.24
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 43.5
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 65.25
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1926.97

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 85000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 88000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 87150....(290.5)....2.5
Secured Debt.................. 16840.9..(285.4)....9.63
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 4667.4...(259.3)....12.3
Total secured & HP debts...... 108658.3..-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
credit cards...................3900......200.......0
Total unsecured debts..........3900......200.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,392.16
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,926.97
Available for debt repayments........... 465.19
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 200
Amount left after debt repayments....... 265.19
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 88,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -108,658.3
Total Unsecured debt.................... -3,900
Net Assets.............................. -24,558.3
[/tt]


FD

rdchick

Hello! So you have £265 left at the end of the month? Do you? Or does it magically disappear like the rest of ours?! If so have you thought about keeping a spending diary to work out where your money goes xxx

LAM2011

hi and welcome. you will get loads of good advice on here - best thing I ever did was join this forum.

My biggest tool is my spreadsheet to see actual to budget and what is left even if its only pennies. I cracked my highest apr first by throwing every spare penny in that and then suddenly 5 months later I had an extra £110 a month which I chucked at the next one. I still have a long way to go but its so motivational reading other peoples diaries and getting ideas from all the friendly people on here.

Good luck in your mission

fd1972uk

I think maybe I've not used the sheet totally correctly, didn't include like pocket money and some other things like lottery money and some money for our girl's school.

I did do a spreadsheet myself that I've worked too and it comes out like this:-


Petrol £60.00
Pocket money £41.50
Food £37.00
Lottery £4.00
Entertain £20.00
School £6.00
Holiday £5.00
House Clean £1.50 (this is window cleaner and bin cleaner)


Working out what I get in and what goes out we are left with 175.18 if I work it out, only thing is I get paid monthly, we get some benefit/credit (only small, child and tax credit) which comes in every 4 weeks and my wife get's paid weekly. So I obviously average it over a week but obviously there are occassions when the wife might have say 5 pays in a month and there will be 2 payments of child/tax benefits, but I've obviously worked it over a full year and divided it by 52.

So we have £175.18 to be exact and the above money is how we spend it.

Of money that we actually put away that isn't included in the above is £20.00 per week that is put into the account for birthdays etc and a small amount that goes to our Daughter's saving account.


FD

Skint_but_Optimistic

HI there, good luck with all this!! Spending diaries are a great way to see where money is being wasted (im a victim of coffee and twixes at work) Ive put some things below which are just my thoughts!

fd1972uk wrote: »

[tt]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1443.29
Partners monthly income after tax....... 815.62
Benefits................................ 133.25
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2392.16
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 290.5
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 544.7
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 143
Electricity............................. 45
Gas..................................... 77 This could go up, check out Martins advice on price fixing.
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 24
Mobile phone............................ 20
TV Licence.............................. 24
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 43.42
Internet Services....................... 15.92 I know how it is with kids, and having satellite tv to make own entertainment at home, but cant the satellite, home phone and internet be bundled?
Groceries etc. ......................... 175
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 261
Road tax................................ 13
Car Insurance........................... 40
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 15
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 28.1
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 33.34
Other insurance......................... 25.24 Whats the other insurance?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 43.5 This seems high
Haircuts................................ 0 This seems low
Entertainment........................... 65.25
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0 Emergency fund is something to start and build!
Total monthly expenses.................. 1926.97

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 85000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 88000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 87150....(290.5)....2.5
Secured Debt.................. 16840.9..(285.4)....9.63
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 4667.4...(259.3)....12.3
Total secured & HP debts...... 108658.3..-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
credit cards...................3900......200.......0
Total unsecured debts..........3900......200.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,392.16
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,926.97
Available for debt repayments........... 465.19
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 200
Amount left after debt repayments....... 265.19
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 88,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -108,658.3
Total Unsecured debt.................... -3,900
Net Assets.............................. -24,558.3
[/tt]


FD

Good luck!