Advise please

iwanttogoonholiday

I would like some help if anybody could possibly look at my SOA :beer:

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1,170 .00
Partners salary - £1000
Benefits - 0

Total - £2,170.00

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage/Rent - £690
Council Tax - £88
Gas - £70
Electric - £63
TV License - PAY YEARLY
Sky £64.50
Phone - £13.90
Food - £200
Car Insurance - £50.00
Petrol - £40
Life Insurance £20
Home insurance £15.88
t mobile - £35.00
contact lenses - £10
buses to work -£56.00

Total: £1,406.28

Debts
Virgin credit card - 5200 0% interest ( just put it all onto one credit card)
Council - owe £500 to drop kerbs ( payment by next january 2012) - no interest....

Technically we are left with quite a bit of money with no idea where its all going :mad:

Tixy

Hi

A spending diary for you both is probably the best starting point to see where your 'missing' money is being spent. Keep a really detailed record for a month or 2, making sure you write down everything even little things like coffees, lottery tickets, magazines etc.

A few ideas of what you might be missing off your list
Water
Tv licence - you may pay yearly but you should budget for it monthly to get a true picture of how quickly you can pay off your debts.
Clothing
Presents
Haircuts
Entertainment (hobbies, meals out, nights out drinking, dvd hire, takeaways, books, magazines etc)
Holidays (if you have one!)
Does contact lenses cover eye tests & checkup etc?
Dentist checkups? occasional prescriptions etc?
Road tax
Car Maintenance (tyres, servicing, mot etc) - work out the annual estimate and divide by 12 so you don't have to put on a credit card when its time to pay for it.

One the costs you have listed gas & elec both look high, do you have arrears you are paying off? have you checked you are on the best deal (have a look at the comparison sites), have you tried to reduce your usage?

dancingfairy

water? clothes? presents for xmas/birthdays? car maintenance?
If you do the SOA at makesenseof cards website you will find some of the holes in your budget.
Other ways to find where the money is going is
1) go through bank statements/credit card receipts and see what they imply and
2) do a spending diary to identify where all those cash machine '20 pound withdrawls' etc go. I'll bet that it's magzines, dvd's, fizzy pop, bottled water, make up, sponsering people at work, coffee before work, lunch at work, drinks after work, popping in to the supermarket for bread and milk and spending 20 pounds (yes I think everyone does this unless they are super disciplined), cigarettes, takeways, birthday cards, cinema, mp3 downloads, bus money, scool trip money etc etc - the list of money drains is enormous. If you do a spending diary you'll soon spot where you are blindly spenidng money and not even realising. 2 pounds per working day is 10 per week which is over 40 a month. It's really easy to do though
Oh and Sky looks quite expensive - is it possible to downgrade a package or 2 as things are tight?
Best of Luck
df

iwanttogoonholiday

thanks guys...i know ive left quite a few things out...got a precious half day off work so was trying to do it quite quick - think a spending diary is a really good idea cos that money has got to be going somewhere hasnt it...i couldnt believe it when i saw how much i was paying for the bus per month!!! will deffo start walking more...im about 4 months preg at the moment and the exercise i guess will do me good !:eek: even if i only did it a few days a week it would be better...
gas and electric i am owing them money from the bad winter we had...hopefully over the summer period they will owe us ( that be nice)...
im much happier that i have changed my cc to the 0% ones as i only realised last week that i had been paying 60 a month in interest :mad:
think a problem is buying snacks in work to fuel my pregnancy appetite...got rolls and stuff now though for the week so that should be better..and may consider not taking my purse to work - or only bringing a few quid ( no bank card)
its my birthday next week and so hoping to get some money so me and hubby can go for a nice meal ...but may have to just spend it on living

Tixy

Congrats on your pregnancy. Hope you manage to get out for a meal for your birthday (after all by next year it won't be just the 2 of you!) - maybe have a look on this site for some 2for1 deals etc at the chain restaurants so you can do it fairly cheaply.
Restaurant Vouchers

A spending diary is the way forward, some people use a mobile phone app, others carry a little notepad round with them or use a spreadsheet or website such as spendingdiary.com (or a combination of these) - I carry a diary with me to note down my spends and a spreadsheet I fill in at home.

Do you catch the bus everyday mostly? do you buy tickets on the day? if so it might be worth looking into how much cheaper it would be if you bought a monthly pass (or at least in autumn when the weather won't be nice and bump will be bigger).

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hi IWantTo...

Yep, as others have said you need to locate where the £763 per month is going! You may actually be spending more than that per month if you have been/still are using your credit cards.

Get those bank statements out!

Could you buy a monthly bus pass? They're usually £30-£40 a month so may save you a bit but still enable you to catch the bus as often as you need to!

Best of luck, keep us updated!

Pollycat

iwanttogoonholiday wrote: »

thanks guys...i know ive left quite a few things out...got a precious half day off work so was trying to do it quite quick

Hi
when you get rounnd to re-doing your SOA, try using this template, it'll make sure you don't miss anything out:
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

iwanttogoonholiday

ive had a look at bus passes and they are about 46.00 so not saving an massive difference but think u are right that i will deffo need them come nov / dec as im due in january...
ive got an small book around here somewhere so i will start my spending diary 2mor...
with regards to resturants i will have a look at that - one of the sizzle pubs is near me and its yummy anyway
will try to do the new soa today/tonight not sure i will get chance....
think to be honest the sneaky coffee's and lunches bought in work must be adding up .. for a while i was buying lunch and say a can of pop every day so thats at least £3/day which is £60 a month - crazy!!!:eek: