First Post! Comments Please...

LisaPea

Hello All

So here we are. *sigh* DH and I have spent the evening summarising our situation. Occasionally one or the other of us would make some comment about the other's shortcomings but we kept them short and to a minimum - we know we've been as bad as each other and the comments don't help. We just want to get things sorted.

So... we are married, we have two children aged 4 and 2. We both work and so we have childcare costs, which have run into a debt because we haven't paid every month following job changes or getting vouchers sorted.

Last year we remortgaged in an attempt to clear a lot of debt. But we've run the debt up again and now we're both getting charges for non payment of direct debts etc. We also have no money to deal with unexpected expenditure or yearly payments - my car insurance got put on the credit card, for example. We know we need to make some basic cutbacks - get rid of sky movies (sky does phone, tv and broadband) and I need to cut down on the grocery bills. We also spend too much on our hobbies/interests: I spend too much on plants for my garden and DH has an old Land Rover which is just for fun whilst we each have a "day-car" for getting to work.

I've done the SOA as best I can but I'm not sure about some of the interest rates. I'm sure its enough for you all to be getting on with

Lisa

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 3

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1319
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2262
Benefits................................ 135
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3716

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 982
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 982
Council tax............................. 142
Electricity............................. 98
Gas..................................... 104
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 30
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 100
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 60
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 365
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 360
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 320
Other child related expenses............ 340
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 28
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 45
Other insurance......................... 30
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 3998


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 200000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 203000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 183000...(982)......4.99
Total secured & HP debts...... 183000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
My Tesco Credit Card...........239.......10........1.736
Stu's Tesco CC.................1200......35........0
Stu's Barclaycard..............10265.....234.......0
DWP overpayment................2000......50........0
Stu's overdraft................2000......0.........0
My overdraft...................2850......75........0
Utilities......................550.......0.........0
Nursery........................800.......24........0
Stu's Egg Card.................2931......61........0
My Egg Card....................4566......120.......17.9
Total unsecured debts..........27401.....609.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,716
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 3,998
Available for debt repayments........... -282
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 609
Amount short for making debt repayments. -891

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 203,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -183,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -27,401
Net Assets.............................. -7,401

Hovel_lady

Just a quick question as I need to walk the Hovel dog - is the management charge really £982 a month?

MiaowMiaow

Hi Lisa and welcome to the forum, this is the first step in tackling your debts:)

There are other people on the forum much better with the advice thing but just a few things to start off -


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 3

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1319
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2262
Benefits................................ 135
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3716

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 982
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 982 - is this definitely right?
Council tax............................. 142
Electricity............................. 98 - seems high? try switching? do yoiu have gas and elec from same company? often cheaper if you do and if you bill online it is cheaper
Gas..................................... 104 - as above
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 30
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 100 - seems really expensive -when do your contracts end?
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 60 - yoiu can definitely get rid of sky tv - there are loads of freeview channels now anyway, if you need internet and landline through sky should be about £20
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 365 - have a look on the forum for tips - batch cooking/ cheaper brands etc
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 360 - check out where cheapest petrol is near to you
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0 - need to add this in
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 - budget for this also
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 320
Other child related expenses............ 340 - what does this include?
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 28
Contents insurance...................... 0 - do you not have contents ins?
Life assurance ......................... 45
Other insurance......................... 30 - what is this?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0 - do you really spend £0?
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 3998


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 200000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 203000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Mortgage...................... 183000...(982)......4.99
Total secured & HP debts...... 183000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
My Tesco Credit Card...........239.......10........1.736
Stu's Tesco CC.................1200......35........0
Stu's Barclaycard..............10265.....234.......0
DWP overpayment................2000......50........0
Stu's overdraft................2000......0.........0
My overdraft...................2850......75........0
Utilities......................550.......0........ .0
Nursery........................800.......24....... .0
Stu's Egg Card.................2931......61........0
My Egg Card....................4566......120.......17.9
Total unsecured debts..........27401.....609.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,716
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 3,998
Available for debt repayments........... -282
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 609
Amount short for making debt repayments. -891

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 203,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -183,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -27,401
Net Assets.............................. -7,401


will your OH consider selling second hobby car to put towards some of the debt?

I hope you get some more advice but hope this helps as a starter point
xx

bugslet

Hi Lisapea

If you are serious about getting rid of your debts then the landrover has to go. I've just got rid of a car that i had for fun and I tell myself that I can have another one when things are better. That's a lot of debt and whichever you have the highest APR with - your Egg card? - needs to have some money flung at it and see the amount you are paying as interest come down immediately. I'd get rid of Sky, I have a freeview box and I'm trying to cut down on TV viewing anyway and find better things to do with my time. Can you get out of your phone contract? It seems very high.

Pollycat

Hi Lisa - and welcome from me too.

I'm hoping that you've just duplicated your mortgage repayment into the Management Charge and that your spends are actually the £3998 - £982 = £3016.

This will give you a small monthly surplus of £91.

However, there are some significant things missing from your SOA.
Do you not buy presents (even for the kids)?

What do you do when the kids need new clothes?

Haircuts - do you not pay for this for all 4 of you?

Car tax/car insurance/car maintenance.
- for 3 cars that is going to push you into the 'spending more than you earn' situation.

You need to find out the costs of these and add them into your SOA.

I think your OH needs to decide if you and he can really afford to have a 'just-for-fun' car.

MiaowMiaow has highlighted the other areas that you can potentially make savings:
phone, sky, groceries, utilities

Good luck

LisaPea

Thanks for the responses.


The management payment is an error - i think I've put the mortgage figure in there again. It should just be zero which does make the figures quite a bit better! Except that the extra mostly goes to pay the debts.

The gas and electricity are from the same company. We're paying extra each month to reduce the arrears.

The mobile phone is for both of us and insurance. We're tied into contracts for about 6 more months.

the child related costs are £350 child maintenance, £20 to that child's savings (which is required by a court order following separation) and £10 each to the trust funds for the two children living with us.

The figure for buildings insurance includes contents insurance. The other insurance is actually a payment for our alarm system which is connected to a response team.

At the moment I really don't know how much we spend on entertainment - that's what we need to look at this evening. Your usual, run of the mill night out just doesn't happen. But we have a takeaway too often, entertain the kids and there's the land rover and my garden. The insurance and tax have got a few more months left and MOT isn't due for ages. Because we each have our own accounts, i suspect we are both guilty of finding it easy to keep the true expenditure secret. Looking at the figures, we must spend the remaining £100 on ourselves and the kids.

Car insurance, maintenance and road tax... yes, we'll need to add these into our budget too. Same goes for clothes, haircuts, christmas, birthdays and dentists. :(:(

bugslet

Could you both keep a spending diary - it's a bit of a shock to the old system at first but highlights where the frittering goes.