soa & How do you pay off a loan?!

melaniec_2

what school do your children go to as they seem too young for school and you haven't accounted for any child care costs. If you took your two as a family once a week it wouldn't cost that much.

scaredy_cat_2

re food reduction - does that include cleaning products, toiletries? or just food? and actually £70 week on food sounds v reasonable

service contract - in previous years we have had more than this - one year would have been over a £1000 for parts alone - but apparantly can get cheaper ones so will investigate that

the swimming is the only thing that i wold really not want to cut at all - our girls have lessons and until they can swim (they are only 1 1/2 and 3 1/2) we really want to keep this going

other than that i am happy to try anything

scaredy_cat_2

melaniec wrote:

what school do your children go to as they seem too young for school and you haven't accounted for any child care costs. If you took your two as a family once a week it wouldn't cost that much.

no they don't go to school - this is for swimming lessons/classes

i don't have childcare costs really as i don't work only the occassional day supply teaching (just started and no more than 2 per month) and my mum looks after them or my sisters - the advantages of living near family

roswell

The £160 we use covers toiletries and pet food but we dont have expensive tastes (we dont eat pet food either) I would say that £300 should be do able but hopefully someone with children can advise what they spend.

A very good tip when shopping is take a calculator (not to add the prices up) but to work out which packs of products are cheapest eg 12 toilet rolls can be cheaper per a roll than a pack of 8 or 16 your not ever going to not need them so you may as well get the ones that are cheapest per roll. this goes same for coffee eg theres normaly promotions of get 2 X 200 g nescafe for £5 but if you work it out per 100 G its cheaper to get 2 X 300 G than 4 X 200 G

Another great example is 18 cans of coke for £6.95 you can get 2 packs of 10 for £5 its looking for things like this that makes a huge differance to your food bills.

And remember is no good getting Buy one get one frees on things your not going to eat before the use by date.

sanfrancisco

It seems possible that you could easily get your outgoings without debts under your incomings. You certainly have a fair amount to cut back on. However, you do not have enough money to pay debts as well. You need to speak to the CCCS and get them to put you on a debt management plan (DMP), where the interest is frozen and you will pay reduced amounts. You should address this asap as the situation will only be getting worse every month. You are currently getting deeper in debt.

Secondly, you need to think about increasing income. I see you have little ones. Were you planning on going back to work soon/ at all? I guess you are a teacher, so will be able to get a good income. Good Luck and keep posting.

sanfrancisco

Forgot to say, a DMP will affect your credit rating, but at the moment this seems like the best option.

chevalier

Hi there
I do a lot of home cooking etc. My food and petrol bill for the quarter is £850, ie about £285 a month. And this is for two adults and two children slightly older than your two! So it can be done. Well done on the meal plan. I have got to do one for this month yet, but it does work. I tend to batch cook as well, so if I am making bolognese sauce, I do a pressure cookers full in one go and this feeds us for 3 meals. This a) saves on time and b)saves on gas as you are not cooking from scratch 3 times!

best of luck, it can be done
chev

scaredy_cat_2

i really appreciate your time and suggestions. Its quite lonely doing this i think so great to hear from people who are doing it

tonight i just feel sick and can't stop crying so tomorrow going to go for walk, or do what was suggested by miggy and find positive projects to do with children - painting, cooking or jumping in puddles i reckon!

sanfrancisco

scaredy_cat wrote:

i really appreciate your time and suggestions. Its quite lonely doing this i think so great to hear from people who are doing it

Weve all been there. I felt sick for about 6 months!!!

You also have to have faith in us all, when we say, that you will get through this. You will become a better person for it BUT it will not go away. You can either ignore it for a year and come back here next year saying, I've now got 25k of debt, or address it and this time next year be £14k in debt, but most importantly be IN CONTROL again.

immoral_angeluk

Ooooh let's have a nosey.. if this was my SOA I would be doing the following..



2 adults 2 children

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - 0 (but i will be doing some supply teaching so could be £300) Would you be able to get a part/full time job? Every little helps...
Partners salary - £1237 Any chance of any overtime for him?
benefit - £520 (this will go down soon) What benefits is it and are you entitled to any tax credit? I'm presuming this includes your child benefit?

Total - £1757

Monthly Outgoings:
Food £515 (this was 21 visits to supermkt, includes cleaning, toiletries, nappies etc and possible cashback) 22 visits! You can cut this down. In out house we have 2 adults and a toddler in nappies (and another baby due soon) and we only spend £150 p/m on food, toiletries, nappies etc so you need to leek at what this £515 is going on and look where you can cut down. Check out the moneysaving oldstyle board for ideas.
Mortgage £541 (we are having a 4 month payment holiday starts end jan
Water £70.50 Why is this so expensive???? Are you in arrears? If not this needs looking at as that's a ridiculous amount of money for water! We pay £22 8 months of the year!
council tax £104
tv licence £11.37
house insurance £33 Is this the cheapest you can get? Have a look round for better deals.
phone £30 Is this a mobile or is it you landline? Does it include calls or is it a package cost? Could you cut down the package or go P&G if it's a mobile?
subscription £2.50 What is this for? Is it essential? Can it be cancelled?
Norwich union life cover £17 is this the cheapest deal? Do you have to have it (ie a clause in your mortgage etc) and can it be cancelled for the time being to free up some extra money?
british gas electric £59
british gas £20 Are you getting the cheapest gas and electric? Have a look round for a cheaper provider as british gas are generally more expensive than most.
bg service contract £26 What is this for??? Is it essential and can it be cancelled?
orange internet £17.99 Would a combined phone/internet package work out cheaper than having 2 seperate accounts?
swimming £35 How often do you go and is there any cheaper options? Could you take up jogging instead if this is part of a keep fit plan?
fuel £50 Would it work out cheaper to use public transport?
car ins, tax,mot (using martins budget) £50
Total: £1582.36

on top of that there are other things that i would never have included but having used martins budget spreadsheet here they are

birthdays £26 Personally I don't spend £26 a person let alone a month on birthdays! lol!
christmas £50 ( i do actually save this each month)
hair £100 £100 for haircuts?????? Jesus.. do it yourself! it's free!
photos £10 Get a digital camera and printer...
leisure and family days - found this hard to calculate as we don't actually do loads costly things but perhaps around £20 i have overestimated rather than under
interest on o/d £20
bank charges £30 i am in process of reclaiming just under £900 If you have control of your money then you shouldn't be getting charges. Check out when the charges are occuring and if necessary move direct debit dates so that you will definately have the money in there.
windows £3.50 Is this for window cleaning? Do it yourself! Takes 5 mins and is free!
wheeli bin £2.50 Again, do it yourself! lol!

all of these totals £242

so a grand total of 1824.36


First Direct Loan originally £6000 over 66 months at 6.9%
Monthly payment £109.02 and 41 payments left (so £4469.82) but resettlement figure today is £4048.27. They say I can’t make overpayments on this.

First Direct 0/d (not quite sure as just put £700 on halifax for this) £2600 approx

Next directory APR 26.49% £150 generally pay minimum payment on this

Scottish Power (old gas bill) from transfer mess up £268.64 paying £30 a month

Graduate loan – Barclays resettlement figure £4503.92 an enormous 72 payments left at £78.77 at 7.9%

Husband’s o/d we think this is still 0% but will clarify. it is £1907

virgin cc just transferred 0% £2600
Halifax cc just transferred 0% £765

MIL 0% £2000

so £18874





Sorry if any of that seems harsh. Just looking at it from a realistic point of view but well done for realising that something needs to be done and I hope you can make cutbacks so you can make it easier for yourself and start sorting your debts out.