Sorry old chap, the money has run out!

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

Hi Tony - just dropping by to catch up on this thread and to give you a big thumbs up on your progress :T. I'm glad you didn't have to sell your guitar (look at that when the temptation to spend gratuitosly hits and remember that you don't want to lose it) because that would have really hurt.

Maybe you could think about posting a new and improved SOA for us to take a look at?

tony_ack

I'll get another SOA up soon - all my budget figures are on my work computer.

So where are we now?

Well, still plodding along. Me and the missus went through her statements together, and we found that she had approximately £300 surplus each month, once she had paid all her bills, her share of the household bills/food and for her fuel. And I was using generous figures for the fuel!

It is her pay day today, so we sat down and calculated a new budget for her. She is now going to give me £300 towards the bills instead of £250 (thus covering the shortfall from me miscalculating the food shopping in my original budget). She is also going to pay £150 into the emergency/annual bills fund, which together with my payment means we'll be paying in £250 per month. This still leaves her £100 to spend on coffee, takeaways and clothes (or, god forbid, pay off debts...), so not too shabby.

As far as my debts go, everything is within limit and up to date. There has been no credit card spending since the LBM (except the missus putting £35 fuel on her card, but she is paying that off out of this month's surplus). I calculated my DFD now to be in 2014, now that I have refined the figures by entering the correct interest rates and minimum payment percentages into the snowball calculator.

The rental of the lockup garage expires on Friday so I have had some time off work to get the last jobs done on the cars that needed doing, and then also clearing it out. Almost there now! I made £10.80 today from the scrap metal I had in there, so I am treating myself to my first takeaway since my LBM!

One small black cloud on the horizon is that my car insurance is due for renewal, and for some reason it has almost doubled this year from £600 per year to £1000! Most of the increase appears to be due to my postcode being reclassified. Comparison sites won't even give me a quote, so I have been trying a few specialists direct and got down to £880. The problem is that, although the monthly bills/emergency fund will more than cover my insurance each 12 month period, there won't be enough in there by my renewal date. The lowest quote I have does not allow monthly payments, so I will need to work out whether a more expensive premium with monthly payments (and interest) is better or worse than paying for a cheaper premium on my credit card (and then using money I would have spent on monthly payments towards debt repayments).

I also have a small pile of stuff accumulating that can be sold, so hopefully some more money will be coming in soon

tony_ack

Okay, new SOA as promised...

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.................... 2 Project car now gone!
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1800 Reduced due to salary sacrific to pay nursery costs
Partners monthly income after tax....... 725
Benefits................................ 100 This may reduce once child tax credit end
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2625
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 378
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 98 All payments now up to date
Electricity............................. 45
Gas..................................... 45
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 16 Trying to switch to Sky which will reduce payment to £10 per month
Mobile phone............................ 55 The missus' contract is only £20 per month, mine ends in December so will change then to GiffGaff - the missus also wants to change when hers is up - also in December
TV Licence.............................. 14
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 27.5 Sky Sports was switched off yesterday :-(
Internet Services....................... 10
Groceries etc. ......................... 225 Keeping to £50 per week, this is actually not too difiicult!
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 280
Road tax................................ 39
Car Insurance........................... 117 This is the figure after my premium increases at the end of the month
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50 More realistic figure including MOT, servicing, consumables (i.e tyres) and some repairs
Car parking............................. 30
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 10
Contents insurance...................... 15
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 27 This is calculated on a strict budget per person
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 50 This is the surplus from the 'Annual and Emergency fund', once car costs and presents are deducted
Account Fee............................. 7
Dog food................................ 17
Football subs........................... 22.5
Garage Rent............................. 10 See note below
Total monthly expenses.................. 1588

Assets
Cash.................................... 143
House value (Gross)..................... 85100
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 4500
Other assets............................ 5000 Reduced to reflect items sold
Total Assets............................ 94743

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 89532....(378)......3.5
Total secured & HP debts...... 89532.....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Barclaycard....................5298.5....127.2.....29 The main focus
Halifax Loan...................10700.....338.5.....17.9
Halifax Credit Card............4499......110.......28.9
Dad loan.......................900.......100.......0 Unable to reduce this - see below
Natwest Credit Card............1200......30........0
Natwest Overdraft..............900.......0.........13.9
Barclays Overdraft.............2500......0.........7.9
Virgin Credit Card.............4884.14...142.6.....25.9
Paypal Credit Card.............975.......33........26.9

tony_ack

So a couple of points -

Garage Rent
I went back to hand the keys after clearing out and cleaning the garage, and the landlady offered to reduce the rent to £30, as she did not want to get a new tenant in due to her deteriorating health. She did not need the money particularly, but wanted the garage to be of use to someone. I explained I couldn't afford it, so she reduced to £20, £10, £5 and then offered it for nothing... I couldn't take it for nothing so I agreed to pay a token payment of £10 per month. At £55, the lockup was a bit of a luxury, but at £10 per month, it is worth the money - I need the strorage space at the moment and also it still gives somewhere I can work on the car (and if needs be store it overnight if it all goes wrong and I can't finish the work in a day!)

Parent's loan
It would seem that my parents are in a worse state financially than I am, and they need me to pay back the £100 per month. Although I lose a bit in interest by not paying off another debt first, it only makes 1 month difference to my debt free date, so it's no disaster.

AngryDog

You're making some progress looking at your more recent SOA. Are you in a sky contract? Im not and called them last month saying that I cannot afford it anymore. pretty much instantly I got it offered for half price for 6 months (with sports, so I am still paying less than you) at the end of the 6 months I will likely cancel it alltogether.

Its worth trying.

tony_ack

AngryDog wrote: »

You're making some progress looking at your more recent SOA. Are you in a sky contract? Im not and called them last month saying that I cannot afford it anymore. pretty much instantly I got it offered for half price for 6 months (with sports, so I am still paying less than you) at the end of the 6 months I will likely cancel it alltogether.

Its worth trying.

Yeah, when I rang up they asked why I wanted to reduce the package... I said I couldn't afford it so the guy said he'd see what he could do, as they usually had deals.

He came back a couple of minutes later, and asked how long it would be for so I said probably 6 months (figure plucked out of the air), and he said sorry but there was nothing they could do!

Just noticed that my SoA appears to have been truncated? Looks like I'll have to do it again... grrr.

AngryDog

tony_ack wrote: »

Yeah, when I rang up they asked why I wanted to reduce the package... I said I couldn't afford it so the guy said he'd see what he could do, as they usually had deals.

He came back a couple of minutes later, and asked how long it would be for so I said probably 6 months (figure plucked out of the air), and he said sorry but there was nothing they could do!

Just noticed that my SoA appears to have been truncated? Looks like I'll have to do it again... grrr.

How odd? Might be worth ringing and saying you're going to leave. You want to speak to Retentions. By saying you think you'll be ok again in 6 months just basically gave him the option of saying no.

turbo.jet

Or even better, go freeview/freesat until your debt is cleared. I've never understood how people in debt can have sky (not a criticism, I know you have to have something to preserve your sanity otherwise you could head into breakdown territory, its just always been the first thing I think of as expendable in people's SOA's)

tony_ack

I believe we are tied into a contract - our box failed a year out of warranty earlier this year, so I played the 'I'm outta here....' card then and got a brand new hd box in the end. Part of the 'deal' was that I needed another 12 month contract (I realise it's no deal actually, but at least we got a new box that worked)

To be honest, I think for a lot of people Sky is a luxury which they imagine they can't do without but actually can - watching mindless music videos repeated, repeated sitcoms, repeated documentaries etc., when nothing else is on, but I do tend to avoid repeats and try to watch a lot of the new stuff that comes along, particularly on Sky 1 and Atlantic. I won't miss the movies as they were a bit hit and miss, I will miss the sport but only on Sunday afternoons once the F1 season is over. You do get a lot of junk with the basic package, but that's the way it is with Sky...

I'm not suggesting what I have left is the bare minimum by any means, (the bare minimum is no sky at all!!) but I think I'm getting a lot better value for my £27 than I was getting for my £57

ebayqueen_2

Hi Tony just popped in to wish you well. I know what you mean by your wee sad face after sky sports. Its really the only place you can watch a football match now and only us fanatics would understand. At least you are saving £30 per month and it will all add up. Also if you are not going out spending money in pubs etc you are still entitled to watch a bit of telly

You seem to have got in the stride of this debt-busting and I wish you all the best. This site is amazing ... so many people willing to help.

take care
E