Room for one more?

mattlawless

So whilst none of you know me and this is my first post, I want to personally thank every one of you out there who have helped me already. I have been a regular reader of this forum for about a month now and have found it totally uplifting. It has been the catalyst for my own Lightbulb moment when I finally plucked up the courage to pick up the phone to get some one to one advice. Like many others I want to 100% back the advice given to speak with one of the debt charities. To date they have been flawless.

So for the record here is my SOA

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £2,119.00
Partners salary - £1,900.00
Benefits - £126.32

Total - £4,145.32

I have been in touch with Payplan and look set to be taking up their service whereby we will budget as the following below. This will be as a debt-management plan rather than an IVA.

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage £ 477.83
Second Mortgage £ 358.07
Building/Contents Insurance £ 61.44
Life Insurance/pension £ 51.80
Mortgage Endowment Policy £ 300.00
Council Tax £ 127.00
Water Rates £ 26.00
Electricity £ 40.00
Gas £ 40.00
Telephone £ 40.00
Road Tax/MOT £ 36.00
Car Insurance £ 72.40
Car Maintenance £ 30.00
Petrol £ 108.25
Travelling Expenses/Public Transport £ 15.00
Housekeeping £ 480.00
Medical/Dental/Opticians £ 25.90
Haircuts £ 32.00
Clothing £ 80.00
Hire Purchase (Vehicle) £ 181.50
TV Licence/Rental £ 11.37
Childminding £ 300.00
Pets £ 25.00

Total: £2,919.56


Payplan surplus: 1,225.76



This is against the debtors list of:

Lloyds TSB Loan £ 7,460.35 7.90%
Marbles (HFC) Loan £ 4,655.43 8.50%
Virgin (MNBA) Loan £ 7,544.15 14.90%
Sainsburys Bank Loan £ 4,655.81 6.10%
Marbles CC £ 9,860.77 23.90%
Virgin (MNBA) CC £ 11,018.09 23.90%
Intelligent Finance CC £ 9,252.07 12.90%
M&S CC £ 2,981.48 16.90%
Lloyds Overdraft £
9,883.18 9.90%

Debt-free lifetime is 4.5 years on this basis. :j

I assume that most of you out there would indeed recommend following the Pay Plan advice (it certainly is looking best to me).

One of the recommendations that I am about to take on is to move bank accounts so that I can protect my income for all parties.

I do have a question however that I could do with some help with.

I am a consultant and regularly travel with work (mainly UK) but this does require me to incur expenses including hotels. Many hotels now require a credit/debit card to be produced to guarantee the room. With a change of bank account to a basic non-overdraft form, can anyone advise on one that will allow a debit card to accompany the account?

This is also relevant to a sideline business venture I started up. In an attempt to bring in some additional funds I had recently started up a new online business providing birth certificates abroad. This is actually going relatively well, but requires me again to purchase the certificates online via debit/credit card.

Your advice would be greatly received!

Matt

anniestar

Hi and welcome there will be loads of far brighter people than me along soon to help. Can I just ask you a couple of questions? How many is the housekeeping budget for? Also clothing, in the short term would it be possible to cut back? Anyway, well done on posting and for providing such a detailed SOA. Good luck and again, welcome.

tirednurse_2

I have a co op cashminder account. It has no overdraft facility but it comes with an electron card. I can use this card in shops and am able to pay for things online. My account also offers telephone and internet banking.
Hope this helps.

fatbelly

Co-Op and NatWest give debit cards with their basic accounts.

But you do not necessarily need a basic account. Just an account with a bank to whom you do not owe money. You can always opt for 'no overdraft'. The basic accounts don't have a chequebook, which you might find inconvenient.

mattlawless

Hi Annie and thanks. This is actually the official budget so there is some slack in there on housekeeping and clothing to enable us to retain the use of before- and after-school clubs so that we are both able to work. (This is addition to the £300 for childminding as this is expensive for two kids every day).

I have my own personal budget of £250 for housekeeping and £25 for clothes. Having read a lot of the posts on back to basics in relation to food this should be acheivable. The clothing budget is mainly for the kids and any worn-out work clothes.

Glitterari

I guess you should be able to get a bank account without od facilities with a debit card - I got one with Natwest despite my credit rating not being so good. I don't have an od, but i do have a switch plus cheque book - it's the next one up from the basic one.

It would help us to know how many people you're allowing for. Btw are those expenses your current ones or ones agreed with payplan for the DMP, cos some of them seem really high.

moxie_2

You could try Citibank, there's a thread on here somewhere. They do a Visa debit card, I think. Plus if you join through Quidco, you get £50.

CLAPTON

how many of there are you?

are the figures you have quoted recommended by payplan or what you are currently spending?

can you edit your post and
a. add the minimum monthly payment to each debt
b. add up the debt total and add up the minimum monthly repayments

is the endowment mandatory and associated with the mortgage

are the debts your / your partners or joint?

mattlawless

Sorry. I'm budgeting for me, my wife and two young boys (7 & 4). I know some of the figures appear high but we needed some slack for a couple of important things. The childcare thing mentioned before, and although this may sound extravagent we also pay £120 per month to my wife's parents as they do not work owing to disability (we support them a little).

mattlawless

CLAPTON wrote:

how many of there are you?

are the figures you have quoted recommended by payplan or what you are currently spending?

can you edit your post and
a. add the minimum monthly payment to each debt
b. add up the debt total and add up the minimum monthly repayments

is the endowment mandatory and associated with the mortgage

are the debts your / your partners or joint?

The figures are those recommended by payplan and are significantly less than what we had previously been spending.

Edited figures are:

loyds TSB Loan £ 7,460.35 7.90% £303.40
Marbles (HFC) Loan £ 4,655.43 8.50% £86.16
Virgin (MNBA) Loan £ 7,544.15 14.90% £218.57
Sainsburys Bank Loan £ 4,655.81 6.10% £138.52
Marbles CC £ 9,860.77 23.90% £183.00
Virgin (MNBA) CC £ 11,018.09 23.90% £199.56
Intelligent Finance CC £ 9,252.07 12.90% £187.38
M&S CC £ 2,981.48 16.90% £87.61
Lloyds Overdraft £9,883.18 9.90%
£1,404.20

The endowment is not mandatory - it is an ISA to back an interest-only mortgage. All the debts with the exception of the overdraft are in my own name.

Glitterari

Ok, for starters:

car insurance - can you get it any cheaper? Martin has an article on getting it as cheap as possible. You don't necessarily need to wait until renewal either but your insurance company might charge you to cancel so you would need to check.

Can you get the cost of your telephone and gas & elec down?

Hair cuts? Is there no one you know who could do it for you? Could you invest in some clippers for you and your boys?

And the dental/medical/opticians - is this insurance?

Just some thoughts