SOA-Help needed!!

Bestthingsinlifearefree

Hi !

welcome to MSE, you are in the right place for good free advice and support:beer:

You owe 12K and you are spending 100 per month on GYM AND SKY !!:eek:

These are not essentials or priority. You can not afford then. I would like a new BMW because I work hard and don't have many other luxeries, but I can't afford it so I don't have one.

GYM & SKY need to go.

Essentials are food, electricity, roof over your head.

Keep up the good work.

KatrinaC_2

You said in your opening post that you have around £315 per month left over for anything else - to find out where that goes you need to start a spending diary. You should be recording every 30p pack of chewing gum you buy as with that amount of money available, plus the additional £80 to 90 others have identified as places you can cut back, you could clear your debts completely in 36 months - maybe less than that if you can find other ways to get addtional money to allocate to the repayments.

Kat

dancingfairy

Sky - £50 can you reduce this at all /cancel - it's a lot of money
Food- Can you reduce this at all? have a look at OS.
can you sign up to nectar/clubcard etc?
Petrol- depending on where you shop for food can you get petrol to get poiunts off shopping - I don't know if you can get nectar points at any garages but if you get your food from tesco's and use get your petrol from there would that help a bit?
Start a spending diary so you can see where all your unaccounted for money goes.

Bestthingsinlifearefree

Could you get a similar job closer to home and ditch the car ?

CMorena

Bestthingsinlifearefree wrote:

Hi !

welcome to MSE, you are in the right place for good free advice and support:beer:

You owe 12K and you are spending 100 per month on GYM AND SKY !!:eek:
Sky paid by fiance (he has just cut it off
am tied into gym unless give 3 months notice and it is the one thing I do other then work. I know it is a lot but can't really go running around my way (its unsafe) no other gym in vicinity. I hear what you are saying though could do with cutting back.
These are not essentials or priority. You can not afford then. I would like a new BMW because I work hard and don't have many other luxeries, but I can't afford it so I don't have one.

GYM & SKY need to go.

Essentials are food, electricity, roof over your head.

Keep up the good work.

thanks for you help and advice

CMorena

Bestthingsinlifearefree wrote:

Could you get a similar job closer to home and ditch the car ?

Hiya, in reply, nope, I was made redundant and it took me 3 weeks to get this job, its right job for me (just spent 18 months despising my job and I mean despising) right money ( kinda) and uses my skills (that i paid £15,000 student debt for)
also no jobs in vicinity as I live in residential area.
Would LOVE to have a job closer to home but have spent 4 years looking for it in city I live in and it seems am in wrong part of country for what I want. However, wage is good and same job would have same wage elswewhere in country where I could prob walk to work however house prices down south astronomical compared to here.

also do not wnat to change jobs as have done this a lot recently and that along with moving flats has meant that could have a poor credit rating. Have moved constantly since 1998 (long story but unavoidable) and just wnat to stay put in both a job and a flat til I can buy somehere.
good idea though
thanks

all_hours

CMorena wrote:

0% anniversary on Egg in March- do I reduce credit limit to improve rating or wait til then and transfer some other debt, THEN reduce limit?
many thanks again

Check the interest rates on the cards and what the transfer fees would be.

If you transferred £2000 to egg and it was interest free for 5 months then it would save you around £130 in interest, so if you paid 2% (£40) for a BT fee then it would save you money. If the normal interest rate on egg is slightly lower than halifax it would still be worth doing this even though your payments would go off the 0% balance first. When you've done the transfer get the credit limit on the halifax card reduced.

If you can find your missing £300 you could have your barclaycard empty within 3 months. Then you could ask them for a low life of balance transfer and see if they will increase your credit limit. Move what you can off halifax to barclaycard then overpay the halifax card.

CMorena

KatrinaC wrote:

You said in your opening post that you have around £315 per month left over for anything else - to find out where that goes you need to start a spending diary. You should be recording every 30p pack of chewing gum you buy as with that amount of money available, plus the additional £80 to 90 others have identified as places you can cut back, you could clear your debts completely in 36 months - maybe less than that if you can find other ways to get addtional money to allocate to the repayments.

Kat

yes a spendiny diary has been mentioned, think its a v good idea
by the way well done on your debt free-ness, good going!

KatrinaC_2

dancingfairy wrote:

I don't know if you can get nectar points at any garages

Both BP and Sainsbury's do Nectar points on petrol. Sainsbury's is the better of the two if there is one nearby as not only is their petrol normally cheaper, but they offer 1 point per litre whereas I think BP is only 1 point per pound (although the gap between a litre and a pound is dropping by the minute!).

I used to commute 750 miles per week and found that petrol price comparison sites (like the one the AA used to run) were invaluable, but that it also paid to keep your eyes open for special offers in supermarkets (such as Sainsbury's periodic "Spend £50 in store and get 2p off per litre").

Kat

CMorena

KatrinaC wrote:

Both BP and Sainsbury's do Nectar points on petrol. Sainsbury's is the better of the two if there is one nearby as not only is their petrol normally cheaper, but they offer 1 point per litre whereas I think BP is only 1 point per pound (although the gap between a litre and a pound is dropping by the minute!).

I used to commute 750 miles per week and found that petrol price comparison sites (like the one the AA used to run) were invaluable, but that it also paid to keep your eyes open for special offers in supermarkets (such as Sainsbury's periodic "Spend £50 in store and get 2p off per litre").

Kat

Thanks Kat, yes there is a Sainsbury's and a tesco nearby, I should deffo look into that.