My financial affairs - AKA Why am I always skint?

MFWannabe

klfairy wrote: »

Hopefully this is right now. Not quite sure how I'd managed to get some of the figures so wrong (stupid fingers?) but here we go...

I've learned something very important. I thought I was budgeting before, but I wasn't. I had a list of direct debits and that's really NOT the same thing. We never planned for clothing purchases, haircuts, birthdays and so on, which meant those expenses just came out of the pot and we'd struggle sometimes.
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

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1885
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1613
Benefits................................ 81.2
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3579.2

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 490
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 31
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 74
Electricity............................. 105
Gas..................................... 90
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 67.27
Telephone (land line)................... 43 - You really should be able to get this cheaper combined with your sat tv and not lose any speed. It's always worth ringing them:)
Mobile phone............................ 58
TV Licence.............................. 24.25
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 36.62
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 300
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 400
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 95
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 40
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 10
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 20
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 32 - You could definitely get this cheaper; check comparison sites. Doesn't cost anything to check:)
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 5
Entertainment........................... 40
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2031.14


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 100000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 102000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 86000....(490)......0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 0........(31).......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 86000.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
My credit card.................1865......35.67.....12.95
OH credit card 1...............3300......70........0
OH credit card 2...............400.......10........0 - Pay this off in full one month and then cancel and cut it up as you've said it's nearly 35% apr.
OH Loan........................0.........219.......0
My overdraft...................2000......0.........0
OH overdraft...................2200......10........0
Total unsecured debts..........9765......344.67....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,579.2
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,031.14
Available for debt repayments........... 1,548.06
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 344.67
Amount left after debt repayments....... 1,203.39

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 102,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -86,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -9,765
Net Assets.............................. 6,235

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Hi

That's looking better. Try to keep your chin up; i know it seems very daunting at the moment but at least you've faced up to it and not burying your head in the sand.
I've made some comments above where you could make some cutbacks. Hope this helps; there are savings to be made
Also look at cashback websites like Quidco and Topcashback to earn cashback when you shop online.
Also if you are going to get married then really your OH needs to get on board with you and not leave it all to you to do. It's far easier if you're both on board

TeaForOne

Hi. You are doing really well at getting your head round this. Try not to be too disheartened by the lack of clarity in some areas.

You've already identified that you do have enough cash after the bare essentials to buy clothes, car tyres etc. so the things you can do now are:

- follow advice above to reduce the cost of insurance, utilities etc.

- do a spending diary. An honest one. You need to log every bag of crisps and cup of coffee because it all adds up. Use the demotivator on the main site to scare the pants off yourself if necessary! I'm using a really simple iPhone weekly budget app and I've been amazed how much further the money goes.

- sort out your fiance. You're not being a cow - you're investing in your future and preventing him from squandering it. I have no idea how you can do this, but you must, because you cannot do it on your own.

Stay strong and positive.

foxgloves

Agree with previous post. You are somehow going to have to get OH on board & tackle this as a team. It's the only way. If you are the strongest potential budgeter, & it defintely sounds as though you are, you may well have to take over all matters financial. It's lovely to have an independent account/card for spends, but once two people have joined their lives together & are sharing the responsibility of all the things needed to run a home, etc, then financial stuff, including very definitely personal responsibility, needs to be run jointly as a team. I don't know how you can get your OH to take this approach, but there are no situations in life which are better for being in debt....eventually, it catches up with you & it's payback time, & when that happens, lots of the cool stuff needs cutting to prioritise debt-busting. I think there were times my partner thought I'd turned into an evil obsessed debt-busting monster, but now we're debt-free, he is so relieved (even though he never thought he was struggling or out of control at the time) & says he wouldn't go back to how we used to be. Eventually, all debt does is prevent you doing what you'd really like to do. if you can convince him that you are doing this for your greater happiness & a securer future together, maybe he would start to get on board? Very difficult financial times globally at the moment, & huge amounts of people all over Europe must be having to get their financial acts together, so nobody should feel alienated. Everyone on here is either in, or has been in the same position. However, once partner is on board, & you can work as a team, it does get easier.

kissjenn

Hi,

Two very quick observations.

1) You have clothing £20 per month and state OH will spend £170 on new stuff in Jan, that's pretty much 9 months budget on one shop. Suggest you seriously think what'll you need and up it accordingly.

2) Your OD of £2k has nil minimum payment. However again you state you've a bank which charges £1 per day you're overdrawn, never mind reducing it. So you have a minimum payment of £31 per month just for the privledge of the OD. Another chunk to add to your SOA.

The more you know about where it goes the easier it is to target where to save...I hope that's ok.

allthingsmustpass

4 words

'Spending Log' iPhone App !

klfairy

allthingsmustpass wrote: »

4 words

'Spending Log' iPhone App !

Two words: no iphone!

No smartphone at all tbh. I do now have 3 different money management software packages on my laptop and am in the process of evaluating them. I have meticulous records now

allthingsmustpass

klfairy wrote: »

Two words: no iphone!

No smartphone at all tbh. I do now have 3 different money management software packages on my laptop and am in the process of evaluating them. I have meticulous records now

I think record keeping is the key, its useful to do it whilst mobile on your iphone! But you do need one of course to get spending log!

MunniMuncha

Hi KLF, well done for posting on here and getting your finances in order. One thing that I have noticed is in your first SOA you put only £50 for petrol and in a subsequent one it went up to £400, yet you say that you are only running one car atm and don't do many miles. I would say to try and get an accurate figure on how much petrol you are actually using. We have 2 cars and spend around £250 pm on petrol, doing an average of 1600 miles between the 2 cars. Hopefully this will help in getting your SOA more accurate.

Good luck

FireWyrm

klfairy wrote: »

Two words: no iphone!

No smartphone at all tbh. I do now have 3 different money management software packages on my laptop and am in the process of evaluating them. I have meticulous records now

Three words...pad and pencil. Get yourself a little A6 pad and a small pencil. Rule three columns, one for the name of the item, one for location/type and one for amount. Fill in as appropriate when you spend ANYTHING and that means bottles of milk and packets of chewing gum. No one has mentioned your grocery bill. I suspect it's actually a gross understatement and the spending diary will tell you what you are spending and where. To give you an example...I believed I was budgeting too since I mentally only counted a big shop as groceries. Turned out that I was spending somewhere around the £800+ mark on 'groceries' and believe me, that was stupid. Your SOA is still wildly over optimistic and you need to analyse your bank statements for at least the previous 6 months to have some idea where to cut down. Go through it and allocate each item to a 'type' like petrol, grocery, incidental, cash withdrawal etc. I bet your cash withdrawal tally will far out weigh any other category. If you are withdrawing only £20 a week, that's £80 a month right there. Your grocery bill is also too high...try the drop a brand challenge. I feed two adults and two children on £120 a MONTH, I kid you not and I have 3 cats too. It can be done but it requires will power and discipline. Your OH won't be on board until you wave a piece of paper in front of him with the figure of £867 (or similar) written in bold which is what I had to do to mine...that was what the twit had spent in one month when I let him have the house card and unfettered access....

FireWyrm

allthingsmustpass wrote: »

4 words

'Spending Log' iPhone App !

Not all of us have iPhones...some have Androids. See my sig for why.