£80,000

Happytogetdebtfree

Morning hope you slept well :-) ((hugs)) what would I recommend today don't bury your head have you got all your finances out papers etc, I'd set everyone up for direct debit of minimum payment for now. 600 on groceries where do you shop? Go on mymoneysupermarket compare prices of things you refuse to drop brand for. Have a go on your local supermarkets website and see what dropping a brand makes to your bill. Any unwanted direct debits or donations that could be cancelled for now till you get on the straight and narrow? Mobile phones worth ringing up and explaining your having financially difficulty can you reduce a tariff price? Also regarding franchise what is it? Can you get some free business advice on the pros and cons of keeping it on? I appreciate you have put money in and lost money what we don't want is you to loose more. Can you get 0% credit cards? Can you balance transfer onto life of balance? X

Firewalker

Do you really have over 2 million worth of mortgage? Apart from that, food is extremely high (should be able to do on £300 or even less), mobiles are high; you need something for haircuts etc.

Apart from that you will have to do everything possible to in crease your income - not easy, I know, but once you develop an animal fixation it is not that hard either.

Firewalker

TakingControl

Hello :j I have not much extra advise but just wanted to say something encuraging. If you look at my signature, I was nearly £45K in debt (alone with no second income) and have cleared so much in the past 2.5 years and I am only 13 months from being debt free.

You can do it if you put your mind to it:T

JustinCredibleGillespie

Plenty of encouragement here

Although if the OP cant make serious cutbacks and get her DH singing from the same hymn sheet, it looks like Bankruptcy is the only way forward

JCG

xx

Willow_K

thejames wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1200
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2100
Benefits................................ 138
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3438
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 267
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 37 What is this and when is it due to end?
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 116
Electricity............................. 55 Gas and electric seem a little high - you might be able to save another £10/£20 here by switching and using gas and electricity more efficiently.
Gas..................................... 55
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 26.54
Telephone (land line)................... 60 Does this include TV? If not it is very high. You should be able to get broadband and phone for about £20 if not in the middle of nowhere - try plusnet.
Mobile phone............................ 120 Try and cut these, If you are still in contract, see if you can get a tarriff reduction. If out of contract, switch to SIM only or PAYG
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 600 As others have said this can easily be cut to £300 - maybe even lower. Buying some things in bulk is good - is there a Costco near you?
Clothing................................ 0 You need something here - however, if a lot of your overspending has been on clothes have a cull and eBay some stuff or look for local table top stalls you could get a pitch at. This will give you some money for new clothes or to throw at debt. Only buy what you really need for the next few years and buy cheap or second hand where you can - especially kids clothes as they outgrow them so quick anyway.
Petrol/diesel........................... 240
Road tax................................ 22
Car Insurance........................... 85 This is really high - have you not got much no claims or is it the size / age of your car? Make sure you have a good shop round at renewal time. Also, remember to check and be realistic about your car value when applying for insurance - I saved £75 this year when I realised that the value of my car was £2000 more on the application than it is realistically worth. Use Autotrader to get an idea of your cars worth.
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10 This perhaps needs to be £20 or £30
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 40
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 12
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 49 This is high - I pay £180 for both buildings and contents up to £40k. Again, shop around
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 20
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 You need something here - even if it is just £20.
Haircuts................................ 0 Again, something here, unless you get it done for free or never have it cut.
Entertainment........................... 0 You need something here - even if it is just £20.
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1826.66

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 240
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 2240

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 215000...(267)......0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 0........(37).......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 215000....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Nat west.......................18.713....283.......0 How long left to run?
Co Op..........................18.416....270.......0 How long left to run?
Credit cards...................44.859....1060......0
Car............................3000......100.......0 When is this due to be paid off?
Over draft.....................2500......0.........0
New Boiler.....................5400......97........0 :eek: Too late now, but that is an extortionate amount for a new boiler - when is it due to be paid off?
Total unsecured debts..........10981.99..1810......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,438
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,826.66
Available for debt repayments........... 1,611.34
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,810
Amount short for making debt repayments. -198.66
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 2,240
Total HP & Secured debt................. -215,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -10,981.99
Net Assets.............................. -223,741.99
Created using the SOA calculator at
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.

Hi

I think you need to add another £50-£55 worth of spending into your SOA for presents, clothes etc, but I can see savings of around £500 which could be made without too much effort which would give you an extra £250 per month to throw at debts.

Some questions:

What is the HP for and when is it due to finish?
When are the car loan and boiler loans due to finish?
What is the term of the two big loans?

What is the franchise? If you have only just bought it, it would be foolish to give it up just yet without giving it a proper go. If you tell us what it is, we may be able to suggest ways of making it pay. If you do make a go of it, I suggest you throw any profit it makes straight at the debt (when you have taken out tax and NI). Don't ever think of the money as yours until the debts are paid off. If it looks like it's not viable, perhaps you could sell it on or back to the franchiser - depends on the terms of the Franchise.

Do an audit of your house - unless the money was spent on going out, I am sure you must have a lot of things you can sell. Go through each room with a box and work out what you need and what is just clutter and get eBaying, use gumtree, do boot sales, check for table top sales in your local area and throw any money you make at the debts.

Finally, look at doing surveys, mystery shopping etc for vouchers and money for presents. Buy in sales etc throughout the year - check out the up your income and grabit boards on here.

I know it is depressing when you think of the total amount of debt, but believe it or not you seem to be a relatively good position to pay it off with only minor changes to your life. It may take a while, but you will get there.

Good luck xx

Willow_K

JustinCredibleGillespie wrote: »

Plenty of encouragement here

Although if the OP cant make serious cutbacks and get her DH singing from the same hymn sheet, it looks like Bankruptcy is the only way forward

JCG

xx

While the OP definitely needs to make cut backs, there is plenty of room for manoeuvre in the SOA. I doubt at DMP would even be worth looking at at this point, let alone Bankruptcy.

determined_new_ms

Hi thejames. Really hope things seem a bit better this morning. I can imagine its not the best place for you to be right now, but take heart we have all seen people do some amazing things - people getting out of your level of debt in a relatively short time frame - on this website. You can find the strength from somewhere believe me, life won't send you more than you can cope with.

Firstly I think it would be a good idea to start meeting the short fall. Groceries - oh loves pizza? Either nab them when the are on offer, supermarkets are always doing reductions/241/341 etc, or make them. Cost pence and you can use up things that need using pronto. Really easy to do, lots of recipes on the Old Style board. Bulk buy (if you can) at the start if the month things that are on offer and you will use. When I went to lidl a couple of weeks ago the UHT milk (which we mainly use) had a couple of pence off so knowing I will buy these all month I stocked up on a month's supply. Its only a couple of pence but it all adds up.

Meals - anything that is "wet" curry, chilli, spag add lentil, a handful of porridge oats (I know it sounds weird but trust me! You can't taste it or see it so no one will know, but it will fill you up) bulk up with in season/reduced veg. I get my lentils from the local oriental supermarket as they are better value than the supermarkets. Downgrade - so if you buy a named brand try supermarkets own, then try basic if you can't notice the difference stick with it. There is a whole thread on the groceries board where people post what's good/bad with the basic ranges. Also find out when your local supermarkets do their reductions and freeze. Do you use Aldi/Lidl/Nettos? I really can recommend Aldi/Lidl, much cheaper - don't have such a full range which imo is better as there is less stuff to buy! Quality of products is really high.

Are you giving everyone too much meat at each meal? they say 100gms is enough for a portion. Bulk out with potatoes, yorkshire pubs, make a cheap soupd starter (for pence per portion) do a cheap desert. Last night I used the leftovers of chicken roast (from Sunday) to make a pasta bake, there was 180grms of chicken to feed 3 adults (my son is 19) and enough for lunch today for me and my oh. I bulked this out with veg, used a tin of (reduced/yellow stickered) mushroom soup and served veg on the side.

buy fruit & veg in season, stop buying crisps, biscuits & chocolate, you don't need it and its no good for you. Make a desert for a couple of pence. slow cookers are great as you can bung all the ingredients in in the morning and its ready when you come home. Have porridge for breakfast.

Use money off coupons - if you shop on a Saturday make it a Friday night task to look through the coupon thread on the groceries board. Also check mysupermarket.com to see where the things you need to buy are cheapest. It generally pays to go to a couple of supermarkets. I usually do Lidl for my main shop and then Asda & Sains. I'm lucky that all three are on the same road.

become extra vigilant on throwing food away. Check your cupboards/fridge every couple of days and adjust meals accordingly. Make it a goal to not throw any food away for a week, then two etc. If you have a meal that uses cream (for example) make sure the next day or two has another meal to use this ingredient. Work out what things can be frozen. In the past if I had a recipe that called for pesto then you could be guaranteed a couple of weeks later I would be throwing away a half used jar of moudly pesto. Decided to stop this and did some research and discovered pesto freezes well. Vola a saving

All of these things take time and effort but you can really see the savings. Its best to get into a rhythm with it. I spend around £180-200 pm on groceries for 3 adults and another 18yrs old a couple of times a week and am currently trying to cut back a little more!

cleaning products. I use soapnuts for washings clothes. Spent £7 last Feb on a pack and I guess I've got another couple of months worth left. Use £shop for toilet roll. I use stardrops for majority of cleaning products. Again I bought a bottle for 99p from the 99p shop and have had it for about a year and a 1/2.

so much of this knowledge I have gathered from this website & the internet, just takes time to research things.
mobile phone - I think you should be able to call your provider and ask them to downgrade your contract to £5 a month on one or two of your contracts. Just be upfront with them. The business phone - you'll be able to write this off in your tax return won't you? Again if your franchise is workign from home you can offset some of your energy costs. I only know about this slightly as a friend of mine has several businesses. Go onto the tax board for info if you need it.

do a comparison on utilities, I think you could squeeze this and get cash back as well ( £30 cash back is £30 debt payment!) we pay £64 a month for both. Be the energy police. Talk to family re leaving things on standby, lights, turning on the heating, go around turning things off after people - I find this the easiest route but do occasionally have the energy talk, but its often less stress & hassle to do it myself!

homephone - is landline, TV & broadband? I think you can reduce this. We pay £24 for phone (free evening & weekend calls) & internet and have freeview.

The next thing is work out how to raise extra cash - ebaying, mystery shopping, additional p/t job for one of you. It can be done, like I say I've seen people goo from £100k+ debt get extremely resourceful and be out of it in a couple of years. Baby steps though and you'll catch the bug. Wishing you so much success & lots of peace x

JustinCredibleGillespie

OP needs to identify where £600 p/m is going on groceries. There seems to be a £200 deficit so right enough Bankruptcy wouldn't be option until all the above is looked at.

Regardless, I wish you all the Best on your Debt Free Journey OP. If you ever need help or have any questions, just come on here & ask. You'll not find a better forum or a better bunch of people than on MSE.

JCG

xx

SpagBol

Determined new ms, what are soap nuts? I've had a quick google but how do they work and where did you get yours? Thanks!

determined_new_ms

Where to get them

http://www.inasoapnutshell.com/index.html

discussion thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/174684

Frugal living challenge thread with lots of links that I have found to be extremely helpful!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3612005