My SOA - please help!

Baldybear

Hello, really struggling at the moment, am paying debts of as much as possible, but pondering this morning dont have any excess to put to debts and have no way of saving any emergency savings, so just wondering if anyone has any ideas!

Not a standard SOA but hope this makes sense.

OH pay: £1200 (sometimes gets bonus but very rare at the moment)
Out of this:
£900 to joint account
£82 to CC1 min payment
£30 phone and mobile internet (works away a lot)
This leaves about £200, out of this is his personal spends, so pays his computer games subscription, food eating out, as working on the road buys a lot of his food out, and as working away not always facility to make stuff and rest is for his use so clothes, going out etc.

My pay £1139 (currently on 20% paycut :mad:)
Out of this:
£450 to joint account
£150 to parents loan
£100 to savings (this pays for car tax, car, life, building and contents insurance for the 2 of us over the year)
£13 bank fee (get green flag, travel and mobile insurance (use these a lot))
£2 - 6 interest on arranged overdraft fees
£35 mobile
£50 CC2 min payment
£70 fuel
£30 hairdresser
£100 misc (my general spends includes clothes, going out, presents etc)
so leaves me with about £100 spare a month (trying to leave this and not spend it to reduce my overdraft, currently £850 arranged but only use about £500 at the moment each month but want to reduce completely)

Joint account has £1350 coming in:
£780 Mortgage
£170 council tax
£40 Electricity
£25 Gas (they wanted to put up to £70 but leaving for now and trying to monitor it closely)
£37 Water
£60 TV, broadband, landline
£30 TV licence
£50 CC3 min payment
£100 food (pays for all home meals for 2 and my lunches)
£35 sofas
The joint account figures is rounded up e.g. council tax is £168 but put £170 and then transfer additional £2 to debt each month.
Not much left in here maybe £50 a month???

Have around £20k of debts at the moment

£9100 parents loan, pay of £150 a month interest free
£1385 sofas, pay £35 a month interest free
£3713 sofas, pay £82 min payment, 17.9%
£2881 CC2, pay £50 min payment think 17 or 18%
£2918 CC3, pay £50 min payment again think 17 or 18%

Cant at the moment get any 0% balance transfers, could get loan but not sure it taking this up at the moment is a good move.

Mortgage is lifetime tracker of 2.39% plus base rate, so think this is good deal.

Currrently ebaying all I can, doing surveys, comps etc to try and reduce the debt on the cards.

Any help or comments appreciated

Maybe_Tomorrow

*Bump*
Has this post been missed?

jayss

£60 TV, broadband, landline

Stands out, is that a sky/virgin package?
Cut that to the minimum or cancel.

£30 a month on hairdresser?
Can you go less often, find somewhere cheaper?

Does the other half not get expenses to cover food when working away?

Can you reduce your mobile contract?

wannabehermit

Hi just from a quick look, my 1st suggestions are:

1. ditch the games subscriptions. If you want to clear debts and get money aside for emergencies these are the 1st things that need to go.
2. If your OH is out on the road overnight, does he not get a meal allowance? If not he should look into it.
3. Your TV licence figure is wrong - it's £37.(and I think) 62p a quarter, works out at just over £12 a month
4. How long have you got on your mobile contracts? Can you get an early upgrade if you're close to the ends? Depending on what network you are with you can get really good deals, e.g. I am with Orange and have unlimited texts, calls and internet (500mb) for less than £13 a month, that's on an htc desire, so not a crap phone by any means, but I've been with them for a good few years and their retentions are very very good ime. See if you can do anything to get these down. It may be worth your OH looking at 3. DH uses a lot of internet as he is also on the road and watches iplayer etc on his break so needs a lot and 3 is genuinely unlimited unlike the other networks, he's also found the network to be much better and more reliable than his old o2 one.
5. home tv etc - can you knock your package down at all? Do you really really need the extra channels? Virgin basic package for all 3 is £28 per month. If you're using £30 worth of calls a month, then put a package on or use your free minutes on your mobiles.
6. £30 a month on hairdressers - do you have to have your hair done monthly for work reasons or could you knock this down to every other month?

They're the things that stand out to me, and if I was in your position they are the things I would deal with first and foremost. Good luck

Baldybear

Jayss thanks for your comments

£60 is virgin, could cut but OH is a gamer so wants top speed broadband, he doesnt spend money elsewhere, doesnt go out much etc so this is his hobby so not sure if we could cut this.

£30 could cut this down, but would need to do home colour or something, currently have highlighted and cut every 7 weeks so need to think about this.

OH when working away gets breakfast and lunch covered but has to buy own lunches, I thought our grocery bill was ok as £100 covers all my breakfast, lunch and dinner and OH breakfast and dinner when he is at home.

Currently looking to reduce mobile contract, looking at ones of only £15 - £20 a month.

Its really difficult, just remembered car needs service next week so thats £220 to find from somwhere, have £100 in paypal from ebay sales that was going to debt so thats a start but other £120 not sure. Stupid paycut if that wasnt there would be getting an extra £250 a month!

Baldybear

Just looking at above really need to get these darn debts down and then would be better off each month, even with the paycut!!!

Note to anyone, do not work in the construction industry in a recession!!!

Baldybear

Wannabe thanks fro your comments, hairdresser and mobile definitely being looked at. TV licence definitely need to review as not sure paying this much, £12 will be great so a small saving there straight away, which always helps

antonia1

Hello, and welcome to the debt free wannabe board. Your SOA is quite hard to read, so you might get more replies if you use the standard one. It isn't very clear whether you are spending more than you are earning each month, in which case cuts need to be quite drastic, or if you are just wanting to pay debt off quicker. Anyway, I've added a few comments in the mean time.

Baldybear wrote: »

Hello, really struggling at the moment, am paying debts of as much as possible, but pondering this morning dont have any excess to put to debts and have no way of saving any emergency savings, so just wondering if anyone has any ideas!

Not a standard SOA but hope this makes sense.

OH pay: £1200 (sometimes gets bonus but very rare at the moment)
Out of this:
£900 to joint account
£82 to CC1 min payment
£30 phone and mobile internet (works away a lot)
This leaves about £200, out of this is his personal spends, so pays his computer games subscription, food eating out, as working on the road buys a lot of his food out, and as working away not always facility to make stuff and rest is for his use so clothes, going out etc. £200 of personal spends is quite a lot when you are trying to pay off debt.

My pay £1139 (currently on 20% paycut :mad:)
Out of this:
£450 to joint account
£150 to parents loan
£100 to savings (this pays for car tax, car, life, building and contents insurance for the 2 of us over the year) Try to split this out so that you can see what each thing actually costs, that way we can see if any particular element looks too high, or if you aren't budgeting enough.
£13 bank fee (get green flag, travel and mobile insurance (use these a lot)) Have you checked the separate costs of breakdown cover and insurance and compared with the annual £156 you are paying here?
£2 - 6 interest on arranged overdraft fees
£35 mobile This is high - switch to PAYG or cut down a couple of tariffs. Try giffgaff.
£50 CC2 min payment
£70 fuel Are all these journeys necessary?
£30 hairdresser Every month? Try going longer between cuts, or the student hairdressers.
£100 misc (my general spends includes clothes, going out, presents etc)
so leaves me with about £100 spare a month (trying to leave this and not spend it to reduce my overdraft, currently £850 arranged but only use about £500 at the moment each month but want to reduce completely) Need a spending diary to see where this is going.

Joint account has £1350 coming in:
£780 Mortgage
£170 council tax Over 12 months or 10? If 10 you are about to have 2 months where you can throw this at debt.
£40 Electricity
£25 Gas (they wanted to put up to £70 but leaving for now and trying to monitor it closely)
£37 Water
£60 TV, broadband, landline This is high. If you are struggling to pay debt you need to cancel the TV package and switch to freeview.
£30 TV licence Should be £12 per month I think.
£50 CC3 min payment
£100 food (pays for all home meals for 2 and my lunches) This seems very good indeed, are you sure you are correct?
£35 sofas
The joint account figures is rounded up e.g. council tax is £168 but put £170 and then transfer additional £2 to debt each month.
Not much left in here maybe £50 a month???

Have around £20k of debts at the moment

£9100 parents loan, pay of £150 a month interest free
£1385 sofas, pay £35 a month interest free
£3713 sofas, pay £82 min payment, 17.9%
£2881 CC2, pay £50 min payment think 17 or 18%
£2918 CC3, pay £50 min payment again think 17 or 18%

Cant at the moment get any 0% balance transfers, could get loan but not sure it taking this up at the moment is a good move.

Mortgage is lifetime tracker of 2.39% plus base rate, so think this is good deal.

Currrently ebaying all I can, doing surveys, comps etc to try and reduce the debt on the cards.

Any help or comments appreciated

As I said, it is hard to comment too much as I can't even see if you are in surplus each month, so using the proper SOA template would be handy. You also have missed a few things off your budget, like christmas, holidays and an emergency fund.

Baldybear

Thanks for your comments, will reply to each one:-

We dont overspend at the moment, we are keeping to budget and any extra is going to debt

OH's £200 pays for all his lunches, phone and mobile internet gaming (thats his hobby), clothes, going out etc, it is a lot but not sure how I can get him to reduce this, ponders

Car tax is £95, insurance around £470, life insurance is £300 per year, building and contents £289 so total £1154, this was last years figures, may be able to get car insurance down this year, save £100 a month so £1200 a year, this works out to cover all.

Mobile currently being looked at

£70 fuel, we have one car between us, OH has full use of work van which he brings home but cant use at weekends or personal errands, I use car to commute to work and then everyday driving around for the 2 of us.

Council tax just worked this out few days ago so £340ish to put to debts or doh if I think about it will cover the rest of my car service this month (so didnt think of this one, oh dear ) and £168 from march can go to debts!!

£100 food budget is correct, have got it down to a fine art, do lots of batch cooking, fairly cheap meals, freezing lots etc so at least good on one thing :rotfl:

Holidays had one last year which was a competition win, may go camping this year, but nothing planned or booked.

Xmas only buy for a few and used a lot of vouchers earnt from survey companies over the year to pay for 80% of presents.

Emergency fund, no not got this at all, which why I put SOA up in first place as worried I dont have anything or no way of saving for this yet until debts are gone.

Baldybear

Thanks everyone for your comments, reading your replies and reading my replies too I think the best solution is to try and get these debts paid of NOW! This will free up a large chunk of my budget £180 alone just on minimum card payments so this can go straight towards an emergency fund. Any other savings e.g. the saving on tv licence, council tax free months will also be freed up to go to savings.

So really need to crack on with this, get my head down more and carry on ebaying and the like!! I do have another ulterior motive for being debt free which is to get another horse (see diary thread Saving for a new horse!) so really going to push myself! I will do this, going to set myself some challenges in the near future!

AFK_Matrix

Just a quicky on the £13 on bank fee.

I know it gets you the breakdown, mobile insurance and travel insurance but you are tbh wasting your money.

I just changed from AA who where charging me £10.53 a month (over £120 a year:eek:) to AutoNational Breakdown who are doing a deal for everything they do for £66 for the year. BUT if you apply online that then gives you 15 months instead of 12 and then if you use Topcashback thats a cashback of £11.66. This means your breakdown will be £3.63 a month.

Then your mobile can be put on your house inurance, give them a ring and they should cover it and put it on your policy.

To be fare if your in debt then holidays are out of the picture for a while so you don't need this insurance.

If you do this then thats just under £10 a month saving. Obviously you also need to change banks so they don't charge you a fee.

Oh and I second antonia1 in getting a proper SOA filled out as it is near impossible to properly advise you on where you can be saving etc. Please put one up thanks.