Information removed - Thanks for all the advice

DesperateToBeDebtFree_2

Information removed - Many thanks for all the advice

wannabee_in_credit

Hi
First thing I would suggest is to keep a spending diary to see where every penny is going.
There are lots of places for cutting back if you wanted to.
£400 a month on groceries - I spend just over half of this feeding 2 adults and 2 children.
Car costs are high - £350 a month on petrol seems huge, is it all essential? Can you cut back, get rid etc?
Cut back on phone and mobile. I'm on £18 pcm for mobile and £26 for all phone/broadband etc and there's still room for me to cut more.
Life insurance seems high, as does £50 a month for clothes for 3 people...
I think you could easily cut back a bit if you want to, and start getting rid of those pesky cards.
Good luck.

Tixy

Hi and welcome

Do you have the £90 spare a month that you are showing? Even if you can just pay £10 more than the minimum this will still make a difference to how long it would take to pay off the debts.

A few suggestions below on places you could look to free up some cash.

DesperateToBeDebtFree wrote: »

Electricity............................. 53 looks quite high (though maybe some of your heating is elec? if not try shopping around to see if you can find a cheaper supplier or tariff and see if you can reduce your usage a little.

Telephone (land line)................... 46 does this include broadband? paid tv? might be worth looking for a cheaper deal (some landline/broadband combos are under £30)

Mobile phone............................ 70 is this 2 phones? are you in contract? maybe see if you could drop down a tariff?

Groceries etc. ......................... 400 this might be the place where you could potentially cut back the most. Some on here can manage on £250 for a family of 5. That might be a bit more than you are willing to cut back but you could certainly aim for £300, freeing up £100 to your debts.

Petrol/diesel........................... 350 are these all essential miles? do you always fill up at the cheapest place? and drive fuel efficently?

Car Insurance........................... 108 do you shop around at renewal time?

Buildings insurance..................... 42 if your house value is right this does seem high for B&C (perhaps the house value is a typo)? Have you shopped around for this recently and checked what it covers
Contents insurance...................... 0

Life assurance ......................... 75 have you shopped around for this recently? (and checked it covers what you expect)
Total secured & HP debts...... 0.........-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
MBNA...........................11800.....280.......16.6
First Direct...................6600......180.......17.9
Nationwide.....................3800......85........15.9
Total unsecured debts..........22200.....545.......-

Might be worth a read of -
Supermarket Shopping
Downshift & more, halve weekly bills

and

Cheap Petrol & Diesel
Cut your fuel spend by a third

for some ideas on reducing these a bit

destroyerofdebt2011

Perhaps you and your partner may find keeping a spending diary would be useful as per your SOA you should be able to pay off £91 extra off your debts each month but i suspect you are in fact spending this on other things.

Firstly look at your groceries £100 a week for 3 is for most considered a lot of money, try dropping a brand, batch cooking, taking packup to work/school etc and review how much fresh food you actually bin each week. the old style board is full of great advice.

Your mobile phone bills and landline also seem expensive is this something you can look at reducing are you using all your free mins/txts a month would PAYG be more affordable?

Your petrol/diesel is also a lot, are all your jouneys necessary can you make some trips serve multiple purposes?

Other than that im sure some others will be along to help shortly and i wish you the best in your endevours.

bupster

To be honest, you seem to be working to feed your cars as much as pay your debts. Is there any way you can sell one and one of you use public transport? You have a decent joint income, this should be doable.

ViolaLass

Are you really spending nothing on entertainment? You need a spending diary to check that your SOA is true. Agree with others about your groceries, mobiles and petrol. Lots of places where you could save.