SOA - Debt free wannabe

nemomum

Here's my SOA. What depressing reading. I'm going to start chipping away at Mount Everest but my husband is really careless with money and sometimes it feels as though he is actually working against me. He's forever getting bank charges and our credit cards have gone rotten. I'm a SAHM but I make money selling things on ebay and gumtree form our stuff. I just hardly know where to start. I've got a 4 month old baby and a 2y3m toddler to think of, I want them to have a secure future.

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................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1969.7
Benefits................................ 180
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2149.7

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 34.9
Rent.................................... 600
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 137.62
Electricity............................. 48
Gas..................................... 88
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 17.36
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 15
Internet Services....................... 5
Groceries etc. ......................... 300
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 80
Road tax................................ 22
Car Insurance........................... 28
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 100
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 16.54
Life assurance ......................... 5.11
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1574.65


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 700
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 700


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 0........(34.9).....0
Total secured & HP debts...... 0.........-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
HBOS...........................3900......70.6......15.9
RBS cash.......................522.46....10........26.95
BOS............................2169.55...49.58.....26.95
RBS purchases..................982.05....24.01.....19.16
Overdraft......................2082......34........20
Credit union loan..............3000......16.54.....15
Brother........................100.......0.........0
Parents 2......................500.......0.........0
Parents........................14000.....0.........0
Virgin.........................2904......82.82.....24.1

Tixy

Hi

Is that all of your debts listed? you seem to have missed the bottom of the SoA.

If it is all your debts then the summary at the bottom should state

Income - 2149.70
Expenditure incl secured debts - 1574.65
Left for debt repayments 575.05
Debt repayments - 287.55
Surplus £287.50
Total unsecured debt £30160.06
If there are more debts then can you try reposting to get the full list.

Why is OH getting bank charges? is he going overdrawn in his current account? not leaving in enough to cover DDs so things are bouncing or what? Have you spoken to him about it and discussed what an utter waste of money it is?
Do you have joint accounts or seperate ones or both? Do the accounts he has access to have overdrafts? Have you considered instead having him only use a basic bank account with no overdraft so he cannot go overdrawn - and you dealing with the majority of the money / accounts / dds etc?

Its going to be really hard unless you can get him working with you to tackle this.

nemomum 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................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1969.7
Benefits................................ 180
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2149.7

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 34.9
Rent.................................... 600
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 137.62
Electricity............................. 48
Gas..................................... 88 does this include arrears? have you tried shopping around for the cheapest supplier and cheapest tariff? have you tried reducing your usage?
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0 do you not pay this - or is it paid by your landlord?
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 17.36
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 15
Internet Services....................... 5
Groceries etc. ......................... 300 try to work on reducing this a bit - maybe see if you can aim for £250 and still manage (see tips at the end)
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 80
Road tax................................ 22
Car Insurance........................... 28
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 you need to budget for this for servicing, mOT, new tyres etc.
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 100 is this OH commuting to work? or what? is it the most cost effective way to buy? ie is he using season tickets?
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 16.54
Life assurance ......................... 5.11
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 0 is this realistic?
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1574.65


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 700
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 700


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 0........(34.9).....0 is this the car? or something like furniture? how much do you owe? or when does it finish? are you up to date with repayments?
Total secured & HP debts...... 0.........-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR which of these are you behind with payments (if any)
HBOS...........................3900......70.6......15.9
RBS cash.......................522.46....10........0
BOS............................2169.55...49.58.....26.95
RBS purchases..................982.05....24.01.....19.16
Overdraft......................2082......34........5
Credit union loan..............3000......16.54.....15
Brother........................100.......0.........0 are these 3 happy/able to not have anything repaid on them in the short term?
Parents 2......................500.......0.........0
Parents........................14000.....0.........0
Virgin.........................2904......82.82.....24.1

When do you anticipate you might go back to work? if you intend to. How much do you tend to earn when you work? At the moment you have a very large amount of debt compared to your income and ability to repay. Although obviously nearly half is to family members which changes what options might be most suitable for you.

nemomum

I think I'll have to make a start somewhere today. We're meeting the minimum payments so I'll start a tally for paying off the cash advance portion of the RBS card.
Balance to pay 522.46. Today I made £ 13 on garden plants and £10 on a drill but husband lost £6 in bank charges and we've 1.90 to pay for a parcel. That leaves £15.10 net. I've paid it.

Update
Just had a huge row with my husband about his wasting money on bank charges. I could just cry, he's so clueless. His head is in the sand. Every day I'm running to make any extra money and by some miracle I'm actually selling the plants I've dug out of our garden. I've sold our old clothes to 'cash4clothes' and stuck things to auction and he just throws it away. I despair, I really do. I go without and the children do without and that's just made so pointless when he gets unnecessary bank charges. He's the one keeping us poor.

Tixy

Its really hard when it gets to arguing.
Can you try again with him (another time when things have calmed down) and get him to look though the statement of affairs with you and see how tight things are. Maybe feed the figures into the snowball calculator (same site as the SoA) to see how long it will take before you can clear all your debts - maybe that will help him see?
Or ask him what suggestions he has to where money could be saved from the SoA?

Could you add up how much you have paid in bank charges since the start of the year - and then get him to think what else he/you could have done with that money if it hadn't gone on fees.

System

I'm really sorry you're having difficulties. I can't offer any financial advice, but would it help get your husband on side if you show him the SOA you've done above? I'd say you'll find it next to impossible to get yourself sorted if you're constantly dealing with an uphill struggle trying to account for his bank charges. I'm sorry to speak badly of him, but your husband sounds like a selfish git (sorry!) to be spending his money on himself when it's causing you so much stress and your kids are going without.

If/when he comes around, I would suggest the two of you agree on a set amount for household expenses, bills and debts - he can put that into your account (assuming you have separate accounts) and he knows he can only spend what's left. It's not ideal (treating him like a child, basically) but he really has to man up and stop thinking only about himself. I really am sorry to be harsh, but he sounds like he's being really selfish and it needs to stop. I know that's easier said than done, and you have my sympathy.

ETA: Tixy's response was much more level-headed and reasonable!

freshstart11

Hello my darling I know exactly how you feels my ex husband would do as he sees fit with money, charges getting more and more things from brighthouse (nothing for family - xbox and iphone for him) Sadly I never sorted it out and left due to other reasons but now his aunt is having to control his money.

Maybe sit down with him and show him some things on here. Maybe it will help but until he has his LBM you may not get any further Is it a joint account or not? I hope you can sort it xx

nemomum

I'm not sure why the SOA missed a bit, I just copied and pasted. Where can I find it now? Is it saved on here somewhere? I've tried being on MartinLewis before and I have trouble finding my posts. We have a joint account which his wages go into and most of the DDs come out of and I have a separate old account which the family allowance goes into and a couple of DDs come out of. The credit cards are not joint cards, we've got two each. They mainly represent debt incurred for just living when we were both in further education and some wedding debt. The cards have gone rotten though, high interest rates, so most have been cancelled and we don't use the two we have to buy anything. The aim is just to pay them all off asap.

My husband isn't bad for spending but he just loses us money by being careless. The charges are from bounced direct debits usually and infrequent but predictable bills. He just doesn't keep track. I've tried taking over but I want him to do it jointly, not just leave it all for me. Last time I asked him to step up to the mark he got us in an almighty mess and borrowed a whole lot of money from Wonga which made us suffer for about 6 months. This is the first month since paying back Wonga so things have been really tight but I've been running like mad to keep ahead. He just constantly makes excuses for his lack of care of our finances yet his work involves managing contracts, working with figures etc, he says that's different but it's really not and I don't know what I can do to make him see that. I've tried calm reasoning, yelling, you name it I've done it and I can't get through to him. He holds down his job but that's the only money he ever brings in. I'm a SAHM and we agreed that I'd get to do that, we both want that, yet he is forcing us into a situation where it's almost impossible. When I say SAHM I am still the one bringing in extra money and he just says he isn't allowed an extra job in his contract and can't think of any way to make extra money. It's so mortifying that we owe his parents money and the worst thing is that they think I'm at the root of it, they have no idea that he's the one who's rubbish with money. I'll print off the SOA but he's agreed to at least file his paperwork and come up with a way of keeping track of our outgoings. I've heard it all before though. I think I may need to just take away his cards, give him an allowance and do all the finances but it's just so pathetic, I can't feel any respect for him as my husband when he doesn't have any way of improving our situation. I'm in it for the long haul, not planning on divorce. I've worked in the past and I actually make more money doing my ebaying, gumtreeing etc so that's not the solution although it does sound like a solution. The problem is my husband's lack of care of our finances as if we can just make some headway on these cards we'd be okay.

theoretica

Have you thought about setting up separate bank accounts - so there is one for the bills and you and he each have one for personal/day to day spending - hopefully one which has no overdraft. I am wondering if this would mean he became responsible for his own bank charges?

freshstart11

It is going to be really hard to get this under control unless...
1) he has a light bulb moment
2) you take control of the money

I have now got a grip on my finances and its all slowly getting sorted but I remember the worry of sorting it all out, I had so many sleepless nights. Are the bills that are set up on dd able to be paid another way or set up a standing order from the joint account to yours and have them coming out of there for a while? x

nemomum

I just wanted to get the SOA up asap and there are a few details I have to add. We're not behind with any of the payments but we are not getting any further ahead with them either due to the high interest rates. The water rates are included in the council tax charge. We just reduced the gap and electricity by swapping but it's been a cold start to the year so they're high at the moment. They are paid in arrears. The travel is the cheapest possible, he's got an annual pass for the bus but we do need the car as he can't always use the bus for his work and we have to get about at weekends. For now, we need the car. The maintenance of the car isn't realistic but the last few months we've been struggling to just get to the end of the month and haven't been able to put anything aside for emergencies. Entertainment sadly is realistic at £0, we do nothing. However, that should go up to £28 to cover swimming for the month and I'll have to add the costs of Saturday baby and toddler group. The hire purchase is furniture, I'll check what we still have to pay off. The family don't mind the owings for now but we do need to pay them back, they are loans, and I would feel so much better if we weren't in debt to my inlaws. The shopping bill I overestimated slightly to be realistic. We do a big shop at Lidl at the start of the month that comes to about £190 and that includes additional things as I have a baby and toddler in nappies etc. Tried reusables, not the answer. It also includes all the cleaning supplies, loo roll etc. I think I will come in under £300 but don't want to underestimate either.

nemomum

The DDs come out the day after his wages go in and that is the safest way to make sure they are paid. The couple that just caught us out come off today though. We've just been so skint because of his stupid Wonga loan and that's made this month hard again so next month I could set things up a bit differently if I can think of a better way to do things. I just feed all the money I make into the joint finances and they just get used for shopping etc, I don't hoard them. I don't really see any point in having us have separate accounts so he sees his charges, we're married, if he loses money we all lose the money. Better I can see what's going on really. I think the only thing I could do to take away the risk is see about moving those DDs to the start of the month too, I'll do that. I still need to make him see that he has to do things too though, I can't carry us. I need a plan for paying off the debts and also making sure we have a safety net. I don't know what to do, if I should put away a little bit of what I can make as a safety net or pay it all to debts. What should I do? Save half pay half? I thought if I could pay down the parts of the cards that are old cash advance debt then snowball that might work but it's such a long way to go.