New member respectfully asking for help

topcat6562

Not sure if I have done this right as I have not chatted before via a computer apologies in advance if it turns out naff

I have been reading these messages since Saturday & have finally plucked up the courage to post my SOA in the hope that all you kind people on here may be able to offer some advice. I have been on the CCCS website & they can not help me but did offer some suggestions. I think I know what the answers will be but here goes: We have been spending above our means for a few months now & like so many others would not face up to it. Up to now have not defaulted on any payments BUT I think it is about to happen so I am going to try and sort it before the !!!!!! really hits the fan.

Monthly Income

My Salary £1194 + 50 bi monthly travel expenses
My Wife £628
Sons Board £80
Child Tax £46
Ch Benefit £68
Total £2016 - £2066

Main Debt Balance Min APR
Secured Loan (Barclays) £20758 £371 8.9%
Personal Loan (Barclays) £4332 155 10.8%
Barclaycard £1700 £45 24.9%
LPF CC £3276 £163 27.9%
Egg Card £2286 £46 21.9%
Capital 1 £396 £12 24.6%
Additions Catalogue £402 £20 29.8%
New Look (Store Card) £121 £10 29% approx nothing on statement
HP (Dell Computer) £331 £37 Ends Dec 07
HP (Wash Machine/Fridge) £55 £27 Ends Apr 07
Total £33653 £886

Mortgage £82080 £538.97 6.4%
Overdraft £1000 Currently £1537

Monthly Spending
£14.50 Barclays Additions Fee
£8.00 Account Interest Charges
£11.37 TV Licence
£90 Council Tax
£28 Water Rates
£30 Gas (PP Meter)
£68.50 Electric
£12.35 Telephone (OneTel) Variable based on calls
£17.99 Internet (Tiscali)
£66.30 Orange contract X 2 phones (18mth Cashback)
£3.00 Window Cleaner
£7.77 Prescription Prepayment (£93.20p.a)
£18.94 Building/Contents Insurance
£16.43 Mortgage Payment Protection
£14.86 Mortgage Life Insurance
£9.98 Mobiles X 2 Insurance
£325 Food Shopping
£130 Smoking
£52 Meals at work
£22 Bus Fares (OH Work)
£48.50 Monthly Travel Pass (Daughter for College)
£45 College Meals
£29.93 Car Insurance
£16.33 Car Tax (6 mthly £96.25)
£60 -80 Petrol
£3.75 MOT
£1170.50 Total

Do not/can not afford to drink in house or out.

Have just opened a new Bank account with A&L but only offered basic so I am going to apply for past charges from Barclays. Also have just managed to get M&S CC Card with 3.9% life of balance or 12mths % purchases Limit was set at £2000. not sure if I should t/fr £2k from one of the cards or try & clear overdraft??? something else to throw in the mix!!!!

Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.

millionaire_in_training

hi and welcome. Plenty of experts will be along soon to help you but the obvious expenses I think you could cut down on are the fags and food.Between household food and eating out for lunch you could really make savings here. Visit the old style board forlots of ideas on how to cut down. The people on there will motivate you no end. Good luck xx

fatbelly

I made your 'monthly spending' total £1698.10 (petrol as 80) but:

cant see TV licence (11.34)
suggest 15 for car maintenance
65 for clothing

leaves 226 for non-priority creditors. Ah, but your secured loan is priority and has a monthly instalment of £371. So you have a gap of 150 per month before you can even look at token offers to the non-priorities. Is that why CCCS turned you down?

This is do-able but is going to be tough. Over to the rest of the gang...

joughtib

Well done for posting, hopefully our advice won't offend you, we're just trying to help. My little snippets are shown below in bold.

topcat6562 wrote: »

Monthly Spending

£14.50 Barclays Additions Fee What benefit does this give you? If nothing, get rid!
£8.00 Account Interest Charges
£538.97 Mortgage Payment
£90 Council Tax
£28 Water Rates
£30 Gas (PP Meter)
£68.50 Electric Check for cheaper supplier. If cheapest, look at where you can cut your usage.

£12.35 Telephone (OneTel) Variable based on calls
£17.99 Internet (Tiscali) Tiscali do up to 8mb (this offer), with all 01 and 02 numbers included.

£66.30 Orange contract X 2 phones (18mth Cashback) Ouch! Might be worth having a chat with Orange, to move to lower tariff. Difficult if it's a new one.
£3.00 Window Cleaner DIY!
£7.77 Prescription Prepayment (£93.20p.a)
£18.94 Building/Contents Insurance Look at other companies
£16.43 Mortgage Payment Protection
£14.86 Mortgage Life Insurance
£9.98 Mobiles X 2 Insurance Get rid of this
£325 Food Shopping Look to cut this cost, by following OldStyle Moneysaving Ideas......look to cook more than you need, and then you can use this for Lunches at work....
£130 Smoking Obvious answer to this.
£52 Meals at work See above.
£22 Bus Fares (OH Work) How far is work? Walking an option?
£48.50 Monthly Travel Pass (Daughter for College)
£45 College Meals
£29.93 Car Insurance Check for savings with other companies
£16.33 Car Tax (6 mthly £96.25)
£60 -80 Petrol
£3.75 MOT

Do not/can not afford to drink in house or out.

Have just opened a new Bank account with A&L but only offered basic so I am going to apply for past charges from Barclays. Also have just managed to get M&S CC Card with 3.9% life of balance or 12mths % purchases Limit was set at £2000. not sure if I should t/fr £2k from one of the cards or try & clear overdraft??? something else to throw in the mix!!!!

Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.

You've missed TV Licence off this list.....do you pay a digital provider as well? Sky NTL etc

Annie_Fanny

topcat6562 wrote: »

Not sure if I have done this right as I have not chatted before via a computer apologies in advance if it turns out naff

I have been reading these messages since Saturday & have finally plucked up the courage to post my SOA in the hope that all you kind people on here may be able to offer some advice. I have been on the CCCS website & they can not help me but did offer some suggestions. I think I know what the answers will be but here goes: We have been spending above our means for a few months now & like so many others would not face up to it. Up to now have not defaulted on any payments BUT I think it is about to happen so I am going to try and sort it before the !!!!!! really hits the fan.

Monthly Income

My Salary £1194 + 50 bi monthly travel expenses
My Wife £628
Sons Board £80
Child Tax £46
Ch Benefit £68
Total £2016 - £2066

Main Debt Balance Min APR
Secured Loan (Barclays) £20758 £371 8.9%
Personal Loan (Barclays) £4332 155 10.8%
Barclaycard £1700 £45 24.9%
LPF CC £3276 £163 27.9%
Egg Card £2286 £46 21.9%
Capital 1 £396 £12 24.6%
Additions Catalogue £402 £20 29.8%
New Look (Store Card) £121 £10 29% approx nothing on statement
Total £33271 £822

Mortgage £82080 6.4%
Overdraft £1000 Currently £1537

Monthly Spending

£14.50 Barclays Additions Fee (Why are you paying this? Get rid of it - ring them and downgrade to a free account)
£8.00 Account Interest Charges (Reclaim all charges for a 6 year period)
£538.97 Mortgage Payment
£90 Council Tax
£28 Water Rates
£30 Gas (PP Meter)
£68.50 Electric (Make sure that anything rarely used is switched off - it all helps!)
£12.35 Telephone (OneTel) Variable based on calls
£17.99 Internet (Tiscali)
£66.30 Orange contract X 2 phones (18mth Cashback)
£3.00 Window Cleaner (Can you live with dirty windows?)
£7.77 Prescription Prepayment (£93.20p.a)
£18.94 Building/Contents Insurance
£16.43 Mortgage Payment Protection
£14.86 Mortgage Life Insurance
£9.98 Mobiles X 2 Insurance (Get rid - check house insurance)
£325 Food Shopping (Gasp! Have you had a look on the Old Style Board?)
£130 Smoking (Woah nelly!!! Get free help from your GP to give up)
£52 Meals at work (The easiest money saving trick in the book - take lunch to work!)
£22 Bus Fares (OH Work)
£48.50 Monthly Travel Pass (Daughter for College)
£45 College Meals (She will get used to packed lunches)
£29.93 Car Insurance
£16.33 Car Tax (6 mthly £96.25)
£60 -80 Petrol
£3.75 MOT

Do not/can not afford to drink in house or out.

Have just opened a new Bank account with A&L but only offered basic so I am going to apply for past charges from Barclays. Also have just managed to get M&S CC Card with 3.9% life of balance or 12mths % purchases Limit was set at £2000. not sure if I should t/fr £2k from one of the cards or try & clear overdraft??? something else to throw in the mix!!!!

Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.

Hey there

Welcome to MSE!!

There is MASSES you can do to save money - which is great news. If the smoking was cut out you would save 1560 alone. That's a few of your debts taken care of!!

Have you had at the snowball calculator?http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx
That will help you get some idea of how long the debts will take to get paid off - have a little play around and see what the figures say.

You can definately cut down on the shopping and meals at work/college. Get stuff into that batch cooking and try out other supermarkets for price.

Hope that helps a little

Cheers
Annie

topcat6562

The food for work was the first thing I thought of, actually started today instead of buying a sandwich I took in 5 pieces of fruit instead. The monthly shop will be the next thing, with what amounts to 4 adults in the house (youngest 17 y.o) this may be a harder target but initially i was hoping to get it down to £200 - £250.

Thanks for the support

alias7

Well, you're making a start by taking your lunch to work. Personally, I wouldn't eat the food at my canteen if they paid me - its horrid!

Even though your food shopping is for 4 adults, you can still make drastic cuts to that spending. Next time you go shopping, cut right down on the stuff you don't really need. Keep your spending written down and try to undercut it everytime you go.

£130 on Smoking is ridiculous. You should give up as soon as you can - See your GP, for free of course. It wont be easy, but its something you need to do.

topcat6562

The Electric was put up after a new meter was installed but the last quarter bill was in credit by £8 & if this Qtr is also in credit I will be requesting a revised payment. I am also waiting for MSE to give the go ahead for cheaper provider switching. Happy to get rid of Mobile insurance as I don't have the phones (OH & Daughter) but it is a new contract (First cashback due next month). As far as the smoking goes I hate to admit but I work in NHS & have tried patches twice to quit with little success. Will start to smoke less proper cigs & more hand rolled from now which should cut that figure in half until I can finally give them up. With the Barclays additions Fee you get Free Green Flag Breakdown cover (from home), Multi Trip travel Insurance & if I remember rightly mobile phone cover,(need to check booklet) Walking to work for my wife is not an option due to distance. Have also been on the snowball site & it was quoting 2015. The old style board sounds interesting but since finding out about this site I haven't got passed bank charge reclaiming & debt but being the main cook in the house will certainly give it a look. I also amended my first post to include 2 HP payments I missed off & the TV Licence. As I said at the start have not done this before & even now am not sure how to reply to individuals so this is a thanks for all your observations & comments & no I will not be offended by any critique if it is given the right way

fatbelly

After your editing your monthly spending + Mortgage + secured loan come to 2080.47. That's your entire income gone.

If you can cut your spending down enough to release a minimum of £5 per creditor per month, CCCS should be able to accept you on to a dmp. That's not a long-term solution but stops digging you further into debt

alias7

If it takes you forever, keep trying to quit smoking. Does any of your family smoke too?

Obviously you want to get to work on your debts, so is there any opportunity for you or your wife to do overtime at work?

Also, have you got anything you could start selling on eBay? Even if its just a few items a week, it all adds up.

CFC

I'm a smoker, I'm not going to join in on the giving up smoking chorus.

What I would say is roll your own and find someone who makes frequent day trips to France...once you ask around you'll find a couple of people who have some to sell 'surplus to what they brought back for themselves'

Even I have someone who I get cigarettes from, and I'm one of the most straight laced people you'd meet. It'll come in at half the price

What I'd go on about is 'Why do people have expensive mobile phones', especially when they have landlines! I fail to understand the whole phenomenen, having a phone on which I make about £1.50 worth of calls a month...but I guess you can't cancel out your contracts?