The unthinkable has happened...redundancy

katsu

squidgychesspiece wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1200
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1200
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 795
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 156
Electricity............................. 23
Gas..................................... 108 ring them today. Find out how much you owe them, how long until it clears etc.
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 43 this is still very high. Check what you are paying for and see if you need it.
Mobile phone............................ 80 are you in contract? You do need a phone for job hunting but look at sim only deals like giffgaff - £10 a month for 300 minutes. You can definitely get this down. Look at the calls you make most and work out what is cheapest
TV Licence.............................. 29 are you paying for a year in advance? This should drop/not cost this much
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 300 make a budget and plan your meals as advised. Check out places like Aldi.
Clothing................................ 100 no more clothes until you are back at work
Petrol/diesel........................... 280 is DH using the cheapest places to fill up - check the petrolprices website (details on the motoring main site tab)? Does he do 60 not 70 on the motorway? Drive fuel efficiently? Checked tyre pressure recently? empty boot?
Road tax................................ 17
Car Insurance........................... 35
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 25 what is this for? Prepayment cert cheaper for prescriptions. If a dental plan etc cancel until you are back at work
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 23
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 20
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40 start thinking about home made gifts and charity shop bargains etc
Haircuts................................ 15 good price, but check local beauty college student salons whilst you are out of work
Entertainment........................... 100 this was "money we have no idea where it goes?". Start a spending diary today - and stop spending! Ask yourself "do I need (not want) XXX".
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2189

Assets
Cash.................................... 10000
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 500
Other assets............................ 6000
Total Assets............................ 16500

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
hsbc loan 1 ...................3731......267.......0
hsbc loan 2 ...................11731.....213.......0
co-op loan ....................7932......209.......0
OH's parents...................2500......0.........0
mbna...........................8808......313.......30
hsbc cc........................2067......52........29.9
halifax cc.....................5860......117.......25.95
mint cc........................5000......111.......0
student o/d....................1500......0.........0
Total unsecured debts..........49129.....1282......- Are the loans what you borrowed or what you have left to pay? when do they finish? Are all numbers listed minimum payments?

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,200
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,189
Available for debt repayments........... -989
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,282
Amount short for making debt repayments. -2,271
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 16,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -49,129
Net Assets.............................. -32,629

Good luck. If you can get a job soon you will be able to live a more frugal life using the tips and changes you make now, and then get your debt cleared.

For now focus on job hunting, cutting costs of your spending and getting into your budget with your DH.

Good luck.

squidgychesspiece

sorry, I meant as in 'no flash car or anything' - just our old banger! see how that reads now though :rotfl:

RAS

Go over to the Money Saving Old style forums and do a store cupboard challenge.

Go throught he cupboards and find everything that you can which you no longer use and e-bay, amazon and car boot them.

Have you spoken to any of the debt charities yet?

Have you done the www.turn2us.org.uk calculator yet?

FireWyrm

OK, well I've seen worse....

First, prioritise your standing bills. These are bills that get paid every month and you cannot miss. Some things to remember :

1) You cannot have utilities cut off although they will get a little nasty in the longer term.
2) None of your creditors can help you if they dont know what situation you are in. You'll be astonished how helpful they can be when they understand why you're not paying them.
3) Council tax gets paid. They are the most unhelpful bunch of b***ds ever to sit in a government office and so dont expect any symapthy from them. However, if you play by their rules, there's nothing they can do. You need to understand your entitlement to benefits immediately and claim absolutely everything.
4) Dont be too proud to take a job. If the work is honest and the pay fair, take it. I've had a number of unexpected career changes due to redundancies over the years. I'm not saying the shoveling sausages or chips into a freeze machine is a career, but it keeps the food coming and the roof over your head. I'm a woman too. I had a night shift job lifting a quota of 2 tonnes of chips onto a converyer back when times were hard in the mid to late 90's. If you end up saying 'would you like fries with that?', that's ok too. Get yourself up and dressed one morning, head into town and start canvassing everywhere for a job. Any job will do, you're buying time that's all.

5) Running a house on a shoestring is an art. It takes practice and it doesn't happen automatically. That said, its mostly common sense. You talk about giving up alcohol as you cant afford it. I cant afford it either, so brew your own. I refuse to pay a penny more than absolutely necessary for anything. Case in point are 'cleaning products'. What a rip off...mostly you can do the same thing with vinegar and lemon juice with some soda thrown in. Shop at the cheapest place possible and ditch the big 5 supermarkets. I feel 2 adults and 2 hungry children on £120-150 a month.

6) If it isn't actively keeping you alive or enabling you to earn money, it stops. This is an emergency situation here....times are tough, this is what belt tightening means. All the way until you cant tighten any more.

7) Stop spending money. Draw cash at the beginning of a designated period (week or month) and that's what you have. Its amazing how concentrating that is to the mind.

8) Use what you have available...it's the old make do and mend mentality but it's what has to happen in these circumstances. If the car breaks, can you fix it yourself or do you know someone who can? Stop runs in your stockings with clear nail varnish, that kind of thing, do all you can to foresee issues before they happen and stop them before they get out of hand.

7) Look around you. More than 50% of the people you see in the street are in a similar situation to you. Take heart, you're not alone.

8) Some people have it tougher than you. See the positive side. There is a wealth of information on these boards and others about living life on a shoestring. Some do it out of necessity, some as a lifestyle choice. Use what resources you have available.

squidgychesspiece

Right so I've been on a bit of a fact finding mission just now!

We owe British Gas 234pounds of arrears which is both gas and electric (but mostly gas). It should be clear in a couple months assuming we continue to make the payments we are doing

Katsu - DH drives round with his whole bl**dy life in that car so will have a word tonight and see what we can take out to save on petrol. Worth looking at the tyres too. I've looked at the bus options and it doesn't take as long as we thought. A 13wk ticket is 256pounds. Hmm I don't know what is best?

None of our loans are secured. The amounts outstanding are what we currently owe and the minimum payment shown next to it. We can't overpay on any of these accounts. The smallest one has only 14 months left (was a 60 month loan) and the others 55 and 38 months I think. If we can struggle on til 1st loan is paid then that will ease things considerably.

I did look at turn2us, thank you. It seems to say we are entitled to standard LHA of 495pounds but I didn't really understand it so I think I will ask on Wednesday just to be sure I'm not getting the wrong end of the stick. Probably me being a bit of a dullard!

Whilst having a sort through stuff I found 6 dresses all with tags still on which I dashed into town/post office and returned immediately so feeling quite pleased about that. Only 200pounds but still money we don't owe now as credited back to the mbna card. Got to start somewhere eh? Will carry on having a root through for anything else new that can be returned.

Oh and still need to see what the deal is with both home and mobile phones.

Yay, I'm definately on board with the grocery challenge! We have quite a bit of meat in the fridge and mum has lent us a 'budget cookery' book which looks interesting!!

Firewyrm your post is so encouraging, thank you. God i hope we can do this.

SCP

RAS

Well done so far.

Once Wednesday is over, do another SOA with the figure in.

Have you signed on yet? You can do it on-line.

And apply for the LHA even if you do not understand it.

squidgychesspiece

Forgot to add - Katsu, yes the tv licence is a year in advance. The medical line is the cost of my glasses and contacts. I have quite bad eyesight and my prescription changes quite regularly so works out expensive. It's a real pain and DH needs glasses too now!

The_Saver_2

Please check this out first before you decide to act on it but......

As difficult as it seems, I would be tempted to use some of the redundancy money to clear the MBNA debt with the high APR. That would still leave you £1200 "emergency cash". If you keep the £10k as "savings", I wonder whether this will adversely affect your entitlement to claim benefits?

I believe there is now a CAB thread in the Forum section. Maybe you could ask them what the options are for you so you can decide what to do before you take steps to claim anything. With the best will in the world, you don't want to jeopardise your position by, inadvertently, doing the wrong thing.

I wish you the best of luck that everything turns out well for you

gizmo111

Personally I would pay off the gas and electric arrears and pay the family loan and then do my best to forget about the rest of the money unless desperate.

RAS

You need to be aware of the rules on deprivation of capital.

But paying off Council tax and overdue utilities is not DoC as they are immediately due.