Please can anyone offer advice on my SOA?

RAS

Can you get taX CREDITS? www.turn2us.org.uk.

or salary sacrifice to get child care vouchers?

determinedchrissy wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 2
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1750
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 81.2 - check if you can get any more benefits?
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1831.2
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 691 - this is quite high given your sole income
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 160 - what is this?
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 132
Electricity............................. 58
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 125 - I know it costs a forture but if OH is not working, can he spend time draught-excluding ansd insulating the property.
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 46 - unless these are business they need to be reduced. If they are business, they need to be on his accounts
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 39 - this has to go. Freeview
Internet Services....................... 5
Groceries etc. ......................... 120
Clothing................................ 20 - this loooks very low. Wow
Petrol/diesel........................... 200
Road tax................................ 3
Car Insurance........................... 23
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 25
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 250
Other child related expenses............ 16
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 20
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 185 - this is massive. Reducing term insurance for you both should be £20 ish.
Other insurance......................... 57what is this?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 10 - Haircuts................................ 7
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
postcode lottery........................ 10 - scrap this
Bank Fee................................ 2
Total monthly expenses.................. 2216

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 200000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 6000
Other assets............................ 10000 - what are these?
Total Assets............................ 216000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 105000...(691)......0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 6000.....(160)......10
Total secured & HP debts...... 111000....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
rbs............................5500......110.......17
barclaycard....................5000......90........0
Total unsecured debts..........10500.....200.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,831.2
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,216
Available for debt repayments........... -384.8
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 200
Amount short for making debt repayments. -584.8
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 216,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -111,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -10,500
Net Assets.............................. 94,500

determinedchrissy

Thank you all so much for your suggestions, I'll try to answer the questions you've asked.

AnotherMakes3 wrote: »

Do you get tax credits at all? I take it the benefits listed is your Child benefit?

Would your OH be able to get another wee job to tide yous over in the meantime?

Yes the benefit is child benefit.
There's not much casual work near us - for unskilled labour it would probably cost as much in diesel costs as OH would earn. He does have a couple of regular contracts but at the moment it's only a few hours each week - but when the work is there it can be quite good pay. If he had another job it would mean that he wouldn't be able to be so responsive and could lose out to other contractors - viscious cycle really

assj wrote: »

Your life assurance must have been a massive amount of cover!
I am amazed at what you have been paying.

It's been various policies that we have taken out over the years i.e. when we took on a new mortgage etc. Most of them have been in place for years and never been reviewed - life insurance is much cheaper now than it was when we originally took out the policies. Checked online yesterday and I think I can get similar amount of cover for about £100 pcm

RAS wrote: »

Can you get taX CREDITS?

or salary sacrifice to get child care vouchers?

I don't get tax credits as I get childcare vouchers from work - didn't include them in the SOA as they come off my wages before tax and I also haven't included the element of childcare that they pay for so in effect they have netted each other off on the SOA.

determinedchrissy

Arrgh! Forgot you can only multiquote 3 messages at a time :rotfl:

barbarawright wrote: »

£120 a month for groceries is marvellous if true - is it really that low every month? Including cleaning products and toothpaste/shampoo etc?

To be honest it's an educated guess - I do most of the grocery shopping at Aldi/Lidl and have stockpiled laundry/cleaning/toiletries etc when they have been on offer - I'm a big fan of the coupon/tesco threads We take packed lunches to work/nursery and I use the slow cooker a lot....

flippin36 wrote: »

Yes your groceries are very low - is this a guess figure or have you kept receipts.

Have you thought about paying interest only on your mortgage until your OH gets a job?

Mobiles are a lot. Could you contact your provider and ask for a reduction in your contract? Worth a try.

Get rid of tv subs if you can, or tell them you can't afford it and they may a least reduce your payment.

Is your council tax 10 or 12 months?

An emergency fund is probably more important than the lottery. Its those emergencies that give us the one step foward two steps back feeling. I've had to learn that hard lesson.

Not sure I want to mess with the mortgage if possible - we had a year interest free when I was on mat leave and if they start to delve too much into our finances, they will realise from their mortgage calculators that we can't really afford it. Last time I enquired about extending the term, but they wouldn't increase the term beyond OH's expected retirement age.
Council tax is for 10 months
Hadn't thought that we could try and negotiate on the phone contracts - will get OH to do that as they are on his name.
Had thought about calling Sky's bluff re: cancelling the contract, but the telephoneland line is through them too - what's the chances that they would accept my cancellation rather than offering me a free upgrade?

kazwookie wrote: »

Is the oil really £125 per month = £1500 per year?

It's quite possibly more :eek: particularly in the winter. Haven't had the heating on now for a couple of months, but have managed to find a cheaper oil supplier, saving me about £100 per tank (usually get 1/2 tank every 2-3 months at £350 a time)

determinedchrissy

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt wrote: »

Hello DeterminedChrissy!


There are two options. Either you rework your SOA to fit within just your income or your husband gets a p/t job that pays a set amount each month that you can count on.
This will stop the debt from increasing.

Thanks Miss Uni-Debt for all your sound advice - Until I did the SOA I actually thought that my wages just about covered the bills and day to day expenses and OHs covered anything else - talk about bury your head in the sand, I was quite shocked to find that we are about £400 short each month
I think I'll rework the SOA. Once I get the the CC debts on to interest free I can pay the minimum during the interest free periods and use any income from OH to make lump sum payments on the CCs. If I can reduce the insurance payments to £100 and look at the TV and mobile contracts, we'll be a lot closer to breaking even each month.

Wish me luck

flippin36

Could you manage without a landline? We don't use ours at all because we make the most of our mobile minutes, everyone rings us on mobiles these days. The only time LL rings is when someone is trying to sell me something...thinking of getting rid myself

Good luck with SOA - post a new one for us to look at, I'm sure there is a way.

paulmapp8306

HKitten wrote: »

I'm new to this too so bear with me your petrol seems quite high to me considering you said your partner rarely works and you work four days. My OH drives to work four days a week and his car is certainly not cheap, but he still only spends about £50 a month. Is this something that could be reduced?

Really ??? I drive to work - though 5 days a week (sometimes 6) - and its around 18 miles each way. My monthly petrol bill is around the £160 mark.

paulmapp8306

Life insurance !!!!!!! How much cover do you need and how much do you have?

I have life and critical illness cover, for both my and the wife, which pays £150k (enough to cover the house) and it costs us £18/month.

paulmapp8306

Oh - Oil. I think thats a little high TBH. I use oil, and while prices do fluctuate - I heat my 4 bed semi - which has gaps under and around doors and windows, no cavity wall and poor loft insulation (its a forces home). I use around 1600 Ltrs/year which costs around £90/month.

I know the weather gets bad in Scotland - but its not barmy in Northern Ireland either Id suggest turning down the heating a degree or two and doing some DIY insulation which is cheap or even free currently.

determinedchrissy

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

Life insurance !!!!!!! How much cover do you need and how much do you have?

I have life and critical illness cover, for both my and the wife, which pays £150k (enough to cover the house) and it costs us £18/month.

Wow, as cheap as that, that's brilliant - don't think we could get it that cheap tho as both me and OH are the wrong side of 40

determinedchrissy

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

Oh - Oil. I think thats a little high TBH. I use oil, and while prices do fluctuate - I heat my 4 bed semi - which has gaps under and around doors and windows, no cavity wall and poor loft insulation (its a forces home). I use around 1600 Ltrs/year which costs around £90/month.

I know the weather gets bad in Scotland - but its not barmy in Northern Ireland either Id suggest turning down the heating a degree or two and doing some DIY insulation which is cheap or even free currently.

Heating is on as low as possible - OH has just fitted a wall thermostat and it's currently set at 15 degrees, so it's barely on. We live in an old stone built house - so no cavity insulation but the roof space is insulated to the hilt. We probbly use 2500 - 3000 litres per year. The boiler is probably not as efficient as it could be but replacing it is not high on my list of priorites right now

Thanks for taking the time to reply Paul - much appreciated :beer: