Ok for now, but what about the future??

chocoholic_chick

At the moment we can comfortably afford the debts we do have which we try to keep to a minimum. However, we are hoping in the not too distant future to start a family and of course that will mean more outgoings and a decrease of income ( at least while I'm on maternity but ideally I would like to reduce my hours when returning to work if at all possible ).

I've done a SOA to hopefully get some advice of if there's any areas we can save a little money, and where we should be overpaying if we can.

Just incase it's relevant the loan to parents has to be done at £300 a month as they have an endownment policy with a shortfall they need to pay back next year so the loan was made to us on the agreement this is how much we'd pay back. Food is on average, sometimes its £150 a month, other times it can be around £220 as we stock up on meat from a farm shop every couple of months. I dont want to compromise on this if at all possible, I prefer paying more for meat to know where its come from and that the animal has had a good life. It just means we don't have meat as often.

Pocket money as I put it is what we take each month to spend on things we want that wouldn't come out of the joint budget. So for me its to pay for things like OH's birthday and Christmas presents, makeup, clothes & shoes, coffee with friends etc OH has used his to buy cameras and computer equipment in the past etc This can and probably will be dropped when we have children

Gym I should cancel, we don't use it ( it's a joint membership ) so will see how I go about that on Monday.

We live in a fairly rural area so need the car as we have no public transport and also have to do long journeys on a monthly basis so we try to keep petrol costs down, and avoid unneccessary journeys but we still struggle to get it under this amount.

The larger of the incomes is mine so I worry about the impact of me going on maternity and having such a huge drop in income. I know we will have to save money to cover the shortfall as and when I do get pregnant, it's just how much? Should we even be overpaying on our debts or putting it into savings?

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................ 1583
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1469
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3052

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 650.8
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 104
Electricity............................. 40
Gas..................................... 37
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 36.57
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 50
TV Licence.............................. 12.5
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 20
Internet Services....................... 10
Groceries etc. ......................... 200
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 200
Road tax................................ 10.5
Car Insurance........................... 37.5
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 40
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 5
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 35
Buildings insurance..................... 12.5
Contents insurance...................... 12.5
Life assurance ......................... 32.36
Other insurance......................... 36.26
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 37.5
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 100
Holiday................................. 30
Emergency fund.......................... 20
Home Improvements....................... 65
Pocket Money............................ 180
Gym..................................... 50
Total monthly expenses.................. 2074.99


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 105000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 108000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 100049...(650.8)....4.24
Total secured & HP debts...... 100049....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Sainsburys ....................7500......331.5.....5.7
Parents........................3000......300.......0
Total unsecured debts..........10500.....631.5.....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,052
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,074.99
Available for debt repayments........... 977.01
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 631.5
Amount left after debt repayments....... 345.51

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 108,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -100,049
Total Unsecured debt.................... -10,500
Net Assets.............................. -2,549

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using Firefox browser.

katsu

Hi and congrats for planning ahead.

Some ideas for you....

chocoholic_chick 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................ 1583
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1469
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3052

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 650.8
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 104
Electricity............................. 40 Check comparison sites, turn everything off at the wall at night, fit energy saving bulbs, turn lights off in empty rooms etc. We pay £50 combined G&E for a semi so you should be able to get these 2 down a bit?
Gas..................................... 37 check the hot water tank thermostat is not above 60C, check the timings for when you heat the water and maybe reduce a bit.
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 36.57 This seems high - on a meter? If not maybe consider putting one in? We pay around £20 for the two of us.
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 50 If you are not in contract look at giffgaff (via top cashback or a referral) or similar sim only deals. Should be able to save £10-£20 a month here, maybe more depends on your usage as £10 giffgaff should do most people.
TV Licence.............................. 12.5
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 20 Think about whether you really need this or whether a freeview box or online subscription like netflix £6 or lovefilm (?) is better value
Internet Services....................... 10
Groceries etc. ......................... 200 we spend around this so I don't think it is bad but you could reduce this - check the oldstyle forum
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 200
Road tax................................ 10.5
Car Insurance........................... 37.5
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 40
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 5
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 35
Buildings insurance..................... 12.5
Contents insurance...................... 12.5
Life assurance ......................... 32.36 check if you get this through work and if so, whether it is worth keeping this level of insurance (maybe keep for you if you plan to give up work but not for DH?)
Other insurance......................... 36.26 what is this?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 37.5 this is very high. You are spending ~£400 a year on this. Look at sale shopping all year round, use charity shops for new goods,
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 100 I'd try and cover this from the pocket money - or at least half of it. What is it?
Holiday................................. 30
Emergency fund.......................... 20
Home Improvements....................... 65
Pocket Money............................ 180
Gym..................................... 50 well done for cancelling this.
Total monthly expenses.................. 2074.99


Assets
Cash.................................... 0 where does the emergency fund go?
House value (Gross)..................... 105000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 108000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 100049...(650.8)....4.24
Total secured & HP debts...... 100049....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Sainsburys ....................7500......331.5.....5.7
Parents........................3000......300.......0
Total unsecured debts..........10500.....631.5.....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,052
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,074.99
Available for debt repayments........... 977.01
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 631.5
Amount left after debt repayments....... 345.51 where does this go?

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 108,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -100,049
Total Unsecured debt.................... -10,500
Net Assets.............................. -2,549

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using Firefox browser.

Personally, I'd look to clear the debts and then build the savings - yo don;t want the debts hanging over you on a smaller income. Why not start reducing your discretionary spending now and have less of a lifestyle change when you do start a family?

chocoholic_chick

Katsu thanks for the feedback, in response to your pointers the gas and electric we did shop around for at the time, but we're with npower and for some reason they only produce bills every 6 months so they actually just estimated our usage. I've just entered our first readings this morning so I'm hoping that might come down a little, though we have ALOT of electrical things and some things we can't actually get into to turn the electric off ( extremely heavy wooden TV unit that you'd have to pull out from the wall to get to the sockets, not ideal to be doing every night! ). I think most of our lightbulbs are energy efficient ones but I'll make a point of going round to check them all. No tumbledrier and do all my washing bar towels and linen on 30 degree washes to cut down on electric so I'm trying

We aren't on a water meter, when I went on the website to check if we'd be better off with one it worked out we wouldn't be, I didn't think I was a particularly high user but I do like my baths which must account for alot. I'll do another check though to see if thats still the case as it was a while ago when I last looked.

Mobile phones we're still both in contract unfortunately, mines £20 a month, OH's £30. Will definitely change tariff when the contracts up, but I have over a year left to go.

TV we are on Sky but we're getting it for free at the moment, we got 6 months free after cancelling and it was an offer to come back, £20 is what it'll be when we have to pay but we're just going to keep it for 12 months then get rid. We got used to just having freeview and now we have Sky again we aren't bothered about having all the extra channels.

We dont get any insurance through work and OH has an ongoing complicated medical condition so we cant change policy as it would go up. The other insurance policy is accident, sickness and unemployment insurance , I suppose we could get rid but I always worry that OH might have to be off work for a long period so it may be needed.

Presents I agree is alot, I have no excuse, I just like to treat people and we do buy for quite alot, I will try to cut back though.

Entertainment is if OH and I go out, nothing too fancy now, our treat this week was a pub lunch which was £15 for the two of us. It's an estimate really, probably would have spent alot more in the past but trying to cut down ( we used to eat out at least once a week to restaurants AND get 1 or 2 takeaways a week :eek: )

We have no emergency fund at the moment as we've just had some work done to the house which ran over budget so all our spare cash went towards that. I think there might be something like £65 left in that account now, so just starting to build it up again really.

As for where the rest goes, I don't know! I think if I draw money out it just gets frittered away on rubbish. We never have any money left at the end of the month. It's alot of money to not be able to account for, some of it over the last month has been on things for the house ( new light fitting, a few tins of paint etc which probably would have accounted for maybe £150 of it last time ) but as for the rest of the time well I can't put my finger on it which I know is terrible

We're trying to get the house decorated etc before we have a baby as we know we wont have the cash once the babys here and it desperately needs doing.

I was thinking maybe trying to pay the loan off to my parents quicker if possible then using that £300 to put towards the sainsburys loan each month, or is that the wrong way to go about it with there being no interest charge on that?

katsu

Hi Chick,

I think you need a spending phone app each, or a spending diary. You say you don't have your £345 left each month, you have estimated the entertainment budget, you aren't currently paying the sky £20... Then add in the fairly large pocket money budgets which should cover a lot of your random spends.

Have a look at your bank statements, and see if you can work out where your money went for the last 2-3 months. I prefer cards to cash, as it is easier for me to keep seeing card transactions, but lots of people prefer cash as when your purse is empty, there is no money to overspend.

Fastest way to clear debt is to pay the most money off the highest interest rates, so you get charged interest on less and less each month. You need to find out if you can overpay the loan.