New member and SOA.. advice appreciated

mattfiona

Hello, I am still fairly new to this site – I posted an SOA previously when my DH was out of work last year. Thankfully our situation is a lot better now – we are both earning okay salaries, paying off our debts rather than building them up and doing okay but I am now looking for ways to reduce our debt as quickly as possible by living thriftily and getting more money at the end of each month – basically we manage ok but we struggle if a large payment comes along or we need money for car or home repairs etc.

Also, we’re currently in the process of trying to start a family. I’m looking for some advice from you expert money savers, from looking at my SOA, can you see a way in which, over the course of maybe say 1 year from now, that we would be able to manage if I gave up work? Any financial steps we could take to make this process easier or more possible?

Any advice would be appreciated! I think I’ve tried to include everything in my SOA but sure I’ve probably missed some things out!

Northern Rock Mortgage Repayments -564.80
Ashfield District Council Tax -98.00
NTL Group - telephone, broadband and cable -35.00
Television Licence -32.87
Gas -35.00
Electric -35.00
Me work travel (bus) -60.00
DH work travel (tram) -66.00
Petrol (approx) -30.00
Water charges (£197.54 per year - direct debit application sent on 23/03/07 to pay in 8 equal monthly instalments) -25.00
Vets bills (approx £80 twice a year) -13.30
Birthdays, Mother's Days, Father's Days etc. -30.00
Food and groceries -300.00
Insurances
B D M Connect Cat insurance -3.67
Norwich Union Life Insurance -5.00
Tesco Home Buildings and Contents Insurance -15.44
Tesco Car Insurance -23.97
Luxuries
3 mobile phone contract (DH) -25.00
Tobacco (estimated) -15.00
Cinema (Orange Wednesdays approx once a month) -6.30
Alcohol (One bottle of wine a week approx plus few beers!) -40.00
Books (Gifts, Tesco, Freecycle and ReaditSwapit etc) -6.00
Magazines 0.00
Work lunches - try to get this down to zero -80.00
Orange mobile telephone contract (Me) -26.44
Debt repayment
Egg card 0.00
Funding Corporation Loan -279.95
Overdraft (£200 overdraft facility available) 0.00
Lewis Group Debt Repayments -50.00
Total Outgoings -1901.74
Total Income (Me) 1296.73
Income (DH) 1200.00
Difference 594.99

Debts:

Funding Corporation Loan was £10,000 x 60 repayments of £279.00
6 months of repayments made so far

Lewis Group Debt was approx £2,750 x interest free repayments until paid off
Currently making monthly repayments of £50 and have been since June 2006.

Old debts –
Paid off Egg credit card in October 2006! (and cut it up, no more credit cards!)
Consolidated 2 loans into Fund Corp Loan
Cleared overdrafts

lovetobeloaded

Woah - that's a comprehensive SOA - well done.

I haven't managed that yet, but I know I should.

Just a few quick suggestions, although I am no professional and I am sure other people will be able to offer more help.

NTL group - I did have my phone and broadband with NTL who have now turned into Virgin Media. VM do a 3 for £30 package for phone, broadband and TV, so you could get the same as now but for less money.

Shopping and groceries - this does seem quite high for two of you, me and my hubby manage on around £200 per month and we don't scrimp. Try looking at the old style board for some great ideas about cutting your food budget and how to prepare meals in advance to avoid that - got nothing in, let's spend on a takeaway emergency.

Plus, if you are also paying for your work lunch as extra, this means your grocery shop is high.

You will see a huge saving if you prepare your lunch the night before and take it with you. Buy yourselves a nice lunch box each and plan what you will take each week, trying to avoid the same things.

There are loads of magazine articles and web sites about varying lunches so they are healthy and interesting.

Have you switched utilities to make sure you are getting the best deal - don't do it yet though until Martin's light turns green.

Can you switch mortgage to a better deal? Only if you won't pay a redemption penalty though.

Best of luck. :beer:

BONJOEY

well done for posting, there are lots of people on here with friendly advice,

my first bit of advice is your food and groceries £300 for just 2 people!

thats alot, always go shopping on a full stomach that will make you not indulge so much,

because there are only 2 of you for now... ( not long by the sounds of it, 3 to be in the near future) then when you cook meals , always freeze the remailing leftovers for meals the following week, also dont buy food at work for lunch always make stuff from home, it will always save you lots of money.


hope this helps for now x

bluezone

mattfiona wrote: »

Northern Rock Mortgage Repayments -564.80
Ashfield District Council Tax -98.00
NTL Group - telephone, broadband and cable -35.00
Television Licence -32.87 Isnt this only £11/month?
Gas -35.00
Electric -35.00
Me work travel (bus) -60.00
DH work travel (tram) -66.00
Petrol (approx) -30.00
Water charges (£197.54 per year - direct debit application sent on 23/03/07 to pay in 8 equal monthly instalments) -25.00
Vets bills (approx £80 twice a year) -13.30
Birthdays, Mother's Days, Father's Days etc. -30.00
Food and groceries -300.00This could easily go down to £200 including alcohol
Insurances
B D M Connect Cat insurance -3.67
Norwich Union Life Insurance -5.00
Tesco Home Buildings and Contents Insurance -15.44
Tesco Car Insurance -23.97
Luxuries
3 mobile phone contract (DH) -25.00
Tobacco (estimated) -15.00
Cinema (Orange Wednesdays approx once a month) -6.30
Alcohol (One bottle of wine a week approx plus few beers!) -40.00This would be included in your normal shop so you can scrap ths
Books (Gifts, Tesco, Freecycle and ReaditSwapit etc) -6.00
Magazines 0.00
Work lunches - try to get this down to zero -80.00
Orange mobile telephone contract (Me) -26.44
Debt repayment
Egg card 0.00
Funding Corporation Loan -279.95
Overdraft (£200 overdraft facility available) 0.00
Lewis Group Debt Repayments -50.00
Total Outgoings -1901.74
Total Income (Me) 1296.73
Income (DH) 1200.00
Difference 594.99

Debts:

Funding Corporation Loan was £10,000 x 60 repayments of £279.00
6 months of repayments made so far

Lewis Group Debt was approx £2,750 x interest free repayments until paid off
Currently making monthly repayments of £50 and have been since June 2006.

Old debts –
Paid off Egg credit card in October 2006! (and cut it up, no more credit cards!)
Consolidated 2 loans into Fund Corp Loan
Cleared overdrafts

This would be a little bit of a boost sorry I dont have time to work on it more. Will try to come back later

Bluezone x

mattfiona

Thanks both for your advice

To be honest, I have actually rounded up all of these figures!

Because I know when I have done a SOA in the past, I've always under-estimated things so that £300 is an absolute maximum that covers everything. Usually, we actually spend £35 on a weekly shop (which I know we can get lower because we've tried!!) but then we have bits and bobs that we buy at the corner shop - the reality is probably more like £200 - 250 a month but as I said, £300 is the absolute maximum to work downwards from, if that makes sense?! The aim is to be a lot more thrifty going forward.

The aim is also to move away completely from buying lunches! - SUCH a waste of money, I know - but we're both lazy! This week I've actually done well - I haven't bought lunch all week, have been taking in cup-a-soups and yoghurts and snacks etc from home so have managed to have 3 NSOs, very proud of myself! DH needs persuading though - he talks a lot about taking sandwiches but never actually does it…looks like I'm going to have to start preparing them for him, I think! That's the biggest aim from now on.

I do actually have the Virgin Media 3 for 30 package but rounded it up to £35 to cover the telephone calls and the occasional pay-per-view movie that we have (very occasional!)

So basically so far our aims are:
- no more expensive work lunches!
- more thrifty grocery shopping
- no more unncessary spending

The thing is, that £500 or so difference on my SOA - I've no idea where that money goes, I really don't. That's what I need to find out!

ifstar

As previous posters said -
Phone Virgin and try and get a better tv/phone/internet package. That isn't too bad a price but you might end up with more for the same or less price so worth a call.

Gas and electricity a little high but hold off on these just now and when you switch use quidco/rpoints and uswitch.com

You have 2 vets bills and pet insurance - do you need to pay the first £80 yourself?

Mobile phones, can you get these cheaper - you might be able to haggle for a better deal using Martin's articles on the subject.

If you include your work meals in with your grocery bill it's actually £380 per month which is a lot for 2 people. You should aim to get it down to around £200/225ish for both including work meals.

Tobacco - so thats only 3 x 20 packs per month? If so then thats only about 2 a day so should be a lot easier to quit (even more so when the smoking ban comes in down south). Try and stop and save £180 a year.

Bus/Tram journeys - are you using a season ticket etc or just paying daily? If you do pay daily it might be worth looking into paying monthly or quarterly to see if you would save much.

Also you mentioned you have about £595 left after bills but before debt payments and that you make £279 to one loan and £50 to the other. This leave £266 sitting about somewhere, can you not use this to pay more onto one of the loans to get rid of them quicker?

edit - you just posted your reply about the missing money before I posted my message.
You should try and keep a spending diary to help work out where the extra money is going. The chance are it is being used on small things that you probably don't need or think about.

Tustastic

mattfiona wrote: »

The thing is, that £500 or so difference on my SOA - I've no idea where that money goes, I really don't. That's what I need to find out!

That's why you need to keep a spending diary for a month. I'm sure someone posted a while ago that the spending diary showed them they spend £50 a month on take-away coffees from Starbucks - :eek:

warburtonrichard

hey Matt/Fiona
My OH and I were spending £300+ a month on shopping and £80 a month on lunches too.
Now we spend £200 a month on the lot, and there's always room in that for chocolate and sweets.
We do it this way: Write a list of the things we want to eat each evening for a week, list out the ingredients to buy, checking as we go there's nothing already similar or the same in the cupboards. Stick to the list in the supermarket and try to keep it to £40 a week. That way, we'll stick to £200 if we nip to the corner shop for bread or something, "have" to order pizza for reasons of sanity or end up with five shopping weeks in the pay month. At least once a week we have something we can put into lunchboxes the next day (this weeks was tuna risotto). Other lunches are sandwiches and sometimes cup a soups with snack size choccies.
We quite enjoy it.
And £180+ a month saved is a !!!!load of cash.
Sorry gran, I know you know how to suck eggs, but it needed spelling out to me, so I can't be the only one.
We've thrown out NOTHING from the fridge since we changed because we knew what we were having. how much fresh stuff you buy goes in the bin?
xx
Warby
*snip* - did it really take me 15 minutes to write that???

Crown

Hi, I am just having to go to a appointment but a quick reply to your post.

This is a little bit cheecky but you can save fair bit of money if you callVirgin Media up and tell them that you are planing on leaving them. They put you through o the retantion centre and I was bale to get 4MB broadband for just £12.49 a month for 6 months and free upgrade to the family package from the base pack on the TV.

There are details on a thread in the Telephone section of these forums. It isnt just me who has done it there are a lot of posts regarding this on there.

As for not knowing where the money goes start a spending diary and get your husband to do the same. its amazing how those coffee's at work and chocolate snacks soon add up over the month. I worked out that at £1.80 a day over a 5 day week was costing me £36 a month what of course is over £400 a year just on Coffee and thats not including lunch.

Sure others will be able to offer much more advice,

good luck

mattfiona

As previous posters said -
Phone Virgin and try and get a better tv/phone/internet package. That isn't too bad a price but you might end up with more for the same or less price so worth a call.

could and probably will try this although I think that is the best deal they do!

Gas and electricity a little high but hold off on these just now and when you switch use quidco/rpoints and uswitch.com

based on our gas and electric usage last year, these are actually lower that we were paying but need to try and reduce these through reducing our household usage then will look at swapping.

You have 2 vets bills and pet insurance - do you need to pay the first £80 yourself?

Well, we paid about £80 twice a year for immunisations last year but actually this is incorrect going forward because our new cat was new to us last year and had to have all of the vaccinations – will only be boosters from now on so will be less. Our pet insurance has a £50 excess so probably won’t save anything by claiming in future.

Mobile phones, can you get these cheaper - you might be able to haggle for a better deal using Martin's articles on the subject.

Yes, this is something I will look into – good point! I’m thinking of switching to pay-as-you-go because I am on contract and hardly use my phone at all

If you include your work meals in with your grocery bill it's actually £380 per month which is a lot for 2 people. You should aim to get it down to around £200/225ish for both including work meals.

Yes, as I said, I did overestimate and round-up on the groceries. The aim now is to do as you have said – buy food for work in the groceries for the week which we can probably do for £200 a month

Tobacco - so thats only 3 x 20 packs per month? If so then thats only about 2 a day so should be a lot easier to quit (even more so when the smoking ban comes in down south). Try and stop and save £180 a year.

This is a huge sticking point for me causing no end of frustration – I cannot change this however hard I try (and believe me I HAVE TRIED!) – it’s my husband who smokes and he REFUSES to give up (I’ve tried for 5 years to get him to give up!!!!!!)

Bus/Tram journeys - are you using a season ticket etc or just paying daily? If you do pay daily it might be worth looking into paying monthly or quarterly to see if you would save much.

I have a season ticket which I cannot get cheaper. My husband has a season ticket on the tram but never renews it – I know I need to take this in hand and get him sorted out on a direct debit to stop him from paying daily – he’s just too lazy to sort it – currently he pays £2.20 a day driving me mad!

Also you mentioned you have about £595 left after bills but before debt payments and that you make £279 to one loan and £50 to the other. This leave £266 sitting about somewhere, can you not use this to pay more onto one of the loans to get rid of them quicker?

Actually, the £595 is after bills and debt repayments! I had a look at the snowball calculator this morning and we could probably throw more money on the smaller amount to pay it off quicker – need to discuss with DH.

You should try and keep a spending diary to help work out where the extra money is going. The chance are it is being used on small things that you probably don't need or think about.

Good idea – I know it is too, you’re right. I’ve made a good start this week with 3 NSOs and have not bought any work lunches so far!!

Great food for thought there – thank you – will try and make a start on actioning some of these points this week, THANKS!!!!!

mattfiona

I can see there are some more great replies but can't read all now as I'm at work so will come back later! thanks!