My SOA

bb23

As im new i thought i better add my SOA

Monthly Incoming ....
Income: £1,165.00
Tax Credits and child benefit total: £242


Outgoings.....
Water £25.00
BT £15.00
TV lic £11.37
Rent` £210.00
Gas £38.00
Baby £26.50
C Tax £103.65
Phone £20.00
Break £15.00
Bus £20.00
Savings £40.00
Google £30.00
CTF £20.00
Sky £20.00
Childcare £440.00

Total (including debt payments) = £1,266.52
Leftover = £141


DEBTS

HSBC £ 8,900 @ £160.00 per month (£80 interest)
Wescot/HFC £1,600 @ £40.00 per month (no interest)

Welshlassie

Hi Welcome to the board, below are some comments to help you find some extra cash to pay your debts off.

bb23 wrote: »

As im new i thought i better add my SOA

Monthly Incoming ....
Income: £1,165.00
Tax Credits and child benefit total: £242


Outgoings.....
Water £25.00
BT £15.00
TV lic £11.37
Rent` £210.00
Gas £38.00 What about Electricity?
Baby £26.50 What is this for?
C Tax £103.65
Phone £20.00 Is this just line rental and calls?
Break £15.00 What is this?
Bus £20.00
Savings £40.00 How much savings do you have? COuld these be used to pay off some of your debts, you really shouldn't be saving if you have debts that are costing you money
Google £30.00 What's this? if it is Boardband, you can get it much cheaper around £10-£15 per month
CTF £20.00 Child Trust Fund? If so, see note re savings, it can be topped up once your debts have been paid off.
Sky £20.00 Is this the lowest package you can get, do you really need it, can you not go freeview?
Childcare £440.00 That's a hell of a lot do you get any help with this from the government through tax credits (check Entitled to to see if you are getting everything you are due.

Total (including debt payments) = £1,266.52
Leftover = £141 Where does this go? Try keeping a spending diary and note down every penny you spend on things like papers, coffees etc, you'll be surprised how much it mounts up


DEBTS

HSBC £ 8,900 @ £160.00 per month (£80 interest)
Wescot/HFC £1,600 @ £40.00 per month (no interest)

What about food, birthdays, clothes, cars related expenses, house insurance etc.

Good luck.

Annie_Fanny

bb23 wrote: »

As im new i thought i better add my SOA

Monthly Incoming ....
Income: £1,165.00
Tax Credits and child benefit total: £242


Outgoings.....
Water £25.00
BT £15.00
TV lic £11.37
Rent` £210.00
Gas £38.00
Baby £26.50 (What's this exactly?)
C Tax £103.65
Phone £20.00
Break £15.00 (What's this?)
Bus £20.00 (Could you walk? Cycle? Just suggestions.)
Savings £40.00 (It is unwise to save whilst you have debt. How much do you have in savings and what rate are you getting on the savings?)
Google £30.00 (What's this?)
CTF £20.00 (What's this?)
Sky £20.00
Childcare £440.00 (Can you get any help for this, i.e. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1129566540,79743,)
Total (including debt payments) = £1,266.52
Leftover = £141


DEBTS

HSBC £ 8,900 @ £160.00 per month (£80 interest)
Wescot/HFC £1,600 @ £40.00 per month (no interest)

Welcome to MSE!:hello:

Hope you don't mind me sticking my nose into your finances!

You are paying for BT, Phone and Sky. Could you not try combining the packages with one company to make savings? I heard that Virgin are doing 4 for £40 - tv, broadband, landline, and mobile...

What are the aprs on your debts? Is the £40 payment to HFC the minimum?

Have you got anything you can sell? It's amazing what you can get money for! I sold an old 80's keyboard on ebay the other week for £30! It all helps.

Good luck!

Annie

bb23

Welshlassie wrote: »

Hi Welcome to the board, below are some comments to help you find some extra cash to pay your debts off.


What about food, birthdays, clothes, cars related expenses, house insurance etc.

Good luck.

utgoings.....
Water £25.00
BT £15.00
TV lic £11.37
Rent` £210.00
Gas £38.00 What about Electricity? (partner pays it)
Baby £26.50 What is this for? (nappies and wipes)
C Tax £103.65
Phone £20.00 Is this just line rental and calls? (Pay as you go mobile)
Break £15.00 What is this? (breakfast at work - working mum)
Bus £20.00
Savings £40.00 How much savings do you have? COuld these be used to pay off some of your debts, you really shouldn't be saving if you have debts that are costing you money (no savings, i put £40 in at te start of each month and use it when my account gets low so i dont get charges)
Google £30.00 What's this? if it is Boardband, you can get it much cheaper around £10-£15 per month (thats ended this month, it was good adwords on a campaign that was sucking my will to live when i tried to do afiliate marketing)
CTF £20.00 Child Trust Fund? If so, see note re savings, it can be topped up once your debts have been paid off. (yes, do you mean stop paying it?)
Sky £20.00 Is this the lowest package you can get, do you really need it, can you not go freeview? (we are thinking of getting rid of it but the dicovery channels keep my partner 'in' more [thats why we got it] to stop him spending all his money on beer)
Childcare £440.00 That's a hell of a lot do you get any help with this from the government through tax credits (check Entitled to to see if you are getting everything you are due. (yes we get £242 as detailed above in incoming)

Total (including debt payments) = £1,266.52
Leftover = £141 Where does this go? Try keeping a spending diary and note down every penny you spend on things like papers, coffees etc, you'll be surprised how much it mounts up

My partner pays for all our food

will do! thank you so much for your help!

warburtonrichard

£38 a month sounds like a lot for gas - have you tried using uswitch.com to work out who is cheapest for gas and electricity and using a cashback site or cash-for-switching service to get an extra £30-40 of cashback, and a reduction in your gas bills (and electricity bills for your partner too).
Cashback sites include quidco.com and all the ones listed in Martin's switching supplier info which is in this week's money tips mail.

From experience, it's tricky when one partner pays for some of the bills and the other for the rest - cutting back on the grocery shopping budget to save money could mean that you've both got more disposable income, but it makes it trickier if the savings would be "all his" - I assume your house insurance too is paid by him. Again, you can get up to £125+ cashback for switching insurance supplier from quidco.com - so if you find all this stuff useful, and he gets the savings, you could keep the cashback!

The best thing is openness with one another to talk through your "month left at the end of the money"-itis so if you were cutting back across the board, maybe he could take something else off you or contribute more towards something you pay for (like the sky or phone or council tax or something).

This might bring the pressure off you a bit.

Good luck

Warby
xx

bb23

thank you for your advice.

we rent so he only pays contents insurance (£10) he also pays for ALL the car stuff, cuz i dont drive - thats why i pay more house stuff - we worked it out so that we pay out pretty much the same each month

we desperately wanted a joint account so that we didnt have to split the bills but no-where will give us one so far - if anyone knows of a bank that WILL, please....let us know!

our Gas WAS £50, it dropped to £38 - i will look into a new supplier but we have to ask our landlady first.

we both earn 18k per month, both have about 10k in debt and struggle like mad to make ends meet when we really should be finding it quite easy

its a combined income of £4,660 (including the tax credits)!!!!

david_hellier

Hi and welcome.

According to my figures you have £62.07 per week to spend on food, baby or anything else. To prevent overspend I suggest you write this amount in a little book (a spending diary) on a Monday and keep a track of what you spend by deduction. If you do have any over at the end of the week use it to payoff your most expensive debt (HSBC). The figures assume you stop saving as you are not in a position to save with these debts. I also note no elec. and no overdraft to service.

The others will advise on cutting back, but clearly your biggest overhead, childcare, needs a look, to reduce. Please focus on that.

Good luck, the figures are as follows:

income weekly monthly
self 1165.00
partner
ben 242.00






total 0.00 1407.00 divide by 4.33
£324.69

£324.69 total weekly income

spend weekly monthly
rent/mortgage 210.00
council tax 103.65
elec 0.00
gas 38.00
water 25.00
secured loans 0.00
TV licence 11.37
fines 0.00
phone 20.00
bus 20.00
google 30.00
ctf 20.00
sky 20.00
childcare 440.00
hsbc 160.00
wescot/hfc 40.00
















total 0.00 1138.02 divide by 4.33
£262.62

£262.62 total weekly spend

Start= income - spend = £62.07 per week

bb23

Thank you for that, a weekly amount like that seems so high! but cool!

My childcare cannot be reduced. I work a 37 hour week and my daughter is in childcare for about 9 hours a day. 2.75 an hour - that works out at £495 per month but our childminder already reduced it for us as she knows our financial trouble. about £200 of my own money goes towards it and the rest is from tax credits and child benefit. (we arent sure what's going to happen once i have the 2nd baby, altho i do know i will have to stop working full time - a prospect im terrifed by due to my debts)

My partner pays the electric bill - its about £23 a month on DD i think. I pay the BT line rental but he pays our £20 a month internet bill. I pay the Sky but he pays the tv set rental (also £20) - its very balanced.

bb23

LOVELY - my interest just got added back to my loan payment for this month - changed my sig

10 APR DR INTEREST
TO 09APR2007

£92.60 £9021.87 D

findingmyownway

My partner pays the electric bill - its about £23 a month on DD i think. I pay the BT line rental but he pays our £20 a month internet bill. I pay the Sky but he pays the tv set rental (also £20) - its very balanced.


I am sure you had put effort into making it 'balanced' but I think it would help if you sat down with your partner and worked out a joint SOA. As someone mentioned above, you will probably find dealing with debts easier if there are 2 of you working at it. I assume your children are also his? If so, you are a family and need to address your problems as a unit - not individuals. I assume the car he pays for is a family one also even though you dont actually drive it? How much does he earn? How much money does he have spare at the end of the month? If you sit down together and work out an SOA then you might be suprised how many savings you can make.

Also - the £15 breakfasts at work are easy to cut out - just take them from home!

HTH

bb23

They are his children yes He earns the same as me, 18k. Yeah its a family car, of sorts hehe (old 3door fiesta!)

At present its hard to total all our stuff together, i know that sounds really silly but we're the kind of people who, as soon as money is brought up we fight, get depressed, then eat and forget what we were talking about!....

i know the breakfasts are a lot, but i think that if i stopped spending 50p a day on toast i'd only spend it on something else instead.

As we cant get a joint account, even if we do total all our stuff up, the next days its back to being individuals again cuz we cant lump it all together anywhere as we have been refused a joint account wherever we turn

its very frustrating

i sent of my letter tonight to claim back 1,349 in bank charges which (if i get it) will knock out my Wescot debt as they've said a settlement fee is 1,300 even tho i owe 1,600!

i SO SO SO hope HSBC give me that money back!