Five years to achieve “the dream”

walby1993

The beginning - 1826 days to go!
A rather famous man once used the phrase “I have a dream”. Well, so do I. Mine is will not change the world but it will change the world of my little family. In this little world are my wonderful husband and I, with our first little one due to join us in January. I am feel incredibly lucky in terms of the people I have in my life, along with the fact I have a job I enjoy (most of the time, at least). The one big thing I would like to change is to be debt-free and be living in our dream family home.

Our dream family home isn’t anything flashy – just a normal-sized three bedroom house where our children can play in the garden and go to a nice school locally. This house comes at a cost of around £230,000 in the current market. We currently have somewhere between £8,000 and £12,000 equity. We would like to have a 15% deposit as there is quite a difference between interest rates for a 90% LTV and 85% LTV. This means we need another £26,500 (worst case scenario) for a deposit plus another £5,500 (ish) for fees – a grand total of £32,000 to generate.

But before we can do this, we desperately need to get rid of our debts which currently stand at about £12,800 and use £400 a month of our wages to cover the payments.

So there you have it, we need to pay off around £45,000 over the next five years. The current challenge is that DH is currently unemployed and I don’t earn enough to cover all of the bills. Tomorrow, I will post our SOA with how I plan to reduce our outgoings to try and make ends meet!

Happytogetdebtfree

Hi and welcome good luck with your journey

walby1993

November 1st 2012 – 1861 days to go
I realised that yesterday I didn’t explain our situation fully yesterday. DH and I currently live in a one-bedroom flat. This will be ok for the next year to 18 months, we think, although we will have to see how we feel space-wise as we go along. The plan when we do need more space is to rent out our flat (the rent would cover the mortgage) and rent a two-bedroom house until we have a deposit for our dream home.
DH is a trained electrician and has never had a single day without work since he was seventeen until he was let go from his last job from lack of work at the beginning of December. He has had some small bits and pieces of work from various sources (an old work colleague, some private jobs of his own and his previous employer has asked him to do a few days work too) but nothing consistent. As such he is now claiming JSA and is quite flexible in terms of him doing bits and bobs here and there (he just won’t get JSA for any week where he earns £71 or more but can claim it the following week as it’s a “one-off”). We are going to do some leafleting this week to try and drum up some more work.
I am a secondary Maths teacher, so I intend to start private tuition in the New Year (maybe Feb/March time) to bring in extra money. I feel I should start now but I am struggling to keep up with work from school so don’t want to add to this and end up causing myself stress which could affect the baby.
Anyway, below are two SOA – the first is based on our previous averages except for DH’s income (this is the JSA amount for 30 days) and reduced fuel for the cars as DH is obviously not using much now he is no longer commuting. The second is what I am aiming for, although this still leaves us over £100 short so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.



Previous 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.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1472.80
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 304.29
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1777.09

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 546.11
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 75
Council tax............................. 120
Electricity............................. 33.50
Gas..................................... 33.50
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 20
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 45
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 25
Internet Services....................... 10
Groceries etc. ......................... 186
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 165
Road tax................................ 21
Car Insurance........................... 101.04
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 20
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 16
Life assurance ......................... 9
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40
Haircuts................................ 4
Entertainment........................... 160
Holiday................................. 175
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1827.27


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 125000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 126500


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 94000....(546.1)....3.99
Total secured & HP debts...... 94000.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Main Loan......................9420......290.46.....NaN
Wedding Loan...................3450......108.55.....11.9
Sofa...........................320.......39.56.....0
DH OD..........................20........0.........18
My OD..........................200.......0.........18
Total unsecured debts..........13410.....438.57....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,777.09
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,827.27
Available for debt repayments........... -50.16
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 438.57
Amount short for making debt repayments. -488.95

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 126,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -94,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -13,410
Net Assets.............................. 19,090

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.




Intended 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.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1472.80
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 304.29
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1777.09

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 546.11
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 75
Council tax............................. 120
Electricity............................. 33.50
Gas..................................... 33.50
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 20
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 45
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 25
Internet Services....................... 10
Groceries etc. ......................... 150
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 165
Road tax................................ 21
Car Insurance........................... 101.04
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 20
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 16
Life assurance ......................... 9
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40
Haircuts................................ 4
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1456.27


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 125000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 126500


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 94000....(546.1)....3.99
Total secured & HP debts...... 94000.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Main Loan......................9420......290.46.....NaN
Wedding Loan...................3450......108.55.....11.9
Sofa...........................320.......39.56.....0
DH OD..........................20........0.........18
My OD..........................200.......0.........18
Total unsecured debts..........13410.....438.57....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,777.09
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,456.27
Available for debt repayments........... 320.83
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 438.57
Amount short for making debt repayments. -117.73

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 126,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -94,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -13,410
Net Assets.............................. 19,090

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.

walby1993

Right, so here are some of the things I am going to try and do to save us a bit of money:

Energy saving
Heating on timer and no higher than 20ºC
Keep curtains open to avoid using lights during daylighthours.
Make use of draft excluders.
Line curtains
Don’t use the car for journeys under 1 mile

Shopping
Make regular use of cashback websites
Use survey sites
Put Boots card into machine to check for any freebies orvouchers
Reuse bags to get “green” points

Food & Cooking
Turn off oven 5 minutes before the end of cooking.
Thermos/teapot for multiple cups of tea
Batch cooking
Bulk out stews/casseroles/curries with lentils and vegetables
Soup/stew from left over vegetables, gravy and meat.
Always have packed lunches instead of buying lunch
Freeze all types of sauces and pastes (inc. pesto, wine etc)in ice cube tray
When bread goes style, whizz up into bread crumbs and freeze
When boiling on the hob, turn off five minutes early and popon the lid
Chop up any vegetables that are going a bit soft and freeze

Bathroom
Leave bath water in bath then use to “flush” the toilet
Shower rather than bath
Buy Axe instead of Lynx (same thing but cheaper!)

Reuse and Recycle
Use the “silky hooks” from clothes as ties for present tags
Cut out sections of birthday and Christmas cards to maketags
Use book swap system at work
Re-use foil and sandwich bags

Some of these are things I already do but need to improve on, some I used to do but need to start again and some of them are brand new ideas which I will be trying. I also intend to give my car a bit of a service and clean out to try and increase it's efficiency.

If anyone has any other ideas they would be greatfully recieved!