my SOA

gizfizz

Well, here it is:

Incomings:
My salary - £100 p/w (maternity pay)
Partners salary - £398 p/w
CTC - £21.60 p/w until feb ’08 then £9.20 p/w
CB - £30.20 p/w (we get both CTC & CB paid 4-weekly)
Total - £549.80 p/w = £2382.47 p/m

Outgoings:
Council Tax - £66
EDF Gas - £10 (but we usually end up getting £50-60 back each year because we only use gas for hot water, they wont change the payments though)
Virgin Media (tv, phone+broadband) - £50-60 (we’ve just cut this down from a shocking £90-100!!)
Mobile Phones - £20 (both pay as you go so we can control it)
Direct Line Car Insurance - £47.15 (oh’s car, my 1st year was paid f or in october by my parents-I only passed in dec!)
Direct Line Home Ins - £28.80 (we’ve just reduced this from £36 as I had a collection of figurines which now sold, renewal is november-but this gets us a discount on car insurance)
Legal & General Life Ins - £21.09 (only for oh, we’re waiting for him to go to the hospital to get his chest checked out so we can get a joint policy, hopefully he’s going on tues he keeps putting it off!)
Water - £18.37 + £9.01 = £27.38 (not on a meter but I suspect we’re probably better off not being on one)
British Gas Homecare - £12.50 (covers the boiler & pipes, just cut this down from £37.50 :eek: )
Charity stuff - £7.83 (I sponsor a dog with dogs trust and a wildlife conservation type place which gets us free entry too)
AA - £7.57 (lowest one inc homestart)
Catalogue payments - £30-40 (interest free pay over 20 weeks type stuff!!)
Barclays Additions Plus fee - £14.50 (did ask about cancelling this but apparently it saves us about £20-30 in interest as the o/d is £2000 and we get a lower rate)
Barclays overdraft protection - £16 (I have no idea what this is lol)
Barclays Accidental Death - £5.95 (again, no idea-both of these are from way before I started ‘taking over’ our finances so prob some stupid thing oh has signed himself up for without realising or thinking that he needs it when he doesn’t)
Petrol - £130 ish

Groceries etc - £70-90 p/w (we have an 18 month old and 10 week old so lots of nappies!!)
EDF Electric - £10 p/w (averages out about 10 p/w over the year, we’re on pre-pay meter-so poss worth asking them to change it?? The meter was here when we moved in)
TV License - £34.12 p/q
Car tax - £96.25 for 6 months my car (next due oct)
Car tax - £63.25 for 6 months oh car (next due nov)

Loans etc:
Mortgage - £584
BOS Loan £254 (£8500 at 9.1% for 4 years)
HSBC Flexiloan £153.73 (£3500, 16.5%) I never seem to be actually paying this back, always getting the money back out of it again oops
Barclaycard Loan £117 (I think it was about £6000 when oh took this out last year for the car he doesn’t know where all the documents are so I don’t know what rate or how long for, he thinks it was 5 years and apparently it cant be repaid early??!!)

We’ve just taken out the BOS loan to pay off the £5000 Barclaycard and £3500 loan we have (until the loan clears into the bank!), the rates on these 2 were terrible and the Barclaycard was never going to get paid off the way it was so much better all round! Also, saving us £35 a month, the first payment is July.

I think that’s everything except birthdays, holidays etc which I suppose we just spend whatever we can afford at the time.

Oh, overdrafts:
Barclays - £2000 (first £250 is 0%, then 0.790% monthly rate I don’t know what that works out for annual rate??) interest charge is about £10-11 month
Nationwide - £350 (0.624% monthly = 7.75% annual) interest charge is about £1-1.50 month
HSBC - £250 (I think is 18.3%!) interest charge is about £2-3 month

Any comments/suggestions welcomed!!!

robbo_c

Personally I paid minimum payments on everything to start with and focused on the overdrafts I had. As soon as I got back in the black I had the overdrafts taken off of my accounts and then started to look at what I owed and thinking seriously about paying it off...I've not been overdrawn since, charges when you don't have an overdraft are extortinate and a good way to discourage you from over-spending and getting used to living on what you have.

Storm

OK, I total your monthly outgoings to about £1940 a month and income to £2380ish, so the first thing to do is find out where the other £420 a month goes to. I suggest both you & OH keep a spending diary for a week, and write down absolutely everything that you buy from a newspaper, cup of coffee, charity donation etc. When you total these things up you can often see where the 'extra' money is going to.

As for the SoA...

Definitely try and get off the electric meter as these charge at a higher rate.
Virgin media could come down even more - aren't they doing a 3 for £30 deal at the moment?
Check exactly what you get on the O/D protection & accidental death cover with the bank - they're more often than not, not worth it!

Car stuff - are you actually putting the money aside each month for the tax on these? Do you really need 2 cars? With the insurance, the apr charged by the insurers to do monthly payments is astronomical, so I would recommend starting to save now towards your insurance when it comes through in December. There's also nothing here for MOTs, servicing etc

Things you're missing off your SoA are clothes, haircuts, birthday/xmas presents, etc - you're better off putting a little aside each month for these so that you don't end up in a panic going back into debt.

£70-90 a week on groceries seems high to me, even with nappies included in that - but I'm not a parent, so only guessing. Try the Old Style board for inspiration on meal-planning etc

Good luck!

rayday2

I tried Tesco brand nappies in the purple packs and have found them better than Huggies or Pampers. Everyone I have mentioned them too tried them and agree too, one double pack is only about £12. I buy mine once a month and then shop at cheaper places like Netto.

Swopping to Netto I have more known brands at Tesco I was swaying to the value brands and we eat more healthy too. I use a farm shop for all my fresh veggies which is important to us as we have a toddler too and she has always had only home made foods. We are a family of 5 and we spend about £48 a week.

lynzpower

I suggest one thing you can do right away to improve your creit rating massively is close down most of that flexiloan.

Every spare penny should go to this then get it closed,its only 153 quid, and TBH you should be able to get that cleared within a month, as storm points out, you have a fair amount of money in budget not accounted for- so thats excellent :T