I finally did a SOA!

purple.sarah

I've finally bitten the bullet and done a SOA. Advice is appreciated.

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.................... 0

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 400
Partners monthly income after tax....... 600
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1000

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 290
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 55.94
Electricity............................. 40
Gas..................................... 12
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 53.47
Telephone (land line)................... 42.5
Mobile phone............................ 54
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 21.25
Internet Services....................... 7.5
Groceries etc. ......................... 250
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 108
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 10
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 10
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 984.66


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

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Capital One....................440.79....15.82.....34.9
HSBC loan......................1345.97...45........7
Vets Now.......................482.2.....100.......0
Total unsecured debts..........2268.96...160.82....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,000
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 984.66
Available for debt repayments........... 15.34
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 160.82
Amount short for making debt repayments. -145.48

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -2,268.96
Net Assets.............................. -2,268.96

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

Notes
The gas and electricity is billed quarterly but I've divided a quarterly bill by 3 to get a monthly figure

We can't get out of our phone contracts but I will get mine capped so I can't exceed it.

Clothing and haircuts aren't every month but I thought I should put a figure. We only buy clothes on sale or in charity shops.

We do have a TV license but our house mate pays it.

We'll be ditching the Sky and probably TV altogether when we move in July.

I'm committed to cutting down our grocery bill and open to advice on how to do this.

Looking at the repayments I can see we are paying what for us is a large amount to Vets Now. They have not been very flexible at all. They originally told us when our dog was ill that they do not normally do payment plans and we would have to pay a large deposit to get one, which we did (my mum loaned us the money). Then after our dog died they demanded payment in full before they would release her remains for cremation! They've since told us it is “standard procedure” for them to ask for payment in full before setting up a payment plan but we did not know that at the time so it was very distressing! Then we managed to arrange a payment plan and they released her ashes. They suggested paying £100 a month. At that time I was just desperate to get it sorted so I agreed but we are struggling. I would like to ask to reduce the payments to £50 a month to make them more manageable. How do I do this? Can I just phone their payment department or should I put it in writing? What should the letter say?

We need to find the money from somewhere for pet insurance to avoid more problems in the future.

I've only included the debts we are making payments on so I have not included a Housing Benefit overpayment, which we are appealing against and money we owe family, which they have said they can repay when we are more stable.

asparagus1968

purple.sarah wrote: »

I've finally bitten the bullet and done a SOA. Advice is appreciated.

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.................... 0

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 400 overtime/part time job/ look at the "up your income" forum thread
Partners monthly income after tax....... 600 as above
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1000

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 290
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 55.94 can /do you pay over 12 months instead of the usual 10?
Electricity............................. 40 try and reduce usage
Gas..................................... 12
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 53.47 is this a meter?can you reduce usage?put a timer on shower,use a water hippo etc?
Telephone (land line)................... 42.5 this plus your mobile bill is very large!! look to bring this down asap.
Mobile phone............................ 54 as above,ring and ask if you can downgrade a tarrif until you can cancel and go PAYG.sell any expensive handsets and put sims into cheap ones?
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 21.25 a luxury as you know
Internet Services....................... 7.5 maybe look at a cheaper bundle for telephone/internet/tv ?
Groceries etc. ......................... 250 old style forum thread may be helpful to you?
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 108
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 10
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 10
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0 this needs to be looked into,maybe take this from the phone/tv budget,£10 a month would help?
Total monthly expenses.................. 984.66


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

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Capital One....................440.79....15.82.....34.9 have you looked at 0% balance transfer card? or add to loan to reduce interest charge?take into consideration any fees you may have to pay to do either of these though!
HSBC loan......................1345.97...45........7
Vets Now.......................482.2.....100.......0definately worth asking to reduce this,the worst they can say is no!
Total unsecured debts..........2268.96...160.82....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,000
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 984.66
Available for debt repayments........... 15.34
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 160.82
Amount short for making debt repayments. -145.48

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -2,268.96
Net Assets.............................. -2,268.96

Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com.
.

Hiya,

most obvious thing to do is to up your income if possible.Are these part time jobs?
well done on doing the SOA.
sorry to hear about your dog,not very nice situation for you.
good luck and keep posting

purple.sarah

Great idea about the council tax! I will ask them about paying over 12 months on Tuesday. We will reduce phone, electricity and grocery costs and put some of the money into an emergency fund. I will look into transferring the Capital One balance to a 0% interest card. The loan is a managed loan to pay another credit card so I don't think we can add to it, sorry I should've mentioned that.

Our jobs are part time. The problem with them is that we have flexi contracts where our set hours are part time but we are required to be available to work extra hours up to 37 hours at 24 hours notice so we can't commit to other part time jobs in case they call us in. We do work extra hours but we don't get enough. We are looking for other jobs instead and I am planning to start my own business.

Thank you for your suggestions and support.

gettingbackontrack

Hi

I've been reading your diary and you've had some awful luck. I'm so sorry to hear about your dog. And I hope you get the HB business sorted too.

I'm not an expert of looking at SOA, but as previously mentioned your water rates and phone look very high.

You mention that you both do extra hours when you can - is the income stated in your SOA an average or the basic one when you don't get extra hours? Obviously getting more hours (or other jobs) would help a lot but easier said than done in this day and age.

Can you increase your income any other ways - mystery shopping, maybe? Have you any old phones etc you can sell to raise some cash towards the Capital One card?

Vikipollard

Hi,

Very sorry to hear about your dog. Hope you are able to sort something out with Vets Now.

Your joint income seems on the low side ~ are you not entitled to any benefits at all? Sorry if I missed that part!

Can't offer much advice other than what's already been posted, but remember they can't have what you don't have.

redpete

purple.sarah wrote: »

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 21.25
We'll be ditching the Sky and probably TV altogether when we move in July.

Why wait until you move?

I'm committed to cutting down our grocery bill and open to advice on how to do this.

Use a cheaper supermarket, buy cheaper brands, write a shopping list before you go shopping and don't buy anything that is not on the list.

I've only included the debts we are making payments on so I have not included a Housing Benefit overpayment, which we are appealing against and money we owe family, which they have said they can repay when we are more stable.

I'd include them all but put the monthly repayment to 0; gives a more honest picture of your debts.

iolanthe07

Confirms my opinion of vets! Could you just tell them that you are reducing the monthly amount to £50? They would be unlikely to take you to court, in my opinion, because of the resulting bad publicity, and they would get their money in the end.

purple.sarah

Vikipollard wrote: »

Hi,

Very sorry to hear about your dog. Hope you are able to sort something out with Vets Now.

Your joint income seems on the low side ~ are you not entitled to any benefits at all? Sorry if I missed that part!

Can't offer much advice other than what's already been posted, but remember they can't have what you don't have.

Thank you. I have checked turn2us but we don't seem to be entitled to anything. I was surprised by that too. We did claim Housing Benefit after we started our jobs and made them aware of our change in circumstances but now they have decided we aren't entitled to HB, we have been overpaid and we owe them £3800! Basically they think we should have been paying ½ of the rent not 2/3. We split it three ways with our housemate, which seemed fair since there were 3 of us! We always told them the total rent and how much our housemate was paying. Based on their new calculations we wouldn't be entitled because of our income, which we've always made them aware of. We have appealed but this could be more debt for us to pay off.

purple.sarah

redpete wrote: »

Why wait until you move?

Use a cheaper supermarket, buy cheaper brands, write a shopping list before you go shopping and don't buy anything that is not on the list.

I'd include them all but put the monthly repayment to 0; gives a more honest picture of your debts.

We're waiting till we move to ditch the Sky and TV because our housemate wants to keep it and it seems unfair to dump the bill on her when we originally agreed to split it. It will be easier to renegotiate when we move and she might not be moving with us.

Good tips about shopping, thanks.

I'll do an updated SOA including the other debts soon.