My First SOA :) Help me plug the leaks please...

Ytaya

Well done for realising your habits need to change! It's a sobering wakeup, isn't it? (No pun intended!)

To give you a little more perspective, look at the Snowball calculator. Plug in your current debt repayments with all your debts and make a note of your debt-free date and total interest repaid. Then plug in your current debt repayments + your takeaway budget and do the same. Then add half your food budget. Then your beer budget. You'll see that you can make absolutely shocking inroads into your debt, it might give you (and hubby!) the inspiration you need to really bring this under control.

The plain and simple fact is, your current lifestyle is not sustainable. You are not living within your means. Yes, the bills you've posted are the same as your income (excluding debts), but you haven't taken account of things like Christmas or transport costs or holidays or any of the other things that pop up and surprise us every year.

Good luck!

iamstacie

We're not trusted to use the microwave at work, the canteen ladies are vicious :rolleyes: Its only 13p for water, but its still much cheaper to do that and buy teabags every now and again rather than paying 40p for a tea bag each time. I leave in two weeks anyway and the new place has free tea & coffee! A bonus if ever I heard one!

We do have a park literally opposite us, and with the dog as well we should utilise it more often than we do. OH & Sport don't mix! :rotfl: Good idea about the voluntary thing though. We have spoken about him getting a job in a pub a few nights a week, a couple of our friends own bars and he has experiance. Getting paid for socialising would be ideal. I'll point him in the direction of this thread later and we'll talk it all thru together.

Thanks for your advice

iamstacie

Ytaya wrote: »

To give you a little more perspective, look at the Snowball calculator. Plug in your current debt repayments with all your debts and make a note of your debt-free date and total interest repaid. Then plug in your current debt repayments + your takeaway budget and do the same. Then add half your food budget. Then your beer budget. You'll see that you can make absolutely shocking inroads into your debt, it might give you (and hubby!) the inspiration you need to really bring this under control.

I've used that, brilliant isnt it?! I've had a quick playaround and if we continue to pay off just the bear minimum we'll be debt free in 2017, increasing it to £300 brings it down to 2015, and with my shift allowance its August 2009 (£700 pm) and I'm going to be super ambitious and go for December 2008 I've had these debts long enough now I think, 18 months of hard work and we can have these debts cleared and start to properly plan for the future. Its ambitious but everythings possible and it'll be worth it in the long run

Swishter

I think that you have some great advice but I would like to query why you need to pay #10 a month to keep an eye on your credit report? Is there a special reason such as previous fraud? If so then you need to contact the agencies and get your details registered with CIFAS which means any new company will double check its YOU getting credit, rather than costing you loads to keep an eye.

I understand that you are in debt (just like us all here) but its quite a chunk to spend if you don't need it. What exactly will it tell you? Whether you keep on top of your debt, miss payments, or if you go into default it will only tell you what you already know, nothing more. Yes errors can occur but they can also be sorted out.

Its 120 quid a year at present. If you want to keep an eye on them that much you can get a statutory report once a month for 2 quid a month each and save yourself 72 quid a year. Otherwise I'd say just get one once a year, or just before you need to get credit, a mortgage etc, to check everythings closed and nothing suspicious is on there. It would save you a big whack over the year.

It may only be a small amount but it was the couple of pounds here, couple of pounds there that left me up to my eyes in it with nothing to show. Look after the pennies and all that!

Good luck,

Swish