Help me with debt, newbie

monkeymax

Below are my figures, i am now at a point where i need to sort out my debts. I worry for my home, wife and 6 month son. Although some debts are unknown to her

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1871.42

Total - £1871.42

Monthly Outgoings:

Budget account for household bills - £550
Phone - £55
Food at work- £94.60
Cigarettes - £129.50
travel card - £88
Loan payments - £298
Credit card payments - £70
Online music accounts - £16
Bank fee's (account and payment protection) - £20
Home phone, interent and TV - £50
Entertainment - £ 100

Total: £1,471.10


Egg CC – Balance £583 (limit £750) APR 12.9%

Abbey Loan – Balance £7,000 APR 8.9% Length of term 5 years, 3 years to go
MBNA Loan – Balance £7,000 APR ? Length of term 5 years, 4.5 years to go
Barclays Overdraft - £1700 (limit £1,700) APR ??

Please help if you can

yellowmonkey

monkeymax wrote: »

Below are my figures, i am now at a point where i need to sort out my debts. I worry for my home, wife and 6 month son. Although some debts are unknown to her

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1871.42

Total - £1871.42

Monthly Outgoings:

Budget account for household bills - £550
Phone - £55
Food at work- £94.60 ( Can you not take your own food)
Cigarettes - £129.50 ( If you cannot give up smoke rollies. Much cheaper)
travel card - £88
Loan payments - £298
Credit card payments - £70
Online music accounts - £16 ( Can you not cancel these)
Bank fee's (account and payment protection) - £20
Home phone, interent and TV - £50 ( Have you tried Sky speak/see and surf)
Entertainment - £ 100 ( Could you expand on this please )

Total: £1,471.10


Egg CC – Balance £583 (limit £750) APR 12.9%

Abbey Loan – Balance £7,000 APR 8.9% Length of term 5 years, 3 years to go
MBNA Loan – Balance £7,000 APR ? Length of term 5 years, 4.5 years to go
Barclays Overdraft - £1700 (limit £1,700) APR ??

Please help if you can

Hi and well done for posting. I am not an expert on this and no doubt they will be along shortly but I could see where you can make some significant savings. On smoking alone mine was the same and i now spend £19.88 per month by smoking roll ups.

Good luck

ym

Cazzdevil

monkeymax wrote: »

Below are my figures, i am now at a point where i need to sort out my debts. I worry for my home, wife and 6 month son. Although some debts are unknown to her

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1871.42

Total - £1871.42

Monthly Outgoings:

Budget account for household bills - £550 <-- can you break this down, you might be able to save some money on utility bills or monthly food bill
Phone - £55 <-- I'll assume this is a mobile, could you not go PAYG? Plenty of providers do payg with loads of free texts for topping up £10 each month
Food at work- £94.60 <--- PACKED LUNCHES??
Cigarettes - £129.50 <--- you know what everyone's gonna say to this :rolleyes:
travel card - £88
Loan payments - £298
Credit card payments - £70
Online music accounts - £16 <--- do you really consider this an essential thing?
Bank fee's (account and payment protection) - £20
Home phone, interent and TV - £50 <--- can you switch this for a cheaper package? Say Talk Talk's £20 a month plan or the Sky "Surf Speak See" package for £26
Entertainment - £ 100 <-- in the form of what?

Total: £1,471.10


Egg CC – Balance £583 (limit £750) APR 12.9%

Abbey Loan – Balance £7,000 APR 8.9% Length of term 5 years, 3 years to go
MBNA Loan – Balance £7,000 APR ? Length of term 5 years, 4.5 years to go
Barclays Overdraft - £1700 (limit £1,700) APR ??

Please help if you can

Just a start, but maybe some food for thought.

CLAPTON

you need to work out a full budget that includes all your spending.. at the moment you show a monthly surplus of about £400; presumably in practice you dont have that.

a. start a spending diary and write down everything you spend.
b. also work out all the yearly/one-off things you spend and divide by 12 to get a monthly figure and add these to your budget
c. can you break down the 500 for household bills... whats included here?

once you have done that it will be possible to see exactly what you spend and where savings can be made

monkeymax

I know i should take my own food to work but i find it hard to find the time. having a 6 month old doesn't give you much time but i will make an effort now. I intend to stop smoking before the 1st July ban, but we'll see how that goes!!
My online music is a hobbie, i don't buy CD's now instead i buy online, it works out cheaper.
My mobile bill will reduce soon as i have taken out a new low tariff wwith O2, at the mo i am paying two monthly line rentals.
Entertainment is literally going to the pub and the odd DVD. this has greatly dropped since my son come along. and continues to.
I have Sky in the front room and NTL in the back. NTL is the package for £50 it includes basic TV, phone line rental with free evening and weekend calls and superfast 8mb unlimited cable broadband (nessecary for my online music). I am concidering Sky multi room to take over from the NTL TV but i have no BT line to have SKY's telephone package.

nickelodeon

By bank fees is this a bank account that you pay to have or fees for being overdrawn.
If you are paying for the bank account, then switch to a free one, look at Martin's article on bank accounts it will tell you which are the best ones!
If it's for going overdrawn then try and reclaim bank charges. Also you need a budget to stop you going overdrawn again/incurring further charges.
Try doing a spending diary to see where all your money disapears to!
Also cancel the payment protection, it's a rip off, it's usually cheaper to get income protection if you feel you need something.

monkeymax

CLAPTON wrote: »

you need to work out a full budget that includes all your spending.. at the moment you show a monthly surplus of about £400; presumably in practice you dont have that.

a. start a spending diary and write down everything you spend.
b. also work out all the yearly/one-off things you spend and divide by 12 to get a monthly figure and add these to your budget
c. can you break down the 500 for household bills... whats included here?

once you have done that it will be possible to see exactly what you spend and where savings can be made

to tell you the truth the £500 budget figure is too low and in the past two years we have used up 17k off money left over from the sale of our last house on the extra bills. We have the following per month

Mortgage - 998
Gas - 60
Electric - 30
Council Tax - 188
Life insurance - 55
Pet insurance - 22
Car insurance - 102 (2 cars)
Water - 22
Sky - 47

me and my wife pay 500 each. But this will soon need to go up. I recently used the budget calculator on here to work out my income and it said i over spent by 110 pounds per month. I don't know where the figures i entered are though so i can't tell you whats missing but i know i over spend every month and then accumulate bank charges.

Shineyhappy

Hi MM,

Well done for posting I know how hard it is. At least you are in the right place for sorting out your finances. I can see why you are worried about money with a family to look after.

One thing to remember is that although you are paying 100 pounds on food that 100 of your wages has been taxed so you need to earn a lot more than the 100. Hope that makes sense!

The first two replies both give good advice, I went from ciggarettes to roll ups at uni (have quit now ) and its not so bad once you get used to it.

I too used to spend about five pounds a day on packed lunches :eek: Now I make my own lunch and I know sandwhiches do get boring but I swop mine for salads or left over dinners or cous cous type stuff. This works out so much cheaper and its not much of a sacrifice.

You werent specific about your house hold bills so cant help there but I would suggest joining Quidco and then comparing your bills on Uswitch and then if you change you should get cash back.

Good luck and keep us updated!

monkeymax

nickelodeon wrote: »

By bank fees is this a bank account that you pay to have or fees for being overdrawn.
If you are paying for the bank account, then switch to a free one, look at Martin's article on bank accounts it will tell you which are the best ones!
If it's for going overdrawn then try and reclaim bank charges. Also you need a budget to stop you going overdrawn again/incurring further charges.
Try doing a spending diary to see where all your money disapears to!
Also cancel the payment protection, it's a rip off, it's usually cheaper to get income protection if you feel you need something.

These are account fee's, i have not included my bank charges for u/p DD or going overdrawn. I am currently claiming £3380 from barclays in charges and in the MCOL process, and i have wrote off to all ex credit cards i recently paid off with my loans.

jo1972

monkeymax wrote: »

I intend to stop smoking before the 1st July ban, but we'll see how that goes!!

Come over to the 'giving up smoking thread when you feel ready!!

monkeymax

Shineyhappy wrote: »

Hi MM,

Well done for posting I know how hard it is. At least you are in the right place for sorting out your finances. I can see why you are worried about money with a family to look after.

One thing to remember is that although you are paying 100 pounds on food that 100 of your wages has been taxed so you need to earn a lot more than the 100. Hope that makes sense!

The first two replies both give good advice, I went from ciggarettes to roll ups at uni (have quit now ) and its not so bad once you get used to it.

I too used to spend about five pounds a day on packed lunches :eek: Now I make my own lunch and I know sandwhiches do get boring but I swop mine for salads or left over dinners or cous cous type stuff. This works out so much cheaper and its not much of a sacrifice.

You werent specific about your house hold bills so cant help there but I would suggest joining Quidco and then comparing your bills on Uswitch and then if you change you should get cash back.

Good luck and keep us updated!

re - The tax side of income - luckil i do understand that, i work for HMRC (the revenue) lol
Thank you for you input.
is there somewhere i can post on here to update how my changes are going to hopefully help others in the same boat?