SOA - finishing the dfw journey and trying to stay there!

b0nz0

Hi Everyone

Long time lurker on these boards and have only just been brave enough to join.

We can finally see light at the end of the tunnel! After an almost 4 year slog we are nearly debt free. Only thing remaining is a car loan with a stupid interest rate of 39%. Yes, I know, before anyone starts, it is a ridiculously high amount but needs dictated at the time. Anyhoo, the loan was taken out in August of this year for 3 years. We knew at the time we would be overpaying once we had paid family back which is why we went for it.

Here is our updated SOA now that we have paid off our penultimate debt :T with some notes, any advice appreciated as once we pay everything off we would love to be able to not have to dip into credit again except for trying to build up our scores so we have a better chance of getting a mortgage when the time comes



Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 3
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1785
Partners monthly income after tax....... 505
Benefits................................ 188.8
Other income............................ 100 (at the moment I am getting regular overtime. This figure is based on the lowest overtime per week I'm getting. My shift plan has been made until mid February.)
Total monthly income.................... 2578.8

Monthly Expense Details[/b]
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 650
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 156
Electricity............................. 80 (have checked and this is the cheapest. I do use a tumble drier a lot but for the sake of less stress and clean clothes all round I am prepared to pay for it)
Gas..................................... 80 (ditto)
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0 (scotland so included in council tax)
Telephone (land line)................... 30 (includes broadband, due to where we live this is the cheapest deal. Our actual figure is around £23 but I like to overestimate incase there are any charges)
Mobile phone............................ 25 (2 x PAYG hubby uses a lot of data at work so his is £15/month, I'm £10 per month but to be honest I probably only top up every month and a half to 2 months. Again I like to overestimate just in case)
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 350
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 140
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 40 (due for renewal january and I'm very hopeful I can get this cheaper)
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 40 includes a service&MOT plan with the garage we bought the car from so costs should be minimum, HA! Hopefully! We also don't have to pay for tyres as we get them free)
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0 (free prescriptions in scotland, no glasses, dentist gets paid from monthly surplus as and when needed)
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 18.88 (includes vet pet plan which gives us discounts off treatments, "free" worming/flea treatments and yearly checkups)
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 4.49
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Haircuts................................ 5 (i cut hubby's and the kiddos hair, mine only gets done about once a year)
Entertainment........................... 0 (no set budget, we use whatever is left after all bills and money into savings)
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 50
savings................................. 350 (this will be used to overpay the car loan and should be paid off July 2014, then it will be put into an ISA along with what we have been paying towards the car for a house deposit)
car..................................... 161.01
shares.................................. 15 (have only just signed up for these through work so I have none to date)
netflix................................. 5.99
gym..................................... 68 (this will be getting cancelled at the end of the contract which I think is February and we will buy some second hand equipment and turn our garage into some muscle mad, body building temple ... or, more likely a flabby sweat filled room :rotfl:)
Total monthly expenses.................. 2401.49[/b]


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3700
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 3700

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,578.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,401.49
Available for debt repayments........... 177.31
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 0
Amount left after debt repayments....... 177.31

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 3,700
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -0
Net Assets.............................. 3,700

Along with the over time I also get commission but don't know what it will be until just before pay day. So far it has averaged out at approx £80 per month. Hubby also has opportunity for overtime and grabs it when he can so we are fortunate in that we can earn extra £. If we can pay the car off sooner we will as that is our main focus right now.

LannieDuck

It looks as if you've already thought about your outgoings a great deal. Well done on being nearly there. Good luck with clearing the last debt asap.

Niv

Not really much to add. You have covered most things in your OP. I only have the following as potential suggestions:

You are showing a surplus - You could try to save all overtime money in a seperate account which over the course of the year woudl adsorb things like birthdays and christmas while still having the emergancy fund untouched

Gas / Electric, not knowing how big you home is its hard to really say too much - but you could try turning down the temp by 1 degree (depending where you have it now of course!) to save a bit on gas. Also regarding electric, worth checking that things like phone chargers are unplugged when not in use and lights are turned off when you leave the room for any reasonable length of time (and use energy savers of course).

Well done getting all your ducks ina row, you look pretty organiased to me!

pennypusher

To avoid having to go into debt again you will need to build up a fund to replace things as they break ie., cooker, fridge, iron, central heating, mower, car etc. So work out a sensible amount to save each month and put this into a separate account for when you need it.

bess1234_2

I really like your soa. Not wildly over optimistic nor madly frivolous, but someone whose been there and budgeted really hard. I'm going to use it as a basis for mine. The only suggestion I could make is now you e done the hard work, do you need to ease off a tiny bit to manage on a permanent basis. Not go crazy, but maybe a bit of pocket money , or saving for a holiday for next summer ?

b0nz0

Thank you everyone for your input.

At long last I feel pretty comfortable with our budget and am not lying to myself about it. It has taken a long time to get to this point and I plan on sticking to it!! No doubt it'll need tweaking from time to time but there is room for manoeuvre.

In regards to heating etc we have a 3 bedroom end of terrace house. The boiler is pretty new as the house is under 10years old so afaik it's efficient. It has a doo dah (technical) which keeps the house at a constant temperature. During the day we have it set to 17C. From 10pm-6am it's set to 15C. If it feels particularly cold in the day I'll up it to 18/18.5C for a couple of hours but always put it back down once we've thawed out. Radiators are all sat on either frost setting or the first bar. Our kiddos are 7 and under so I don't want it uncomfortable for them. Especially as we're toilet training the youngest right now and there's lots of nakedness involved.

pennypusher

Hi bOnzO, well done with your budget so far. Don't forget your boiler will probably last 10-15 years so you will need to budget for a replacement in due course.

In my opinion you don't need the heating on during the night. If you get cold just put an extra blanket on top of the beds. Maybe turn the heating down more - If you feel you need it on perhaps you could have it lower.

b0nz0

pennypusher wrote: »

Hi bOnzO, well done with your budget so far. Don't forget your boiler will probably last 10-15 years so you will need to budget for a replacement in due course.

In my opinion you don't need the heating on during the night. If you get cold just put an extra blanket on top of the beds. Maybe turn the heating down more - If you feel you need it on perhaps you could have it lower.

Thanks for the advice! Will have a bit of a faff and see if we can possibly turn the heat down a bit but I think it can be counter productive sonetimes having to heat up a house from freezing rather than try and keep it at a "comfy with a wee nip" level.

We're renting at the moment so if the boiler goes belly up while we're here it's not our problem thankfully