A New Year Newbies Diary

Box_of_Fluffies

Well done on getting your appraisal documents in. Looking forward to hearing all about the birthday party.

Squirrelly

Thank you Box of Fluffies, you are so kind x

The party was lovely, a few tears from the youngest as she had got her self so completely over excited, but she was fine after and as the song says 'it's my party and I'll cry if I want to'...showing my age a bit there. She got some really thoughtful gifts and everyone seemed pleased with the fluffy pencil case party bags. Youngest got a rag doll, which you can buy matching outfits for child and dolly and was completely delighted. Happy, happy day.

So with Christmas and youngest birthday now celebrated I feel ready to really focus on my mission...get rid of those debts!

I realised I have stupidly made a misjudgement on the bank account and thought that when Hubby bought petrol it had come out of the account when I set the food budget...it hadn't:mad:. So we are now £60 over the overdraft limit so will be incurring charges again. At least they didn't bounce the DD, I think out of the two horrid options I prefer to know that my bills are paid.

Managed to have NSD today, although this is more out of necessity, there is no money to spend! the meal plan is working brilliantly though, as I am sure we would be starting to panic about food by this point in the month and it feels so good not to have that worry.

Hubby has an exam tomorrow for his degree course so I am wishing him the best of luck.

Box_of_Fluffies

So pleased to hear the birthday party went without a hitch and that the fluffy pencil case party bags were loved by one and all.

Don't stress too much about the petrol payment misjudgment. It happens to the best of us and you're a newbie at this budgeting lark. At least you know where you stand now financially and that you have enough food to feed your family. Meal plans are awesome. I love them because you don't have to work out what you're going to make every night.

Good luck to your OH with his exam tomorrow.

Squirrelly

Thanks for taking time to look at my SOA, some of our finances are a bit complex (sure this is part of the reason we are in this mess) so I will try and explain the best I can

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information

Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Pets...................1 Cat

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax................ 760
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1674
Benefits................................ 134
Other income............................ 425 (rental income from investment property)
Total monthly income.................... 2993

Monthly Expense Details

Mortgage................................ 528
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 185 (mortgage payment for investment property)
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 136
Electricity............................. 107 *
Gas..................................... 107 *
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 59 (we are on a 'double' payment at the moment as we have got behind should reduce to 35 next month)
Telephone (land line)................... 47 (landline and broadband)
Mobile phone............................ 0
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 0
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 33
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 240 (will be this amount until April when pre-school funding kicks in)
Other child related expenses............ 20 (swimming lessons)
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 7
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 27 (and contents)
Life assurance ......................... 65 (made up of several smaller amounts as we have in increased insurance with increasing mortagages)
Other insurance......................... 21 (landlords insurance on investment property)
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 20
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1634

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 167000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 500
Other assets............................ 30000 (equity in investment property)
Total Assets............................ 197500

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly
Mortgage...................... 109890...(528)


Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly
credit card....................4700......108 (0%)
loan...........................8389......254 (7%)
Uni course fees................1120......280 (0%)(last payment to be made in May)
overdrafts.....................2850......53(53 is the monthly charges and does not include the charges for going over our limits)
catalogue......................808.......85
Total unsecured debts..........17867.....780

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,993
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,634
Available for debt repayments........... 1,359
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 780
Amount left after debt repayments....... 579

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 197,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -109,890
Total Unsecured debt.................... -17,867
Net Assets.............................. 69,743

* Gas and Elec - 214 total I am aware this is very high we recently switched to Ovo to get away from big six, because we switched in winter we are being charged 25% more on our monthly bills to cover winter usage, should reduce to 160 in spring...I am aware that this is still high!

I am also aware that I have not included food or petrol as I have not been budgeting long enough to know figures and up until now we have been using whatever money is left

I hope my explanations make sense, thanks in advance for any feedback x

OrangeFairy

hi Squirrelly

Nothing jumps out as being bad that you haven't already explained.

£579 left looks okay depending on how much your food and fuel comes to each month.

Looking at it you will be a lot better off in May when you don't have the Uni fees or nursery fees! You can really make a dent in the debt then!

Definitely keep track of your grocery spends for a month and see. When I first did this we we sickened to see it was in the region of £350-400. We now spend £200 a month on average.

OF x

Squirrelly

Thanks OF x

I put the SOA on the main debt free wannabe forum page to get some more opinions and the general consensus seems to be that I haven't included enough detail, which I agree with. I just don't think I have enough information yet as we have been bouncing along from month to month, doing what we can. Some months things have gone on the plastic, some weeks hubby and I have just eaten jacket potatoes! I hope the diary will be what gives me focus and knowledge of our patterns of behaviour etc.
It also became obvious that the debt free journey has started but we will not be making much progress until June. I have said before about being in damage limitation and I think that may remain the case for some time. I think we are realistically only in the position to continue to make minimum payments and to prevent things getting worse, rather than overpaying and clearing debts...for now
Ok, so I will not get downhearted, there is a lot to do and positivity is required. I can continue to watch the bank accounts, meal plan and stop my own spending bad habits, I can declutter and try sell what we don't need, but someone else might. I can focus on all the wonderful things we are achieving.

Today I think we were all really tired after last weeks hectic activities, we have mostly lazed around the house watching TV and resting...it was quite nice. Although there are things to be done tomorrow. Eldest has homework to do and I can make a lovely list (happy sigh) with all the things I want to do while the youngest is at nursery and I have the house to myself.
Hubby got an email from work saying the may need him to go to Portugal at the end of Jan, so could he get a passport! It never rains but it pours. So hubby is going to discuss with work if they will lend him the money and let him pay it back from his wages as we really can't afford it this month.
We also phoned the new 0% CC company are our existing CC have transferred, this made me really happy at least now everything we pay into this will be clearing the debt. Not a NSD as we had run out of milk.
I think tomorrow I will make my list and also a list of everything that is good about our situation, there are actually lots of positives in my life at the moment. I want to be able to focus on those things over these next hard weeks and months

Take care x

Box_of_Fluffies

Well done on posting your SOA. Hopefully you got some useful suggestions from the main forum. My advice is to keep your receipts for a couple of months and write down everything you have spent, then you'll be able to enter an updated SOA with the accurate figures.

Also well done on transferring your CC to a 0% card. That should help quite a bit. Unfortunately there aren't any 0% CC's in NZ, well none that i've found, so we find the lowest rate available. It really does help.

I hope your OH's work will pay for passport and let you pay money back. Shame they can't pay for fully, as without them sending him to Portugal, he wouldn't need to get one. Just a thought.

Keep on thinking positively.

Squirrelly

Very quick update, I am starting to get my exact figures together for next months bills and Feb's budget. It will be a very tough month but the saving grace is its a short one!

Spent some quality time with the children and hubby this weekend and am ready for a good tidy up next week.

It hard work but we can do it x

mizmir

Just saying hi as I have also resolved that 2014 is the year that we will get a grip of our debt mountain. We have tried before but then given up but things are more urgent now as I have taken a drop in income.

Anyway - great new diary - looking forward to following your progress.

Box_of_Fluffies

Very quick update, I am starting to get my exact figures together for next months bills and Feb's budget. It will be a very tough month but the saving grace is its a short one!

Planning is half the battle. When you know what you have coming in / going out and when, life is so much simpler.

It hard work but we can do it x

Loving the positive outlook.