MrsHubbard's diary - a year for change.

mrshubbard

Hiya. I joined this forum, a few years ago I think it was, but stupidly didn't really commit and my money situation hasn't really changed - if anything our debts have gone up. This year I'm determined to stick to it and make a big dent in the debt.

Both my husband and myself have credit cards and overdrafts plus a car payment. The SOA and debts I will be focusing on will be mine though. If some of the outgoings seem high or if somethings missing it's because it is just what comes out of my bank. My husband gives me £100 a month which makes our payments on everything split evenly between us. We take it in turns to pay for food shopping.

I think this time I will persevere as we have the motivation of hoping to be expecting a little un this year or next with some luck

So here we go:-

My debts ( I will put these in my sig & update monthly so I can see them going down )
Credit card - £7328 - I have just balance transferred 2 cards onto this so the majority is interest free until June 2015
Overdraft - £987 ( usually up to limit of £1000 at end of each month)
Mortgage - £78080 ( house is worth prob £95000 ) £390 behind
Car - need to save £6000 for 3 years time to pay it off, I will have money coming in then if needed but would rather not use that.

Positive bits of my finances -
2 savings plans through work - one finishes at 40, one at 60 but would lose out if I cashed them early. I need to work out if it works out better to pay off my debts.
Shares - can't cash them for 3 years. Worth about £3000 at the moment.
Good work pension plan.
Owed £160 from my bro, hopefully will get it this month.
Due back pay at work - roughtly £300
Me & hubby getting pay rise soon.

Things I've done already - started meal planning & using stuff we've got in, done a budget, clearing clutter to sell/give to charity.

I'll do a SOA tomorrow

Eyebright

Hi MrsHubbard! I joined the forums a couple of years ago too, and foolishly didn't make the most of it! I then returned with my tail between my legs with more debts and panicking about Christmas! I've got my focus back and like you have created a diary and put my debts on my siggy to help motivate me to clear my debts!

Trying for a little un sounds like a great motivating factor, fingers crossed for you both!

Well done on BT for CC's, thats my job for this weekend! Other things I've done to free up more cash, is sort out B+C insurance, switch from Sky to Virgin, remortgaged, and in May will go to a cheaper phone contract. I'm sure there was more but can't remember atm lol! Ooh check on best deal for gas and leccy!

Well done, for taking the first step, will subscribe to your diary xx

mrshubbard

Thank you

I want to swap from sky to virgin too but hubby's not keen. I need to research what channels he would still get and try to persuade him, either that or try haggling, unfortunately they won't deal with me as it's in his name & he doesn't like haggling.

Looking at insurance is my job for next week. Have just renewed my car so I know that's ok but have been letting all my others just automatically renew which I know is a big no no. Need to do some serious researching. I really need to look at my different life/critical illness, etc insurances. I took them out with my mortgage and don't know what they're even for anymore! Not massively expensive but it adds up if I don't need them or I could get them cheaper combined.

Have just got hubby to send meter readings so we know where we are with gas & leccy. Have been paying less as we were in credit so need to check we're not underpaying at the moment.

In good news I got a free lunch at work when someone didn't want their butty. Also my bro's home next weekend & is bringing a cheque for £160 he owes me from last June. In bad news I found I'm £700 more in debt than I thought One of my balance transfers hadn't gone through so I've £700 on another credit card that's not interest free. They sent a letter saying they didn't have enough info to complete the transaction? I will ring them Monday and sort it out.

Off to do my SOA now

Eyebright

My OH is exactly the same as yours, Sky in his name (the only bill that is I might add :rotfl:), and hates haggling. We did some research though and pretty much all the Sky channels are on Virgin, sports and movies etc, if you want them in your package. We haven't bothered with the sports channels, as OH only needs Eurosport and now BT sports (which you get anyway with virgin without paying extra) to watch his beloved motorbike racing. We also opted out of the movie channals as we could never find any we like! Instead we joined netflix for £5.99 a month (cheaper than paying for movie channels), which you can watch on a dedicated channel on Virgin. Now we can take our pick from 1000's of movies and TV series we actually want to watch! I think the only channels I've noticed missing are Sky Atlantic, and the shopping channels QVC etc...

You are doing fabulously though! With insurances though, check on comparison websites for the best deals, then if you can find that insurance company on a cashback website such as quidco or topcashback. Should still get the same cheap deal, saving you money and chances are get cashback as well, making it work out even cheaper for you once the cashback has tracked. I did this for the first time with the cats pet insurance, few months back! £60 for the year to insure kitty and am getting £120 cashback (once it has tracked, which can take a few months)! So that's next years paid for as well :rotfl::rotfl:

Hood luck with your SOA, always such as eye opener for me.

Squirrelly

Hi Mrs Hubbard, good luck, I have subscribed x

mrshubbard

Hope this works! My SOA -

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,347.67
Bonus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.67
Partners wage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,233.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile phones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
TV licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Electricity & gas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.00 ( I thought we were still on low payments but after being in credit amount was left low for too long so been paying it back for last few months, should go down soon - just sent meter readings today )
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.34
Council tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83.33
Home insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35.47
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418.00
Mortgage life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.41
Life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.96
Food and household shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216.67
Sky,phone,internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.40

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.33
Car tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.66
Car insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84.40
Car maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 ( my car is no MOT & free service for 3yrs )

Debt Repayments

Credit card repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250.00
Hire purchase repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Car loan repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297.00

Savings & Investments

Regular saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 ( I'd like to put this to paying off debt but hubby really wants to build up an emergency fund )

Family

Pet food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Pet insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.32
Pet injections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.17
Pet grooming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.00

Entertainment

Cinema/Theatre trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.50 ( we go very rarely )
Eating out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 ( both our families have a tradition of big family birthday meals out so this is a luxury but it's the only thing we really spend on ourselves )

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Optical bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.66
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00


Big One-Offs

Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38.33
Summer holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.33
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38.33

Odds & Sods

Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.00
Lottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,597.33


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,137.74

mrshubbard

Looking at that things seem quite healthyish. I think our problem has been we got massively into debt when OH was made redundant 4 times in 2 years. We prob didn't get the help we could have as all bills, mortgage, house was in my name so didn't think to ask. Plus we kept spending and treating ourselves as we did before. He's had a full time job for 3 years now but we've stuck our heads in the sand and thought - we've money spare each month so lets treat ourselves - rather than chucking it at the debts. We've both been guilty of seeing our overdrafts and credit card limits as money available to spend instead of trying to avoid using them No more!

I've already found an energy tariff £8 a month cheaper than ours so once we've got the balance from our current provider we can sort out switching.

We're keeping a record of what we spend on all food/drinks/household stuff this month as £50 a week is a guess really. I am good at making up meals from bits and bobs so am pretty confident I can reduce this. We really need to meal plan as what we throw away is just silly.

My hubby has remembered some car stuff that's been in the attic to sell for ages, he's gonna photo it & stick it on ebay soon. Plus we've got clothes we don't wear, books we don't read, dvds, etc, etc....

Any other suggestions will be gratefully received thanks for reading.

Eyebright

Your SOA looks pretty good to me Mrs Hubbard! Your water bill is so low! Only one that looks a bit high is your Home Insurance. But as you said earlier you just kept renewing automatically, so if you can get that sorted you will be onto a winner!

Also I agree with hubby, having an emergency fund is always a good thing to have. Otherwise if any unexpected spends crop up they end up bunged on the CC, or put you into your overdraft.

mrshubbard

I didn't realise my house insurance was high until I looked at other people's SOAs, definitely the priority for next week Thanks Eyebright.

Went shopping today after meal planning & writing a list which we stuck to for a change! We may go slightly over budget this month as we ate out a few times & had a takeaway when we were in a can't be assed cooking mood after the Xmas/New Year hecticness. We've decided to get in a few bits n bobs for the freezer ( we don't usually have ready made stuff ) in case we want an easy tea so at least we're not spending on pub food/takeaway. We spent £35.78 today which will see us to Saturday but we'll have stuff left over from this weeks shop to use in meals next week. Compare that to £59.44 we spent over the last 3 days due to eating out & not planning! £121.75 left in this months food budget.

Eyebright

Your food budget is looking a lot healthier than mine this month Mrs Hubbard! I'm failing spectaculalry due to not planning for Christmas and New Year. Still, next year WILL be different...

mrshubbard

Payday tomorrow :j Can't wait to go bargain hunting for food!

It's my hubby's birthday in a few weeks & I have a list of stuff he wants to pick from, I love buying presents for people and will always get that little bit more than I mean to - this time I have a budget & am sticking to it, going to do more internet searching than usual though to see what I can get for my money.