Loads of Debt - Nowhere to turn

Pixie5740

Your income is greater than your expenditure so you should be able to make overpayments to your debts every month. Perhaps you've forgotten to include some things such as the £15,000 you owe to your family.

Your grocery bill is huge, mobile bills are high, landline seems high, birthdays are astronomical and work lunches seem expensive.

NHS_worker_bee

Hi AlmondP,

Please could you put your SOA into here and repost it:

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

It's easier to use on the forum and it adds up the totals for you

nearlyrich

Hello and welcome to DFW you have made a start...


Some bits missing from the SOA how many children do you have?
How many cars and how much is your mortgage payment per month ? if you use the SOA template recommended on that post your read from Southern Scouser we will have a better idea of how to help. One thing that jumps out to me is £600 for groceries there is a lot of scope to cut that right back to essentials and save money for wriggle room... Also one income is £1200 and your childcare is a similar amount tell us more please?

NHS_worker_bee

almondp wrote: »

Ok, here's our household SOA -

MONTHLY INCOME

Monthly Income (After Tax) £4,500
Partner's Monthly Income £1,200
Benefits (Tax Credits) £135

TOTAL Income £5,835

MONTHLY EXPENTIDURE

Council Tax £181.00
Electricity £49.00
Gas £80.00 This seems very high
Water £44.20
Landline £30.00
Mobile/s £90.00 When your contract ends,switch to PAYG/Sim-only contract to save ££s
TV Licence £12.00
Internet £17.99
Groceries £600.00 You can decrease this
Clothing £100.00 This has got to decrease at least in the short term!
Diesel £150.00
Road Tax £12.00
Car Insurance £45.00
Car Maintenance £50.00
Parking £30.00
Other Travel £20.00
Childcare £1,120.00
Child Activites £100.00
B/Insurance £12.00
C/Insurance £12.00
Life Assurance £55.00
Haircuts £20.00
Entertainment £150.00
Sofa on Credit £131.00 When is this finished?
Milkman £9.00
Take-Aways £40.00 Stop these!
Gym Membership £90.00 Woah! Cancel this
AV Streaming £15.98 I don't even know what this is - is it essential?
Equifax £14.95 Cancel this. Use noodle for free. You can sign up for a free Equifax trial again in 6 months. Or if you really don't want to cancel it, phone Equifax and say you are going to cancel it and they will offer you a much cheaper monthly rate to keep you as a customer!
Birthdays £60.00 Be mean - cut this right down!
Bank Charges £100.00
Boiler Cover £20
W-Machine Cover £15 Cancel this: £15 a month x 12 months = £180 a year (enough for a new washing machine if yours breaks anyway, and £180 saved if yours doesn't actually need replacing)
Simply Health £23 What's this?
Work Lunches £100 Start making your own lunch!

TOTAL EXPENDITURE £3,598.77

CREDIT CARDS

Barclaycard -£11,900.00, £285.30 per month (29.9% APR)
Santander -£4,100.00, £36.87 per month (15.9% APR)
MBNA -£8,276.00, £272.00 per month (27% APR)
HSBC (Wife's) -£4,000.00, £40.00 per month (? APR)

TOTAL CC DEBT £28,276.00
Total Monthly CC Repayments £634.17

Hi and welcome

Comment in red - There is a solution and you can do this but you need to be brutal with cutting luxuries. Think how good it will be to be debt free. Short(ish) term sacrifice = long term gain

So just by cancelling the gym, washing machine cover, equifax, take-aways and spending less on birthdays, you can save £200 a month to throw at the debt...start taking your own lunches to work too and that's a total of £300 extra a month to throw at the debt...

As a regular reader of the forum I'm sure this is what you were expecting to hear anyway - it's not going to be fun but it is going to be worth it. And you're in the right place for support when the going gets tough. Best wishes

happy_bunny_2

almondp wrote: »

I don't remember being given the option to close the cards to spending. I just got a letter saying the rate had gone up.

Do you know when this was?

If not, you could find out via a SAR.

You may be able to complain and potentially get some interest back.

almondp

NHS_worker_bee wrote: »

Please could you put your SOA into here and repost it:

SOA reposted -

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

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 4500
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1200
Benefits................................ 135
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 5835

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 780
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 181
Electricity............................. 44
Gas..................................... 57
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 44.2
Telephone (land line)................... 30
Mobile phone............................ 90
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 17.99
Groceries etc. ......................... 600
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 150
Road tax................................ 12
Car Insurance........................... 45
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Car parking............................. 15
Other travel............................ 20
Childcare/nursery....................... 1120
Other child related expenses............ 100
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 12
Contents insurance...................... 12
Life assurance ......................... 55
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 150
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Work Lunches............................ 100
Simply Health........................... 23
Washing Machine Cover................... 15
Boiler Cover............................ 20
Bank Charges (Exceeding overdraft)...... 100
Birthdays............................... 60
Equifax................................. 14.95
Netflix / Spotify....................... 15.98
Gym (2 Memberships)..................... 90
Take-Aways.............................. 40
Milk.................................... 9
Sofa.................................... 131
Total monthly expenses.................. 4276.12


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 90000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 4000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 94000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 141573...(780)......1.34
Total secured & HP debts...... 141573....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Barclaycard....................11900.....285.3.....29.9
Santander......................4100......36.87.....15.9
MBNA...........................8276......272.......27
HSBC (Wife)....................4000......40........22

almondp

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Perhaps you've forgotten to include some things...

Your grocery bill is huge, mobile bills are high, landline seems high, birthdays are astronomical and work lunches seem expensive.

The rest of our outgoings just go on bits and bobs here and there. Lots of little things and not really any larger expenses.

Groceries I admit could be lower. We are a family of 2 adults, 1 four year old and 1 one year old.

Mobile bills - this is 2 phones. As soon as my contract is up I'm going to move to Gif Gaff £10 per month SIM.

Work lunches - the first thing I'm going to tackle! (nice easy one) Going to start bringing in left overs or making sandwiches at home etc.

almondp

nearlyrich wrote: »

Hello and welcome to DFW you have made a start...

Some bits missing from the SOA how many children do you have?
How many cars and how much is your mortgage payment per month ? if you use the SOA template recommended on that post your read from Southern Scouser we will have a better idea of how to help. One thing that jumps out to me is £600 for groceries there is a lot of scope to cut that right back to essentials and save money for wriggle room... Also one income is £1200 and your childcare is a similar amount tell us more please?

Stoozing SOA posted Above.

£600 for groceries - I agree - need to reduce this. I'll speak to my wife - who does all the food shopping.

My wife works at my company 3 days a week. We use her wages to pay for a nanny to look after the 2 kids during those 3 days. Her wage £1200 pretty much ALL goes on the nanny.

We decided on a nanny - as over the course of 1 year it would cost about the same as before-school+after-school+holiday clubs.

In september both kids will be in school and preschool so nanny is going and child care cost will be halved to £600.

almondp

NHS_worker_bee wrote: »

Hi and welcome

Here are more details on those things you asked about -

Gas £80.00 - I logged into NPower, it is actually £57
Mobile/s £90.00 - This is 2 mobiles. When my contract is up I plan on switching to GiffGaff SIM £10 per month
Groceries £600.00 - will work on reducing this. We rarely buy alcohol and have started part-shopping in Aldi.
Sofa on Credit £131.00 per month - this is paid off in September.
Take-Aways £40.00 I need to stop these I agree! But sometimes buying all the ingredients for a nice meal costs the same as a take-away
Gym Membership £90.00 Woah! This is 2 memberships. I will probably cancel mine.
AV Streaming £15.98 This is Netflix and Spotify - I will cancel this asap.
Equifax £14.95 I will cancel.
W-Machine Cover £15 Can’t cancel until the year is up as we have claimed on repairs already.
Simply Health £23 This is health cash-back plan on which we have claimed for homeopathy, physiotherapy, dentist etc.

Pixie5740

almondp wrote: »

The rest of our outgoings just go on bits and bobs here and there. Lots of little things and not really any larger expenses.

Groceries I admit could be lower. We are a family of 2 adults, 1 four year old and 1 one year old.

Mobile bills - this is 2 phones. As soon as my contract is up I'm going to move to Gif Gaff £10 per month SIM.

Work lunches - the first thing I'm going to tackle! (nice easy one) Going to start bringing in left overs or making sandwiches at home etc.

It's those bits and bobs that are preventing you from getting these debts paid off. Try keeping a spending diary, you'll be amazed at how much money you haemorrhage on !!!!!. I find YNAB helpful in making and sticking to a budget as well as tracking all my spending.