another credit card or loan which one!

SarahNeedle1872

glitzy wrote: »

My husbands friends watch footie up the pub so its 6 of 1 half a dozen of the other, plus with summer hols my daughter can watch sky, anything for a quiet life!

My husband only has a bench and weights, which cost £30 (i shopped around). I think he should give the gym up and go running.

Going to do my SOA next week, looking forward to it - keep me busy out of the shops!

We are only paying for the 3 of us to go to Orlando.

Anyway off to work now, everyone else sleep well. x

Good luck with the SOA glitzy...

Sarah x

Robflh

Hi glitzy

Can you amend your SOA (your first post) and put all the minimum payments for the credit cards in the outgoings. Along with petrol, car tax, insurance, food and anything else you pay for. Things like petrol and food can be put as an average for each month.

Anything that you pay for in one go each year, like car insurance, divide the amount you paid for it by twelve and then put this monthly figure in with your other outgoings. Sorry if I am teaching you to such eggs.

This makes it easy for everyone, including you, to see in one place what you have coming in and going outgoing out.

For the credit cards can you put what the credit limit is for each of them as well as the APR and their current balance.

glitzy

thanks for that robflh, for a new debt free wannabe like myself, it helps when you explain, as it will not take as long to work out. In a strange way im looking forward to it as i like working with figures.

Robflh

Hi glitzy

If you like working with figures, you are going to love this one.

I will assume you know what a spreadsheet is and how to create one in Excel or whatever software you are using and that you know how to get columns and rows totaled up automatically.

In row five, enter Jan in to column C and Feb into the next column. Select Jan & Feb and then place the cursor on the bottom right corner. While holding down the left mouse, drag the corner across to column N and then let go of the mouse.

In column B, starting in row 6 and then working your way down Column B put the name of each of your outgoings. Start off with the ones you payout for on the same date each month and from the beginning of the month. In column A, put what the date is, the number will do just fine.

A few rows after all the outgoings put Total Out in column C. Two rows further down start to put the title for each of your incomes, followed by Total In

Now you can fill in the spreadsheet. For each outgoing and incomings, enter what month it is paid.

If you pay the car insurance for the whole year in March, then that month will have what you paid for the insurance and all the other months will have nothing in them.

Shopping is the same average every month. Type what that is into Jan and in Feb type (=Crow number) without the brackets. Now copy Feb all the way across to Dec. This will save you having to change all the months if you change how much the average food bill is each month.

My TV License is paid Quarterly, so I enter what I pay for each month into the first month I paid it and then for the other three month I type (=column number row number) of the first payment.

My water rates are paid over ten months and the first month (April) is often different to the rest, so I enter what it is for April and then I enter what it is for May. Then I copy May across to Dec. Jan I have to put in manually. Feb & March have 0 in them.

You have Child Benefit and I would guess that it is paid like my Incapacity Benefit, every two weeks. As you may or may not know, some months have four Fridays and some have Five. When most people were paid weekly that meant they were paid four weeks wages for eight months and five weeks wages for four months.

If your CB is paid fortnightly, you will have two payments most months but every six months you will have three payments. You need to look at a calendar to find out when that happens and put the extra payment into the correct months.

Your SOA is an average for each month regardless of when it is paid and what you are going to do is called a Cash flow. It shows exactly how the money is coming in and going out each month.

You will see at a glance if you have too many things being paid for in the same month. An example would be Road Tax, Car Insurance and an MOT all being paid for in the same month.

Paying the road tax for six months and then yearly from then on will put it six month away from the Car Insurance.

Another classic one would be Gas Electric and Phone. When you moved into your new home, they would all start in the same month and this would mean having to find a large amount every three months. Fortunately, these days they can all be paid monthly.

There are always items that you cannot budget for, like a packet of crisps or shoelaces. These items pop up here and there and because of that, it is difficult to put them in to the Cash Flow.

In business these things are paid for out of the petty cash and the petty cash can be put in the cash flow as an average amount each month, just like the food bill each month. Each transaction is written in what is called the petty cash book and totaled up each month. On here, I think it is called a spending diary.

Whether you call it spending money, petty cash or anything else, it most be recorded in the Cash Flow but once you know how much it is each month, again it can be an average for each month.

If I have missed anything or you are not sure about anything, just post it and I will try to explain it better.

glitzy

Thanks for all that im glad i had only 1 glass of wine when i read that. That was what my problem was going to be, i was going to autosum every column every month but if i can fill across totals it will be so much easier - my friend normally helps but i want to do it now, so cheers.
:beer:

glitzy

hi Robflh, have just done spreadsheet, but what is the equation i have to put in the Totals Out row to total out the columns? How do i transfer it from my spreadsheet to this forum or do i just type it out manually? I dont want much! By the way your instructions were spot on.
:T

Robflh

Hi glitzy

Do the totals in column C for Total Outgoings and for Total Income and then you can copy them from Jan all the way across to Dec. That way you do not have to type in the equation for each total.

To add up columns enter this into the total outgoings in column C.

=SUM(first cell:last cell) ie =SUM(C6:C19) will add up the values in C6 to C19.

Put =SUM(C6:N6) into O6 and you have the total that item cost you for a year. Copy it down column O to get the total per year for each item.

There is another equation at the bottom of each column and that is Income minus Outgoings.

If you wish to you can put another set of equations in column P. Put (=O6/12) into P6 and copy it to the others. This will be the average per month for each Item (SOA).

Once you have completed the Cash Flow you will see how the money you have left each month varies but you should always have something left each month.

If not, you need to keep money back from the months before it, so that you have enough to cover that month. If possible, move payments around.

There is no need to transfer the Cash Flow to the forum, it is just for your eyes. As yet I have not found a way to copy sections of a spread sheet or a spread sheet to the forum, so the SOA will have to be done manually.

Well I am off to bed but happy calculating.

glitzy

Thanks Robflh, i can whizz through now and hopefully update my SOA by tom. I had a LBM this morning, how about having a holiday break with my Mortgage for 3 mths (if they let me), as that is the amount i need - £1000 to pay off overdraft and £1200 to pay for holiday by 6th Sept!!!!

Robflh

Hi glitzy

I have herd of people taking Mortgage Holidays but I do not know anything about them nor do I know anyone that has had one.

When you ask your mortgage lender about it, also ask them if it will affect your credit report and or credit rating.

When you have finished the Cash Flow, save it as Cash Flow and then save it again using the save as option and call it Cash Flow 2007.

From the first day in August, keep your receipts for food & petrol. At the end of the month total up your food & petrol and then amend the figures in Cash Flow 2007 for August.

This will give you a true representation of what is going out each month. It will also help you to check that you are managing to stay within your food & petrol budgets.

Remember Column P will show you the average you are paying each month, so you can spend more then your food budget one month and less the next. The average will still be less then your monthly food budget.

As soon as you post your amended SOA people will look at it to see how and where you can save money. They will also look to see how you can raise £1,200 to pay for your holiday.

Robflh

Hi glitzy

I just remembered something you said.

glitzy wrote: »

That is where our problem lies, as we live off fresh air! Petrol, car tax, ins etc is not included. I tend to shop around for those and it is always cheaper to pay in full rather than monthly, so our Amex card takes a battering but we always pay it off.

If you spend £300 on the Amex card in a month and at the end of the month, you pay that off, you need to add £300 to your cash flow as an income for that month.

Any interest you pay for that month on the Amex card must be put down as an outgoing. Otherwise, your figures will not add up.