Working towards being debt free and a new house.

dipdap

Morning diary
One of the kids is obsessed with Hamilton the musical, so I tried to book tickets at lunchtime when they went live.
Tried different dates and was first offered tickets for £37 odd near the back up in the Gods. Probably should have booked them but don't think they'd have seen a lot from up there!
Tried different dates but to no avail, I can't justify paying £100 each for 2 people to go see a show. I would buy the mid range ones at £57 odd but they were sold out already :mad:
Hopefully I don't have a miserable teenager on my hands tonight.
Will put the saving towards our Disneyland trip
I'm off to the travel agents to go see what price they quote me

Hey Abba :wave: I agree, we have plenty of time ahead of us and hopefully we can do a payment plan with the agents (I know they offer one)

dipdap

Morning diary
Holiday is booked :j
Costing us an arm and a leg though :mad:
Deposit was over £300 and then there's a payment each month of £200 starting March and ending before Christmas (so at least it's all paid up for the end of the year).
Got to add on top the half board option which is only available to book and pay in a couple of months but that's £700 alone :eek:
You kind of have your hands tied with that as they no longer give you free breakfast in the hotels :mad:
But we're staying in the resort and the older kids are excited already despitethere being over a year until we go :rotfl:
Luckily we've got this years holiday to look forward to first

Better schedule me and OH some overtime for the next year!

dipdap

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 4
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 540
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1900
Benefits................................ 208
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2648

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 900
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 110
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 165
Electricity............................. 70
Gas..................................... 30
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 25
Telephone (land line)................... 15
Mobile phone............................ 27
TV Licence.............................. 13
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 25
Groceries etc. ......................... 400
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 150
Road tax................................ 5
Car Insurance........................... 50
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 45
Car parking............................. 50
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 30
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 12
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 10
Contents insurance...................... 5
Life assurance ......................... 150
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Haircuts................................ 30
Entertainment........................... 50
Holiday................................. 190
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Lottery................................. 18
Boxing.................................. 33
Sports club............................. 25
Dance club.............................. 52
Total monthly expenses.................. 2785


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 250000
Shares and bonds........................ 9000
Car(s).................................. 12000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 271000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 163000...(900)......3
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 5500.....(110)......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 168500....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Vcard..........................6670......60........0
Bcard..........................1300......20........0
Total unsecured debts..........7970......80........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,648
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,785
Available for debt repayments........... -137
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 80
Amount short for making debt repayments. -217

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 271,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -168,500
Total Unsecured debt.................... -7,970
Net Assets.............................. 94,530

:eek: this does not look good!
In need of much tweaking (and overtime!)

dipdap

Hello diary
Well I took a deep breath and did a quick SOA (shown above obviously )
I've since noticed it's missing a couple of things so figured I'd jot them down here and add them in when I recalculate.

Arts club £5 pw in term time only.
Vaping £30 pm - smoking seems such a distant memory!
Driving lessons £125 pm

Self employed income is also missing as it's so variable.

Need to have a good think over the weekend as to how we can balance everything

dipdap

Good morning diary.
Well today I've had a LBM and I feel like I've been hit by a train!
I'm petrified of writing out a new SOA because I don't want to read what it has to say.
I haven't written my base salary on the SOA, I've included overtime (I'm contracted a few hours a week and have been trying to do 15 hours flexi overtime a week since I started this new job) - my base salary after deductions is due to go down to nearly zero (I have savings and other deductions that come out of my wages)
I think I've become complacent and forgotten that overtime doesn't last forever (when I came to the new job I was told I'd be offered overtime first and getting it wouldn't be a problem - manager has now gone - me and new manager don't exactly see eye to eye).
I've applied for a new job (7 hours a week, different hours to what I'm currently contracted), interview is on Wednesday
OH says I'm better than my job and I think he'd be happy if I applied for an office job (I very nearly did recently) but my current job fits around the kids and school run and the flexibility works well for us.
I need to pull my head out of the sand and write up a brutally honest SOA.
I'm sure there's places we can reign it in a bit. It's going to be a tight year this year.
Maybe that holiday we've now booked wasn't such a good idea!
Big deep breath, cup of tea and walk away from laptop for half an hour, then come back and re-read everything that has just tumbled out on here and hopefully the world won't come to an end!

dipdap

Well 3 cups of tea, a long bout of crying and a catch up on Eastenders and I now feel much better
Will re-write the SOA over the weekend.
I think child benefit stops the August after they leave school so that figure should be just under £60 a month higher until then.
We're currently paying back HMRC £50 for over payments of tax credits and that should come to an end in April (but I forgot to include that on the SOA so that cancels that out)
Council tax payments don't start again until April.
The mortgage is currently set to over pay by £100 a month so that could always be dropped back down again.
OH bonus comes in at the end of March but that's expected to be really low.
Electricity and gas is calculated each month so goes down over the Summer. The figure on the SOA is based on the worst month (usually January)
Survey income isn't calculated on here. I currently get paid in visa gift cards I then use to pay my landline and internet bill.
I also haven't included the savings jar we have in the kitchen (mainly because it's sealed, I only have a rough idea of what's in there and it's there for absolute emergencies)
I've also missed OH union payments each month
Our assets figure is too high because I've forgotten to add the HTB on as a second debt on the house.

So, what is my current plan of action.

1 - Reign in the spending a bit more.
Luckily nearly all the direct debits come out on the 1st of the month so they won't bounce. I might contact the last remaining ones that appear later in the month and get them moved.
Also might see what I can do with the groceries figure. Might have a bit of wiggle room there.
Life insurance includes critical illness cover which is why it's so high. Don't think there's much I can do with that.

2 - Concentrate on earning extra
Looks like I need to up my game on my self employed income.
I've had a week or so off work and have lacked any motivation to do anything towards this

3 - Lose weight!
Nothing to do with my SOA but I stood on the wii fat yesterday and I now weigh 15st 9lb :eek:
I was a good girl yesterday and had no biscuits or chocolates!
Must keep up the good work

Right - big deep breath again.
Everything will be fine, there's still time to turn this around

dipdap

Hello diary
I'm much calmer today after my meltdown yesterday
Spoke to OH about what was worrying me and we've worked out things are going to be tight for about 9 months (start of March to end of November) which actually makes things much easier for me to get my head around (I'll treat it like a 9 month countdown to Christmas )
We've hopefully got bonuses coming in on and off over the next few months which should help out a little bit (keeping fingers crossed they're good figures).
Also there is still always the option of putting the holiday we've booked on the credit card at 0% (which is a very last resort for me - it's right up there with using my overdraft!)
Big deep breath, things will be OK. We've got a month to bring in some extra cash to give us a buffer before things start to get tough
Let the belt tightening commence.

abba1772

Glad your hubby came to the rescue and provided fresh eyes to your finances sometimes it does help seeing someone else's point of view xx

dipdap

Hello diary
Cheered myself up today, weighed myself on the wii fat and I've lost 2 lbs :eek:
I've been a bit naughty over the weekend and have had a few choccies and some biscuits but it's an improvement in the junk food I've been eating non stop for ages.
Would be nice to get down below 15st by he end of the month

abba1772

dipdap wrote: »

Hello diary
Cheered myself up today, weighed myself on the wii fat and I've lost 2 lbs :eek:
I've been a bit naughty over the weekend and have had a few choccies and some biscuits but it's an improvement in the junk food I've been eating non stop for ages.
Would be nice to get down below 15st by he end of the month

Well done keep it going you can do it xx