SOA - am I doing it right?

matthewking26

I've just received my credit card statement and it says

"From the day after your next statement date, the interest rates applicable to your account shall increase....purchases annual simple rate = 21.708% (effective annual rate 23.9)....cash advances annual simple rate 24.880% (effective annual rate 27.8%)"

I was paying 23.2% interest as most of the balance was from cash advances and now I'll be paying 27.8%!!! Putting my debt free date back from Nov 2010 to Feb 2011 and adding £800 to the debt I'll repay.

Have they done it because we've been steadily reducing the balance and they want to maximise profits? Or has this happened to anyone else recently?

How do you pick yourself up after something like that scuppers your plans. Must look on bright side, it's only an extra 4 months but dammit!

On the plus side, my old mountain bike from my brothers house is going for £28 on ebay. And the babies fully engaged 2 weeks early, so exciting!

And we've found Monday 9pm is the time to go to Asda. A load of bread for 10p each loaf is now filling our freezer and we have 3 bags of £1.18 apples for 10p each filling the fruit bowl and my desk at work!

Spending diary for this month (as we shouldn't need to spend anymore)
£448 onto credit card
£193.10 on food (down from last month)
£67 on petrol

Will try to squeeze the food more in October but the baby is due!
By not spending like morons, the £160 for the car service didn't make life impossible for the month, (though selling ebay things did help)

matthewking26

Quick update. We now have baby Thomas at home with us hooray! 7lb 3 and gorgeous! Credit card down to 6329, getting there!

Jacks_xxx

:hello: :dance: :beer: :j:T Congratulations to you both hon, That's fab news!:T :j :beer: :dance: :hello:


Love Jacks xxx

learning_to_save

Congratulations to you both xx

Robflh

Hi matthewking26

Congratulations on the birth of your son.

If you still have the car and it is not too late, pay for the car insurance monthly. Then when you have sold the car, cancel the insurance and if you get it through www.quidco.com you can get cash back. Do not forget to only get Fire and Theft insurance. If anyone hits your parked car, their insurance will cover you for the repairs, as long as they are insured.

Remember to keep an eye on Freecycle for baby clothes and accessories. You could even put wanted adds on it.

matthewking26

Hi all. Some good news, some bad. The cars still sitting in OH's dads garage as he's working on getting the dents repaired to try and sell it to help us but he's been v busy as his mums in hospital. I'm no longer insured on it but he's added it onto his insurance so he can testdrive/move it when needed.

But theres no rush as he's helped us out hugely by lending me the money to clear the credit card. He's lent me 6200 at 6.2% meaning I will be paying him 6750 or £550 interest at 250 per month. This means instead of HSBC taking £3000 in interest OH's dad will get £550 instead, saving us £2500 and knocking 5 months off the debt free date, hoorah! And he's allowing us up to 3 months payment holidays if we need them in the future.
So now I need to cancel the credit card, evil, evil thing!

This does mean any extra income each month won't be thrown at the credit card, it can be saved to bring forward the loan payoff date and clear the overdraft. Also means no panicked rush in selling the car.

We are now receiving child benefit. An extra £18 pw incoming.

the tax credit people have cancelled my working tax credit whilst they recalculate a family tax credit one, so theres a gap there without that coming in. Bizarrely there is nowhere on the form to tell them my current earnings, only last years so I have to ring them up after my claim has gone through.

And the bad news, the council decided I had a housing benefit overpayment last year of up to £2500 and I have to wait 3 - 4 weeks for a bill. It was due to me telling the council tax people when someone moved in and started paying half the rent but they didn't pass the information on to the housing benefit department. And also them not having record of me telling them about my second job because I did it over the phone and not in writing. And lastly I said when I started getting paid and not when I started working. So I've had 2 interviews under caution (the first one just after getting home from hospital with the baby, not at all a stressful time!!)and they have to decide whether to prosecute for fraud/deception, caution or just reclaim the overpayment. I was paid a total of £2500 and they have to decide whether to ask for it all back or work out how much I should have had and reclaim the rest.

The chap that did the interview was very nice though, he came to the house to save me leaving OH and littlun and suggested we put our name on the council housing list and reapply for housing benefit as a couple (don't know if it'll be worth the stress after this experience though). He also said if we show them our SOA (already prepared thanks to this forum!) when the bill comes they should accept something like £10 per week. He said when applying for any benefits or telling them of changes in circumstances, make sure everything is in writing. I was going to put whatever the bill was on the credit card but as he pointed out, why pay the bank interest for it when the council should accept instalments.

So I have cleared the credit card but have to bite my nails and wait to see if they prosecute me. Still at least Thomas is growing and starting to gurgle!

matthewking26

Updated SOA valid as of Nov 07
Income:
1054 - my pay after tax
500 - partners maternity pay (will go down each month until its around £440 per month)
72 - child benefit
? - tax credit to be resolved

---

1626 - total income

Outgoings
525 rent
196 loan 1
250 loan 2
35 mobile/broadband
10 landline
25 electric/gas
200 food
95 council tax
16 water (paid until apr 08
? - housing benefit overpayment - to be decided
18 - overdraft interest

---

1370 - total outgoing

This month £115 car tax paid out.

Have rung up and cancelled the HSBC credit card
£78.49 in interest was added the day I cancelled it so need to find that to get it to £0 and be rid at last. Have cut it up.
Was accepted for Tesco credit card with £2500 limit so will get points for using that for shopping and pay it off in full each month.
Its 12 months interest free on tesco purchases so if we have a really bad month we could spread the cost of food shopping over 2 months.
Was accepted for ICICI savings account. going to try putting £1 a month in as won't notice it going out but will hopefully get us into the habit of saving.
Accepted for Alliance and Leicester premier direct current account with 0% overdraft for 12 months so will save us the £18 p/m I'm paying on the HSBC account for 12 months, then may need to transfer account elsewhere if overdraft isn't paid off by then.
Then realised I could have got £50 through quidco for applying for account through them, doh! too late now.
Used £8.10 of clubcard vouchers to get a subscription to Practical parenting, hopefully be useful as baby grows! Still leaves us with £60 of vouchers to use by 2009, maybe we could get our first holiday or something similar.
Managed to get an NHS dentist at last, hooray! Only been 9 years since I last had my teeth looked at.

Still a tight financial squeeze each month. Am waiting to see what housing benefit people will ask for back and how much tax credit we'll get. Finding time with newborn baby to list things on ebay is just impossible at the moment. Hopefully soon though!
Have filled in council housing forms, could help in the future if we can get somewhere cheaper through the council.

matthewking26

Council have decided we weren't entitled to anything so have to repay £2632.77 in housing benefit overpayment and £28 in council tax benefit. They've accepted £100 per month but it will still take just over 2 years to clear, has put me off ever applying for anything like that again, not worth the sheer stress and possibility of having to return it all.
Grrrrr.

Robflh

Hi matthewking26

Sorry to hear that you have to pay back a large amount of money.

Housing & council tax benefits or any other benefits are always worth the effort and so, as you have found to your cost, is keeping them informed of ANY changes in your circumstances.

Still looking on the bright side, they are not going to prosecute you for fraud/deception. As I said before, they are more interested in getting the money back.

Assuming you did not, you should have offered them ten pound a month and gradually go up until they agree to an amount. Unlike credit cards and loans, there is no interest added to what you owe them.

Therefore, the less you are paying back each month the more you can pay off the ones that are charging you interest.

Of course it is also true that the more you get in benefits each month the more you can pay off your debts.

Anyhow, now it is all over and done with, you can sleep a little bit better.

matthewking26

Scary how quickly time passes. Littlun is 11 weeks old now! Can hold his head up, coos and grins like mad!
Survived Christmas, spoke to HSBC who suggested I move the loan to my new bank. When I applied though I got turned down . Not sure if thats good or bad! It would have cut monthly payments but put dfd back by six months.
Am going to cancel the 2nd credit card I was given though, as I think it's too tempting for it to sit there and I may end up using it.
Was going to use it to pay off overdraft as it was 0% for 15 months but think I'd be too tempted to spend in overdraft again and be twice as poor in a years time.
Especially as have built up tesco c/c to £397 by paying for Christmas and a difficult December with gas/electric bill.
New bank didn't give me big overdraft though so stuck with two accounts, have given myself goal of clearing the overdraft by this time next year. Fingers crossed!
Am doing daily clicks on about 8 sites to raise a few pence each day, all useful when it starts coming through.
Even took some presents back to the shop so had money to throw at debt instead.
And by budgeting well it meant we could afford 4 days in the dales in February for £100 in a gorgeous converted barn. Cold time of year but bargain price!
Our first holiday ever! Not too much extravagance I hope, especially as littlun has been quite a colicky baby and is just starting to settle more. Quite a few sleepless nights!

Current SOA:
In:
1054 - My pay
650 - Maternity pay (until July)
123 working tax cred (will go down in April)
264 child tax cred
72 child benefit

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2163 Total

Out
525 Rent
95 Council tax
196 Loan 1
250 Loan 2
100 Housing benefit overpayment
35 Phone/broadband
20 Overdraft interest
200 Food
50 Petrol
10 Landline
10 Gas
10 Electric

---

1501 Total

Aim to use surplus to clear Tesco C/C then reduce overdraft.

Goal for 2008
Clear entire overdraft, then decide whether to close HSBC account entirely.
Obstacles:
1 Moving rental accomodation, cost approx £1500 if/when it happens
2 Not getting £600 deposit back.
3 Overspending on littlun

Goals for January:
1 Put Moses basket and newborn/0-3 months baby clothes on ebay.
2 No takeaways.
3 Complete daily clicks at least 5 days a week
4 Cancel 2nd credit card