SOA - am I doing it right?

Robflh

Hi matthewking26

Use the Tesco card for food and petrol, pay at least the minimum on the card each month. Then use the food and petrol money to pay £200 a month off the overdraft. Tell the bank to reduce you overdraft limit by £200 a month.

That way, you cannot build up the overdraft again and once you have cleared the overdraft you can close one of the bank accounts.

With the overdraft out of the way, you can then payoff as much as you can each month from the Tesco card. From then on use the card each month but pay off the balance each month. That will keep it a live ready for an emergency and you never know when they are going to happen. If you do not regularly use a credit card it will die. I lost a £10,000 credit card for just that reason.

As soon as the Tesco card is cleared, you can pay as much as you can each month off the Family loan. You cannot do that with a standard loan but you can with the Family loan (hopefully).

Keeping_Positive

Matthewking26

Have you heard of the sure start grant? If your getting tax credits you can claim £500 before baby Thomas is 3 months old.

Have a look its an easy form to fill in and well worth it: http://www.surestart.gov.uk/surestartservices/support/helpwithchildcarecosts/maternitygrant/

matthewking26

Well time flies. Littlun is 17 weeks old today! We move into new house at the beginning of March but had to find £650 deposit, £550 first months rent and £200 reference fees. It's further from work (small village) so I may need to use the car again but much nicer house with actual carpets, a garden and unbroken windows for littlun to start crawling in.And only £25 more per month than we're paying now (properties same size in the city are around £650/700 pm)
Might be able to ride to work each day but would be 90 minutes each way. Moneysaving of no petrol, tax, insurance and parking costs versus setting off at 7am each day and not getting home until 6pm in all weathers, tough decision!

The only way to pay for it was super balance transfer from the virgin cc into our current account.
So as things stand I will owe £2300 on Virgin CC at 0% until March next year.
The overdraft is clear as part of the cc money paid off that (can transfer back if not sorted by the time 0% runs out.)
Texco cc at £0. Only going to use for any Tesco shopping.
The £1200 for the new house has to be a bankers draft with a charge from HSBC of £15.

It should leave me somewhere between £500 and £1200 to put in my high interest current account or savings account to earn interest in the meantime. (depends on how much of our £625 deposit we get back when we move out) This can then sit there for the rest of the year. Am proud of clearing O/D but not very as its now on a cc.

The nailbiters will be when OH maternity pay finishes at end of June, if she goes back to work we'll have to pay for childcare and have 2 cars between us again. But if she stays at home mum we'll have £500 less per month to live on. Would she be entitled to any benefits if not working voluntarily I wonder? And in April when they recalculate the working and family tax credit that will probably go down too with my full time work.

So the loans are slowly going down, as is the housing benefit overpayment, we owe on a credit card again but at 0% until next year and will be earning interest instead of paying it onto overdraft or cc.

It was bizarre, went into HSBC to arrange bankers draft, to be told I should keep the £1200 in the high interest account until the day before we move in as we can earn interest on it in the meantime which should more than cover the £15 fee for the bankers draft. Never been in a bank before with someone who told me how to earn interest rather than how much interest I am going to be paying them! I quite liked that feeling. The bank giving me free money, not like in the past when I thought a credit card was a bank giving me free money!

One question for the future, when my broadband and mobile package expires in August (costing £35 pm at the mo) do I get the sky £16 pm package with sky tv, broadband and landline (if the price is the same as now and quidco still do £130 cashback) or try to find cheaper standalone broadband? I'm worried if I try to just live with dialup internet I'll end up paying more in phone bills for the pay per use aspect of it.

We got the £500 surestart grant, hoorah! Very useful. Thanks to all who suggested applying. Got first quidco payment of £12 this month and managed to win £200 with the free bingo bonuses on my and OH card, even won £80 for my mum with bingo bonuses on her card. Have used them all up now though. Fun while it lasted but blimey, bingo is dull to watch, wouldn't have done it if I wasn't getting paid for it lol!

SOA (vague) until we're in new property and confirm things:

In
1064 - my pay
450 - oh maternity pay
72 child benefit
264 family tax cred
121 working tax cred
----
1971 - total in

Out:
550 rent
250 loan 1
196 loan 2
100 cc payment - will try to overpay to clear b4 Mar 09
100 housing benefit overpayment
? council tax (was £95 pm)
? water (was 16 pm)
?electric/gas (was 30 pm)
35 mobile/broadband - stuck until Aug 08
10 landline rental
200 food (including baby milk/nappies)

---

1441 - total out (with ??? to add on) and obviously final bills for things in current house, though hopefully will get some council tax and water back for March as they're paid for until April.

Any more ideas for cutting back/earning more?

Robflh

Hi matthewking26

It looks like things are going good for once and you got the Tesco Card.

Compared to the cost of running a car, a push bike is very cheap to run but a moped or motorbike will still cost less then a car and get you there and back in about the same time as a car would.

Can you get a lift to work and contribute to the cost of their fuel.

One provider for your home & mobile phone, broadband and possibly TV should be cheaper then getting them separately. Not forgetting to allow for any cashback from Quidco.

For TV, you can always have Freeview instead but get a box with a hard disk and two tuners. Then you can pause and rewind live TV. You can also record programs to watch later and even watch a recorded program while the box is recording another program.

What is the credit limit on the Tesco card and the Virgin Card?
When did you get the Tesco Card?

matthewking26

Will see if anyone else is going to work but its a small village so might not happen.
Not sure if OH would want me on a moped/motorbike, I crash often enough on a pushbike!

The Tesco card has a £2500 limit, I got it in November. Owe nothing on it, mainly got it for clubcard points and for the 56 day interest free section (the 3 month 0% on purchases has run out). The Virgin card has a £2500 limit (0% on balance transfers until March 09).

Robflh

Hi matthewking26

If you get a motor mike, make sure she has plenty of life insurance on you and that she is not too handy with a spanner.

I have just looked at the Tesco website to double check and they have two credit cards. The standard Club point credit card and the Bonus Credit card.

Both have a three months 0% purchase offer but they also have 0% for thirteen months on TESCO purchases and balance transfers. That means you can use the Tesco card for all your shopping and if need be fuel for a vehicle, yours and or the OH’s.

Each month, pay the minimum on each card and put away as much as you can in to a high interest account. These normally require you to pay a minimum amount each month and for you to give 30, 60 or even 90 days notice, so in an emergency you would use a credit card and then pay off the credit card in 30, 60 or 90 days time.

Unfortunately, the order that payments are allocated to the debts on a credit card, means any overpayment is first paid off the debt with the lowest interest rate.

If you have £2,000 @ 0% and you buy a new washing machine from Comet for £300. You will have £2,000 @ 0% and £300 at say 20%. If you pay an extra £300 off the credit card next month, the extra £300 is deducted from the £2,000 and not the £300. The only way to remove the £300 would be to pay £2,300.

Therefore, your emergency credit card would have to be a third card that currently has nothing on it, which I believe you no longer have. In which case, you will need to get a third credit card. You must use the emergency one each month or it will die from lack of use but pay it off in full every month.

The money you put away each month will be earning about 6% per year. As long as the interest you are paying on the Tesco & Virgin cards is less then 6%, you put the money away and pay the minimum on those two credit cards.

A couple of months before the Tesco 0% runs out apply for the two credit cards that have the longest 0% offers and if you get them transfer as much as you can. Use the high interest account to pay off any money left on either the Virgin or the Tesco credit card and kill them both. After a period of time, you will be considered a new customer and would therefore qualify for any new customer offers.

When there is enough money in the HIA and you still have long 0% offers, pay off the smallest of the two loans. Remember, paying off a loan early will mean you paying back less. So do not forget to ask the loan company for an early settlement figure.