SOA (copied from diary) 27 February 2015 at 3:45PM in Debt-free wannabe 5 replies 1.2K views

Miami

:hello:

I've quoted my SOA from my diary (to save retyping/reformatting) to see if anyone has advice -- realised posting in this subforum might be a better option after posting in the diary thread :doh:

Miami wrote: »

Finally got around to my SOA. It's not perfect, but I've added notes that should clarify things If anyone is willing to give some advice, I'd appreciate it very much

Statement of Affairs

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595.83
Benefits (PIP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329.33
Benefits (Housing Benefit). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319.37

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home
Mobile phones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.28 Currently fixed into a 24 month contract ending sometime in 2016, but negotiated 50% discount with phone company (it's for an iPhone 5S) and will look at sim-only deals after expiration
TV licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.95
Home phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Included with home broadband
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 The law of averages says £40, but I'd rather overestimate and pot the rest instead of panicking if it goes slightly over like it did this month (£42 and pennies)
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 South West Water have lost my meter information :rotfl: Cannot pay without knowing amount to pay
Council tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.00
Home insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 None at present but need to take out policy ASAP :eek:
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495.00
Insurance for freezer and washing machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.80 Also includes an annual service; both last 5 years and only 10 monthly payments then it's sorted -- paid 1/10
Optical bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.58

Motoring & Public Transport
Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Mother is paying for this for the first year as she's impressed with my first five months of savings / sensible purchases of savings
Car insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Parents paying for the first year, same reason as above
Car maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Rail/Buses/Taxis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.67 :eek:
Breakdown cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,244.53

Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681.28

Underspend: £563!! :eek:

TV = Communal terrestrial aerial is rubbish in my flat, I keep getting an extremely blurry picture. Considered getting a freesat/Sky box secondhand or in a deal but the communal satellite aerial isn't installed in my flat :mad: While that's being sorted out, no TV-related costs

Bus = Am eligible for concessionary bus pass but keep putting it off, looking at the amount I spend as a maximum though I'm off to the county hall first thing next week :eek:

Internet = Currently tied into iPad sim-only contract, despite the fact I get no signal in my flat :mad: (Took contract out while living at mum's where I get a 4G signal) However, will cancel when it expires in June, and use the money currently budgeted for iPad to save for paying next year's broadband line rental upfront :A

Motoring = Car won't be paid off until the end of the month, then father is borrowing it for a month or two, so won't know what petrol costs are until I actually get it. Will need to take out breakdown cover this month though Parking should be free -- work's car park don't charge and not planning to drive in town, although if I should need to, my dad works in town and his work reimburses car park fees

Food and pet expenses = As I don't have a consistent budget each month (spend fortune stocking freezer and cupboards and pennies on daily essentials eg milk, teabags, biscuits, while working through the lot, top up when cupboards are bare) I just spend using the money that hasn't been allocated to bills etc. Which probably explains how I'm always broke :rotfl:

Debt = No consistently monthly plan atm

FINANCIAL TO-DO LIST:
-Apply for concessionary bus pass
-Take out home insurance
-Take out breakdown cover
-Work on plan to pay off catalogue debt

Any other suggestions?

asparagus1968

oops, I've replied on diary instead of here,sorry

Sazzie23

Hi Miami

Two points, first - Can you list your debts as well so we can have a lol at the best way to hit them ?

Second - food and incidental spends are a massive part of any budget. If you are not sure, look back at the past week and add up everything you spend in categories of food shopping, food spends out of the house, & other shopping and then multiply by 4.2 for a monthly average. And if you can make yourself do a spend diary for a month or two to see exactly where the money is going it will help you make a proper debt busting plan.

Do you really need a car if you can access public transport cheaply ?

LittleMissGiggles123

I know you have said that your mum is paying your car tax & insurance etc but you should budget for it anyway because you said she's only paying it for the first year it so it will then be down to you. If you start budgeting now & put that money in a savings account you should hopefully then have enough to just pay it upfront.

Also your water, you should start setting aside money for this in case they suddenly hit you with a bill. Even if they don't backdate the bill, they will start charging you soon enough.

rising_from_the_ashes

I've read what you've said about food etc BUT you've answered your own question by saying this could partly explain why you're often broke!

However, you do it (whether it's shopping daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly etc), you need to budget for it and put money aside

Same for the water bill - what are you going to do when they say you owe £x amount? You need to put money aside for this, even £20 / month so it's there when needed and it will either pay what's owed or go towards it

Why are you not paying for a TV licence?

You need to get home insurance ASAP as you've said

Who are you with that you pay £1.95 / month for phone & broadband?

Council Tax seems very low? Do you get benefit to cover part of this?

Car costs - read your comments but you still need petrol - and to put money aside to cover next years tax and insurance - and servicing / repairs

You've got a big underspend which is great BUT there's a lot of stuff missing from the SOA so until you add these in you're really not going to get a true picture

Miami

Thank you everyone for your replies

Hi Miami

Two points, first - Can you list your debts as well so we can have a lol at the best way to hit them ? Approximately £440 for a catalogue (don't have the paperwork to hand right now) and £465 owed to the Bank of Dad.

Second - food and incidental spends are a massive part of any budget. If you are not sure, look back at the past week and add up everything you spend in categories of food shopping, food spends out of the house, & other shopping and then multiply by 4.2 for a monthly average. And if you can make yourself do a spend diary for a month or two to see exactly where the money is going it will help you make a proper debt busting plan. I've started up a debt free diary and will be recording such spends etc this month and next.

Do you really need a car if you can access public transport cheaply ? #1. I finish work in the early hours of the morning when there is no public transport, so the walk home takes me over a hour.
#2. The bus to work takes a hour in the day and a hour and a half at night, so coupled with the walk home, I spend 2-3 hours each workday commuting. My workplace is a 15 minute drive away.
#3. I regularly visit my mum who lives a 2 hour drive away. Public transport takes 5 hours door to door Furthermore, I have to schedule trips weeks in advance in order to get a cheap price; I've calculated the cost of running an average hatchback to my mum's and the price of public transport purchased at the last minute (spur of the moment trip; unexpected availability; emergency travel etc) and the car is actually cheaper :eek:

I know you have said that your mum is paying your car tax & insurance etc but you should budget for it anyway because you said she's only paying it for the first year it so it will then be down to you. If you start budgeting now & put that money in a savings account you should hopefully then have enough to just pay it upfront. The aim is to put a minimum of 90% of my underspend into savings, so those things will still be accounted for. However, as I don't know what next year's premium will be (it definitely won't be anything like this year's) I can't budget a specific amount for it. I'll definitely budget for the tax though.

Also your water, you should start setting aside money for this in case they suddenly hit you with a bill. Even if they don't backdate the bill, they will start charging you soon enough. My old meter was under recording due to age so SWW changed it and assured me in writing I wouldn't be backdated, and only charged for the water recorded by the new meter, which currently records in litres (it hasn't gotten to cubic metres yet!) so in fact I'm in credit on my water account at the moment. I plan to read my meter a month after installation (so sometime in March) and use that reading to calculate my average monthly consumption and cost.

I've read what you've said about food etc BUT you've answered your own question by saying this could partly explain why you're often broke!

However, you do it (whether it's shopping daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly etc), you need to budget for it and put money aside

Same for the water bill - what are you going to do when they say you owe £x amount? You need to put money aside for this, even £20 / month so it's there when needed and it will either pay what's owed or go towards it I've explained this in my response to the person who posted before you, and my account is in credit so no debt to worry about there

Why are you not paying for a TV licence? My terrestrial aerial isn't working and the satellite aerial hasn't been installed, despite the fact it should be. As a result my TV is sat in the corner, it isn't even plugged into the terrestrial aerial or the plug socket, so I fail to understand why I should pay for a TV licence when I'm not yet using TV. If/when the satellite aerial is eventually installed, I'll take out a licence then.

You need to get home insurance ASAP as you've said

Who are you with that you pay £1.95 / month for phone & broadband? EE; line rental was £132 for the year which I budgeted for in my SoA.

Council Tax seems very low? Do you get benefit to cover part of this? I'm in the lowest council tax band, get the single person discount and council tax support, which reduces my bill. However, I don't count the CTS as "income", just the lower bill as expenditure -- less confusing that way.

Car costs - read your comments but you still need petrol - and to put money aside to cover next years tax and insurance - and servicing / repairs Again this is something I answered with the previous poster but with regard to petrol, I've known cars that cost £20 to fill up and one car that cost £65 to fill up :eek: so it's impossible for me to budget for petrol BEFORE I actually have the car. Once I start driving it and see how much it costs to fill up / how often it needs filling up then I can work out a proper petrol budget.

You've got a big underspend which is great BUT there's a lot of stuff missing from the SOA so until you add these in you're really not going to get a true picture