Soa

BargainButtons

Hi everyone


I'm new to posting but have been lurking for a little while to try and get my head round what I need to do.


I want to get our family finances in order and clear our debt. It's not a massive amount but it I'd rather not have it.


I've done a SOA as best I can. My salary is currently 1300 approx. per month however this will increase to around 1750 in August. I owe my parents some money but they have offered to hold the debt until August. We have 3 years left to pay on our loan and the 0% deal on the credit card is until March 2017.


Looking at my SOA we should have a decent standard of living however it always seems as they we are broke by the end of the month and rarely get chance to pay any extra off on the credit card.


I'm currently looking at changing our gas and electricity supplier as I think we can probably save around £20 per month. The amount I have entered for mobiles if for both dh and I. I have also counted our Internet Service with our cable TV.




I'm really hoping the support of the board will help me clear our debt (I don't think we've been debt free in about 14 years!) We'd like to clear the credit cards and pay my parent loan off by the end of 2016 as by then we are hoping to remortgage to extend our home.


I'd welcome any views/advice!


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 3
Number of cars owned.................... 2
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1300
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1414
Benefits................................ 190
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2904
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 599
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 59
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 134
Electricity............................. 60
Gas..................................... 57
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 67
Telephone (land line)................... 15
Mobile phone............................ 18
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 55
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 400
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 25
Car Insurance........................... 50
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 6
Contents insurance...................... 9
Life assurance ......................... 30
Other insurance......................... 7
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 80
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 50
Holiday................................. 50
Emergency fund.......................... 50
swim membership......................... 10
Kids Savings............................ 45
Total monthly expenses.................. 2113

Assets
Cash.................................... 2130
House value (Gross)..................... 190000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 9000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 201130

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 100000...(599)......2.5
Secured Debt.................. 8991.....(59).......4.5
Total secured & HP debts...... 108991....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Loan...........................11061.....299.......3.6
Credit Card....................4073......40........0
Credit Card....................240.......25........16.9
Loan from parents..............500.......0.........0
Total unsecured debts..........15874.....364.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,904
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,113
Available for debt repayments........... 791
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 364
Amount left after debt repayments....... 427
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 201,130
Total HP & Secured debt................. -108,991
Total Unsecured debt.................... -15,874
Net Assets.............................. 76,265
Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Pixie5740

Do you really have £427 left every month? If you do then great, you could pay off your £240 credit card and then start throwing your money at the 0% credit card before the 0% deal ends (unless you're confident you could get another 0% deal) otherwise start overpaying the loan if your parents are happy to wait for their £500 back.

Do you really need cable television? It's a luxury and the money would be better spent getting you out of debt. I recently cancelled my Sky subscription and got a Ruku streaming stick for £39 so I can watch catch up television and Netflix on my tv instead.

£80 on birthday and Christmas presents sounds high. Last year I told people I was only buying presents for children. I have everything I need so I don't need people spending money they haven't got on me.

Other than that I think it looks good. Glad to see a SOA with life insurance, contents insurance and an emergency fund.

McKneff

You could, with a bit more planning, knock at the very least 25% off your grocery bill, £400 is one hell of a lot of money.


Water Rates, wow, try a meter for a year..... you can revert if you don't save money

BargainButtons

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Do you really have £427 left every month? If you do then great, you could pay off your £240 credit card and then start throwing your money at the 0% credit card before the 0% deal ends (unless you're confident you could get another 0% deal) otherwise start overpaying the loan if your parents are happy to wait for their £500 back.



Yes, we really do have that much but we spend it on crap. I need to budget better! I'm going to pay the £240 card off out of our next salary. Ideally I'd like to pay at least an extra £100 on the credit card each month.

Do you really need cable television? It's a luxury and the money would be better spent getting you out of debt. I recently cancelled my Sky subscription and got a Ruku streaming stick for £39 so I can watch catch up television and Netflix on my tv instead.



No, if it was up to me I'd cancel it but dh is adamant that we have it.

£80 on birthday and Christmas presents sounds high. Last year I told people I was only buying presents for children. I have everything I need so I don't need people spending money they haven't got on me.



We really should cut down here. Of this £58 is to Park Hamper High Street Vouchers which cover our Christmas presents for everyone but I think we spend too much (last Christmas we bought for about 20 people (all family) which is just crazy).

Other than that I think it looks good. Glad to see a SOA with life insurance, contents insurance and an emergency fund.

Thanks for your input

BargainButtons

McKneff wrote: »

You could, with a bit more planning, knock at the very least 25% off your grocery bill, £400 is one hell of a lot of money.



Yes, I agree. I'm going to start going to Aldi instead of Tesco to see if I can save on this.

Water Rates, wow, try a meter for a year..... you can revert if you don't save money

We are already on a meter :-/

andyfromotley

Hi BB,

the SOA looks fine. The trouble is it isn't accurate!! You obviously don't have £427 left every month i'm guessing?? Therefore this SOA represents a wish list rather than a record of what you are doing.

I think there are two ways of tackling this,

1. Get yr bank statements for the last year and go through them with a fine tooth comb working out how much you really spent on what. Keep a spending diary and again see where it all goes.

or

2. Draw a line under it. The money was spent hey ho. Start budgeting properly now. I use YNAB and i think its fab, i know exactly what i have to spend at any time (and on what). I put money away for everything that can be foreseen. If i overspend in any one area i know about it and have to work out where the money to cover it is coming from. It works for me.

BargainButtons

andyfromotley wrote: »

Hi BB,

the SOA looks fine. The trouble is it isn't accurate!! You obviously don't have £427 left every month i'm guessing?? Therefore this SOA represents a wish list rather than a record of what you are doing.

You are absolutely right. My problem is that i do a budget (but clearly not a very good one) each month and then count that £427 as money spare and so end up buying extras in quite a few categories (usually clothes and entertainment) and before i know it we've blown the lot on stuff we either didn't need or spent money when we could have saved it. I need to look at YNAB.

Thanks for your comments.

andyfromotley

BargainButtons wrote: »

andyfromotley wrote: »

You are absolutely right. My problem is that i do a budget (but clearly not a very good one) each month and then count that £427 as money spare and so end up buying extras in quite a few categories (usually clothes and entertainment) and before i know it we've blown the lot on stuff we either didn't need or spent money when we could have saved it. I need to look at YNAB.

Thanks for your comments.

Ynab will stop ya doing that.

McKneff

£67 for metered water seems to be an awful lot of money


You have either got a leak or you need to re educate your family on the use of water,
Something in the cistern, don't run water while brushing teeth, boil only the water you need etc. etc.

concrete_kid

If you go to your water company's website they will usually send you free water saving devices. I installed two tap devices, a water saving shower head and water saving devices for both toilet cisterns and have been saving about £30 a quarter which was a lot more than I expected.

theoretica

BargainButtons wrote: »

Yes, we really do have that much but we spend it on crap.

BargainButtons wrote: »

My problem is that i do a budget (but clearly not a very good one) each month and then count that £427 as money spare and so end up buying extras in quite a few categories (usually clothes and entertainment) and before i know it we've blown the lot on stuff we either didn't need or spent money when we could have saved it. I need to look at YNAB.

Right - so your budget looks like above with an extra entry of £427 on crap? So write that in, and see how it looks. For many people having a budget with extra money left over at the end is asking for trouble. Rejig your budget so that this Amount left after debt repayments....... 427 is a nice round zero. Perhaps £250 to debt overpayment, £150 to savings and £27 on crap? Or however you would rather divide it up. And then put most of the money into savings/overpayments at the start of the month so you need to draw it out and really notice it if you overspend rather than just making savings out of what happens to be left if you haven't spent it all.