Got here by luck, intending to stay by judgement.

Seanymph

I have to admit I have never posted an SOA - and wouldn't want to.

We have enough coming in to cover things, I worked at reducing the 'things', which meant that I could sling bits at debt, then the mortgage - but I didn't do an SOA.

I'm not sure why - I think maybe because what put me to my limit every month was an 'unexpected' cost, or because I wasn't organised enough to stick to it,and knew I couldn't, or maybe because some expenses are bottomless (renovating two houses!)....

So I cleared debt as fast as I could (it was only a car loan) and now clear the mortgage - but I could do a lot more, I just choose not to put too much pressure on my life.

But I made big changes - 19% down on electricity just by wandering about switching sockets off. 19%!!

But I do think Mr B that they are all right about the credit cards - because they shout at you (bit like Ben and Jerry's at me) - they will be too easy for you to use.

I admit Mr Sea has credit cards, I've got one somewhere, but I don't know the pin number.

Rather than 'I have family and need four cards (Four? Really?) in case, you need now to think 'I have family abroad and need at least 10k in the instant savies in case'....

You'll be amazed what spendy people can call an 'emergency' - everything from new trainers for the kids to a weekend away for a wedding, and then back to square one you are.

It's about living within your means.

I mackle the money in our house, and Mr Sea thought we had none - and worried (he didn't tell me) - but at the beginning of the month I was stashing and then we lived with what was left, at the end of the month not a lot, we are on freezer food this week, we run out, we stop spending. But I've already paid money into the savings and things.

Very few people have real emergencies that involve spending money on credit cards, and if they did you wouldn't need four.

You are mugging yourself, and your family off - netflix isn't a necessity - they may miss it. It would inconvenience their lives. Therefore it will be unpalatable. However you have to live with what you can afford, not with what you would like to be able to afford.

That there is a good mantra.

getmore4less

Thought I would have a look at the history.

got off to a good start Aug 2011, some extracts from the first few post.

...
Going to follow the lead of a number of inspiring and wise people on here and catalogue my definite return to the land of off-the-shelf clothing and a debt less than that of small Soviet state.

Will post all the stats later...

301k debts comprises:
48.2k on credit / store cards
3.3k on overdraft
27.3k on unsecured loans
221.3k on mortgage

Looks like there may have been progress but who knows how many loans/ODs are left sine the £50k was just CC debts.
perhaps an update of just the debt list if a SOA a step too far.

Wednesday: rung up Sky on a freephone number (cheers saynoto0870) and cancelled the HD - 10.25 a month of utter waste, will not get rid of the whole package as Disney keeps my kids sane, Food Network and Ty Pennington keep MrsBloater out of the nuthouse and Discovery is my Prozac

Nearly 5 years later still piddling about with tiny changes to the entertainment anyway.

Am holding off on posting up a SOA at the moment, I've gleaned so much from reading stuff on MSE that I want to exhaust all my avenues first, and then throw myself open to new suggestions.

Once all this done I will bite the bullet and put the SOA up.

To be done.
- finalise insurance for Mrs B's car
- finalise insurance for Mr B's car
- get quote for house insurance
- check energy consumption and tarriffs
- switch suppliers if necessary
- talk to talktalk
- phone vodafone
- (something fruit related) to orange
- talk to RAC
- find a good car boot sale for late October
- find somewhere to sell record collection
- look for extra employment (weekends/evenings)
- use Quidco for everything
- find out about mysupermarket.com
- post up SOA

Umm the signs are there, trying to get stuff cheaper, and make bit of money, nothing on the cancel list.

Then 5 days into the thread early days we have a flicker.

I think the real lightbulb moment might just have hit. Mrs B talking about friends she wanted over for dinner this week - dinner with those guys invariably is an expensive and liquid occasion and I had to actually put my foot down and say no - cos at the moment we aren't going to cover our minimum payments this month. Went through every expense this month and are short

then back to darkness in the same post

- but in a moment of inspiration rung up one of the loan companies and got a payment date changed from 24th Sept til the 1st Oct which gives us another 429quid til next payday.

The problem with these tricks you only get to use them once and don't save money they often cost more(interest) and that one just added to the debt if the money got spent.

moving on the same day 100 posts into the thread.

SOA is on hold because the draft one I've done certainly doesn't stack up with the reality of the situation, so either my maths don't add up, or I'm missing the obvious, or Mrs B has got some £800 a month secret direct debit..

Did you ever find that £800pm hole in the SOA?

The next few pages nothing financial seems to have been reported so no idea how much info came over the next 3 years 150 pages and 3000 posts.

As someone said previously not a lot to go on.

I guess no one mentioned snowballing.

The steps for debt management.

Balance the books so income can cover the spends and interest.
(no fees for missed payments/over limits, just reusing the credit paid off by min payments)

Balance the books so you can meet the min payments and not reuse the credit.

Snowball.

getmore4less

Seanymph wrote: »

I have to admit I have never posted an SOA - and wouldn't want to.

Posting a SOA is not essential but having one in one form or another is.

If the in/out balances you can make more choices than if it doesn't.

Seanymph

Thanks getmore4less.

I guess because my in/out balances, and always has, I don't need it so much - it's more 'how much can I put away' than 'how do I meet that bill' for me.

But I could put more away (just updated my bit about this) and this thread has helped me see that.

getmore4less

Seanymph wrote: »

Thanks getmore4less.

I guess because my in/out balances, and always has, I don't need it so much - it's more 'how much can I put away' than 'how do I meet that bill' for me.

But I could put more away (just updated my bit about this) and this thread has helped me see that.

That's the key if the books balance now and into the future(Budget/plan) thats when the choices change from cutback to stand still to cutback and reduce debt.

A stratagy I used a few years back was to work out the minimum spends to survive(handy to set the loss of income fund), review all the discretionary stuff and make the choices based on what is available.

The other trap that is easy to fall into is to use variable extra income to balance the books.

eg if you sell a CD on ebay and you need that to buy food rather than reduce debt in reality you are spending more than you earn unless you have a bottomless pit of CDs to sell.

All secondary income that is not regular should be allocated to debt reduction/savings or totaly discretionary spends, when you earn enough you can have/do it.

Pingu2

Its getting a little forensic on here Mr Bloater. Hope you have a tin hat to go with that flak jacket.

solentsusie

getmore4less wrote: »

This sums it up

it's a game.

A SOA will find that £1k in 5mins.

I agree. From reading MrB's posts I have come to the conclusion that he does not want to change his or his family's lifestyle, even if it is one that he can ill afford. So the scheme will be to make more cash and not cut back on the non essentials and reassess where the cash really goes.

After the entertainment budget I am just waiting to hear how much the cars cost. He did mention that this was worse... :eek:

MrBloater

Have decided that my initial scepticism about putting up SOAs was well founded - I shan't be sharing any more of the spends on here as I fear it will cause a seismic breakdown of moral indignation, and I don't want Roger Cook knocking on my doors or the press rifling through my bins etc looking for evidence of my irresponsibility and recklessness. I'm personally well chuffed with my reductions so far, and happily today cut up the Amex card which was not initially on my list of things to do.

Off now to squander some money on things of dubious value. Peace out.

getmore4less

The reason for sharing the spends is to look for ways to achieve the goals.

They should come as a pair.

People don't really care where you spend your money(or the money you didn't have in the first place).

solentsusie

Oh dear. It is not about what anyone else thinks you should or should not be spending your hard earned cash on, if you can afford it.

You say you want help, in fact you called this the 'more cerebral' side of MSE, but you need to be aware you will be challenged and members will want to see your justifications for what they might see as trivial spending when you say you want to slash the 50K debt that you have added to your mortgage.

People want to help. You have to help yourself and show that you are taking this seriously not just an exercise writing short and witty stories.

Best of luck for the future. Prove everyone on here that you can sort your debt out. It is what everyone wants to see even if you don't like what you are currently hearing....