Soa

wordsfan

Here goes:

Income Source

Amount

Basic Salary

£1007

Maintenance Received

£200

Child Benefit

£69.80

Tax Credits (Working and Childcare)

£502.66

Total Income

£1779.46

No of children in household: 1 Age : 6

Expenditure Details

Amount

Rent

450

Contents Insurance

11

Council Tax and Water Rates

116

Electricity

40

Telephone inc Mobile

40

Public Transport

95

CCJ

15

Housekeeping (inc Laundry Expenses)

230

Medical/Dental/optician

15

Hairdressing

20

Clothes and shoes

45

School Meals

35

TV Licence

20

Out of school care

250

Priority arrears – Council Tax and TV licence

130

Emergencies

25

Longhurst Liability Order

21.67

Flights

65

Mags

25

Hobbies

5

Doing things with K

25

Social

20

Total Outgoings

1698.67

the mags are my vice, they're my relaxation, I don't smoke, hardly drink, hardly go out for own sake, so that's my wee oasis of calm, a hot choc and a mag.

However, overall this only leaves £80 a month to pay off debts which is nowhere near enough!

I'm looking for somewhere cheaper to live and planning to put into practice as many of the money saving tips off here as poss. After getting advice off here I'm hoping to open a co-op basic account.

I was trying to go through CCCS but frankly they were useless and did absolutely nothing.

Current debt to creditors around £8500

So bring on the advice!!

Lucy1982_2

Hi!!!

Just a quick question, What does the £250 housekeeping include? Because you don't include Food in your SOA. If this is food then for 2 of you it could easily be cut.

I know that there are some cccs people on here occasionally. Have you had a look at the snowball calculator? http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx?country=uk it might help you work out which debt to hit first.

Good luck.

Lucy1982_2

Oh and is there any way you can cut down on the mags? Or at least look into getting subscriptions for your faves through a cashback site? Might make it a bit cheaper.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Hi, some initial thoughts on your soa. Could you make your child a packed lunch as school dinners are very expensive. I can't afford them so I make 3 packed lunches every morning for mine. What is flights? Could you cut down on clothes and shoes and social? I know mags are your only relaxation you say but you could you cut it down a bit as £25 a month sounds like an awful lot. Could you break down the housekeeping to say how much is food and how much is other things?

rayday2

Just curious, what are the flights for?

If you really are dissatisfied with CCCS you could take a look on National Debthelpline website they have payment calculators and template letters etc enough for you to manage it all yourself. If you do big tip I would give is to change your telephone number so you deal with companies by post when you are ready.

cattie

What are flights at £65 per month?

By housekeeping do you mean grocery bills etc? If so £230 month is high for 2 of you, especially on top of paying for school meals. A visit to the Old Style board will help you shave a big chunk off these costs.

Also public transport, are you able to buy some kind of season ticket or pass where you are to keep these costs to the mininum? In London, by having an Oyster prepayment card for instance, it only costs you £1 to take a bus as opposed to £2 if paying by cash.

wordsfan

What do you mean you don't include food? Food is an essential, thats not just food in that £250, thats cleaning stuff and laundry products and toiletries too. I probably could cut back on it though - am totally disillusioned with the CCCS. also I'm not in a position to pay one debt off first. They're all clamouring to be paid and everyone I've spoken to professionally about this (unfortunately I must inc cccs in this but also CAB and Payplan). So it must be pro-rata payments to all.

rayday2

If it is any indicator we have a family of two adults, 3 children (one in nappies), two cats, one dog, hamster fish blah blah and we pay for all cleaning, food costs, toiletries about £60 per week.

Lucy1982_2

Sorry about that, but I wasn't sure what housekeeping included.

wordsfan

Food could definitely be cut, the school dinners is cos I work full time and we don't get home til 1830, by which time she's too tired to eat a proper meal, and she only gets a snack like sandwiches or pitta bread for her tea at after school - not a hot meal. Mags could be cut and I've certainly considered a subscription (2 christmases ago my sis got me one and it was really handy so might ask for that again) also was considering selling on the used mags - I read em quite quickly and could sell in batches on e.g. ebay? would offset the cost slightly. Flights are for DD to see her dad, normally about every 2 months, me n ex split cost between us. Would certainly help if he was more organised on dates tho as the later you leave it to book the more expensive it gets!! Clothes and shoes prob isn't every month, defo this month tho as she's back at school this week. I do a packed lunch for work. The public transport is £66.10 per 4 weeks for my zone card - I get a bus to next village to drop DD off at breakfast/hol club then train to work, no bus from where I am to work, and the same on the way home, so the zone card makes it much cheaper than if I paid daily/weekly, plus £1 all day bus ticket for DD (single to next village being 55p). But defo can cut back on the food. Planning on going back to making soup again and batch cooking and freezing at weekends - did this when DD little before I went back to Uni/Work, but got outta habit.

jacquie3167

Hi Wordsfan

I too am in a similar situation. I have approached all creditors and amazingly they have not been the monsters I thought they would be. They were happy to cut down minimum payments and put interest rates at 0%. Things are still hard, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Good luck!