My Soa

jinxjinx

monthly

INCOME::o

monthly wages: £1250

OUTGOINGS::mad:

RBS loan: £139

Money saved for loan lumpsum payment: £500

lloyds loan: £50

overdraft charges: £110 (average)

mobile: £60 (normal line rental)

internet: £5

DVD rental: £5

xbox live: £5

rent: £120

food: £120

cigarettes: £70

TOTAL: £1184

the rest basically gets spent on pub, takeaways, taxis

RAS

jinxjinx wrote: »

INCOME::o

monthly wages: £1250

OUTGOINGS::mad:

Living expenses

rent: £120 - what are your circumstances?

Council tax?
Electric?
Gas?
Travel to work?
Clothes?

food: £120 - for how many?

mobile: £60 (normal line rental) - confused - normal line rental and mobile phone?

internet: £5 - is this related to the above? Can you get a better deal?

DVD rental: £5 - cancel this and get free offers for a few months
xbox live: £5 - ditto

cigarettes: £70 - you need to give up

overdraft charges: £110 (average) does this include interest?


Debts

lloyds tsb £885.82 @ £48 a month payments - what is the APR on this?

RBS £4,500 @ £139 a month payments - what is the APR in this?

TOTAL: £1184

the rest basically gets spent on pub, takeaways, taxis

That is £75 that you could put towards your OD

Use a spending diary to work out where it is going.

overdraft: lloyds tsb £3,578.75 DR - what is the APR on this

Money saved for loan lumpsum payment: £500 - there is no point in this. You need to pay off the overdraft first

total debt: £8,964.57

You do not have massive debts but you money management is not helping. Since you are pretty much tied into the loans (consolidation?), the only thing you can really do anything about is the OD. You really need to put that £500 towards it now and to aim to reduce it by several hundred pounds a month.

Is it an agreed OD or have you just racked it up?

We need to see the gaps in the Soa filling in before we can really advise you properly.

sammiboo

I agree with all the above

As for the money for your overdraft is that your overdraft itself or what unterest/charges being banged on it?

If you are struggling to see where you money goes you start a spending diary as you seem to have quite a few gaps

sammiboo

ahhh right - i have looked at your other thread...

jinxjinx wrote: »

overdraft: lloyds tsb £3,578.75 DR

From my experience with an overdraft it was the hardest debt for me to pay off. How I achieved this was by getting myself a virgin card that 0% for 13 months and putting the whole overdraft on it £1200.

My problem with the overdraft was that I was constantly in it and just before payday i would go over it getting whacked with £30 each time i spent.

The 0% card has helped me sort this out. I moved away from barclays once I got this all sorted out. I currently owe about £800 on my virgin card and I am constantly in the black with a reasonably healthy account.

I can only reccomend this if you can trust yourself enough not to spend on it and use it as a interest free loan, otherwise you might end up worse off.

The key to being debt free is to really disapline yourself as much as you can.

sarah0404

Hi, i would suggest that you open a new basic bank account (one without an overdraft!) and transfer your salary and direct debits to it. You can then start paying what you can towards the overdraft at the old bank and gradually bring it back to zero. Then close the account.

You do need to know where your money is going. As suggested start a spending diary to see where it is all going. Then make a more complete SOA. If you use Martins budget planner (on this site somewhere) then it will give you an idea of what you need to have money put aside for. Such as clothes, dental treatment, hair cuts, travel costs, even the cost of Christmas and birthday presents. Ideally you should put a little bit away each month, so you can afford this when the time comes around. Once you've done that you can see how much surplus income you have left. Then you can use that to pay towards your overdraft. Even set up a direct debit for it, so it transfers in automatically.

Once your cleared that you can start on your next debt Have a look at the snowball debt calculator at www.whatsthecost.com If you input all your debts and their APRs then it will show you the best way to pay them off, so you avoid paying so much interest.

Jacks_xxx

Hiya sweetie,

Having a big overdraft is more or less giving permission to your bank to fleece you blind my sweet. :mad:

Saving to pay off a lump sum on your loan is a bl**dy good idea - but I think that the overdraft is crippling you and throwing some money at that might need be your first priority to stop them battering you with those heinous charges and stop haemorrhaging that £110 a month

The next thing is to prioritise things like your phone, xbox live, dvds internet, and fags, taxis, pub, takeaway etc.

Currently you spend about £211 a month on that stuff. I think perhaps you need to tell yourself you can't have all of that while you're in this much debt and decide what you can cut down on - or do without.

Could you switch to a cheaper phone? Raid the dvd collections of everybody you know for free instead of renting one? Cut back on the fags?

None of it's much fun sweetie, but it's got to be done for a while to get yourself out of this hole.

Hugs.

Love Jacks xxx