My very scary SOA

Lellylion

Here's Our SOA..... :eek: Its very scary, when you write it all down. Please help me get rid of this nightmare:eek:

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £2,000 (I earn commission, my Take home can be between 1,900 and 2,700, but I err on the side of caution)
Partners salary - £1100


Total - £3100

Monthly Outgoings (Priority's):

Mortgage/Rent/Household/Life insurance- £827.41
Council Tax - £102
Gas - £43
Electric - £72
Water - £65.36
Homeserve Insurance - £14.99
TV License - £10.99
Sky £37
Phone(mobile and landline) - £69
Food and sundries - £800
Car Insurance - £35.41
Petrol - £105
Account Fee -£14.50
Pension - £15


Total: £2211.66


Debts:

Egg CC – Balance £1900.14 (limit £2,500) Monthly payment - £100

Barclaycard - Balance £6555.16 (limit £7,000) Monthly payment - £147

OH's Barclaycard - Balance £6583.10 (limit £7,500) Monthly payment - £147

Mortgage Reserve account - £21,000 (limit £21,500) Payable by the end of the mortgage, currently £225 per month. Mortgage ends in 19 years.

Car on HP - £7161 still to pay. 33 months to go, £217 per month


Barclays Loan – Balance £12669.50 APR 10.525% Length of term 48 months, 33 months to go

Overdraft - £1200 (limit £1,600) APR 20%

Any suggestions greatfully received.... Looking forward to slimming my debts

tigtag02

Hello :wave: and welcome

First things that strike me are your water and electric seem very very high. Are you on a water meter? Can you switch your electric?

£800 for food and sundries :eek::eek::eek:
How many are you feeding and what are the sundries - this should be able to be cut by way more than half to help with your debts

HTH for now
tigtag

Little_Pickle

Hi Lellylion and welcome!!!

I'm no expert (they'll be along soon).. but from looking at your SOA, you'll need to put in APRs for your outstanding balances... that'll help with your snowballing.

How's your credit rating? Maybe if your APRs are high and your credit rating is ggod, you could transfer to 0% balance transfers to new cards? Then you'll only be paying back what you owe...

your gas and leccy seems high... you could join quidco and go through them to look at switching providers? you'll get cashback and maybe a better deal???

Same could be said for Sky & Phone... can you get out of these contracts?

How about changing your mobile to PAYG for a while? It would save you heaps! Or at the very least you could tell your mobile provider that you are unhappy and thinking of moving... see if they would be prepared to lower your tarriff?? sounds scary, but I did it and my mobile company gave me a great deal not to loose me!


Anyways, those are just my thoughts... some much brainier people will be along soon!

Hope everything goes well for you and let us know how you get on...
LP
xox

Lellylion

Water - I live in Cornwall, Not on a meter, that is our monthly set water rates.

Electric - We were paying £40 a month up to last year, but this didn't cover the years bill so they put the monthly figure up to cover the arrears and to account for the higher usage. I can't find a way to reduce the usage. We have both Gas and Electric with British Gas. Maybe I really need to go to uswitch and hunt around abit.

Food and Sundries - We draw out £200 every Friday, spend £150 straight away at Tesco's feeding 4, the other £50 goes in the pot, if i need a £5 here and there for lunches or an extra loaf etc, or a birthday card, just ad hoc things like that really..... thats what the £50 money goes on

Yorkielass

Welcome - well done for writing it all down - it's scary when you see it all isn't it.

A few thoughts to get you started

How many of there are you in your household?

As others have said water and electric seems very high

Also you mention petrol and car insurance but not MoT, tax, service the other car costs!

Cazzdevil

Lellylion wrote: »

Mortgage/Rent/Household/Life insurance- £827.41 Is this JUST the mortgage? If not you ought to break it down a bit
Council Tax - £102
Gas - £43 Seems a bit high... Have you checked to see if it could be lower?
Electric - £72 As for the gas... Seems high
Water - £65.36 Again, seems high
Homeserve Insurance - £14.99 What's this for?
TV License - £10.99
Sky £37 Could you not cancel and get a freeview box? Or lower the package, what about their 3 for £26 deal?
Phone(mobile and landline) - £69 How much for each? Cancel contract and go PAYG? Landline - can you go with the Sky deal?
Food and sundries - £800 You spend WAY too much on food, that's an absurd amount of money which could be EASILY halved.
Car Insurance - £35.41
Petrol - £105
Account Fee -£14.50 ? What's this?
Pension - £15

Phew! Fear not dear poster, there's loads of ways to cut down your outgoings with a little belt-tightening

lunar

can you change onto a water meter as that seems really high.

You could write out a spending diary to see exactly where the money goes. I just did my first shop replacing brand names for the shops own, I couldnt believe the difference it made.

The scariest part of the SOA is actually writing it and admitting you have to change something. I feel so much more positive about my ability to cope with my debt than i did this time last week.

Good luck

tigtag02

£150 is extortionate (I dont mean that in a telling off way :rotfl:) and can be cut considerably.

We also have a family of four and I spent £35 on this weeks shop - the OS board is the place to start ad meal planning should help - I really must go do some work now but will try and catch up with your thread later.

Some more knowledgeable peeps will be along soon :D
tigtag

plzhelpmesave!

hiya, and well done for posting.

can i askk what the mortgage reserve account is? could this be put towards the debts, esp those with high aprs?

Lellylion

Blimey...... I must admit we are a have what you fancy kind of family on food, rather than a plan and stick to the list kind of shopper. I thought £150 on the family shop was about right.....

tyllwyd

I noticed that you are paying an account fee of £14.50 - I take it that is a fee for your current account?
And you have included Overdraft - £1200 (limit £1,600) APR 20%
So if you are paying a fee of £14.50 to have access to borrowing at 20%, doesn't that make it amazingly expensive? If that's right, I'd be looking to see if I could find a better account, or a better way of borrowing the money.