any advice please?

Minty123

mhendel86 wrote: »

Hi all, I have taken your advice and filled out the SOA tool as accurately as possible - copy below.

Thank you all for your time and hopefully I can take some of your following advice into practice to help my family.

Thanks,
Matt

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2200
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0if your partner now has a job, can this money be included here?
Benefits................................ 82
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2282

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 539.43
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 116this seems high, is it over 10months or 12? Ask to switch to 12 months
Electricity............................. 35
Gas..................................... 24
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 10
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 82.42this is high for 2 people, how long left on your contracts? Can you switch down a tariff or go sim only?
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 41.99get rid of this
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 200this could probably be cut slightly by shifting down a brand or shopping at lidl/Aldi and cooking from scratch
Clothing................................ 0nothing? Never? Not even for your child?
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 30.41
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10.18this doesn't seem very much, this would likely only cover a basic MOT and maybe a new tyre or 2
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10.4
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 92.36 this seems very high - this is the best part of £1200 a year, can this be reduced by switching providers etc?
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 10
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 13.98what insurance is this? Is it necessary?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 15
Haircuts................................ 0no haircuts ever?
Entertainment........................... 100can you cut this at all by doing free entertainment?
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0you should have something here - if you have an emergency, at the moment this would just go on your credit cards?
Pay back mum & dad...................... 230can this be cut slightly until you have paid some of your high interest debts off?
Lottery................................. 16this should be cut - you are essentially paying interest on this whilst you have credit card debt
Total monthly expenses.................. 1689.29


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 2000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Matt Capital One...............1723.91...63........30.34
Matt Vanquis...................2986.77...164.......40
Matt Barclaycard...............7548.15...195.......18.9
Next...........................1008.32...54........24.99
Gem Barclaycard................2202.91...68.21.....29.9
Gem Capital One................1041.65...38.18.....30.34
Total unsecured debts..........16511.71..582.39....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,282
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,689.29
Available for debt repayments........... 592.71
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 582.39
Amount left after debt repayments....... 10.32

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 2,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -16,511.71
Net Assets.............................. -14,511.71

Created using the SOA calculator
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

There doesn't seem to be a massive amount to cut from your SOA, however I reckon with the changes above you could probably shave £100-£150 off your outgoings, which with interest rates like you have would make a massive difference.

Have you looked at the snowball calculator to see which you should be paying off first?

SeduLOUs

Pet insurance £92 a month? Do you have a horse? Joking aside, that does seem extreme.

Plenty of room to make some fairly big cut backs - entertainment, TV package, mobile phones could give you an extra £100 a month easily, £200 if you can push it. The only way out of debt is to free up as much cash as humanly possible and unfortunately that's probably going to mean some sacrifices for a while.

Quite a lot in the payback mum and dad category. Is there any way this amount can be reduced temporarily or put on hold for a while until you get the nasty stuff under control? Presumably bank of mum and dad don't charge interest, and if they can afford to wait a bit longer it could really help you out.

I'd probably also suggest you stop buying lottery tickets.

Pixie5740

The good news is that there are some luxuries you can cut back on like satellite/cable television, those mobile phone contracts and the lottery tickets.

Do you really only spend £200 on groceries every month or are you guessing? Same for entertainments, is £100 a month the real figure?

Do you have £10.32 left at the end of each month? If you do have a surplus each month then you can service your debts.

mhendel86

thanks to all for your comments and recommendations. I have looked into them and actioned some of them already. Hopefully this will ease some pressure and start getting it all paid off. Also looked at the snowball calculator - interesting read.

Thanks