Our SOA - idea's please!!!!

Poggie123

Ok here goes…..takes deep breath :embarasse

First a bit of background….there’s me, DH, DD1 aged 3 and DD2 aged 8 months. DH works full time and I’m at home with the little’uns.

DH salary - £2040 (basic month no overtime or call-outs)
Child benefit - £120.80
Tax Credits - £82.87

Total £2243.67

Mortgage - £588.30
Buildings Ins - £19.97
Contents Ins - £39.80
Council Tax - £82.00
Water - £33.22 (changed to npower last year as supposedly cheaper for us)
Gas - £42.00
Elec - £46.50
Phone - £25.00
Broadband - £3.00 (DH work pays for the rest )
TV license - £11.61
Sky - £42.00 (I know this is an extravagance but we don’t go out!!)
Food - £300.00
Nappies/wipes/formula £50.00
Car Tax - £30.00 (all car stuff is for 2 cars)
Car Ins - £67.00
MOT - £9.00
Petrol - £125.00
Clothes us- £50.00
Clothes & shoes for girls - £30.00
Haircuts - £16.00
Contacts - £22.00
Emergency savings- £50.00
Xmas savings- £40.00
Birthdays savings- £25.00

Total £1747.74

NR Loan - £272.10 :mad:
Capital 1 CC – £94.86
Lloyds CC – £155.29
MBNA CC – £68.30
Virgin CC – £53.66
Egg CC – £44.47

Total £688.68

Total income – £2243.67
Total expenditure - £2436.42

CC debt total £18k :eek:
Loan total £25k

I’ve included all the car expenses that are annual as monthly figures to be put aside rather than going on the CC and continuing the downward spiral. Same goes for the b’day, emergency and xmas spending as we have never saved for these before. Perhaps this is why things have never seemed as bad!

At the moment everything is paid inc minimum repayments on all CC’s but obviously we’re living on credit each month so the situation has to change! Don’t know the APR’s on CC’s - will get DH to call them. DH has tomorrow off work so we can try and sort this out, but we don’t know where to start. All debt is in DH’s name including mortgage. Tried to apply for a secured loan but they wanted it to be a joint application. Very little equity in the house poss £10k. The Northern Rock loan was at the mortgage rate, but since we swapped the mortgage they’ve upped it to 12.8% which we didn’t realise would happen. (We’re kicking ourselves for being so naïve) DH phoned them to see about swapping to a different product at a lower rate but they said we would have to include CC debt as well because there was too much outstanding debt. Does anybody know if this is true? How do they work this out?

Basically we’re trying to get repayments down for the next 4 years till DD2 is at school and I can go back to work and get some big chunks paid off.

All ideas greatly appreciated.

Am off to make a cup of tea and find some choccy………

tyllwyd

A couple of things jumped out
"Buildings Ins - £19.97
Contents Ins - £39.80"
Total £59.77
Have you shopped around for the best deal?

"Clothes us- £50.00
Clothes & shoes for girls - £30.00"
Do you really spend £80 every month on clothes for the family?

floss2

Ok, here's the suggestions from the Blackpool panel......

Poggie123 wrote: »

Ok here goes…..takes deep breath :embarasse

First a bit of background….there’s me, DH, DD1 aged 3 and DD2 aged 8 months. DH works full time and I’m at home with the little’uns.

DH salary - £2040 (basic month no overtime or call-outs)
Child benefit - £120.80
Tax Credits - £82.87

Total £2243.67

Mortgage - £588.30
Buildings Ins - £19.97- can this be reduced by shopping around? Try Quidco
Contents Ins - £39.80 - ditto
Council Tax - £82.00- is this over 10 or 12months?
Water - £33.22 (changed to npower last year as supposedly cheaper for us)
Gas - £42.00- can this be reduced by switching? again, try Quidco
Elec - £46.50
Phone - £25.00- can this be reduced any? maybe by going for an all-in-one package?
Broadband - £3.00 (DH work pays for the rest )
TV license - £11.61
Sky - £42.00 (I know this is an extravagance but we don’t go out!!)
Food - £300.00 - get over to the Old Style board for ideas to reduce this
Nappies/wipes/formula £50.00
Car Tax - £30.00 (all car stuff is for 2 cars)
Car Ins - £67.00- can this be reduced by shopping around? Again, try Quidco
MOT - £9.00 - a month? thats £108 over a year, more than 2 x MOT's
Petrol - £125.00- is any of this paid for by DH's employer? this is quite high - what mileage do you get per gallon?
Clothes us- £50.00- probably have to cut this back some, if not all
Clothes & shoes for girls - £30.00
Haircuts - £16.00
Contacts - £22.00
Emergency savings- £50.00 - this amount can be applied to reduce your bills & pay off some of the CC's
Xmas savings- £40.00 - ditto
Birthdays savings- £25.00

Kevicho

Poggie123 wrote: »

Ok here goes…..takes deep breath :embarasse

First a bit of background….there’s me, DH, DD1 aged 3 and DD2 aged 8 months. DH works full time and I’m at home with the little’uns.

DH salary - £2040 (basic month no overtime or call-outs)
Child benefit - £120.80
Tax Credits - £82.87

Total £2243.67

Mortgage - £588.30
Buildings Ins - £19.97 - is this the cheapest you can get, shop around, see if there are any offers on cashback sites to pay you to switch
Contents Ins - £39.80 - as above
Council Tax - £82.00
Water - £33.22 (changed to npower last year as supposedly cheaper for us) - supposedly? shop around and make sure that is the case
Gas - £42.00 - as above
Elec - £46.50 - as above
Phone - £25.00 - mobile or house? again worth shopping to see if you can get it cheaper
Broadband - £3.00 (DH work pays for the rest ) - nicely done
TV license - £11.61
Sky - £42.00 (I know this is an extravagance but we don’t go out!!) You could try bartering with sky, also make sure you are on the package for your needs, i personally cancelled sky as i dont watch TV anymore, but i know it whiles away the hours
Food - £300.00 - this could prob be reduced with meal planning and shopping at more value places, also do you stock up on 2 for 1s etc
Nappies/wipes/formula £50.00 - some may suggest reusable nappies, but im no expert on this
Car Tax - £30.00 (all car stuff is for 2 cars) - as above, is this the best deal
Car Ins - £67.00 - as above
MOT - £9.00
Petrol - £125.00 - is there any way you could economise with the car, or dare i sugges tit, switch to a more economical model?
Clothes us- £50.00 - 50 a month, you should have wardrobes full by now seriously though this is a cutback right here
Clothes & shoes for girls - £30.00 - as above, are they all necessary, could you get them cheaper (ie ebay or charity shops)
Haircuts - £16.00
Contacts - £22.00
Emergency savings- £50.00 - id use these savings for debt repayment, as you will be paying higher interest on your debts
Xmas savings- £40.00 - some say this is worth doing, i think why not get a cashback credit card and earn some money from these purchases, and then pay them off before you accrue interest
Birthdays savings- £25.00 - as above

Total £1747.74

NR Loan - £272.10 :mad:
Capital 1 CC – £94.86
Lloyds CC – £155.29
MBNA CC – £68.30
Virgin CC – £53.66
Egg CC – £44.47

Total £688.68

Total income – £2243.67
Total expenditure - £2436.42

CC debt total £18k :eek:
Loan total £25k

To calculate the best way to pay off the cards, sort them out into APR rates, highest at the top and then concentrate as much money paying those off per month, and pay the minimum amount on the others.
This is known as snowballing.

Other ideas include ebaying non essentials (or stuff you dont need /use anymore), signing on for one of the money making challenges on this board.

Also use cashback sites for any switching you may do, you can make a dent in a card payment doing this way, every penny counts.

I think this is a start anyways

Good luck and best wishes

Lavendyr

Hello and welcome

I'll start by saying that while your outgoings are greater than your incomings, any luxuries should be cut down or out completely as this problem is not going to go away otherwise. So I understand that Sky is a replacement for going out, but in the current situation, you cannot afford to do either. The first step I'd recommend would be to get rid of Sky or at least cut it down massively. There are still a lot of channels on Freeview and you don't have to pay for them.

Do you need contact lenses or do you have glasses that you could wear instead? I get monthly contact lenses but if I were in financial trouble they would be one of the things I would give up. Again, I view them as a bit of a luxury.

Your contents insurance is very high, when is your renewal due? Make sure you shop around for a cheaper deal when you can renew as you're paying a massive amount on that.

Even for a 4-person family, £300 per month on food is high. I expect you could cut that down by at least £100 per month by planning out your meals in advance and shopping for cheaper foods (own brands, value brands, shop at local market at end of trading days for fruit & veg, etc), and probably could cut it down even further. If alcohol is included in that, try and reduce that as well as it adds up a lot!

Gas & electricity also seem pretty high, is that every month? Have you tried turning everything off at the wall where possible (including things like mobile chargers), replacing with energy-efficient light bulbs, cutting out/down tumble dryer use (if applicable), etc?

Do you need to buy £50 worth of clothes every month? That's a lot of clothes! You should cut that right down, perhaps say one item of clothing at no mor than £20 a month to start with, and see if you can cut that down even further by shopping in charity shops, or places like Asda, Tesco, Primark etc. Same goes for children's clothes, buy them as cheaply as you can or get them second-hand - they're just going to grow out of them after all!

Is the haircut budget for you or kids/partner? If for kids and OH, can you cut their hair yourself? If for you then at least look around for local training centres in need of models for trainee hairdressers, often a real bargain is available.

With regards to what Northern Rock have said about the debt, do not go for a deal where you tie your credit card debt into the mortgage as that will turn your currently unsecured debt into secure debt - if you can't pay it off, you could lose your house because of it. First of all try and cut down on your expenditure as there are several areas there that you could drop, and then see how your incomings/outgoings look.

Best of luck

Poggie123

Wow! First things first..thank you to everyone for your replies...you've given us lots of food for thought :T

I haven't worked out how to quote bits so.....

Tyllwyd - no we haven't shopped around for buildings and contents insurance, the policies are the automatic renewal of the ones DH took out 5 years ago when he bought the house. ( i'm sure I can hear you all screaming at your screens!! ) I will be digging the paperwork out to find out what's covered and looking into it asap. We probably don't spend £80 per month on clothes, it was just a 'guestimate' based on Martin's budget planner. As we've not budgeted before, I don't know what we spend so i'm erring on the side of caution so to speak! I'll consider myself told hehe!

Floss2 - you have cheered me up council tax is over 10 months so i've overestimated again. Home phone is just based on last bill so will be using free mins on mobiles instead (which I forgot to post) so this should be just line rental and minimum calls. Is £300 really too much for food? It's just the weekly shop so includes washing powder, loo rolls etc etc. I thought I was doing quite well with my meal plans and sticking to that. Hey-ho...must squeeze harder...maybe have a few veggie days each week. No alcohol as neither of us drink, but cans of pop and fruit shoots for DD1 may have to go. Car insurances are both the best deal we could get at renewal so have just divided by 12 for next year. Hopefully premiums will go down as more no claims etc, but once again trying to overestimate rather than under. Petrol is not covered by DH employer, was just working on roughly 2.5 tanks between us per month which is probably too much. Will have a look at receipts.

Kevicho - Will be checking gas and elec again - i'm sure they've upped the DD's to more than we were paying before we switched :mad: Both cars are quite old but both working fine (touch wood) so not worth much, but would definately look for something more economical in future.
They're both 1.8 so a bit thirsty and expensive for tax, on the plus side they're practical for 2 car seats and a double buggy etc. Again, am considering myself told re clothes estimate!!Thank you for snowball advice, will work this out when DH finds out APR's.

Lavendyr - Will have to have a good look at Sky and give them a ring, daft as it sounds it's sometimes the thing that keeps me sane between tantrums and nappies, but we've got to get the money sorted. Contact lenses are for DH, will see if we can get them any cheaper online. Will have to make sure we start turning things off rather than standby, I'm terrible for this.

Overall - thank you for cheering me up a bit - I was worried you'd all suggest talking to debt counsellors etc and I really want us to get sorted without any impact on our credit ratings.

atypicalblonde

Hi Poggie!! First things first, you can manage this debt hun, so please don't think another loan is the answer. With a few savvy cuts on the SOA here and there, and generating a bit of extra income, this can be done!!

Definately look at changing your B&C insurance - they are really really high. Have you investigated the wonders of Quidco yet? If not, let us know and we can tell you how to get cashback on things like insurance! Also, are your contact lenses a special prescription? Mine are £6 per month for Boots own brand. As soon as you get the APRs please post them up, then we can help you devise a plan of attack to get the highest APR one gone first! xx

shell_girl

Hey Poggie!
Welcome to the board. Are you a member of Quidco? I've just reorganised my insurance through their website. I cut my buildings and contents by £10 per month by switching to Nat West insurance- they're offering £90 cashback at the moment as well.

If you've had Sky for more than a year give them a call and tell them you're leaving. You can then either pay them £20 (one off payment) for a viewing card which will give you access to all the Free to Air channels, or they may offer you a deal to stay. You yourself will know if you get enough out of Sky to warrant staying with them, but if you do, give them a call and haggle!

Ebay anything that isn't sentimental/broken/nailed down. Kids toys and outgrown clothes will make you a couple of quid and you can't beat the feeling of de-cluttering and debt busting at the same time!

Welcome aboard!

RAS

Hi

There is a bit for you to go at with the advice so far.

Other offerings:

Join the local branch of www.freecycle.org, whihc is where people offer their stuff for nothing but collection. There are often bundles of kids clothes, toys and adult stuff as well. honestly at their age, the kids will not notice or care

For your own decent stuff, look to sell anything that you no longer use through e-bay or a car boot sale.

Have a look at the Money Saving Old Style board for ideas on reducing your supermarket spend, but be warnd they could cut your budget considerably.

Check out chevalier's excellent list of survey and mystery shopping site, where you might get vouchers or free meals out.

Finally, debt counsellors do not have to mean DMPs and the like, just sometimes people can only get the sort of advice you received here by seeing one of them.

Well done for addressing the issue and keep on trucking.