Please rip my S.O.A apart

chrisfreelander54

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

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

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1551
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1140
Benefits................................ 138
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2829

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 335.6
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 79
Electricity............................. 25
Gas..................................... 25
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 36.39
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 10
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 27.5
Groceries etc. ......................... 200
Clothing................................ 40
Petrol/diesel........................... 150
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 100
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Car parking............................. 35
Other travel............................ 5
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 42
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 30
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 10.46
Contents insurance...................... 9.16
Life assurance ......................... 20
Other insurance......................... 8
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 70
Haircuts................................ 20
Entertainment........................... 30
Holiday................................. 100
Emergency fund.......................... 50
kids pocket money....................... 60
adult pocket money...................... 20
netflix................................. 5.99
bank fee................................ 25
accident sickness redundancy............ 16.85
critical illness insurance.............. 18.11
Total monthly expenses.................. 1666.18


Assets
Cash.................................... 6602
House value (Gross)..................... 75000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 15000
Other assets............................ 7000
Total Assets............................ 103602


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 41866....(335.6)....2.84
Total secured & HP debts...... 41866.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
cc1............................1788......25........0
cc2............................5269......53.23.....0
cc3............................1764......40.6......0
cc4............................1899......25........0
cc5............................3342......76.93.....0
cc6............................4430......101.9.....0
family.........................9005......0.........0
catalogue......................257.......25........0
Total unsecured debts..........27754.....347.66....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,829
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,666.18
Available for debt repayments........... 1,162.82
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 347.66
Amount left after debt repayments....... 815.16

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 103,602
Total HP & Secured debt................. -41,866
Total Unsecured debt.................... -27,754
Net Assets.............................. 33,982

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Jon_B_2

Well I guess the first question is - do you really have £815.16 left at the end of the month?

I can't understand how you can have £28k's worth of debt based on that SOA as you have plenty of spare cash about.

Only things that really stand out from an expenditure POV is car insurance at £100/month for two cars which is excessive.

Kid's pocket money at £60 is bizarre. When I was a kid in the 90's, I was lucky to get £10/month.

Not really much more to say - are you in trouble? Posting a SOA with no context makes analysing difficult. If you are in trouble then your SOA is not correct as you have lots of spare cash as I already said.

Karonher

Other than asking if you can shop around for better insurance deals, there does not seem to be much that could be cut. Are you getting your moneys worth from the bank account fee?

Do you have more than £800 a month left, and if not can you keep a diary to find out here it is going? If you have it, paying it off the debt with the highest interest should see the amount go down quickly.

Dobbibill

Hi Chris,

A few things I would look at would be......

* Internet Services - ask them if they can reduce it? never hurts to ask.
* What is 'other child related' expenses?
* Building and contents insurance may be better together or done via TCB when it's due for renewal, that does look rather alot unless you live in a mahoosive house but judging from your utility bills, I think not
* What is 'other insurance'?
* why are the kids getting 3x pocket money to the adults?
* Do you use all your benefits from your bank for the fee?
* Is ALL your debt 0%?

What do you do with the excess each month?

What are you looking to achieve from your SOA? This may help forumites to give tailored advice

HappyMJ

According to your SOA if you put all the available money towards your debts you'll be debt free in 2 years. Keep it up.

chrisfreelander54

Jon_B wrote: »

Well I guess the first question is - do you really have £815.16 left at the end of the month?

I can't understand how you can have £28k's worth of debt based on that SOA as you have plenty of spare cash about.

Only things that really stand out from an expenditure POV is car insurance at £100/month for two cars which is excessive.

Kid's pocket money at £60 is bizarre. When I was a kid in the 90's, I was lucky to get £10/month.

Not really much more to say - are you in trouble? Posting a SOA with no context makes analysing difficult. If you are in trouble then your SOA is not correct as you have lots of spare cash as I already said.

Thanks for your reply.

When I 1st come across MSE we had close on £41,000 worth of debt and very little money left over every month as we never budgeted and just spent money like it was going out of fashion.

Thats when I had my LMB and managed to drastically reduce this down to almost £6,000, but then went off the rails again and went HPI crazy, and got back to where we are now.

We have really cut back as much as possible to be able to hammer this Debt, this includes turning all loans into 0% using money transfer cards and help from family to save on interest, and because of what I read on here I've now got into stoozing and that's where that cash has come from as well as our emergency fund and rainy day funds.

Car insurance is roughly £70 pm but rounded it up because of the cost rising, this way we have it in an account ready to pay in full.

As we are in debt and don't want the kids to follow suit, we are trying to learn them about budgeting by giving them money for chores, of which our DD (14) £10 pw out of which she has managed to save the cash to buy herself an iphone 5 and a £5 pm sim only contract (in our name) and our DS (8) gets £2 pw, which he refuses to spend as he would rather bank it as he says he's saving for a Ferrari . Good lad.

Not in any trouble at present, just to document what we are spending as well as hoping that everyone can point out anywhere else we can save a few extra pennies.

getmore4less

Look at debt Feb 15 against Feb 16

if it went did not go down by £800*12 there was not £800pm spare.

£!5k of cars did you have loans for them that have finished?

chrisfreelander54

Karonher wrote: »

Other than asking if you can shop around for better insurance deals, there does not seem to be much that could be cut. Are you getting your moneys worth from the bank account fee?

Do you have more than £800 a month left, and if not can you keep a diary to find out here it is going? If you have it, paying it off the debt with the highest interest should see the amount go down quickly.

Bank fee covers break down on both cars (used twice in the last 6 months), holiday cover, home emergency (used 3 times in the last 12 months), mobile phone insurance and card and and identity theft. Looking at changing banks to one with a better package.

The money left over each month goes into a high interest account to stooze until each CC becomes due.

Dobbibill wrote: »

Hi Chris,

A few things I would look at would be......

* Internet Services - ask them if they can reduce it? never hurts to ask.
* What is 'other child related' expenses?
* Building and contents insurance may be better together or done via TCB when it's due for renewal, that does look rather alot unless you live in a mahoosive house but judging from your utility bills, I think not
* What is 'other insurance'?
* why are the kids getting 3x pocket money to the adults?
* Do you use all your benefits from your bank for the fee?
* Is ALL your debt 0%?

What do you do with the excess each month?

What are you looking to achieve from your SOA? This may help forumites to give tailored advice

We can't get a reduction on BB as I've recently asked this.
Other child related expenses are kick boxing and swimming lessons.
Just changed B&C insurance to a better deal + £50 cashback as we were paying £10 more before, I will definantly be getting another quote, as I've just done father in law a quote and it worked out half of mine and he to lives in an ex council hose around the corner from us.
Other insurance = caravan insurance for our tourer.
All debt is currently 0%.

getmore4less wrote: »

Look at debt Feb 15 against Feb 16

if it went did not go down by £800*12 there was not £800pm spare.

£!5k of cars did you have loans for them that have finished?

£800 pm is a recent finding after changing all loans onto 0% CCs.

No loans on cars as money transferred onto CCs @0%.

Ebe_Scrooge

chrisfreelander54 wrote: »

Not in any trouble at present, just to document what we are spending as well as hoping that everyone can point out anywhere else we can save a few extra pennies.

Since you say you're not in trouble, I won't be too draconian in my suggestions. But a couple of things do stand out to me as being quite high :


Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 70 - Over £800 a year on presents ?? Really ???

Holiday................................. 100 - This could easily be reduced quite a bit, depending on how much you're wanting to cut back.

kids pocket money....................... 60 This is very high and could be cut quite a lot.


As I say, if you were in real dire straights there are a lot more savings that could be made ( e.g. the Netflix subscription is a luxury ), but what I've highlighted are just things that look to me to be very high.


Hope this helps.

andyfromotley

Your cash reserves are high, i tend to suggest that whilst in debt an EF of arpound £1k should suffice, this will enable you to slay your CC's 1, 3 & 4. (although you may want to put ti towards the CC on which the 0% runs out soonest). This will free up another £90 pcm for debt repayment.

You re doing great though, stick with it and keep on keeping on.

enthusiasticsaver

I am puzzled as to why you posted this. You say you are not in trouble, the cash reserve is there to pay off credit cards as they fall off the 0% deals and you have a monthly surplus which you pay into high interest savings accounts. Yes there are opportunities to reduce your outgoings - other people have mentioned holidays, gifts etc but if you are not in difficulties then that is your choice as to how you spend your discretionary income. Are you wanting to pay off any of this £28k debt? I would be quite miffed if I was the family member who had lent you £9k and not seeing any repayments if you have £6k in savings and £800 surplus each month. Have you checked if your insurances will actually cover you - ie they often won't if you are on a fixed term or temporary contract or self employed. Also I will not pay out bank fees unless they are covered by cashback (£25 is a lot) and Netflix and pocket money is non essential.