SOA - (this may get long, apologies in advance!)

TrushTush

Okay, please be gentle. I am looking for advice on my SOA if anyone is kind enough to do so!
We are in a reasonably complicated situation, the mortgage is not for us but for the house family live in. We need to move them as the area is no longer suitable, and to top it off other family members are also in trouble living situation wise and we need to see if we can solve 2 problems in one. We have recently moved and so I was out of work for a while, hence the CC debts. We are within our means but we cannot get another mortgage without some serious change (and we'd need to up it considerably too) [edited to add, by this I mean we couldn't responsibly do so and would put ourselves at too much of a stretch which we cannot do as there will be times when I am out of work again due to the nature of our lifestyle so we have to be cautious] Happy to elaborate more if need be, within reason as I'm aware it's a public forum.

Debts are listed in my signature, credit cards are interest free until Jan 2017 and Sep 2018, very account is interest free for 12 months (just had to get a new laptop as mine kicked the bucket and I'm doing a computing degree so an essential sadly), overdraft and loan costing us the most interest wise, loan being overpaid each month (aim to get it cleared by the end of the year) overdraft hopefully withing free limits next month with a good wind behind us.

We have just renewed our car insurance, best deal around still high as current house is only on-street parking. Mobile phones are 4 of them on minimum contracts, 1 isn't but ends in October I think where it will be cancelled. House insurance is something I need to sort and find renewal dates as we have 2 policies. Car is a biggy. It's on a lease plan through the bank on 3.6 or 3.8% APR I can't remember, with 36 months left. It is not something we will change (despite me regretting the cost a tad) It is worth it to us and even if it wasn't I can't change it without significant cost.
School dinners is a cost that I budget for, due to working, studying and other things in life, I don't always remember to buy in the stuff for the kids, so I will always budget for a full month of school dinners so that I know the money is there if I have a bad month mentally for example.

Any advice welcomed, or perhaps some winning lottery numbers? Promise I'll share with you? I have a feeling I've missed a fair few bits on the SOA, we don't go out at the mo or anything but I did forget the swimming which costs around £5 a week.

So, here goes (please be kind, I'm petrified!)

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,150.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 192.00
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile phones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.00
TV licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Home phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Cleaning products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.74
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.52
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Council tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Overdraft cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Bank account fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.00
Home insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.25
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457.24
Plumbing/Boiler cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.90
Mortgage payment protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Food and household shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500.00
Drinks for home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Home Insurance Kit & Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . 35.29
Mess Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.51

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.37
Car insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.18
Car maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Rail/Buses/Taxis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.08
Caravan Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.33
Car Tyres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.23

Debt Repayments

Credit card repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200.00
Hire purchase repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Personal loan repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148.21
Car loan repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356.66
Bed Finance 0%. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42.43
Very Account 0% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45.46

Savings & Investments

Pension payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Buying shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cash ISAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump sum saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200.00

Family

Pet food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59.80
Pocket money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby-sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Playgroups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388.70
Pet insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.48
Travel insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Family days out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cinema/Theatre trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big days out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (antivirus, etc) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complementary therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Beauty treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Healthcare cash plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.81
Private medical insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Work clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New children's clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Education & Courses

University tuition fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One-Offs

Funeral expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Winter holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers and magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular charity donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.67
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,342.00


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,123.10

Deep_In_Debt

Hi

First thing that jumps out at me is the bank account fee. What is that for? Can you change bank accounts that doesn't have all the extras?

Also, home phone/internet...£30 for each? You should be able to get an all in one deal for much less per month.

Satellite TV - can you cancel and go Freeview/Freesat?

StokieBecks

You also have tv licence listed twice. Do you have two you are paying for?

The charity donation is high. I know it is everyone's personal choice but "unnecessaries" like that need to be first to be cut

How come there is no council tax or water payment listed? How many people in the household for £500 a month food shop?

TrushTush

Deep_In_Debt wrote: »

Hi

First thing that jumps out at me is the bank account fee. What is that for? Can you change bank accounts that doesn't have all the extras?

Also, home phone/internet...£30 for each? You should be able to get an all in one deal for much less per month.

Satellite TV - can you cancel and go Freeview/Freesat?

Bank account fee for Halifax, gives us our AA cover (which we top up) and insures 2 iphones (does also have other benefits which we have used in the past and may in the future but don't currently) so is currently worth it, but as soon as it isn't will be changed.
phone / internet is an all in one payment for Sky, which varies between £60 and £85 which include tv, phone and broadband and depends on how much we have to phone for things, tied in for another 10 months I think so unable to change (so budget for the highest amount)

Smodlet

£86 per month for mobiles??? Why do you have to pay for five? Can't believe you can't find a better deal than that. You seem to have two lots of house insurance listed and dental insurance? Are you not able to find an NHS dentist? I see a mess bill on there... don't the armed forces have their own dentists or is that what you are paying for? Sorry, don't know the first thing about armed forces' personnels' finances except, are you not supposed never to get into debt as it would leave you "vulnerable" or something? Maybe things have changed since we sold a second hand car to an RAF person years ago. What would the powers that be think of your going bankrupt, should that be the only solution?

And charity donations... what was said earlier. Don't think financial institutions are down with charity, except when they need the taxpayers to bail them out, of course. If you trawl these boards, you will find many ideas on how to "trim the fat" from your budget. As has also been said, if some of these debts were for your parents' benefit, they should be contributing whatever they can to repaying them. Good luck.

TrushTush

StokieBecks wrote: »

You also have tv licence listed twice. Do you have two you are paying for?

The charity donation is high. I know it is everyone's personal choice but "unnecessaries" like that need to be first to be cut

How come there is no council tax or water payment listed? How many people in the household for £500 a month food shop?

DOH! no, just the one, thank you.
The charity donation is 2 of them, 1 is a child we sponsor so that will stay unless we are at the stage that we can't pay bills and the other is dog's trust which I was thinking of cutting, but hadn't the heart to just yet.

No council tax or water because it comes out of my husbands wages at source (including our rent) the income is what we get in the bank after all those are taken.

There are 5 of us in the house, 2 cats and a hamster, £500 is for all food, cleaning, pet food, anything we need. I try and keep it to less than £100 a week, so budget for 5 weeks at that.

TrushTush

Appreciate the replies, I need to go in and edit the SOA where I obviously wasn't paying attention!

TrushTush

Smodlet wrote: »

£86 per month for mobiles??? How many? Can't believe you can't find a better deal than that. You seem to have two lots of house insurance listed and dental insurance? Are you not able to find an NHS dentist? I see a mess bill on there... don't the armed forces have their own dentists or is that what you are paying for? Sorry, don't know the first thing about armed forces' personnels' finances except, are you not supposed never to get into debt as it would leave you "vulnerable" or something? Maybe things have changed since we sold a second hand car to an RAF person years ago. What would the powers that be think of your going bankrupt, should that be the only solution?

And charity donations... what was said earlier. Don't think financial institutions are down with charity, except when they need the taxpayers to bail them out, of course. If you trawl these boards, you will find many ideas on how to "trim the fat" from your budget. As has also been said, if some of these debts were for your parents' benefit, they should be contributing whatever they can to repaying them. Good luck.

currently 4 mobiles, 3 at the lowest possible and 1 that isn't (well it's actually an ipad but I included it in there as it has a sim card in) for which the contract is up in October and will be cancelled (£29 a month)

No NHS dentists here, I have to be private for my kids to get in a dentist here (the joys of moving around a lot)

My husband is armed forces, his dental care is sorted, mine isn't.

No rules about debt, they help you if you're unable to manage it, we never miss payments and everything is well within our limits, but because I need to help family I need to get a good chunk cleared much quicker than expected and be able to afford to up the mortgage Absolutely no chance of going bankrupt, luckily we're not in that situation and wouldn't be something we would consider (If we were, as many sadly are, that is where hubby's job would step in)

Thank you, the only debt for family is the mortgage, but we own the house so that is their 'payment' to us.

Sorry for weird bullet pointed replies, hope it makes sense!

(And thank you for the help)
-Tush

Smodlet

Thank you for the clarification, Trushtush. If my tone came across as a little judgmental, I apologise, it was not intentional. Your situation makes more sense to me, now and I am glad your parents have taken steps to reimburse you and especially, that BR is not a possibility.

Are you certain the mobiles are on the lowest possible tariff? I realise people's needs differ but OH pays £7.75 per month for 1000 minutes, 6Gb of data and unlimited texts; I do not have one, myself. This does not include payments for the handset as it is a SIM only deal; the handset belongs on the Antiques Roadshow but what the heck, it still works!

Moving around all the time must be a nightmare and expensive. Is your OH not able to get family dental cover for all of you? Again, forgive my ignorance, it has been a long time since I worked with any ex-forces people but I do remember some of them lamenting the loss of all the fringe benefits they enjoyed while serving.

I see regular savings every month of £200... maybe re-think your priorities there, unless they are paying more interest than you are charged for the loans. HTH and keep the faith, you will get there.

TrushTush

I did not take it as judgmental at all, please do not worry there, I asked for help and I'm getting it, I am very grateful!

No health care from forces, some camps allow you to use the medical centre instead of the local practice but that's the extent of it for families. The savings of £200 is for extra school expenses (we have a daughter at boarding school, she gets extra maths tuition so this is for that plus some (hopefully) left for school trips for our 2 boys, but as we have yet to have the first bill for this tuition, I don't know what the amount will be. I only put £150 in this month (and that's all that's in there) as I wanted to prioritise the overdraft.

SOA could be a lot more refined but as many costs haven't fully settled I tried to just get as best an idea as I can.

Thank you again!

Smodlet

I imagine this is going to be an irrelevant observation but, when I was at (state) school, there were people there whose parents were in the forces and they were just resigned to having to move schools regularly. I seem to recall they were very mature compared to most of us.

I am sure you have already tried this but, just in case: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/dentists/Pages/find-an-NHS-dentist.aspx