help

sourcrates

You are committed for the full 24 month length of the contract unfortunately, you can ring and ask to be put on a lower tarif, but as you accepted the phones on the basis of the contract you have now, that may not be possible.

andyfromotley

debt247 wrote: »

Please kindly suggest budget options. Would like to become debt free but also fed up of struggling monthly.

[tt]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2300
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2300

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 400
Rent.................................... 350
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 10
Electricity............................. 10
Gas..................................... 10
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 200 Obviously this has to be reduced. If they are for other people those people need to start chipping in for them. When the contracts end then you need to go on payg sim for a MAX of £15 per month per phone. Who are these phones for?? If they are all yours why???? if so consider selling the phone and paying up the contract with the money. This needs some expalnation.
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 200 too much for one person. you can easily feed yourself on £5 per day.
Clothing................................ 50 No i suspect that you have plenty of clothes. try not buying anything new for a year
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 80 Shop around and drive this down!!
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10 I doubt that this is enough for an MOT, service, new tyres, brakes, exhaust etc.
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 50 What is this? its a lot!
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 50 What for??
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 100 What are you insuring?? If you have no kids you dont need any other insurance. Again this is a lot!!
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 You need something in here surely!
Haircuts................................ 30 Bit sexist i know but are you a man or a woman? Man way too much, DIY or £10 pcm max. Woman - thats sounds fine. (I know i know - so shoot me)
Entertainment........................... 50
Holiday................................. 0 No holidays ever??
Emergency fund.......................... 0 You need something in here see my notes below.
Total monthly expenses.................. 1720


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 3000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 1700.....(400)......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 1700......-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
bank loan......................40000.....200.......9
other loan.....................3000......300.......0
Total unsecured debts..........43000.....500.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,300
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,720
Available for debt repayments........... 580
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 500
Amount left after debt repayments....... 80

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 3,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -1,700
Total Unsecured debt.................... -43,000
Net Assets.............................. -41,700

[/tt]

Ok you are not in bad shape. See my notes above, some of your catagories need jiggling.

Keep paying the minimum on your debts and throw every single penny you have into a savings account until you have £1000. This is the foundation upon you which you will build your debt free life. It will stop emergencies becoming debt disasters and give you security and peace of mind. Emergencies do not include holidays, christmas, car servicing etc, it there for Emergencies. Once you have this i would then throw everything i could at the HP debt of £400 which you should have paid off before christmas. This will free up an awful lot of cash which you can then throw at your £3k loan. This with the other savings should then take you less than 6 months to pay off. So in less than one year you should be at least £7-800 pcm better off, with a nice emergency fund keeping you safe. If you are prepared to maintain your current lifestyle then you can set about killing the big debt. Which you will do in less than 4 years. if you dactor in pay rises or dare i say a second job then this will happen much quicker!! So there you go theres a plan for you.

You can tweek it to go faster or slower, to include things i have missed or cut things i havent but you can be debt free fairly quickly and then you are going to be rich with well over £1000 per month to save and live your dreams. What are you waiting for? It all there for you get to it!!

horseygirl2014

Ok, well done for taking the first step.
Is there any way to increase your income - overtime ect?
Mobile phone - been well covered! def look at this one,
Groceries - this def. seems very high. is this a guess? sit down and have a look at last months receipts, and then write the amount down on a calendar on the days you bought them. do you shop every day?? if so do you pop in for one or two things (milk bread ect) and then buy a 'treat'. How much is branded?
this to me is def one to tackle, as its the easiest one to reduce. As andy says, 5.00 a day ALL in, is more than do able.
Medical - without getting personal - if this is all for prescriptions, look at an annual, or even a 6 montht prescription ticket. Anyone who has to have more than one prescription a month saves on this - (i cant put in a link,)
Haircuts - seems a lot - i have long hair and i probably dont spend that a year on hair cuts. (I also don't dye my hair )
entertainment?? if you cut this down even a little, it will help - ie one less drink at the pub. same with other travel
Insurance - whats this for ??

hope this helps. the more info you feel able to share, the more help we can give

lovehackney

is your council tax really only £10 a month or is that a typo? Surely it is more like £100?

debt247

Thank you for your suggestions and words of encouragement. They have all been useful and given me hope.
I do need to change where I shop for food.
I am a guy and yes £30 per haircut is excessive given my current situation

bargainbetty

Can you give us more details on why you are paying for four contracts? We may be able to suggest ways to reduce or cancel them.

enthusiasticsaver

Is that soa correct and are you now living within your means - ie do you have £80 left over each month? The reason I ask is that the bank loan of £40k is a lot without any significant asset to show for that or is this the result of debt consolidation over a number of years? If it was a loan taken out as a student for studying for a degree did you not get a student loan from the SLC? Why a bank loan?

Several suggestions have already been made re savings by looking at mobile phone, clothes, food and insurance. I would also say the council tax/gas and electric looks very low but if you are sharing a house with quite a few other people I guess this may be accurate.

Once the HP and 2nd loan are paid off within the next 5-10 months you will then have £700 extra to pay off the bank loan each month so long as you are keeping to the soa and not accumulating more debt. Do you have any credit cards or overdrafts?

Getting out of debt is a long slog but on your income it should be feasible to do this so long as you budget accurately and keep track of your money and what you are spending it on.

EssexHebridean

Pretty much what everyone else has said about the phones - if you're paying for others to have them as well then they need to start paying for them, end of. Ditto the insurance thing - if it's not essential to life, ditch it.

Your travel is currently costing you in excess of £3k a year - which is making a major hole in your budget. Your car alone is costing over £200 per month to run - and in fact probably more than that as the person who said £10 a month isn't covering its running costs was very right about that. - you're doing a good few miles each month to run through £100 in fuel and on that mileage you're likely to need at least a couple of new tyres annually as well as other routine maintenance. If it were me, I'd work out whether my money was better spent on public transport - selling that car will give you enough if you're accurate on its value to pay off that smaller loan, too...

Food - halve that spend. Take out cash and spend that in Lidl/Aldi or on mainstream supermarket budget ranges. Meal plan - the Old Style board is a fab resource - go over there and ask them for help and I guarantee they'll take you under their wing. If at the end of the month you have money left from your £100 food budget then you have a choice - a cheeky takeaway (which is fine as you'd have budgeted for it) or you might decide to transfer it over to pay off some of your debt.

Clothes - get EVERYTHING you own out of the cupboards, wardrobes etc and lay them out on your bed - now, still feel you need new clothes? Thought not. If there is anything there you definitely won't wear again, or that doesn't fit by a long way, get rid to the charity shop - this will help reduce the feeling of you having "lots of clothes but nothing to wear".

Haircuts - You said it yourself, you're a chap, chaps do NOT spend that amount on their hair. Next time you go, leave it an extra week for a start before going to the barbers, then ask for a lower maintenance style "as a change" - the barber doesn't need to know why you're asking.

debt247

Long story, the EE contract is 24 months at £50 per month, I got out two numbers to use one number for work (unnecessary thinking back, my work does not require mobile ). Then I got out one for my mum and one for my younger brother as a gift (burying my head in the sand). My two handsets broke and I binned it, I didn't know you can sell them for money. My mum and brother still has their handsets but they never used the contract because I just took it out thinking they would use it. I can't get the phones back I no longer live with them. I still have a whole year to go on all four EE contracts

debt247

Thank you, I feel so embarrassed right now and never told anyone about it. I did a 5 year vocational degree but due to resits it took me 4 extra years at uni. I did get a student loan but it didn't cover all my overheads and parents were not in a position to help financially. I live quite a low key lifestyle people would not think I'm in financial difficulty ( don't drink, don't have a social circle or ever gone on holiday ) , I don't want to think about it or confront it bit I guess I will have to. I have paid back £20k of the original £60k loan since 2012 but over the past year I have been scraping by because other family issues.