Staying Motivated & Small Steps, I'd love some advice please!

Kawaii_Corgi

Hiya -taff, I will be doing that for the new year; unfortunately the crash was around a week after I changed insurance to Admiral and they immediately put it up so I need to wait till Jan-ish. Mine is still fairly high anyway unfortunately, I've only been driving 3 and a bit years and I'm not sure how only having an automatic licence affects it one way or the other.

Thank you for your post!

Katzen

Hi, just caught up with your thread. What a story from both you and stevoz!
Logically speaking you should tackle the highest interest first but there is a lot to be said for clearing a smaller card or two just to get a bit of a boost. Looking at your SOA you could perhaps clear the 3 figure ones then move on. You need to calculate how much you've got for overpayments after you've paid the minimum then see how long it would take to pay off day Cap1.

Kawaii_Corgi

Hi Katzen

I think that might be my first goal; I know it's not the most logical step in terms of numbers but it might make me feel a bit better in general

Thank you for your post!

LabRatty

Congratulations on getting a grip on things!
In your first post, you mention one of the downsides of your debt as not being able to do things for other people.
I'm sure you could still do this, but by spending time or energy on your friends rather than money. Examples might be going out for a walk on a lovely day with a flask of hot soup, offering to cook a meal for someone or help clean out/declutter a room, or an evening watching something on Netflix with a bottle of wine. Small things, but some of our best times have been based around simple pleasures.
All the best,
LR

EssexHebridean

Kawaii_Corgi wrote: »

Okay so here is my SOA! I'm not sure on percentages but unfortunately I think most are in their 30s.. I need to confirm though. I don't pay minimum payments on anything so I put what I'm actually paying, though it does occur to me that maybe I should be paying one over another? Maybe paying off a small card or account would give me a boost?

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1460
Partners monthly income after tax....... 900 (his contribution)
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2360

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 178
Rent.................................... 390
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 101 Do you pay this over 10 month? If so switching to 12 might help with budgeting
Electricity............................. 80 (prepay meter we can't change) Have you shopped around for the best tariff? Pre Pay will always be expensive, sadly, but some are better than others. Martin has a guide on it, I think.
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 30
Telephone (land line)................... 17
Mobile phone............................ 55 (:( awful i know, needs to be reduced) Correct!
TV Licence.............................. 0 (we use our tv exclusively for gaming)
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 18
Groceries etc. ......................... 140
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 60 (my smart car does 50-60 mpg to work and back which is 10 miles)
Road tax................................ 0 (no road tax on smart cars!)
Car Insurance........................... 62 (went up £30 after car accident - they crashed into me! )
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 20 (£20 for service payments, new car so MOT free) You might want to add a further £15 to that to cover for wear and tear - tyres, wipers etc.
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 30 (counselling; she's already put me on her lower rate used to be £45!)
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 9
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 15 (for xmas and birthdays over the year)
Haircuts................................ 0 (I get this free by helping lovely hairdresser friend with her social media) Brilliant work! :T
Entertainment........................... 40
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 10 (emergency fund for flat e.g. if we go over on electric)
Gym..................................... 50 (to be cancelled)
Savings (for emergency)................. 50 (£1000 challenge!)
Software................................ 12 (YNAB and adobe CC)
Total monthly expenses.................. 1367


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


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 0........(0)........0
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 10000....(178)......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 10000.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Argos Card.....................583.......22........0
HSBC CC........................5346......140.......0
Barclaycard....................4863......140.......0
HSBC Overdraft.................1700......25........0
Next...........................654.......40........0
PayPal Credit..................584.......32........0
Simply Be......................2758......145.......0
Very...........................4188......150.......0
Cap1...........................714.......40........0
AQUA...........................3764......200.......0
Total unsecured debts..........25154.....934.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,360
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,387
Available for debt repayments........... 973
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 934
Amount left after debt repayments....... 39

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 7,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -10,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -25,154
Net Assets.............................. -28,154

First thing, while I remember. No Fault accidents with Admiral. Once this is confirmed as "no fault" beware of ringing to tell them this, they charged me an additional premium for telling them when this happened to me - £50 because they said "it going to no fault might make me less careful" :mad: Most ludicrous excuse I've EVER heard. I was very unimpressed indeed - and they could now be as cheap as you like, I'd never even contemplate going back with them! (As an aside, in spite of cast iron evidence - driver came through a red light and slammed into me, police attended and provided documentation as proof etc, I found that the whole group Admiral are part of were extremely shoddy at dealing with claims, too - the original claim was with Diamond and was handled in a way that could be described as lacklustre, at best)

What Katzen says about paying off - highest interest first. You need to "Snowball" - so minimum payments to all bar the highest interest, and throw every spare penny at that one. Once that is cleared, you turn your attention to the next one - thus meaning you're paying whatever you were paying to debt 1, plus the minimum on that. As you work your way through the amounts you're paying increase, meaning you make a better impact on what you're paying, IYSWIM?

For anything on 0%, you need to look at when the 0% will expire, and then prioritise that within your snowballing, but also check the interest rate it will go onto when you're looking for what to do about paying off. (Fore example, a 0% that is going to go onto a 34.9% interest rate gets prioritised higher than one which will revert to 15.9%).

On your electricity, see if you can borrow one of the devices that clips onto the meter wires and monitors how much you're using - it's a great incentive to bring your use down! one thing I would say is that if your heating etc is on storage heaters, you really ought to be on economy 7 or similar - what is the reason for you not being able to switch away from pre-pay as this is a horribly expensive way for an all-electric household to be paying. Things that are traditionally hungry on power (aside from heating) are kettles and electric showers, so watch how long you take in the shower, for example. Martin's got some great tips on the main site for reducing electricity use if I remember rightly.

Smodlet

Admiral were in the news yesterday because they were trying to use social media to "profile", for want of a better word, young drivers to see their habits, what they posted about, if they came across as careful and responsible or wannabe boy racers... Faceache blocked them.

It might be worth trying to get cheaper insurance elsewhere and paying the penalty to get away from them. The insurance board on here has comparison sites links.

Sanctioned_Parts_List

Hmm... wish I'd known before I took an Admiral insurance policy.

But then, I don't have a FB account, so good luck mining my data, leeches! :whistle:

Welcome Kawaii - very impressive introduction. Looks like everyone has everything covered, but a few other questions/thoughts:

OH Contribition - does OH have any debts of his own, and what would your SOA look like if you completely pooled all income and debts?

Electricity - did the utility company give you any specific reason why you couldn't switch to post-pay?

Mobile phone - which network and how much longer on your contract?

Unsecured debts - what would your repayments be if you only paid the minimum on all cards? This might make the snowballing calculation a lot easier.

Software: Adobe CC eh? Have a look on the various microjob sites, loads of casual work for artists and designers that pays pretty well for only an hour's effort, that you can do in your free time whenever you're bored.

Smodlet

SPL, are you back in the UK, now? No longer roasting down where it's hot?

Sanctioned_Parts_List

I was... for about 3 weeks, but now back on the wrong side of the planet, shivering in a suddenly wintry Seoul. Hopefully home for Christmas.

Gods I'm sick of kimchi...

Smodlet

Why didn't you smuggle a jar of pickle back in with you?

Sorry, Kawaii, for the digression.