New Member Emil's SOA

emil_2

Ok, here goes...! My S.O.A.

Earnings (monthly):

£3,500

Outgoings (monthly):

£1200.00 to joint a/c to pay household utility bills and food etc. This works fine.
£488.00 Loan repayment (First Direct, £12,000 outstanding, 26 more monthly payments - 7.1% APR)
£274 CC No. 1 repyment (minimum payment made, £14,000 debit balance, MBNA Platinum Card, 12.9% APR)
£145 CC No. 2 repayment (minimum payment made, £4,900 debit balance, First Direct Card, 16.9% APR)
£27 CC No. 3 repayment (minimum payment made, £1,500 debit balance, MSDW Platinum Card, 17.9% APR)

Total Outgoings: £2,143 pcm.

Others:

Monthly:
£290 per month on my commute (petrol & parking)
£175 per month on cigarettes (yeah, I know)
£90 per month cleaner (yeah, I know too!)

Annual:
£450 - Car insurance
£100 - Club memberships etc
£200 - Charity
£200 - Road Fund Licence
£250 - Car servicing and maintainance

Taking all these in to consideration my monthly total outgoings are:

£2,798.

Cash left over after everything:

£702.

Crikey.

Kevicho

Hi a few quick pointers

emil wrote: »

Ok, here goes...! My S.O.A.

Earnings (monthly):

£3,500

Outgoings (monthly):

£1200.00 to joint a/c to pay household utility bills and food etc. This works fine. - does this cover ALL the household bills?If so the next step is to break this down further to see if you can make savings on everyday life
£488.00 Loan repayment (First Direct, £12,000 outstanding, 26 more monthly payments - 7.1% APR)
£274 CC No. 1 repyment (minimum payment made, £14,000 debit balance, MBNA Platinum Card, 12.9% APR)
£145 CC No. 2 repayment (minimum payment made, £4,900 debit balance, First Direct Card, 16.9% APR)
£27 CC No. 3 repayment (minimum payment made, £1,500 debit balance, MSDW Platinum Card, 17.9% APR) - id overpay as much as you can on this card first, then pay card 2 then card 3)

Total Outgoings: £2,143 pcm.

Others:

Monthly:
£290 per month on my commute (petrol & parking) - any ways to cut this back if possible, id walk or use car less if possible
£175 per month on cigarettes (yeah, I know) - if you want to give up smoking there is a thread onhere, also try the NHS for free advice
£90 per month cleaner (yeah, I know too!) - this is a luxury, maybe getting everyone to chip in or by decluttering will mean the "need" for a cleaner reduces significantly

Annual:
£450 - Car insurance - is this the cheapest you can get? also downsizing car may save you here
£100 - Club memberships etc
£200 - Charity - charity begins at home, id cancel this then overpay when the debt is gone
£200 - Road Fund Licence - no idea what this is lol
£250 - Car servicing and maintainance

Taking all these in to consideration my monthly total outgoings are:

£2,798.

Cash left over after everything:

£702. - plus any savings you can make on the shopping budget, use as much of this money as possible to overpay the credit cards as possible, in the order suggested.

Crikey.

Thanks for the SOA, maybe keeping a spending diary will help with working out the monthly household (1200) expense.

Also other things tolook at ebaying (after the postal strike) anything you dont need to clear out the clutter and also beat down a card.

Welcome to the board and good luck

Kev

emil_2

Thanks Kev!

Your points:

Good call, I'll nail the Morgan Stanley CC first, should be a 'managable' one to start with.

Sadly the commute and petrol costs are just about as low as they'll get. In order to get the high salary I have to travel miles every day (80 mile return car journey, park & ride so parking is free, £2 day return on park & ride bus!)

Looks like the cleaner has got to go, bum!

Car insurance is pretty competitive though will have a shop around.

Charity - I will halve this I reckon (annual donation to Christies Cancer Hospital who looked after my grandmother while she was pegging it.)

BTW, Road Fund Licence is otherwise knows as Car Tax! Sadly not one I can get rid of!

Seaxwyn

Hi Emil

If you haven't already, go to https://www.whatsthecost.com and enter all your debts into the Snowball Calculator. This will tell you how to tackle them and how long it will take. Play about with the monthly figure to see for example how much difference stopping smoking would make to your debt-free date. It was a real eye-opener for me.

Good luck with it!

Karmacat

Hi Emil

Welcome to mse. Just a thought: do you actually *have* £700 left over already after essentials? If you don't, start a spending diary to find out where its going. In fact, start one anyway, to get more control over the whole of your finances. Analyse it after a week, a month, see whats going on, where you can cut down or substitute cheaper options. Thats in addition to paying less for utilities etc.

There was a discussion a while back on here about donating to charity whilst in debt: effectively, you're borrowing to donate that money. Not sensible, not really. Give them more money once you're out of debt, if you like.

Hope this helps.

emil_2

heh, mindreader - I dont actually 'have' the £700, I think a little goblin takes £10 notes from my wallet each night!

In all seriousness I just spend it on crap - should really start bringing packed lunches to work as that would save me a bomb I reckon.

Karmacat

A spending diary puts up a little goblin shield, I've seen it happen! Realio trulio! It tells you what the crap is, thats the point - there are things you know about, like too much on the daily lunch, but there's things you don't - you might have a stationery weakness, or too many newspapers, something, don't know, thats the point. Thats an awful lot of money to disappear, and you work hard for it. Let yourself have the benefit of your hard work - think of it that way!

mae

If you really do have £700 left over and you can keep control of this you could probably have CC 3 paid off in about 3 mths by being strict.

Also if you break down the £1200 for housefold expenses you may find you can save some money here too.

Also when you buy insurance etc have a look at going through Quidco to make some extra money.

mae

Also how is your credit rating? Is it possible that you could transfer some of your debt to 0% or a low life of balance (see Martins guide on credit cards). Its worth looking into this because you could save a fortune in interest and pay off your debts so much quicker. Have a look on your credit card statments how much interest goes on each month.

emil_2

Sadly my credit score is at rock bottom. I am in the middle of legal advice with this as I received a CCJ, without knowing it (no correspondance ever received) after an Estate Agent took me to court without me knowing! It looks positive to get it recinded but will take a bit of time I guess. I am furious with them (KFH, London) and will be seeking damages at a later date. Anyway, the nutshell is that I cannot gain any credit / new cards etc from ANYONE at the moment.

I have been thinking about paying off the one Morgan Stanley card and then 'doing the shuffle' - ie moving 1500 from CC1 to the 'empty' Morgan Stanley Card at 0% and then 1500 from CC2 onto the space made available on CC1. It is not perfect but at least it means I will have paid off 1500 and another 3000 is being paid off interest free.

Karmacat

Absolutely shuffle the cards to get the best out of 0% deals, if you have the discipline and the ability to get a 0% card, thats ideal.