£46,000 possibly more debt I want it gone..

enthusiasticsaver

You cannot afford the mobile devices for you and your children while you have £141 shortfall on paying the most basic and probably inaccurate soa. The pcp on the car and the mileage per month is crippling you too. Can you either sell the house and move nearer work and rent or get a job nearer home?

As it is just you I would cancel the life assurance. Long term though this is unsustainable to be paying out £710 in car costs, £300 child maintenance, £450 in debt payments (without the £8k to your dad or I assume the sofa payment) and £703 in rent and mortgage. This leaves you nothing to feed or clothe yourself let alone cover unexpected emergencies with car or house.

I think you need to do some serious thinking about the cars and house. Even if you end up handing the pcp car back you won't have to pay insurance on it. Working as far away from home as you do means you having to fork out a fortune in extra rent and fuel unless the fuel is high due to your DJ job? In which case put your prices up as the income is barely covering costs of transport especially as you are having to run another car especially for that.

Lucylocks

With regards mobile costs that is a huge amount! I've got both my kids mobiles on SIM only t3sco mobile contracts. These allow costs to be capped each month so no unexpected bills. If the want new handsets these are usually bought second hand as birthday present. I pay between £8-£10 a month each

nsl101

so with the mobile contract.. I have made some progress. The contracts i took out a year ago for my children for birthdays. in short the contracts penalty's are high to break out at the moment, but i have negotiated, i have also capped the usage for them however they were not using a lot of calls anyway but better to be safe. My own device has a massive amount of data as i use it when DJ'ing, however i plan to go through my statements over the past 6 months and find out how much of that free data i have used and see if i can dial it back a bit to make a further saving... But to cut a long story short...

£142.27 is now...
£108.28

I have also cancelled my life assurance and income protection..

£55.69 is now
£0.00

so thats a saving of £89.68 monthly.

add in the cancellation of netflix in one weekend ive saved £97.17 monthly I know i have quite a way to go but its a start...

Im still going through the piles of invoices and receipts from my DJ income, as currently i'm holding the money for my tax bill in the account from last year, i can then pass this all on to my lady who does the books and get my tax bill done for last year, this also helps me in completing a better SOA. Once the tax bill is in i should have some funds i can release from that account and push that into my debt, but also going forward i intent to skim the account monthly leaving 25% of dj income minus costs, for tax. this will help again as I can sink it on the debt now rather than waiting...

Ive been looking for 1 bed flat near to where i work so i can stay there more than the two nights a week, and im looking at options for getting a lodger in my room mon-fri to cover that increase in rent. This should help decrease the money im spending on fuel and car maintenance etc.

There is a lot of plates at the moment spinning... I feel if i can sort out a lodger that's important as if this will give me extra moneys to sink on the debt.

Just trying not to let this lot get on top of me as depression is always an issue and that's when i give up on all this...

So hopefully ill have this accurate revised SOA soon.

enthusiasticsaver

Great start on cutting back and if you can get a lodger Monday to Friday then this will help with costs.

nsl101

I think i should have started this thread under the diary sub forum, is there anyway i can move this thread over? or should i start a new one, as I am starting to feel like i want to keep updating the thread, i don't want to upset any admins lol...

Today's Success.

Went through my DJ account today and worked out income minus costs then I've kept back 25% plus a 100.00 buffer to allow for outgoing payments. I've skimmed off the excess, my tax bill will be lower so i have more than enough put by for my income so far, as this is not taking into consideration millage at the moment. I plan to do a skim monthly so i can get the money working for me sooner rather than waiting till the end of the year. In short I've found £715.40

I've also opened up two saver accounts with my bank so i can skim moneys out of my current account with my phone app into a place where i can hold it so i can then build up a buffer and see daily what im building..

Transferred the skim from the DJ monies and the amount ive saved from my monthly bills into account 1. account 1 is my buffer, im building up £1,000.00 in that account to stop me using the credit cards when i need to repair or replace something..

Account 2 this account is for me to put money that i would have burnt on spending to make myself feel happy, this will build for a month then at the end of the month that money will be used towards paying off a debt. I am going to try and snowball the credit card with the smallest balance. The rule i have set myself is that if i crave and think i would order something in then I have to transfer the money it would cost into this account I would then goto the fridge and make something to eat. I am also going to start packing lunches - this then will also be used to build up this fund.

I have my living room floor littered with bank statements and invoices, and today i invested £5.00 in filing boxes and plastic pockets, i plan to make them up for each month historically with a balance sheet, this is going to take me some time but its worth it to get that accurate SOA.

Car on PCP - Finance..
Managed to talk this through with the company today... I cannot give the car back until i have made 50% of the scheduled repayments, that will take another year.. So i am stuck with the contract and the car, however I have made a note in the diary the date i hit that all important 50% mark so i can then give the car back without a charge. I will revisit it then...

However in the mean time, My brother in-law has just got himself a job and needed to borrow a car, so i have agreed he can use it for a few months, interestingly adding him as a named driver has reduced my car insurance (multi car policy) to £80.55 It also means the vehicle is being driven so its not going to seize up, and additionally he is going to pay me £50.00 a month for now while he saves for a car. This equates to freeing up £75.19 for me monthly.. so ill be watching my account as soon as i see this on the statement that will be added to my pot in account 1 to help build that buffer.

I'm typing all this while i have a well earned cuppa... I've also started to clear out the room i intend to rent.. Oh and i shopped at Aldi this weekend and i for the first time I went with a list and working with what i had in the cupboards and fridge/freezer already i had my kids to stay and fed them and myself since on £10.00 for the week. normally id go to Tesco almost daily. or order in... going to try and keep Aldi as my first port of call..

The encouragement from this forum is great I wish i'd spent some time on it before.. I know I'm not moving super fast on this but i am working through it as fast as i can...

So I guess i have 2 Targets ATM simple ones...

1: Build £1,000.00 buffer..
2. Get a 100% accurate SOA completed ASAP

Account1 (buffer) = £812.50
Account2 = £7.24

nsl101

ok So ive had an eventful time since i last posted...

but heres an updated SOA

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 3 (Focus, Panda, morris)

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2882
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 290 (Lodger)
Total monthly income.................... 3172

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 482
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 220 (this is my room where i work to cut down mileage)
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 98
Electricity............................. 26.5 (paid for in one so ive divided by 2)
Gas..................................... 26.5
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 29
Telephone (land line)................... 47.49
Mobile phone............................ 124 (contracted untill nov 2018 on 4 devices exiting contracts costs the same)
TV Licence.............................. 12.37
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 3.3 (email hosting - did away with personal web server)
Groceries etc. ......................... 120 (now shopping in aldi and im doing amazingly well)
Clothing................................ 5
Petrol/diesel........................... 345.47
Road tax................................ 21.87 (both panda and focus together)
Car Insurance........................... 88.55 (multicar insurance)
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 20.82 (service plan plus montly put aside for both cars)
Car parking............................. 3 (i might pay for parking an hour or so a month)
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 362 (maintenance they are now in there teens)
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 14.86 (buildings and contents combined)
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 55.69 (tried to re-negotiate waiting for tests on a lump on my neck then i can bring this down to £20 if all clear)
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 90 (provision goes into dedicated account)
Haircuts................................ 8
Entertainment........................... 0 ( I need to rework things to be sensible but this month this is very true)
Holiday................................. 0 ( I'm struggling with this i need to budget for a holiday but i cant justify it to myself atm)
Emergency fund.......................... 0 ( I have already built my £1000.00 emergancy fund looking to sell things to raise a bigger pot in the comming months)
Total monthly expenses.................. 2204.42


Assets
Cash.................................... 1006.64
House value (Gross)..................... 187000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 7000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 195006.64


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 110000...(482)......3.6
Total secured & HP debts...... 110000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
First direct (loan)............44589.....530.......6.7
Hitachi (sofas)................1987.6....47.95.....0
Total unsecured debts..........46576.6...577.95....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,172
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,204.42
Available for debt repayments........... 967.58
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 577.95
Amount left after debt repayments....... 389.63

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 195,006.64
Total HP & Secured debt................. -110,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -46,576.6
Net Assets.............................. 38,430.04

So I've already started work on this...
1) over Christmas i did a consolidation of my loans and credit cards as i couldn't keep track of all the interest mess. This has meant i now have a massive frontloaded interest loan but i can overpay and it also means i have a maximum amount on the interest which i didn't have before. Also I have now only two payments monthly which is more manageable
2) The consolidation means I am now free to sell the panda, which i think is worth about 5,500 to 6,000 private sale. The plan is to sell it beginning of Feb, this will be used to pay down the the capitol of the bigger loan.
3) Drawn up a chart and im on the 1% challenge, the plan being to raise £370 as my 1% this is quite high, but i really really need to try.
4) you can earn up to 7500 a year tax free with lodgers so im investigating renting my bedroom too a second lodger mon-fri as im mainly away during the week this will raise 330 a month to go towards the debt.
5) My car insurance is up for renewal and i have had an SP30 drop off my history so im going to re-negotiate my car insurance, and see if i can do better.
6) I am going to haggle with my energy supplier to try and bring that down.
7) I am looking at ways to increase my income by looking for higher paid work however this is not likely to happen quickly.
8) Selling as much as can and decluttering the house.

Not sure if there any other ideas out there, also looking at this and im not sure if the SOA is accurate i think i spend more on groceries so i need to go back through my budget and compare it again, when it says £389.63 left i'm not sure i believe it... lol but it could be right, ive been tightening my belt and this is the first month on this new plan.

The money I owe my dad is not included here and im looking to sort that after ive paid back the loan. After talking to him he is in no hurry for it and would like me to pay back the loan first.

Its still a mess but feels a bit better.

Silver_Queen

Just a thought...do you really need a landline telephone when you have a mobile phone?

nsl101

Yes i do, its for the internet, the mobile phone reception is not good, and i work from home two days a week. Also I use casting sticks for TV using iplayer and the like instead of paying for TV.

vickthestick

Everything is starting to look so much better for you.
Well done!

theoretica

What is your relative timing of renewing the car insurance and selling one car? Might be worth thinking about this so your one car insurance isn't left higher than it should be.