Huge Overspend

Feral_Moon

bobcat2 wrote: »

Your SOA isnt right, it looks like you have an £800 overspend but you don't, this is because you are essentially trying to repay £20k of debt in 18 months, which isn't going to happen. I would re-do it with the minimum payments, which will probably be less that what you have left over after everything else is paid and the rest can be used as overpayments to the debts. If you cut back, budget properly, and start living within your means you'll be able to get this sorted out no worries
I'd also put some assets, so your net assets doesnt look so bad

Thank you. Yes, I am overpaying on the credit cards as my initial plan was to clear them before any interest was applied. I can see now that it's extremely unlikely I can achieve this. I'm just going to have to hope that the credit card I've put aside will come up with a decent 0% offer within the next 6mths. They're currently only offering the deal for 6mths or a LOB 6.9%, neither of which are currently useful.

I will do another SOA based on minimum payments and with more accurate expenses, plus the vehicles I missed off the assets list. Hopefully it will paint a more positive outlook.

MrsSave

As others have said you need to stop spending on the credit cards. Also, you need to just pay the minimum balance. You cannot afford to pay more. Your food shop is very high (I know you said you were going to look at it again today, but often when we estimate something like this we tend to underestimate).

Set yourself a budget (I don't believe that your soa is realistic, I think it's what you want to spend not what you do otherwise you wouldn't be overspending each month by this amount). Take cash out every week for food, petrol, spending money. Your dog food bill is very high, you cannot afford it.

Why are you paying your student loan if you're not earning?

You mention an addiction to internet shopping. That isn't mentioned on your soa? What do you buy? You definitely need to tackle this otherwise things are going to spiral even further out of control.

I'd draw up another soa, showing the minimum payments on the cards and what you realistically want to be spending each month. See if you can afford a little spending money, and paying the bedroom tax, the window cleaner, dog food etc.

Most importantly though, cut up those cards and stop internet shopping!

You can do this, and will feel so much better once things are under control.

TheGardener

At the risk of repeating what others have said you really need to get some help perhaps see your GP about a referral to a CPN or a counselling service.
Then get in touch with StepChange or Nationaldebt line - they will tell you what posters have already told you but you have rejected. The reality is that unless you accept you are out of control then you will end up BR pretty soon anyway. BR is not such a big deal and TBH -when the debt collectors start calling, you will realise just how serious this is.
Cut all the cards into pieces so you can't use them and agree a minimum payment plan with your creditors while you try and sort out your mental health issues with spending.
Dog food - £100 - your insistence that it is acceptable shows just how out of touch with the reality of your situation you are.

Debtslayer

As others have said you really need to face up to reality. You need to do it today before it's really too late. If you address it now you can turn things around.
You need to stop your internet shopping today. Sort out all the things you can sell to raise money and pay it off your debts straight away.
You need to redo your SOA so it's realistic, paying the min payments on your credit cards. Look at your food spending, you should be able to reduce this. Reference dog food, I feed my dog raw food and it doesn't cost this much and he's a large dog. Costs about £60 per month. So you can still feed raw for less money than you are spending

Feral_Moon

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1.5
Number of children in household.........
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 1318
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1318

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 77
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 11
Electricity............................. 32
Gas..................................... 25
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 18
Telephone (land line)................... 19
Mobile phone............................ 10
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 200
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 50
Road tax................................ 34
Car Insurance........................... 30
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 30
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 8
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 12
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 20
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Window Cleaner.......................... 7
Student Loan............................ 5
National Trust.......................... 5
Dog Food................................ 75
Total monthly expenses.................. 680


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 10000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 10000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Lloyds Advance.................8465......170....... 0
MBNA...........................5735......85........4.9
Tesco Clubcard.................3990......40........ 0
Very...........................773.......65........0
Argos..........................347.......30........0
Total unsecured debts..........19310.....390.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,318
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 680
Available for debt repayments........... 638
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 390
Amount left after debt repayments....... 248

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 10,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -19,310
Net Assets.............................. -9,310

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.


Ok, this is the revised SOA as requested. I'll list the changes below and how they have been achieved.

1) all credit card payments are minimum amounts.

2) the monthly spend credit card has been removed and all future spending other than listed above will need to be approved by my son before purchase.

3) gas/electricity - phoned the company this morning and a compromise has been reached to reduce DD by £10 a month as they could see they have overestimated my usage and my account has a large credit balance.

4) groceries have been reduced by £100 simply by cutting out two bottles of wine per week, plus I had slightly overestimated the original figure.

5) diesel - again I had overestimated the average cost and had gone by what i spent last month, forgetting I'd done a couple of long trips which I don't do every month.

6) road tax - the car is probably SORN around 6 months of the year so new figure reflects this.

7) presents - I don't retain a monthly amount anyway plus the family have agreed that my debts are more important then buying presents.

8) holiday fund - as stated earlier, this isn't for an actual holiday but to cover the occasions where i might need to stop over on a campsite but in reality that may only be 1-2 nights per month.

9) dog food - my son has agreed to contribute £25 per month towards it. He already covers £50 per month pet insurance so now we're paying equal share of the cost.

Just out of interest, I've worked out how much it would cost to feed good quality dry food and its £78-£100 per month, depending which food I used, so hardly any difference and not enough to warrant making a switch and risk upsetting his digestive system.

So, the above SOA leaves me with a surplus of £248 per month which I can throw back to my debts. I'd shaved off £205 by reducing the payments to minimum so I could easily stick to what I was originally paying and still have £40 a month left for those little extras.

Debtslayer

Well done FM. Looks like you have sat down and really thought everything through and addressed your debts. SOA looks much better!
I know it's 0% but I'd be inclined to pay off the Argos debt first with the surplus so that's 1 debt off the list.
Ref dog food PM me if you want the details of the raw food we feed our dog X

quintwins

We feed a really good dry dog food and it costs us £20 every 6 weeks, before we found this one we fed eukanuba and even then it was £44 for 6 weeks, but we signed up for pets at home vip club and got discount alot and they do good offers on it. Its worth having a chat to your local butchers, they keep bags of scrapes for people who feed raw. Unless you are shooting it yourself the game you mention feeding your dog is expensive. if you are shooting yourself you'll be spending much less (but you haven't mentioned any shooting insurance if you are). Our dog is a medium breed but a larger breed doesn't need double the food. make sure your not over feeding your dog even on raw food, would be the easiest way to cut your bill down alittle, most of us are guilty of this.

Your new SOA looks much better, you do still need to add the £600/£1200 or whatever it is owed on your Barclayscard and add the minimum payment as this is still money owed. I would work on paying it down first, just not all in one go.

Feral_Moon

Debtslayer wrote: »

Well done FM. Looks like you have sat down and really thought everything through and addressed your debts. SOA looks much better!
I know it's 0% but I'd be inclined to pay off the Argos debt first with the surplus so that's 1 debt off the list.
Ref dog food PM me if you want the details of the raw food we feed our dog X

Both the Argos and Very debts are recent BNPL purchases so I have around 11mths to clear those without incurring any interest. The Very account belongs to my son and he's changed the password on the account and also confiscated my Argos card so I can't run up any further debts on either of those.

I'll be moving £400 a month into a separate current account and this is the only money I'll have access to for monthly spending. Plus of course any funds I raise from selling off the huge stockpile of things I've bought but never used.

Last week I was starting to feel completely overwhelmed and slipping into a depression, which isn't good for me (I'm bipolar) so by finally facing up to how out of control I was, along with the help and advice of everyone here, I'm starting to see a way forward. Also, by admitting to my son how much trouble I'm in, and the extent of my debts, him stepping in to control my finances will be a huge help going forward.

I can't thank you all enough :A


ETA: quintwins - thanks for the reminder re the Barclaycard. I've come up with a solution for paying it off but I'd forgotten to mention it. I've got enough to pay around £600 off it when the payment is due, plus for the next two months I'll be cutting right back on grocery shopping to use up the stockpile of food I've amassed in the cupboards and freezers. This will go a long way towards clearing it plus I've already listed some things for sale on FB selling pages so any money raised will be put to one side to cover cost of fresh groceries so hopefully I won't need to use much, if any, of my grocery allowance for the next couple of months.

MrsSave

Well done. That looks so much better already.

From the surplus I would add a little each month into an emergency fund, gifts (I know you've said you've discussed with family, but can you hand on heart say you won't be buying your son anything for Christmas/birthday, not even a card? You're better off budgeting a small amount and having it there building up each month than wanting to spend and putting it on credit) and some entertainment money. You will not be able to go from spending hundreds per month on 'stuff' to nothing without struggling. I'd give yourself a small budget which allows you to treat yourself to something each month which will make the journey a whole lot easier.

For example, from the £248, put £10 into the emergency fund, £20 into gifts and £50 into spending money. That would still give you £168 to throw at your debts.

The £20 into gifts will equal £240 per year. If you spend Christmas at home, then use some of that for a couple of treats, buy birthday cards from it (card factory 7 for £1 are fab!), if you are buying something for your son it comes from it.

Make sure you cut up those credit cards and only spend what you have, preferably in cash or from a current account with no overdraft.

Feral_Moon

Thanks for the offers of help regarding raw food for my dog but I won't be changing anything in his current diet as it works for him. He weighs 45kg and eats 1.5kg a day at an average cost of £2-£3 per kg.

He's not over fed and is the perfect size, as can be seen below. What I buy is supplemented with wild caught rabbit and roadkill where possible. His latest roadkill meal was a muntjac which lasted him for 2-3 days :rotfl: