Huge Overspend

EssexHebridean

You've made great progress so far Feral - well done!

One thing which was mentioned earlier but I can't see has been covered is the payments you're making to your student loan? You shouldn't be paying anything to this on the level of income you're on currently.

A few further comments on the SOA and your notes are below, in red as usual...

Feral_Moon wrote: »

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 I'm presuming from these figures that you use gas for heating - do you cook on gas well? If so then this electricity figure can come down a bit more yet for sure. We cook on gas and use electricity for everything else - currently I'm paying £1.50 a month on gas and £35 a month for electric.
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 Is this a life of balance rate?

Tesco Clubcard.................3990......40........ 0
Very...........................773.......65........0 I think you said this was stuff on a BNPL deal - if so beware of the interest rate when that deal ends as they have a tendancy to be very high on catalogue debts! Personally I'd be looking to throw any extra at this and Argos until such time as it's clear.
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. Great start, now look at driving this down even further on use. Also ask for a chunk of each credit figure back as you can put this back against debts.

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. Yes and there is still a lot of scope to cut this further, too - as you've said yourself a freezer/cupboard audit has left you needing to buy little for the next few months for a start - great work!

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. Where is the car parked up when you SORN it? Is there a cost relating to the storage of it?

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. For this and other costs you budget for monthly it's important to set aside even if not all of the budgeted amount gets used - so if you use £10 of your £20 this month, set that remaining £10 aside sop it's there to cover a month when things are a bit pricier.

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.

Feral_Moon

spiritless wrote: »

We used to owe a lot of money. Nearly 100k at its most, which at that time was double our joint annual income. I have significant life limiting illnesses but have continued to work 2 jobs in order to see us straight. 14 years after the debt started, we are finally on the home straight. By home straight I mean 50k owing, (20k to family) which is now less than half of our joint annual income.

In that time we've been where you are, desperate to hang on to what we have, kidding our selves that our outgoings were essential. My shopping habits hid deep depression which was totally catch 22- spending only made me sadder.

I got a full time job (despite being told that I shouldn't be working by my consultant) I got a second income by becoming self employed, working most evenings. My husband networked and got a better job. And then we realised we were in control again, just a bit but it felt good.

So we cut back. We really cut back. Window cleaner? Not now that £5 was better in my bank account. I walked everywhere, I bought supermarket value products. The cats got fed cheaper food. It all added up, bit by bit, month on month.

I know it's hard. I also know it's not really ever about things but more about self worth. You can't buy self worth off the internet.

Make sacrifices now and eventually it comes good.

That's fantastic, well done! :T

I'm hoping to be totally debt free within five years if I stick to my budget. I couldn't imagine having the level of debt you had, it's the stuff of nightmares! :eek:

Feral_Moon

EssexHebridean wrote: »

You've made great progress so far Feral - well done!

One thing which was mentioned earlier but I can't see has been covered is the payments you're making to your student loan? You shouldn't be paying anything to this on the level of income you're on currently.

A few further comments on the SOA and your notes are below, in red as usual...

Hi, thank you for your comments. I hope I can address your points to clarify things further.

1) the gas & electric are paid as a joint DD payment. I just split them randomly as I know I pay more electric than gas but they're probably not an accurate reflection of usage. I have gas heating & cooking and I'm very strict on only having heating on Oct - April and the thermostat rarely exceeds 18 degrees, it's often much lower.

2) yes, the MBNA is 4.9% LOB and currently incurs around £23 a month interest. As the other 0% cards clear I'll be increasing the payments accordingly. The BNPL on Very & Argos will definitely be paid off before the end date. It's a practice I've been doing for years and I have reminders set in my phone. Although this time around I'm actually making partial monthly payments as I won't have the money to settle in full as I've previously done.

3) I have ample off-road parking so when the car is SORN it remains at home. It's an old 4x4 workhorse so is extremely useful in winter months while the campervan is parked up.

4) the holiday fund is an odd one and only a rough estimate. Often when I'm away travelling I find places to park up & sleep at no cost. So if I don't have spare cash it's no problem. The less I use campsites, the more I can spend on diesel and the further I can travel.

I also decided that from now on I will have to sell things to fund my travelling. I'm more or less self-sufficient in the van now so should be much easier to stay off grid this year.

I hope that helps to answer your questions

ETA: just realised I missed your initial question regarding the student loan repayment. They are claiming back a one term grant payment they issued at the start of a year in which I'd deferred due to ill health.

Aaleigha

I have 6 dogs and feed a really high quality dried food with occasional frozen tripe or sardines

pm me if you want the details - its not that well know and as a family business with free delivery its fantastic

I spend 140 for 6 weeks of food for the 6 of them