Any suggestions gratefully received! SOA

elainec

Hello,
I have been looking at this site. for a couple of months and sat down today and finally worked out my outgoings etc, seem to be ok on paper but dont have any money left at end of month

Income £2295
Me £975/month
Partner £330/ week, monthly about £1320

Outgoings (main ones) £1609
TV licence £13
Council Tax £131
Car Insurance £106
Gas and Electricity £91
Mortgage £553
Insurances (house, life and sickness, neither of us get full sick pay from employers) £103
Virgin (TV, broadband and phone) £50
Loan £280
Loan £162
Visa £20
Loan £100

Plus other outgoings £2027
Food £200 (us and cat)
Petrol £200 (average we both travel to work)
Mobile-Me £10
Lottery (work and private) £8

Left £268
Though this always get swallowed up, mainly by yearly ougoings such as car tax, mot and on-going house repairs

Adding in these:
Car tax £26
Car mot/maintenance £20
House repairs (at moment- roof and bathroom) £50
Holidays £25
Clothes £20
Socialising £70 (1 night out each!)
Overdraft interest £30, forgot this earlier, mine is £300, partners £2500

Left £27

CLAPTON

You made a great start with the SOA.
But you just need to go on and complete it.

Until you add everything you spend down its impossible to see whether you spend bit more than your income or a bit less and so its not easy to see the appropriate way forward.

So
firstly those yearly or one off or occasional costs... with these try to work out everything you will spend in the next 12 months (guess if you need to ) then divide by 12 and add each item to your SOA.
so add things like car tax, MOT, servicing, allowance for car repair, add for xmas and birthday presents expenses, what about holidays or weekends away, how about clothes, appliances, furnishing.
Just think of everything you did and spent last year and how much they cost.
For the house you need to think very carefully as they can eat up money... are all the things absolutely necessary?
In any case write down a cost of the house repairs.


Secondly start a spending diary and write down eveything you spend in a 'normal' month ..... like any socialising costs, any work lunches/coffees, any haircuts, newspapers/magazines, hobbies/sports or whatever.... add all these too.

Then add these things to your SOA so you can see whether you are getting deeper into debt or not. Also it will help you focus what what can be reduced.

Thirdly : is there scope to increase income.. extra overtime or parttime jobs?

pandapaws

Well done for putting it all down on paper - I think that's the hardest bit and doing it shows that you're committed to sorting it out!

What Clapton said is true - try and expand on the additional expenses, and keep a note of your spending over a couple of months. There's a great online service (free!) at spendingdiary.co.uk which is good for tracking your expenditure if you're like me and tend to lose bits of paper.

Remember that you're doing ok so long as you are spending within your income, so even if there's nothing left at the end of the month, so long as you haven't spent anything on credit then you're ok. It's obviously better to spend less and have money left to save/pay off extra debt each month, but better to maintain it than increase it if you can't make any budget cuts.

Good luck with it! Keep posting here as you'll find that it's really great for motivation!

chevalier

elainec wrote: »

Hello,
I have been looking at this site. for a couple of months and sat down today and finally worked out my outgoings etc, seem to be ok on paper but dont have any money left at end of month

Income £2295
Me £975/month
Partner £330/ week, monthly about £1320

Outgoings (main ones) £1609
TV licence £13
Council Tax £131you can ask to pay this over 12 months not 10 to spread the load a bit
Car Insurance £106:eek: :eek: wow this is high, are you under 25, have points or have a high powered car? If none of these then check on somewhere like confused.com to see if you can get this cheaper, I pay £250 A YEAR for my car insurance! If you do find it cheaper then have a look whether they do cash back on quidco.com or topcashback.co.uk and you can get money back as well as a cheaper quote
Gas and Electricity £91again this is pretty high, check you are with the cheapest supplier on uswitch.com. And again if you do have a cheaper supplier then see if you can get cash back. Also if check what temp you house heating is set at. More than 21 degrees, and you can turn it down and rediscover jumpers! Will save about £70 a year. If the water comes out of your tap scalding then again, turn the temp down to save.
Mortgage £553
Insurances (house, life and sickness, neither of us get full sick pay from employers) £103is the house the building and contents insurance? Is the life insurance to pay off the mortgage? Have you not worked with your employers long enough to be entitled to full sick pay? For each of these check you are getting the best deal even if you feel you still need them all.
Virgin (TV, broadband and phone) £50
Loan £280
Loan £162
Visa £20
Loan £100

Plus other outgoings £2027
Food £200 (us and cat)I spend £250 a month on food and also have an extra 2 children and 1 cat. So try to meal plan, batch cook etc to get this down. I reckon you could save about £50 here and still eat well.
Petrol £200 (average we both travel to work)no chance of car sharing or anything like that to help with this?
Mobile-Me £10
Lottery (work and private) £8

Left £268
Though this always get swallowed up, mainly by yearly ougoings such as car tax, mot and on-going house repairs

hope this gives food for thought
chev

melissa'smoney

elainec wrote: »

Hello,
I have been looking at this site. for a couple of months and sat down today and finally worked out my outgoings etc, seem to be ok on paper but dont have any money left at end of month

Income £2295
Me £975/month
Partner £330/ week, monthly about £1320

Outgoings (main ones) £1609
TV licence £13
Council Tax £131
Car Insurance £106
Gas and Electricity £91
Mortgage £553
Insurances (house, life and sickness, neither of us get full sick pay from employers) £103
Virgin (TV, broadband and phone) £50 This is too high, Virgin will offer you new tarrifs for new customers, currently offer 3 4 £30 or 4 4 £40,ive just got my bill down with them, i have tv XL package, Broadband and phone +free evenings and weekends + V+all for £40 ring them up tell them your unhappy and quote sky's 3 for £26 deal and they should sort you out
Loan £280
Loan £162
Visa £20
Loan £100

Plus other outgoings £2027
Food £200 (us and cat)
Petrol £200 (average we both travel to work)
Mobile-Me £10
Lottery (work and private) £8

Left £268
Though this always get swallowed up, mainly by yearly ougoings such as car tax, mot and on-going house repairs

Hope that helps, you can quote my Virgin package if it helps

elainec

Thanks for everyones comments.
With the council tax i did ask to spread it over the year but cos we both work full time they said it was not possible. Plan to use the 2 non-paying months to swap car insurance and put extra onto credit card! We have sent a claim in to get band reduced but still waiting to hear. Thanks to this sites tips for that!
Car insurance is high cos i had a company car with my previous job so no claims bonus, includes my partners car as well and he has swapped cars and insurances companies so oftern he doesnt have any noclaims bonus either. Year is up in february and think should be able to make big savings then for both cars.
The virgin is the 3 for £30 deal but we do hire films sometimes and have to pay for phone calls so normally between £38 to £50, put it at the highest!

elainec

On both of our loans we are able to take a payment holiday, was wondering if people feel it would be useful and put this money onto credit card to bring down its balance?

chevalier

Current Debt:
Partners Loan (lloyds tsb 14.1%) £6326
My Loan (lloyds tsb 7.8%) £7000
Mastercard (lloyds tsb 19.9%) £600 :eek:
Loan to family (0%) £1300

Realisation Date October 2007, £15,226
Debt Free Date June 2010

You were asking about taking a payment holiday on the loans, to bring down the credit card balance. However unless I am reading the above wrong, the credit card is only £600? With a bit of budgeting you could get rid of that in 2-3 months, so you would have to see how much extra interest you would pay on the loans if you took the holiday and see if it is doable.

Have a look at the snowball calculator on www.whatsthecost.com and see which is the better option.

chev

elainec

have decided to leave loan payments running and focus on paying off credit card with extra money! got lots of stuff on ebay at moment and will put all extramoney i can onto credit card. had saved up vouchers etc for christmas and am proud that i have not shelled out much cash myself!
know the credit card debt isnt big but at moment not much spare money at all to add to it. just feel like i will be so proud when it is paid off!

elainec

A refresh after taking tips!

Income £2295
Me £975/month
Partner £330/ week, monthly about £1320

Outgoings (main ones) £1609
TV licence £13
Council Tax £131
Car Insurance £106, from feb £71
Gas and Electricity £91
Mortgage £553
Insurances (house, life and sickness, neither of us get full sick pay from employers) £103
Virgin (TV, broadband and phone) £50, now about £45
Loan £280
Loan £162
Visa £20
Loan £100

Plus other outgoings £2027
Food £200 (us and cat), down to £170 and still trying
Petrol £200 (average we both travel to work)
Mobile-Me £10
Lottery (work and private) £8

Adding in these:
Car tax £26
Car mot/maintenance £20
House repairs (at moment- roof and bathroom) £50
Holidays £25
Clothes £20
Socialising £70 (1 night out each!)
Overdraft interest £30, forgot this earlier, mine is £300, partners £2500

Left £27 £97

Starting to look a lot healthier, also have cashback on quidco which i will add to credit card but not gonna count that until it gets paid!

Ibex

Hi Elaine

I've just read through your thread and you are doing really well, you seem to be in control now. I don't have any more suggestions, but i wish you well for the future