It's time to sort it, but how?!

BlueJ94

jack_1992 said:

So this is my SOA.

Income - £1688 per month

Outgoings

Mortgage - £486
Council Tax - £130
Water - £50
Gas/Electric - £80
Sky - £76
Car/Home Insurance - £45
Marbles CC - £150pm (Slightly higher than minimum)
Ocean CC - £70 pm
Tesco CC - £80pm
Amazon CC - £50pm
Loan - £162 pm
Barclaycard - £52 pm (Paydown plan)
Loan - £106 pm

Mobile - £70
Tablets - £39

This is without anything else so as you can see, it isn't good reading. And I have no idea where to start. Sky could be one thing but even that wouldn't make a big enough difference in my opinion to bring this down and under control.

Food shopping? Hair cuts? Gifts (Birthdays and Christmas) 
Have you accounted for these?

BlueJ94

@jack_1992

follow this link for SOA. 

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

jack_1992

Oh that is a better link - thank you! I hadn't taken any of that into consideration, looks like it'll be even worse...

BlueJ94

jack_1992 said:

Oh that is a better link - thank you! I hadn't taken any of that into consideration, looks like it'll be even worse...

Better to get accurate information rather than finding out further down the line

getmore4less

The trick with getting out of debt is knowing where your money goes.


Start a spending diary record everything 

On the SOA interest rates and min payments

Also full details of the mortgage would be useful to see what options there may be and some idea of what you might be able to get when the fix runs out

Amount, rate fixed period, full term and payment (lender we know natwest)

Have a guess at house value as well so we have an idea of LTV.

Naomim

If you can, go back over about a year's worth of bank statements. I know covid restrictions have meant we may have spent less in some areas but I know from personal experience pre covid I could easily have spent £60 - £70 a month on coffees on my way to work and at weekends.  Now during covd it's my kids gaming that's eating my money!

Is your mobile on contract? Is this for one or more? If you could go onto SIM only, there are some great deals. I currently pay £8 a month as I'm on a rolling contract with giffgaff, not tied into SIM only for 18-24 months, but if you could there are even cheaper deals to be had.  Is gas & electricity on the cheapest tariff?  Have you checked on the Cheap Energy Club on this site?  Do you budget for food, meal plan or batch cook?  Meal planning and online shopping really has brought my food bills down. 

Once you post up the full SOA we can go through it with you.

Good luck!

Naomim

barbiedoll

We need to see your proper SOA, but us old hands on here are already looking at your outgoings and thinking "Sky, mobiles, tablets"....you can drastically reduce your spending here.

Your water bill looks high, are you on a meter? How many people in your household? We are 3 adults and our water bill was halved by going metered, although we're careful with our usage, and we got lots of free water-saving gadgets which helped.

It's always a bit of a shock when you have your lbm and realise how much you owe and what it's costing you. But there is no debt problem which can't be solved. We owed much more than you at our lowest point, and we still have a couple of years to go before we're properly debt-free. But we're plugging away, we still manage to live a nice life, and we haven't needed, or wanted credit for many years now, you can live without it, it really can be done.

You've come to the right place, this is where you take your first steps. Good luck! 

Swoosh84

Sky - Is there a contract here, if not can get rid of this and go on a basic broadband package. If you watch only catch-up TV (excluding BBC iPlayer) then you can also get rid of your TV license. Should save approx. £55pm, £660 per year on sky and a further £159 a year on the TV License.

Mobile - At end of contract keep the phone and move to a GiffGaff deal. Approx. saving £60pm, £720 per year

Tablets - Is this medication or an electronic device, if the latter is it a buy it and pay it up deal or is it internet cost here. Either way, cancel it as the first available opportunity. Saving of £39pm, £468 per year

Council Tax - Don't know your full circumstances, but are there any discounts due such as single allowance?

Car/Home Insurance - Are you paying these monthly? If so, check what APR you have on these. Some of them can be up to 40% and you may be better using a lower APR credit card to pay for these annually.

Gas/Electric - Do a comparison, see if you are on the cheapest rates, if not switch! You should do this every year.

Overall, on the top 3 alone you could potentially make savings of approx. £2k per year which could be used to pay off some of your credit cards.

Finally, would check MoneySavingsExpert credit card eligibility calculator to see if you can get another card to transfer some balances over to on 0%.

jack_1992

Thanks for all the help - it's so appreciated.

The Sky contract is actually coming to an end in June so that is something to review.

Unfortunately the contracts for the mobiles and tablets are not coming to an end soon, at least a year left on them. But I could see what can be done, if anything.

We are on the cheapest gas/electric tariff as I check that constantly and I'm not able to get any balance transfers. I was holding out hope for a while to be able to shift at least 1 big CC over but that just isn't possible - I wish it was.

Our car insurance is paid monthly but I think the APR is like 9% so not much when I looked at that. Not large enough to pay on a CC upfront.

The LBM was scary. I hid from it for so long, thinking it would just sort itself out but it just doesn't. I feel a huge sense of relief though now that I am finally doing something to sort it. I'm still ashamed and embarrassed, but now I have the emotion of being proud too. Proud that I finally admitted it and that I am now getting help. I got into the mess, but I'm now doing something to sort it.

getmore4less

Get that SOA filled in it makes it a lot easier to see the options.

details/dates of anything on contract like the phones there may be options