Here goes

hayley1471

Two years ago, I had £10,000 in my savings account, today I am about £7,000 in debt. That's £17,000 spent in 2 years. Unsuprisingly, after overspending my Christmas budget by about £1000, I have had a lightbulb moment.
I plan to post my SOA, and will appreciate all your comments. However, is it really possible to live in this country on a small amount? I am hoping to hear a resounding yes, just so that it can force me into facing up and accepting that i am living a frivoulous lifestyle. Sometimes I think to myself, well I don't take exotic holidays, I drive an old car I like to eat fresh food - how have I got into so much debt?
As a starter, I nearly bought my daughter a pair of cute red tights today. I put them back. Only £1.49 - but she has plenty of tights and I have a feeling it is the little things adding up that has got me into this mess.

Look forward to hearing form you all.

mrsspendalot

Welcome to the boards!!! I look forward to seeing your SoA and well done on your lightbulb moment

hayley1471

SOA

Income:

Salary: £905
Child benefit: £120
Tax credits: 370

Total: £1395

Outgoings (Some paid weekly but rounded up to a month)

Breakdown Cover

£ 9.83

British Telecom

£ 36.00

Car Tax Savings

£ 15.00

Childcare

£ 24.00

Christmas Savings

£ 80.00

Credit cards

£ 150

Direct Line Car Insurance

£ 25.56

Direct Line Home

£ 28.54

Diesel £70

Endowment

£ 79.14

Gardener

£ 25.00

Swimming Lessons£12

Holiday Savings

£ 40.00

Council Tax

£ 60.00

Hospital Fund

£ 21.50

Birthday Savings

£ 40

Pension

£ 31.00

Electricity

£ 43.00

NPower Gas

£ 21.00

Brownies

£6

Rent

£ 258.00

Haircuts£28

TV Licensing

£ 11.37

Violin Lessons

£10

Yorkshire Water

£ 32.00

Parking £60

I think I make that a total of £1216.94

Those canny eyed amongst you will notice I haven't included food, which normally goes on my credit card....

mrsspendalot

Can you split down the credit card payments, APRs, balances and minimum payments? This will help a lot.

You really need to budget an amount for food .... how much are you spending?

hayley1471

Copied that in from a spreadsheet, so couldn't add notes.

Additional expenditure - £80 on cigarettes a month.

Gardener: I have a bad back and a large lawn and hedges - I can't do it myself
Haircuts: I have a job that requires me to look groomed - I have wild bushy hair. The village hairdresser comes once a week and blowdries it for me at a cost of £7 a time.
Beautician: Ditto the groomed bit.

OK, didn't put savings in, so here's that bit:

ISA: £557.92
Car Tax: £30
Birthdays: £40
Holiday: £103
Post Office account: £155
Christmas: £80
Total: £965

I also have an endowment life assurance thing that I have paid into for 8 years, current value: £7, 200.

My Credit cards are:
Lloyds: £5,200 (bit at 0%)
Virgin: £1,700 (whatever they charge)

I recently tried to get a 0% card but was declined. I checked with Credit Experian and my rating was 996 (the highest apparently is 1000), so they were at a lost to explain it.

Look forward to your questions.

Lemon_Tree

hi and welcome to such a fantastic site.

Only a couple of ideas - your BT bill seems quite high per month, try talk talk my bill is always less than £15 per month.
You may not like this but maybe you and your daughter should become your gardeners, it will give you both fresh air and be time together.

and whilst you're not liking me (lol) should you really be having such a big holiday at the moment. My OH and i did the sun newspapers break this year which was great and cost less than £100 including spends and food. Ok it wasn't a foreign holiday but it was time together away.

Finally, good luck on this challenge you will manage it and you'll get lots of support here.

hayley1471

#4

Virigin Statement I have to hand.

Balance: £1,751.15
Credit Limit £10,400
Monthly Interest Rate: 1.3852%
Currently paying about £25 interest a month. Minimum payment this month is £22. But have paid £400 off with some savings I had for Christmas presents.

hayley1471

#4 I spend about £90 a week on food for me and my two children.

TroysMum

Your just about breaking even if you dont include food, however if you continue putting food on your credit card this will not be the case as your payments will increase.
Consider paying off your credit card with your holiday savings, maybe skipping a holiday this year to get you back on the straight and narrow. Horrible I know but you dont want to get yourself in a situation that is very difficult to get out of.
Your breakdown cover seems excessive for the year, is it the full shabang? Could you downgrade it to recovery only, which is about £38 per year.
Maybe reduce your birthday savings??
Once you have paid your credit card off you can start buying food out of your current account and not on your credit card??

Hope this helps a tad, I'm sure someone else will be along shortly to help you some more.
Good luck

hayley1471

#6 Tied into BT for another 6 months, so can't change at the moment.

There is no possible way I can do gardening - I forgot to mention i pay about £50 a month in Osteopath fees - that would double!

I put £40 a month away for holidays, but that pays for the three monthly trips down south to visit my family. (that's 4 a year at £60 a time in diesel) This year we went caravaninng too, about an hour away for 4 days.

mrsspendalot

The fact that you have such a large credit limit on your virgin card and it is nearly all available could explain why you are being turned down for new credit. Can you ask them to lower your limit? Having too much available credit can go against you.

Alternatively, would virgin offer you a good balance transfer deal to transfer the Lloyds debt? How much of the Lloyds card is at 0% and what is the rest at?

Re the food - you can cut this back. I spend £200 a month feeding a family of 5. Pop over to the oldstyle board for tips on how to reduce this.