SOA | 2023

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

KxMx said:

£35 for three SIM only phones is actually a bit high, I think perhaps with some shopping around you could find something lower. 
It can be easy to pay for more data than you actually need/use. I recall a poster here a few months ago paying for a huge data package for her daughters phone, only to discover barely any of it was actually used. 

I pay Lebara £5pm for unlimited calls and texts plus 2GB data. I only turn on data when I'm out if no WiFi and I really need to use it.
I do appreciated though that my definition of really need to use it will differ from a child/teen 😂

sadly need the data..... preteen and teenager.... we all get unlimited calls/texts. I have 20gb which i gift to them when they run out (I dont use it), they have 10gb each and are always going over 

flipflopflo

I have unlimited texts and mobile and 40GB of data for £8 a month with iD Mobile in a 24 month contract for each of my three. If my lot can’t make do with that they  then have to wait until the next lot comes when the bill is paid. 

Floss

Smarty are currently doing 30Gb for £10, or 100Gb for £12
https://smarty.co.uk/plans/100gb-calls-and-data

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

Thanks for the info, handy to know. My contract isn't due for a while now though and i think there are penalties for leaving earlier but i will ask. 

poppy10_2

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel said: 

Debts been accrued over time. Various things  

You need to figure out exactly what those "various things" are, or you will end up with another £30k of debt. Keep a spending diary to see where the money is going.

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

poppy10_2 said:

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel said: 

Debts been accrued over time. Various things  

You need to figure out exactly what those "various things" are, or you will end up with another £30k of debt. Keep a spending diary to see where the money is going.

Thanks for the suggestion - I already know how I got in to debt. My focus is now paying off. 

enthusiasticsaver

Do you actually have £269 spare each month after paying out and putting money into savings?  Well done on doing that and having the money to pay for insurances up front.  It is definitely cheaper.  You say you are not struggling but if you are focusing on paying off the debt I would tackle the debts in the order of the deals finishing assuming they actually are all at 0%. I think 0% rates are likely to be less available given the state of the economy at the moment so tackling this now is sensible. 

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

enthusiasticsaver said:

Do you actually have £269 spare each month after paying out and putting money into savings?  Well done on doing that and having the money to pay for insurances up front.  It is definitely cheaper.  You say you are not struggling but if you are focusing on paying off the debt I would tackle the debts in the order of the deals finishing assuming they actually are all at 0%. I think 0% rates are likely to be less available given the state of the economy at the moment so tackling this now is sensible. 

I'm so sorry I missed this reply. 

I do have spare cash, I haven't ever worked out how much it is as such. I have an excel sheet that tracks the whole year, I update this on a weekly basis and scroll ahead to see if there's any points where my bank balance drops. I've set formulas so that it colour codes the cell so I can easily see if I need to be more careful with spending at any point. 

I'd like the debt paid back as soon as possible because I know it can spiral if not managed properly. At the moment, its manageable, and I don't foresee anything negative happening but I'd rather get rid of as much, as soon as possible, "just in case".

They are all 0% except for 1. What I am trying to do is snowball the debts so that they all get paid. 

At the moment, if I continue with my plan, I will be debt free by 1 March 2025. Sounds ages away, but its not - It's 20 months. 

I review my finances a lot - its more like a hobby/obsession. I've just checked our bills to make sure we aren't over paying anywhere. We've had to increase our household food budget but that's cost of living (and the kids eating much more as they have growth spurts!) so I next month I am going to be looking at bulk cooking etc again. 

EssexHebridean

One question I'd ask - if you lost access to your spreadsheet tomorrow are you confident you could manage anything "manually" with the way you are set up at the moment? Automated processes for tracking finances and budgets are brilliant tools - but they work best when someone has first done all the groundwork on understanding how budgeting works and exactly what their spends are - and there are just a handful of red flags that you may not quite be there. You need to actually learn what your monthly surplus is - and that in turn should be given a job as this avoids the risk of frittering or "soddit-spending" (as in - s*d it - the money's there so we can just buy it!") Also as you've already acknowledged, for predictable spends there should be a monthly budget in place - if you spend less than your budget in a year then you can of course adjust and move the surplus to long term savings pots, but in the first instance a budget can really help you to see where - for example - a car has suddenly started becoming far more expensive to run, which is sometimes the first sign of the need for a replacement looming. 

I know you've been around on the boards for a fair while so probably know a lot of the stuff you're being told - but sometimes knowing something and actually remembering that yes, it applies to us too, can be a different thing, so reviewing regularly is a great thing to be in the habit of. We sit down a few times a year for a "household financial summit" where we review spending and savings, assess goals and decide whether anything needs changing. Those (roughly quarterly) reviews pretty much never fail to make us think "Oh - that's a point" about something or another in spite of the fact that ongoing monitoring of the whole picture takes place constantly too. 

Owning the house outright is a wonderful thing - we've been there for the past few years too! Is this your forever home though, or might there be the possibility of a move in the future which could see you needing to take a mortgage? Not necessarily anything you need to do anything about right now, but if it is a possibility then it's a good idea to have in the back of your mind how you would tackle that. 

You have your road tax down as a monthly expense - you know that paying this way costs you extra I assume? Allowing that you have surplus income, I'd suggest starting now to put aside money ready to pay the year upfront at next renewal, then adjusting your car maintenance budget (which you will shortly have in place, yep?!) to take account of it going forwards. Remember also when setting the car maintenance budget that it should also include for things like replacement tyres etc. Currently we stick aside £145 a month for 2 new-ish cars (2016/17 plates) to cover insurance, servicing, MoT Tests, tyres, and all the other incidentals like cleaning, consumables etc - basically everything that isn't diesel. 

The £150 for holidays including school trips - it may be worth doing some maths to ensure that this figure is actually going to cover anything - as the kids get older the costs of school trips is likely to increase and by the time the odd short break is factored in I could see there not being enough left to cover even a fairly short family holiday. We noticed this year that the costs relating to holidays have really increased - cost of living crisis related I suspect - so this is definitely one to give some thought to.

Other than that - your planning to clear the debt seems pretty solid. Personally I'd be looking into OP'ing that loan - or if you can access a 7% regular saver stashing money in there for a year with a view to then clearing it once that matures. Alternatively - you say your credit file is looking healthy so is there the possibility of a 0% money transfer card that would let you clear the loan and transfer that debt to 0%? 

theoretica

I agree with others about dividing up your savings. These are some mental categories I use.

Things you pay annually and know about what they will be - eg insurances, MOT/servicing

Things you pay now and then and keep track so you know more about your average spending in future - clothes (for you and children?), new phones, computers...

Things you pay less often but can work out on average how often - major house/car repairs, tyres, new car, new boiler, washing machine... the sort of thing you build up savings for and hope to benefit when they aren't needed as soon as they might be.

And some for the truly unforeseen - there will be something forgotten/left out!