Muddling millennial - can’t keep on this way

muddlingmillennial

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

It’s probably not the normal way to do it, but as we keep our personal finances separate, I haven’t included my husband’s income on here. I have listed all of our joint finances as the 50% share.

Household Information

Number of adults in household: 2

Number of children in household: 0

Number of cars owned: 0 (Husband has a car which I do occasionally drive and I contribute £150 a month towards the running costs, included below)

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax: 2135

Total monthly income: 2135

Monthly Expense

Mortgage: 345  

Council tax: 95 

Electricity: 22.97 
Gas: 7.6 50% (Gas and Electric will probably change very soon as we are on a 6 month bill cycle) 

Water rates: 15.4

Mobile phone: 81.01 (Moment of madness where I purchased new phone and Apple Watch. In contract for a couple of years yet and not much I can do about this)

TV Licence: 7.06

Internet Services: 14.44 (going to have a shop around for this) 

Groceries etc: 250
Clothing: 50

Other travel: 150 (payment to husband towards his car) 

Pet insurance/vet bills: 27.06

Buildings and contents insurance: 21.66 (shopping around for this) 

Life insurance: 16.41 (shopping around for this) 

Presents (birthday, christmas etc): 35

Haircuts/colour: 50

Entertainment: 50

Gym: 31

Emergency fund: 100

Joint subscriptions: 14 (Prime, Netflix and Tesco delivery saver) 

Equity loan from Help to Buy scheme when we purchased property: 16

Total monthly expenses: 1342.61

Assets:

Savings: 2250 (50% of joint savings)

House value (Gross): 120000 (50% of house value)

Total Assets: 122250

Secured & HP Debts

Description: Debt/Monthly/APR

Mortgage: 66117/345/4.74 (50% of total mortgage amount) 

Equity loan: 12000/16/rate TBC (50% of total equity loan) 

Total secured & HP debts...... 54117

Unsecured Debts

Description: Debt/Monthly/APR

Nationwide loan: 256.26/266/3.1 (ends 25/05/2024)

Lendable loan: 1564.67/226/7.92 (ends 01/10/2024)

HSBC credit card: 2823.15/74.33/0 (0% ends 31/04/2025)

Overdraft 2: 250/6.7/39 

Overdraft 1: 300/5.08/39

Store card: 578.66/31/24.9

Virgin credit card 2: 3714.54/37.15/0 (0% ends 31/01/2025)

Virgin credit card 1: 1009.81/25/0 (0% ends 07/04/2024)

Barclaycard card: 301.69/13.39/0 (0% ends 09/05/2026)

Fluid credit card: 1660.01/16.6/0 (0% ends 05/07/2024)

Capital One card: 419.69/12.59/0 (0% ends 02/08/2024)

enthusiasticsaver

The summary is missing from the end.

so income is £2135 and expenses are £1342.61 giving you £792.39 disposable income towards your debt. The total debt is £12878.48. Were the two loans debt consolidation loans? 

The good news is that most are 0% but you may struggle to get deals and constantly balance transferring costs in fees and that is a lot of debts (quite small ones in some cases) to juggle.I would make a plan to actually pay them down and get your finances on a better footing. You have some savings for emergencies.

Start by stopping using the overdrafts, at almost 40% they are an expensive way to borrow. Same goes for the store card. Then close them so you are not tempted to use them again. 

It would be quite  easy to clear the Capital One. I would set the direct debit at £105 to clear in July so you would not need to worry about that one. You will need to BT the Virgin credit card and probably the Fluid one so I would just try and get those as low as possible especially once the Nationwide loan is gone. 

If you threw the whole £792 at the debt it would be clear within 17 months. Then you would have that money spare each month. Obviously if you go on maternity leave you would need a new plan but I strongly urge you to get rid of some of those debts first. 

enthusiasticsaver

I have just read your update about the 6 month balance transfer. I would definitely say it is imperative for you to address this now then if you can only get short deals. I can see why building savings is attractive but a debt spiral can very quickly become an emergency. 

MFWannabe

muddlingmillennial said:

@MFWannabeGreat, thank you! Will complete this and share today. Also.. credit card 4 has no available credit or offers unfortunately I have checked all the cards for offers and there is 1 with Virgin for a money transfer, so I’m trying to figure out how best I can utilise it. 

I have a clear Tesco card with a £5000 credit limit where the balance transfer has just expired. I am also praying that they send me a new offer through, but the chances of this are probably pretty slim. I’m going to keep the card open for 6 months or so just in case.

Morning. How much is available to transfer on the Virgin card? What is the transfer fee? 

Personally I would do a money transfer for the two overdrafts and store card as the interest rates are eye watering, but you need to ensure you remove the overdraft facility and store card if you do this 

MFWannabe

muddlingmillennial said:

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

It’s probably not the normal way to do it, but as we keep our personal finances separate, I haven’t included my husband’s income on here. I have listed all of our joint finances as the 50% share.

Household Information

Number of adults in household: 2

Number of children in household: 0

Number of cars owned: 0 (Husband has a car which I do occasionally drive and I contribute £150 a month towards the running costs, included below)

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax: 2135

Total monthly income: 2135

Monthly Expense

Mortgage: 345  

Council tax: 95 

Electricity: 22.97 
Gas: 7.6 50% (Gas and Electric will probably change very soon as we are on a 6 month bill cycle) 

Water rates: 15.4

Mobile phone: 81.01 (Moment of madness where I purchased new phone and Apple Watch. In contract for a couple of years yet and not much I can do about this)

TV Licence: 7.06

Internet Services: 14.44 (going to have a shop around for this 

Groceries etc: 250 - So £500 in total? That’s high for just two people 
Clothing: 50

Other travel: 150 (payment to husband towards his car) - Is this necessary? Seems a lot? Can your husband manage without you paying this while you pay off debts?

Pet insurance/vet bills: 27.06

Buildings and contents insurance: 21.66 (shopping around for this) - Is this the total or half? If half this seems very high 

Life insurance: 16.41 (shopping around for this) 

Presents (birthday, christmas etc): 35

Haircuts/colour: 50 - this is very high for one person? 

Entertainment: 50

Gym: 31

Emergency fund: 100 - Are you saving this? Is this in your joint savings? 

Joint subscriptions: 14 (Prime, Netflix and Tesco delivery saver) 

Equity loan from Help to Buy scheme when we purchased property: 16

Total monthly expenses: 1342.61

Assets:

Savings: 2250 (50% of joint savings)

House value (Gross): 120000 (50% of house value)

Total Assets: 122250

Secured & HP Debts

Description: Debt/Monthly/APR

Mortgage: 66117/345/4.74 (50% of total mortgage amount) 

Equity loan: 12000/16/rate TBC (50% of total equity loan) 

Total secured & HP debts...... 54117

Unsecured Debts

Description: Debt/Monthly/APR

Nationwide loan: 256.26/266/3.1 (ends 25/05/2024)

Lendable loan: 1564.67/226/7.92 (ends 01/10/2024)

HSBC credit card: 2823.15/74.33/0 (0% ends 31/04/2025)

Overdraft 2: 250/6.7/39 

Overdraft 1: 300/5.08/39

Store card: 578.66/31/24.9

Virgin credit card 2: 3714.54/37.15/0 (0% ends 31/01/2025)

Virgin credit card 1: 1009.81/25/0 (0% ends 07/04/2024)

Barclaycard card: 301.69/13.39/0 (0% ends 09/05/2026)

Fluid credit card: 1660.01/16.6/0 (0% ends 05/07/2024)

Capital One card: 419.69/12.59/0 (0% ends 02/08/2024)

Morning 
I’ve made some comments above in your soa 
😱 to the mobile phone 
virgin cc1 I assume is the one you’re just balance transferring on to new card 
I’ve made a comment separately ref the overdrafts and store card 
If it were me I’d tidy the finances up that way and then focus on paying off capital one card before 0% finishes, using the money from loan 1 when that finishes, while also paying as much as possible off the fluid card before that 0% finishes 

katsu

You talked about wanting savings to reduce the potential for you to overspend. I think you might find that a helpful start to some thinking:

How long ago did you last use credit? 

What exactly do you want the savings for? Are there things you think you want or need? 

An alternative way of looking at this is what have you been spending the money on?

You don't necessarily need to post it here, but I think if you've been overspending for years, thinking about what you buy and why you kept spending after your monthly wages ran out might help you work out how to approach changing your way of planning and spending. 

Good luck with whatever you do and I would reduce your debts as much as possible before you start a family. 

CreditCardJunkie

Hi! My advice if you're wanting to start s family asap would be to bring in extra income to pay down debt quicker. Overtime, side hussle, extra job. It's extremely difficult to pay down debt when you have a child (I was on SMP) and if you will have childcare costs when you go back to work it will be even more difficult.

Obviously we all get in debt for different reasons and its vital to address these to ensure you stay out of debt. For me I logged every purchase on a spreadsheet for months and very quickly realised £10 here and there was adding up to around £300 of overspending a month! I still use my budgeting spreadsheet to keep me on track. 

Best of luck!

muddlingmillennial

@enthusiasticsaver @MFWannabe @katsu @CreditCardJunkie

Hi all. Thank you for looking at my SOA and providing feedback. Quite a few common themes so I thought I'd just reply in one go.. 

Since starting this thread my mindset has really shifted from wanting all my spare money to go into savings, to now seeing more clearly about using this money towards the debt. I took an 'I owe you' out of our joint savings today (with Mr's permission of course) and paid off the Nationwide loan. It was about £250 so I'll put this back into our savings later this month - but that's the Nationwide loan done!! Meaning from May pay onwards, I can really start making a dent in the other balances. I have set myself the goals of clearing the following: 

May payday - Clear overdraft 2
June payday - Clear overdraft 1
July payday - Pay off first half of store card
August payday - Clear second half of store card
*From this point, start focussing on snowball method - last payment on loan 2 will also be collected on 01/10/2024*
September payday - Clear Barclaycard credit card
October payday - Clear Capital One credit card
 
This will really help tidy things up and start streamlining the debts a little more. Hopefully by this point, my credit score will also have improved and will open up better offers before the larger balances start coming to and end of their 0% periods. 

I'm also going to be more transparent with Mr, and even though this is probably frowned upon, see if he could help by looking into balance transfer options that he might be eligible for. He should have a much better credit score than me and I know there are providers such as Barlcaycard who allow balance transfers between different names. I think being more transparent would have a huge mental benefit for me and will benefit us both if I can become debt free sooner!! I know I would also be much more disciplined and motivated if the debt was moved into his name. Still not 100% decided on this, but it does feel like a positive move... 

I think the 0% offer that was previously available on one of my Virgin cards has now expired I wonder if this is anything to do with the Virgin/Nationwide merge.. I always thought that Virgin offers were too good to be true!! 

muddlingmillennial

CreditCardJunkie said:

Hi! My advice if you're wanting to start s family asap would be to bring in extra income to pay down debt quicker. Overtime, side hussle, extra job. It's extremely difficult to pay down debt when you have a child (I was on SMP) and if you will have childcare costs when you go back to work it will be even more difficult.

Obviously we all get in debt for different reasons and its vital to address these to ensure you stay out of debt. For me I logged every purchase on a spreadsheet for months and very quickly realised £10 here and there was adding up to around £300 of overspending a month! I still use my budgeting spreadsheet to keep me on track. 

Best of luck!

Just to add to this as well.. I would love an additional income but I'm not really sure what would be well suited. I would like to learn more about side hustles and things I can do from home. There's quite a lot of information about this online, so it's just a case of studying it all. Although I don't have a physically demanding job, my work is very mentally demanding and I don't think I could mentally have any capacity for an actual second job. 

I really like the idea of logging my spending on a spreadsheet to see where the spending is going. I know what you mean about odd purchases here and there soon building up to quite a high amount. I think I have told myself many times 'it's ok because it's only £5 or £10..' but I wonder how much this adds up too! I'll track the spending on this thread from my next payday and hopefully this will give more an insight  

muddlingmillennial

MFWannabe said:

muddlingmillennial said:

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

It’s probably not the normal way to do it, but as we keep our personal finances separate, I haven’t included my husband’s income on here. I have listed all of our joint finances as the 50% share.

Household Information

Number of adults in household: 2

Number of children in household: 0

Number of cars owned: 0 (Husband has a car which I do occasionally drive and I contribute £150 a month towards the running costs, included below)

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax: 2135

Total monthly income: 2135

Monthly Expense

Mortgage: 345  

Council tax: 95 

Electricity: 22.97 
Gas: 7.6 50% (Gas and Electric will probably change very soon as we are on a 6 month bill cycle) 

Water rates: 15.4

Mobile phone: 81.01 (Moment of madness where I purchased new phone and Apple Watch. In contract for a couple of years yet and not much I can do about this)

TV Licence: 7.06

Internet Services: 14.44 (going to have a shop around for this 

Groceries etc: 250 - So £500 in total? That’s high for just two people 
Clothing: 50

Other travel: 150 (payment to husband towards his car) - Is this necessary? Seems a lot? Can your husband manage without you paying this while you pay off debts?

Pet insurance/vet bills: 27.06

Buildings and contents insurance: 21.66 (shopping around for this) - Is this the total or half? If half this seems very high 

Life insurance: 16.41 (shopping around for this) 

Presents (birthday, christmas etc): 35

Haircuts/colour: 50 - this is very high for one person? 

Entertainment: 50

Gym: 31

Emergency fund: 100 - Are you saving this? Is this in your joint savings? 

Joint subscriptions: 14 (Prime, Netflix and Tesco delivery saver) 

Equity loan from Help to Buy scheme when we purchased property: 16

Total monthly expenses: 1342.61

Assets:

Savings: 2250 (50% of joint savings)

House value (Gross): 120000 (50% of house value)

Total Assets: 122250

Secured & HP Debts

Description: Debt/Monthly/APR

Mortgage: 66117/345/4.74 (50% of total mortgage amount) 

Equity loan: 12000/16/rate TBC (50% of total equity loan) 

Total secured & HP debts...... 54117

Unsecured Debts

Description: Debt/Monthly/APR

Nationwide loan: 256.26/266/3.1 (ends 25/05/2024)

Lendable loan: 1564.67/226/7.92 (ends 01/10/2024)

HSBC credit card: 2823.15/74.33/0 (0% ends 31/04/2025)

Overdraft 2: 250/6.7/39 

Overdraft 1: 300/5.08/39

Store card: 578.66/31/24.9

Virgin credit card 2: 3714.54/37.15/0 (0% ends 31/01/2025)

Virgin credit card 1: 1009.81/25/0 (0% ends 07/04/2024)

Barclaycard card: 301.69/13.39/0 (0% ends 09/05/2026)

Fluid credit card: 1660.01/16.6/0 (0% ends 05/07/2024)

Capital One card: 419.69/12.59/0 (0% ends 02/08/2024)

Morning 
I’ve made some comments above in your soa 
😱 to the mobile phone 
virgin cc1 I assume is the one you’re just balance transferring on to new card 
I’ve made a comment separately ref the overdrafts and store card 
If it were me I’d tidy the finances up that way and then focus on paying off capital one card before 0% finishes, using the money from loan 1 when that finishes, while also paying as much as possible off the fluid card before that 0% finishes 

Grocery budget of £500 also includes wet and dry dog food each month for a dog with quite particular dietary needs. The actual grocery shopping is more like £400. We don't always spend £500 a month, this is just a worse case scenario when we need to stock up on more. 

I do use the car quite often and Mr is paying a lot more than £150 towards the car, so it definitely feels reasonable. This includes fuel as well. 

The building and contents is half and I agree, it's high! Shopping around for this as it's due for renewal very soon. 

Hair cuts and colour - I get my hair cut and coloured about 4 times a year which works out at the £50 a month. I know this is deemed a bit of a luxury. I don't go all out on many things at all, so this is the one thing I really don't want to lose, if I can help it... 

 £100 payment towards the joint emergency fund is what I try and save but I don't always put this in if I have other expenses. This is what I try to save on a 'good month'. Mr puts much more than this in every month so I do want to contribute when I can.