Time to 'fess up! (Un)Proudly Presenting my SOA...

Will_I_ever_learn?

lynzpower wrote: »

Additinally, Ive just looked at your figures and you have added things up wrong Im afraid.

including the car & garage costs, which you must include UNTIL they fall out of your budget, it totals 3386.36 - a whopping 387 more every motnh than what you have coming in.

OMG!

That was really stupid of me - I did it in a spreadsheet and my autosum didn't cover the whole column.

I accept what you are saying 100% and didn't feel like we're solvent, but am determined to turn this around now! The car is on e-bay now, so potentially may be sold by the weekend. We are focussed, I promise!

Triker

Do you know about freecycle?

Maybe you could join there and put a wanted sign up for a slowcooker or breadmaker, sorry I'm a bit obsessed with these. Honestly they really help with the day to day stuff re cooking and picking things up from the supermarket like ready meals because your too tired to cook.

Perhaps do an inventory of food in your fridge, freezer and cupboards. You'll be surprised what those Old Style genius's can come up with wit all kind sof combinations of food.

RoxieW

Hi there - we were at one point spending £100 - £500 a month eating out and about £400-£500 on groceries so how know how easily its done! Menu planning has helped me no end. I rarel;y throw anything out thats 'gone off' now as I know what I'm using and when. I'd suggest going through your cupboards/freezer npow and making a list of all the meals you could make. Then when everythings used up start menu planning a fresh.
also, think realistically about budget. I have 2 kids aged 3 and 5 and we spend a fair bit each month taking them out/clothes/birthday party gifts etc. you need to know what you do spend realistically in order to tackle this.
ps with the coffees etc I've found a good way to look at it is to add it up over the week then work out how many hours you've worked to pay for them. realising that you've toiled for hours a month to line starbucks pockets puts me off somewhat!
good luck.

Will_I_ever_learn?

Triker wrote: »

Do you have any credit card charges you can claim back, how about ppi.

Hi,

I have around £3k in mid-claim with the Abbey. The case is one of those put on hold by the courts. We did get a refund from First Direct for £650ish, but that was over 18 months ago and the money is long gone... :rolleyes:

I've only recently ventured into the forums, having had the MSE e-mail for a couple of years. Unfortunately my reality check was a long time coming!

Will_I_ever_learn?

Well I've signed up to SpendingDiary.com and think that's perfect. I've made OH promise to use it too. We've logged todays and yesterdays spending and I just think we wouldn't have remembered those items in a months time when we're trying to understand were the money goes. Also I can use it to make shopping lists, i.e. what am I always running out of and buying from the local shop for 2x the price!! Take last night for example, we ran out of nappies (DD is in nappies through the night still), so OH went to local shop at 10pm and bought this tiny packet for £5.99 :eek:

I've also started some B/T'ing. Moving some of the Virgin balance off onto other cards with lower APR's. I will continue this process this week...


Debt Balances, Balance, APR, Credit Limit
A&L Credit Card, £4,417.72, 15.90%, £4,500.00
Abbey Credit Card, £4,641.25, 15.90%, £8,000.00
Barclays Credit Card, £0.00, 0% until Mar-09, £2,300.00
[strike]GE Edge Credit Card, £198.30, 29.90%, £900.00[/strike] paid off
GE Laura Ashley Credit Card, £507.39, 29.90%, £1,250.00
GE Money Credit Card, £2,020.06, 15.90%, £625.00
Halifax Credit Card, £1,250.00, 6.9% l-o-b, £1,250.00
HSBC Credit Card, £1,500.00, 2.9% until Feb-10, £1,500.00
Ikea Store Card, £615.77, 12.90%, £950.00
MBNA Credit Card, £7,600.58, 0% until Jan-09, £7,800.00
Next Store Card, £476.00, 26.49%, £1,500.00
Tesco Credit Card, £157.29, 17.47%, £3,500.00
Virgin Credit Card, [strike]£6,615.08[/strike] £3,865.08, 27.90%, £6,300.00
Unsecured Debts Sub Total = £27,249.44

tifnstav

cool, you're making progress already cos you've found out how you can improve on a few points. woohoo!
when you have transferred the balances you can do why not snowball again and find out you debt free date? a bit of encouragement goes a long way.

tealady

Hi and welcome. I would chase British gas big time as fuel bills are high. If you get no joy from them try Energywatch.

Will_I_ever_learn?

Hi All,

Having spent a huge amount of time on here, reading everyone's posts and trying to absorb as much DFW thinking as possible I thought I would update my SOA if for no other reason that to see how much of a difference I've managed to make in the last few weeks...

At the moment I go from feeling upbeat, positive and unstoppable in the fight against my debt, to wanting to give up, crawl under the duvet and hope that it all goes away. It scares me sometimes, because I wonder whether I'll manage to acheive the seemingly impossible? But then I consider what others have done through gritty determination and think I can do it too! I've got to try, I'm not ready to admit defeat right now...

Monthly Income
Unchanged...

Total Income = £3,029.30 to £3,254.30

Monthly Expenditure

Mortgage (I/O) £880.00
Secured Loan (Picture) £342.73
Council Tax (£1,366.57 annual) £136.60
Water (metered) £30.00
Electric [strike]£30.00[/strike] just done latest reading and was £50 for last 3mo's :eek:
Gas (pre-payment card) [strike]£40.00[/strike] £60 paid in Feb! :eek: Written complaint letter to BG, will change supplier if no resolution in 7 days:mad: **update - pre-pay meter being replaced with regular meter 07/03/2008. Will switch suppliers after this**
TV Licence £11.29
BT Telephone Line £11.57
Sky TV, broadband and phone c.£25.00
Mobile £20.00
[strike]Car insurance £39.99 - selling car so this will go[/strike] - car not on road, is up for sale
[strike]Petrol £40.00 - selling car so this will go[/strike]
Rail Travel [strike]£80.00[/strike] getting lifts where can £30
Childcare - average (taking into account Gvnt Funding) £517.35
NSPCC £5.00
Life Assurance £18.09
[strike]Income Protection £13.50[/strike]
Home Insurance [strike]£23.00[/strike] now £25 - was inadequate, so cancelled and bought new and better through Quidco, making £80!!
Storage Garage (will be going soon hopefully) £30.00


Groceries, take-outs, coffee - APPROX £600.00 - **update - Feb totalled £700 (£60 of this was gas payments)** :eek:


A&L Credit Card £9.00
A&L Current Account Overdraft - £0 now, but often up to limit
Abbey Credit Card £117.50
Barclays Credit Card £46.00
Egg Credit Card £23.75
GE Laura Ashley Credit Card £5.00
GE Money Credit Card £70.00
Halifax Credit Card £25.00
HSBC Credit Card £37.50
Ikea Store Card £23.00
MBNA Credit Card £228.00
Next Store Card £20.00
Tesco Credit Card £5.00
Virgin Credit Card £20.00

Total Outgoings = [strike]£3,459.60[/strike] £3,372.38 :eek:


Debt Balances, (Credit Limit), APR, Balance
Egg Credit Card, (£1.25k limit), 16.90%, £1,187 debt balance
GE Money Credit Card, (£2.5k limit), 0%, £2,328 debt balance
MBNA Credit Card, (£7.8k limit), 15.90%, £7,600 debt balance

HSBC Credit Card, (£1.5k limit), 2.9%, £1,500 debt balance
Barclays Credit Card, (£2.3k limit), 5.9%, £2,050 debt balance
Halifax Credit Card, (£1.25k limit), 6.95%, £1,250 debt balance

Ikea Store Card, (£0.95k limit), 12.9%, £571 debt balance – just got letter and APR to rise to 19.9% 1st April 2008!

A&L Credit Card, (£4.5k limit), 15.9%, £4,409 debt balance
Abbey Credit Card, (£8k limit), 15.9%, £4,706 debt balance
Tesco Credit Card, (£3.5k limit), 17.47%, £90 debt balance

Next Store Card, (£1.5k limit), 26.49%, £233 debt balance
Virgin Credit Card, (£6.3k limit), 27.9%, £397 debt balance
GE Laura Ashley Credit Card, (£1.25k limit), 29.90%, £7 debt balance – to be cleared and closed next week!

1st Feb 2008 Unsecured Debts Sub Total = £27,249.44
22nd Feb 2008 Unsecured Debts Sub Total = £26,333.20 = £916 reduced!!!

I've grouped the debts by APR's and due to the cc shuffling I've done I've saved myself a whole lotta interest... total annual interest was £5,259... is now £1,965 :T

I've also been using the Spending Diary that someone recommended and have really got into the swing of that. My OH also reports all spending to me and as he's quite competitive, he's always quick to tell me when he's had a NSD! My aim with that is to reduce my Monthly Spend by 10% month on month... At least until I can get down to £300-£400 per month?

My OH has just called to say his promotion has just been secured, so as of April we'll have an additional net income of £200 Well done Hubby! XX

Lastly, but def. not least, we've still got the car for sale, which once sold will clear a nice chunk of debt. Plus there is an insurance payout hopefully coming, which will give us £1,200 to chuck at the debt - WoHoo! And I've been selling some stuff on eBay, making £100-£150 per month. I've enough 'stuff' laying around that this could continue for quite a few months!

Any other advise or tips anyone has to offer would be most gratefully accepted (even if you're just checking my maths and telling me I'm in cloud cukoo land!)

Take care all,

Will_I_ever_learn?

Will_I_ever_learn?

Just updated all my cc totals and our unsecured debt is now £25,867 - this is a drop of £1,382 since xmas!! :beer: That's 5% gone:rotfl:

Going to update my sig now, hee hee

nearlyrich

Great news looks like the user name is somewhat innappropriate as you seem to be learning quickly how to tackle the debt..

Well done on your journey so far.