Ok, this has taken me a while

lil_monkey

Hi everyone, I am new to this, but have been reading and looking at this site for a while, I really have had my light bulb moment and fed up of being in this state. No one knows about all of this not even boyfriend or parents - too be honest I am really embrassed and ashamed of the mess. It all started when I was 19 moved out of home and was leaving on bad money - also had self estesm problems - and spending money helped me to feel better - well thats all in the past and want to be successful and be debt free.

here is my incoming /outcomings

income 1- £1059.00 per month
income 2 £200.00 per month

out:

food 200.00 per month for 2 of us
saving 50.00
loan with natwest £282.29 apr 6.9%
account spending £23.54
phone £35.00
Phone insurance £9.66 - Has now been canceled as of 5th Feb 08
house bills £50.00
hair £20.00
clothes £40.00
beauty stuff £30.00
petrol £30.00
mags and bit n bobs £46.30
going out £30.00
sport message £40.00
credit cards £114.00 apr is mixed 12% and 5.9% 2nd one is for life of balance

total £1017.00 - now £1007.34 as cancel phone insurance

my loan is £282.29 a month which should finish in 2012, but to far away so want to pay back earlier

my cc is £1829.00 at the mixed rate above- I did have a overdraft but paid it off with my saving.

please do have a pick at it and let me know where I could make cuts.

Thank you for your help.

x x x x;)

vandanfc

Hi

Well done on posting, you are very brave, but its the first step on the road to sorting this all out.

Couple of questions: there is no mention of rent or mort costs, do you still live at home, or does someone else pay these ? What is account spending ? I assume you mean sports massage ? This seems a lot of money every month. House bills is this just your contribution ? If so we need to know what the actual costs are. This is the same for everything I suppose, we need to know actuals not just your share, then we will hopefully be able to point you in the right direction.

MissEyre

Thanks for including so much detail-it's really helpful. If you have the info the poster above has asked for, that would even better!

A couple of things really jumped out-your spending on hair, beauty and magazines is pretty high. Could you look at going to a hairdressing college for this, or local salons? The students are closely supervised, and it would be cheap or even free-my hairdressing costs have gone from £45 a month to £5.50 for a cut and blow dry, and I would recommend it to anyone!

For magazines, I use Tesco clubcard deals to buy subscriptions, and then swap magazines with my friends-saves me a fortune.

Sure you will get loads of other tips!

mcmanlyn

lil_monkey wrote: »

out:

food 200.00 per month for 2 of us - this is a h*ll of a lot, i spend about 60 on just me, so have a go at buying own brands and bogofs.
saving 50.00 - can you stick this on your loan or cc instead?
loan with natwest £282.29 apr 6.9%
account spending £23.54 - what is this exactly?
phone £35.00 - can you reduce the tariff or cancel & go payg yet?
phone insurance £9.66 - do you need this? I never bother, if my phone breaks i'll buy a cheap payg to replace it.
house bills £50.00
hair £20.00 - cut back to once every 2 months
clothes £40.00 - wish i could spend this every month on clothes
beauty stuff £30.00 - again try own brands / special offers
petrol £30.00
mags and bit n bobs £46.30 - give up on mags & look a internet gossip sites instead hehehe!
going out £30.00
sport message £40.00 - ? do you mean massage?
credit cards £114.00 apr is mixed 12% and 5.9% 2nd one is for life of balance

It's the first time i've really had a pick at someone's SOA so sorry if it sounds weird/harsh There are loadsa threads on here about cutting shopping down, i got mine down loads recently, so you should be able to cut down there & then whack anything extra on your loan / cc - loan will be best to pay off first coz of higher interest, but it depends if they will let you do that.

Hope it helps

wydsiwyrg

Ok. I'm going to pick this apart. Hope I'm not too harsh!!

lil_monkey wrote: »

here is my incoming /outcomings

income 1- £1059.00 per month
income 2 £200.00 per month

out:

food 200.00 per month for 2 of us

--- This is way too much! My wife and I spend 100 per month for the 2 of us, and we only shop in Tescos! Try buying value stuff, and planning menus. It really helps.

saving 50.00

--- Don't save while you have debt. Throw it at your debt. Your debts are at far higher interest rates than you will earn interest on your savings.

loan with natwest £282.29 apr 6.9%
account spending £23.54
phone £35.00

--- This is way too high for a mobile phone. Cut down to a cheaper one, or go PAYG asap

phone insurance £9.66

--- Mobile phone insurance is useless. Cancel it - you'll have to do this in writing usually.

house bills £50.00

--- This is good.

hair £20.00
clothes £40.00
beauty stuff £30.00

--- All of the above are ridiculous. You can't spend this much on this stuff per month! We don't even spend this amount! Try to cut down to a cheaper hair salon, and go once every two months. Try to 1/4 what you spend on clothes, and same on beauty stuff, if you can't stop it all together.

petrol £30.00
mags and bit n bobs £46.30

going out £30.00
sport message £40.00

--- You can't afford either of the above. Try to cut down.

credit cards £114.00 apr is mixed 12% and 5.9% 2nd one is for life of balance

total £1017.00

In all of this you don't seem to have quoted your rent? Where is that and what does that cost?

I think you're in a very manageable situation and if you live a little more within your means can live very happily and pay off your debts quickly.

MERFE

You have also put down 30 pounds for petrol but no other car costs, do you share a car or do you also have car insurance, mot costs, tax etc, and at 30 pounds per month you can't be using it much would you be able to use public transport instead

lil_monkey

Hi everyone thank you so much for all your advice, no one has been harsh you just have been realistic which is what I need - re rent my boyfriend pays the rent and council tax, TV license and broadband, home phone et as we have a package with virgin media . - so I don'r have to worry about that:A

Bills - this is for water and electric, my boyfirend and I split the bills - the last quarter bill was £140.00 each :eek: on water and electric- we have discussed changing providers - but with the prices going up again we thought we should what a month or so just to see what is going on..

My Mum and Dad give me money towards the car - as I left home so early they see it as a way of helping me out etc. I cycle to work every day - but my 2nd job means I have to travel and some time late at night - plus parents live a long way from me - so I like to see them.

I will try to cut the cost on food - oH is really fussy and like to be healthy but I will try.

I will cancel the phone insurance today.

My hair cut is £65 every 3 months for a cut and colour - but I think I will dye it back to its normal colour - plus I am growing it again - so should'nt have to have it done so much.

My clothes I will def cut back on and will with the beauty products.

I will try to cut going out - instead ask the girls to come round to mine. and the sport massage I will rdeuce to every other month.

Thanks everyone for your help I really means alot . xx - plus I am keeping a spending diary to really keep me motivated.

lil_monkey

Ok, I have just got off the phone to car phone warehouse and have canceled my phone insurance - so I am now £9.00 a month better off which can go towards my debt!!

wydsiwyrg

Hiya. Sounds like you're really driven to do this, so I'm sure it'll work out well.

Regarding food: it can be really healthy, yet cheap. I find a great idea is going to Tesco 15 minutes before closing time on a Saturday evening. This Saturday night I managed to pick up 2 big packs (2 ltr) innocent smoothies, 4 tesco finest desserts, and a nice stir fry pick all for £2.10! Previous week I got an 8oz Tesco Finest Fillet Steak for 25p!

We cook fresh veg almost every day, and home cook everything, but it still all balances out. We found last year, we were spending a lot on Coke, Chocolates and bits like that. The really healthy stuff ends up costing a lot less.