My SOA - help and advice needed

ultra_violet109

Hi,

I have been loitering around here for a few weeks, reading everyone's posts and picking up some great hints from them.

I have posted a couple of times myself but thought I would take the plunge and look at my full SOA. Any advice etc will be greatefully received. Here goes....

Wages - £1003 pm

OUTGOINGS
Rent (inc council tax, building insurance and water rates) £400
Gas £19.00
Electric £37.00
Tv licence £11.61
Sky £21.00
AOL £14.99
Mobile £35.00
Home phone £15.00 approx
Contents insurance £21.65
Car insurance £30.87
£20pm goes into another acct for mot, car tax, service etc
£20pm goes into another account for xmas/birthday presents etc

So thats the regular outgoing payments.

I also obviously have food, petrol bills etc. However, I don't know how much this comes to - Feb is my first month of keeping track.

DEBTS
CC 1 - HSBC - limit is £2500, currently £954.87 outstanding 16.9%APR
(i am paying approx £35 off pm, whatever the min payment is)
CC 2 - Virgin - limit is £1500, currently £1218.18 outstanding 15.9%APR
(approx £35 again, minimum payment again)

Store Card - New Look - limit is £100, currently £15.07 outstanding 28.9%APR, will pay this off in full this month as it is a small amount and get rid of the card so i'm not tempted.

Owed British Gas some money - paid off last installment of £35 yesterday.
Owe Halifax some money for an overdraft, paid £20 yesterday - £45 of that left to pay
Owe my dad about £100

I feel like i've missed some obvious stuff so let me know if there is anything!

your thoughts and help would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Clare

ultra_violet109

New look card paid off - when i wrote the above comment about it, about paying it off this month, i just thought - why am i waiting?? So thats one debt gone, even if it is only a small one.

mickey_mouse

well done on putting up your SOA and paying that debt off. I am sure the experts will be along v soon with the advice. good luck

Tiglet

Hi Clare,

Well done for getting this done, and for getting rid of the New Look card.:T:T

I'm just about to pop out but I'll have a look at the SOA when I get back

TTFN

Tiglet

Clare.ann.summers wrote: »

Hi,

I have been loitering around here for a few weeks, reading everyone's posts and picking up some great hints from them.

I have posted a couple of times myself but thought I would take the plunge and look at my full SOA. Any advice etc will be greatefully received. Here goes....

Wages - £1003 pm

OUTGOINGS
Rent (inc council tax, building insurance and water rates) £400
Gas £19.00
Electric £37.00 Can you get a better deal on these? (since you're renting, you might not be able to change) If you can, then see if you can get cashback using Quidco
Tv licence £11.61
Sky £21.00 Is this for TV? Can you cancel and just get free channels?
AOL £14.99
Mobile £35.00 Can you get a cheaper contract? Quite often you can change even if you're in the middle of a contract
Home phone £15.00 approx
Contents insurance £21.65
Car insurance £30.87 As for gas/elec, can you get a better deal / cashback from Quidco?
£20pm goes into another acct for mot, car tax, service etc
£20pm goes into another account for xmas/birthday presents etc

So thats the regular outgoing payments.

I also obviously have food, petrol bills etc. However, I don't know how much this comes to - Feb is my first month of keeping track. Have a look at the old-style board for ideas about making things go further.

DEBTS
CC 1 - HSBC - limit is £2500, currently £954.87 outstanding 16.9%APR
(i am paying approx £35 off pm, whatever the min payment is)
CC 2 - Virgin - limit is £1500, currently £1218.18 outstanding 15.9%APR
(approx £35 again, minimum payment again)
Did you get anywhere with these? I left you a load of stuff to read up last time...

[strike] Store Card - New Look - limit is £100, currently £15.07 outstanding 28.9%APR, will pay this off in full this month as it is a small amount and get rid of the card so i'm not tempted.
[/strike]:jIf you've been paying this regularly, you'll have a bit more to pay off your other debts next month

Owed British Gas some money - paid off last installment of £35 yesterday.
Owe Halifax some money for an overdraft, paid £20 yesterday - £45 of that left to pay
Owe my dad about £100

I feel like i've missed some obvious stuff so let me know if there is anything! Your spending diary should shed some light on these

your thoughts and help would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Clare

I hope that's some use. No doubt there'll be others along before too long with more ideas.

ultra_violet109

Ok, here goes...

Gas and electric - have recently changed - bills are a hell of a lot cheaper than they used to be with old supplier - they will prob go down once the weather starts to change a bit.

Sky is for TV yes - guilty pleasure i suppose. Stuck in a contract at the mo so cant get rid of them all, have cut this down from £40.

Mobile phone, the £35 is the line rental which includes calls and messages etc, i NEVER go over, but can't reduce as I use the phone a hell of a lot due to business.

Car insurance - thats a tough one, highish already due to my age but the worst thing is - this will prob be going up in april as i had a bump :-(

to be honest - i think most of my money is wasted on the "other stuff" that will come to light from my spending diary.

As for the credit cards, I have been looking at what to do about them and that is my plan for tomorrow (today) get them sorted!!!

thanks again, i'll update as soon as I know more about CC's and my spending diary - would i be taking it too far to make a note on here of what I am spending - other people may be able to make me realise how unneccesary some of my purchases are when I can sit here and justify them to myself and convince myself i NEEDED to buy it.

Tiglet

Clare.ann.summers wrote: »

would i be taking it too far to make a note on here of what I am spending - other people may be able to make me realise how unneccesary some of my purchases are when I can sit here and justify them to myself and convince myself i NEEDED to buy it.

That's a great idea. There's a daily thread for exactly that purpose. You can post on there, and read what other people are spending too. Or if you spot something that's costing you a fortune, just ask for advice on how to save on that - someone's bound to have an idea.

Have a look at the Old Style board as well - that's always a great source of advice on how to do things more cheaply.

ultra_violet109

Right - credit cards....

I called Virgin and they said they could not offer me any deals for further balance transfers and in fact told me to tranfer to HSBC!?! During this call I also found out that they have increased my interest rate - its now 29.9%APR.

HSBC have said that they will offer 9.9%APR on new balance transfer for 6 months and then will go back up to 16.9%.

So... i will be transfering my Virgin balance to HSBC tomorrow and paying off the minimum payment when it is due each month. Then at the end of the month, any spare money I have will be paid off it too. Does that sound like the thing to do - or should i try Virgin again to see if theres anything they can offer if i speak to someone else who doesn't recommend a rival company!!

Tiglet

Actually, I don't think it's worth doing at that rate. I'm assuming that there will be a 3% fee for the balance transfer. This makes the two rates pretty much the same over the first 6 months, ad after that you'll be paying 1% more to HSBC than you are to Virgin.

29.9% is a pretty high rate, so I would tackle the HSBC card first. Keep paying the minimum on the Virgin card and use whatever you save to reduce your HSBC balance as fast as you can.


Sorry this didn't work out better, but at least you found out straight away what HSBC had done.

ultra_violet109

it's the virgin rate that has been changed to 29.9%...

Tiglet

Sorry - I misread it:o

In that case, you'll be better off moving the whole of the Virgin balance to the HSBC card, then close the Virgin card altogether. And as you said, pay any extra you can off the HSBC balance.

(You might want to find out how much the Halifax overdraft is costing. As there's only £45 left to pay off, if you mange to cut down enough on the "other stuff", you might find it more encouraging to get another debt paid off completely)