Need help with my SOA!

Jo_R_2

Hi all

Here is my SOA. Initial notes:
***I am a single parent***
***Am being made redundant at the end of March***
***Am awaiting recalculation of HB and CTB due to a reduction in hours at work***
***Don't receive any child maintenance at present. Tax credits overpayment from joint claim with ex so are jointly liable, also loan took out in most part to pay off his debts. Ex looking for work and will contribute when earning***

SOA
Monthly income: Salary: 656.48
Child benefit: 120.80
Housing benefit: 100.02 (in process of being recalculated)
Working and Child Tax Credits 1051.40 (single claim, childcare element)
Expenses from work 40.00 (variable)
TOTAL INCOME: 1968.70

Monthly outgoings:
Direct debits/standing orders:
Rent: 465.00
Nursery fees: 761
Unsecured personal loan: 154.22 (IF)
Water: 21.60
Gas: 41.00 (NPower)
Electricity: 33.00 (NPower)
TV License: 11.61
Phone line rental: 20.00 (BT)
Internet and calls: 23.46 (Tiscali)
Credit card: 23.00 (Tesco, minimum payment)
Contact lenses: 18.67 (moving to Specsavers approx. £10 per month)
Subtotal: 1572.56

Other expenses:
Groceries: 240.00 (working this month on £160)
Petrol: 140.00 (travel to/from work)
Socialising: 120.00 (working on £80 this month)
Babysitter: 30.00
Mobile phone: 20.00 (Tesco PAYG)

Subtotal: 550.00
Initial improved subtotal: 430.00
All other expenses paid for as and when needed, mainly car insurance, contents insurance (both paid annually on credit card), car tax and MOT, clothes and shoes, kids activities
TOTAL OUTGOINGS: 2122.56
Initial improved total: 2002.56

Outstanding debts:
Tesco credit card: owe £770, just opened a Virgin 0% balance transfer card and in process of awaiting account being opened so can close Tesco one on which am paying interest)
IF unsecured loan: settlement figure given as £6000 as of last week, approx five years left (need to check APR.) Advisor offered rate of 9.2% and provisionally said could cut payments by approx. £30 per month, in process of shopping around.
Tax Credits overpayment: £976 owed. No payments made yet. To phone back when done SOA to arrange affordable payment.)
Council tax: £340 to be paid by end of March. Council aware having payment difficulties. (This in process of being recalculated along with Housing Benefit.)

Sorry not formatted very well as cut and pasted from Word! If I've omitted anything obvious let me know.

moneysavingmumofone

so your outgoings are more than your incoming? I think you really need to cut out the socialising, its taking a big chunk of your money each month! why is your bt line rental £20? mine is about £12 a month? can you cut down on your usage of your mobile? only use in emergencies?

Jo_R_2

The socialising... Much as it pains me to say it, you are right! I call it my weekly treat, I won't lie, I find it incredibly difficult every week looking after the girls by myself and having a Saturday night out is like my adult oasis of chill out. But needs must. I'm always adamant that there's nothing wrong with having a little bit of enjoyment when you are working to pay the bills, but in my situation maybe that's too much... Scary thought though, I just envision myself sitting in all weekend whilst the girls are with their dad!

BT line rental is something ex arranged when he was still here. The internet and phone package is with Tiscali but I pay BT for line rental. I just kept it because I thought that was just what it cost but I'll definitely look into that, thanks! :money:

I have been thinking of cutting down my mobile usage. I only really use it for texting, very rarely for calls, so was going to cut down to £10 a month.

floss2

Jo_R wrote: »

Hi all

Here is my SOA. Initial notes:
***I am a single parent***
***Am being made redundant at the end of March***
***Am awaiting recalculation of HB and CTB due to a reduction in hours at work***
***Don't receive any child maintenance at present. Tax credits overpayment from joint claim with ex so are jointly liable, also loan took out in most part to pay off his debts. Ex looking for work and will contribute when earning***

SOA
Monthly income: Salary: 656.48
Child benefit: 120.80
Housing benefit: 100.02 (in process of being recalculated)
Working and Child Tax Credits 1051.40 (single claim, childcare element)
Expenses from work 40.00 (variable)
TOTAL INCOME: 1968.70
No maintenance for children?

Monthly outgoings:
Direct debits/standing orders:
Rent: 465.00
Nursery fees: 761
Unsecured personal loan: 154.22 (IF)
Water: 21.60
Gas: 41.00 (NPower)
Electricity: 33.00 (NPower)
TV License: 11.61
Phone line rental: 20.00 (BT)
Internet and calls: 23.46 (Tiscali)
Credit card: 23.00 (Tesco, minimum payment)
Contact lenses: 18.67 (moving to Specsavers approx. £10 per month)
Subtotal: 1572.56
No COuncil Tax????

Other expenses:
Groceries: 240.00 (working this month on £160) Look on Old Style Board for help - could be cut even further
Petrol: 140.00 (travel to/from work)
Socialising: 120.00 (working on £80 this month) Sorry, but you can't afford this - even at £80/m - sacrifices have to be made when you have debts to pay
Babysitter: 30.00 ditto
Mobile phone: 20.00 (Tesco PAYG)

Subtotal: 550.00
Initial improved subtotal: 430.00
All other expenses paid for as and when needed, mainly
car insurance shop around for this & budget for it monthly
contents insurance (both paid annually on credit card), ditto
car tax Budget monthly for this
MOT save up to cover this
clothes and shoes you probably don't need any, buy kids things on Ebay
kids activities how much? You probably can't afford them.
TOTAL OUTGOINGS: 2122.56
Initial improved total: 2002.56

Outstanding debts:
Tesco credit card: owe £770, just opened a Virgin 0% balance transfer card and in process of awaiting account being opened so can close Tesco one on which am paying interest)
IF unsecured loan: settlement figure given as £6000 as of last week, approx five years left (need to check APR.) Advisor offered rate of 9.2% and provisionally said could cut payments by approx. £30 per month, in process of shopping around.
Tax Credits overpayment: £976 owed. No payments made yet. To phone back when done SOA to arrange affordable payment.)
Council tax: £340 to be paid by end of March. Council aware having payment difficulties. (This in process of being recalculated along with Housing Benefit.)

Sorry not formatted very well as cut and pasted from Word! If I've omitted anything obvious let me know.

Please can you be more specific about things like insurances, kids activities etc?

lindens

I just wondered if it was necessary for you to work as your nursery fees and petrol far outstrip your salary so its not worth it, is it?
Sorry if i've missed something obvious?
Maybe play with the figures on here
www.entitledto.com
to see if you can be better off not working.

I can understand you want a break when you are a single mum, and maybe you can still go out every Saturday but just spend half as much? If you have good friends maybe one week you can have a cheap night in at someone's house and bring a bottle etc.

Jo_R_2

Thanks floss.

Maintenance: put a bit of a note about this at the top of my SOA. Ex currently only working p/t so can't afford to pay any.

Council tax: have detailed this at bottom of SOA. Owe over £300. When initially received housing benefit award, my council tax bill was near enough zero for the year. However, not long ago due my my tax credits award changing, my HB was reassessed and this meant my council tax leapt up to about £400 a year. I recently paid about £60 off and they are aware I am having payment difficulties.

Groceries: can easily cut this down. When living with ex, we were budgeting £140 for me, him and DD. Now it's me, DD1 (4yrs) and DD2 (1.5yrs) and I slipped a bit, but do find it easy when I put my mind to it to budget the groceries... In fact it's quite a challenge for me so it will be fun to get into it again!

Socialising: see post #3!

Babysitter: as above!

Car/contents insurance: always shop around but don't budget monthly, which is something I need to do. This last year I have shopped around for a good deal then put it on my credit card each time to avoid paying interest on monthly payments, then slipped on making my monthly credit card payments... Kinda defeating the point really!

Car tax/MOT: do need to save monthly for these too

Clothes and shoes: I don't really buy clothes for me very often at all. Instead I tend to ask for gift cards/vouchers for special occasions and save them for when I need something. Rarely if ever buy the kids new clothes because my mum is very thrifty in charity shops, so the only real expense I find is buying them new shoes - ouch!

Kids activities: On an infrequent basis I take the girls to soft play on my day off, which costs about £2.50 for both of them, maybe once/twice a month. DD1 has school and nursery outings infrequently, maybe around £10 once every three months. The other thing that has been costing a few pennies recently is DD1 being invited to friends birthday parties. I tend to just buy a little cheap present and a card or else it would costs a fortune- she had been invited to six over Christmas/New Year and into February, and got an invite for another next week!

Jo_R_2

lindens wrote: »

I just wondered if it was necessary for you to work as your nursery fees and petrol far outstrip your salary so its not worth it, is it?
Sorry if i've missed something obvious?
Maybe play with the figures on here
www.entitledto.com
to see if you can be better off not working.

I can understand you want a break when you are a single mum, and maybe you can still go out every Saturday but just spend half as much? If you have good friends maybe one week you can have a cheap night in at someone's house and bring a bottle etc.

I have often thought about whether it is worth working. If I didn't work I wouldn't be able to remain where we are, and my prime concern when the ex left was consistency for the girls in terms of nursery, school and my local network of support. In plain monetary terms, as the sums lie in terms of strictly incomings, I am FAR better of working because of the working tax credits I receive. However, it may be a different story once petrol and car costs are factored in (I need my car for my job.) It does look worse now because I have recently dropped my hours in order to be able to take DD1 to school.

However, as I am being made redundant at the end of March, I am looking at working full-time and using wraparound care, and my salary as stated in my SOA would more than double should I get the level of job I am aiming for (fingers crossed!), plus I am looking for employment closer to home (I currently work a nearly 50-mile round trip to/from work each day.) Plus I will get a small amount of redundancy pay.

As me and my friends have gotten older, we have tended to start to steer away from the Saturday-nights-out-in-town thing you tend to do when younger. I'm not a big drinker anyway, so it makes no difference to me to drive to town and save the taxi fare back, and save on shelling out the £30+ some friends do for drinks when they go out. We have been indulging more in big nights in, where one of us will cook for everyone and all bring a bottle of wine which works out a lot cheaper!

That was something I did when ex moved out, and I had the girls all the time and had no one to babysit. At any rate, the amount spent on socialising can be easily cut right down, and coudl maybe put aside some for one night a month.

Aesop

could you get the kids to make birthday cards for their friends, with your help? Or make cards yourself? I tend to make my own as cheaper and people like the personal touch, or buy them from the market where they are much cheaper than places like birthdays or clinton cards.

Can you take your kids to tots groups or something like that as well? I go to tots for under 1s, it costs £1 a week, if you look on netmums.com, there maybe something in your area.

Jo_R_2

aureol212 wrote: »

could you get the kids to make birthday cards for their friends, with your help? Or make cards yourself? I tend to make my own as cheaper and people like the personal touch, or buy them from the market where they are much cheaper than places like birthdays or clinton cards.

.

Been thinking about doing this actually, the little boy from across the road sent DD1 a Valentine card (they're both only four bless them!) which he'd made himself and was very cute so was thinking of getting some bits and pieces and card.

Thanks!

Jo_R_2

Been in touch with ex about the tax credits overpayment and the IF loan. Sounding hopeful he may have some kind of employment soon. What's my standing should I ask him to contribute towards the loan and the tax credits as well as child maintenance, ie how can I make some formal agreement about what he will pay in addition?

Obv. the tax credits letter is addressed to both of us but the loan would be an agreement between us as it is in my name.