In for the longhaul

phoenixchick

bump! bump!

skint_spice

OK, my first thought is removal costs - can you not hire a van for a day and do it yourself? I've never used a removal firm ever and nothing's ever gotten broken or gone missing.
Others may know better but I would think that sorting out the council tax should be your priority as you could end up in court over that. Maybe the overdue stuff has already been added to your monthly payment - I wasn't sure though.
Are you tied into both cars? no chance of selling up, settling balance and getting something smaller and cheaper?
Good luck though, you sound determined to sort things out. x

phoenixchick

Hi Skint spice, the removals figure is an estimate for a van plus 2 blokes. I would look at hiring a van and doing it myself but OH hurt his back in a car accident and I can't manage the heavy lifting alone. Hopefully it will cost less than that, but I prefer to over budget than find myself stuck.

Unfortunately CTax overdues haven't been added on. I know that this is the first thing that needs to be paid off, it is just rather overwhelming. In the past I tended to pay whoever shouted loudest. The CTax rarely shouted until the amount was one that I just didn't know what to do about. I was thinking of paying a chunk of the current one and then see if they will accept an arrangement for the remainder. Then throw as much as possible at the older ones.

We are tied into both cars, and we will both need one due to our jobs and hours. We went for newer ones as we have been stung several times with repairs for 'bargain' cars. Unfortunately our previous car was written off at a time when we didn't have any deposits saved and credit rating was not very good, so when we got the new car loans the rate was rather crap.

msmicawber

Hi Phoenixchick and welcome.

I think you need to re-work your SOA as it's not complete, and not quite correct as it stands. Sorry to be pedantic, but in order to deal with your debt effectively, you'll need to know precisely where you stand.

As your SOA currently stands, I believe all figures are monthly except the TV licence which you give as quarterly at £35.12. When adjusted to monthly payment of £11.71, I make the monthly total £3356.96, leaving you £743.04 to use to pay off your debts. In the addendum, you mention:
The Money Shop £250 (currently paying £37.50 p/m but not reducing amount)
Uncle Buck £500 (currently paying £100 p/m but not reducing amount)
so, £743.04 - £137.50 = £605.54 for the remaining debts.

However, I think the following things (at least) are missing:
Gas (or are you all-electric?)
Water
Repairs & MOT for cars (I appreciate they may be under 3 yrs in which case only repairs missing)
Haircuts?
Birthdays, etc. (I know you mentioned that yourself, but you need to budget for everything)
Cash - do you really spend nothing?
Eating out/takeaways? - you mentioned going for a meal once per month, so need to budget for it.

When you have moved, will your fuel costs reduce dramatically as currently they're very steep?

I hope this helps a little as I know it's very difficult to get it all straight at first especially when you've been hoping for some time that ignoring it will make it go away.

Best wishes.

poppy_f1

re the takeaways, i dont know what you normally have, hover asda and morrisons normally have chinese/indian meals pretty cheap, so may be worth buying them and then you can still think your having takeaways but at a cheaper cost

phoenixchick

Thanks for the help on the terror SOA. I am trying to cook more from scratch and have worked out a shopping list using the mysupermarket site - it lets you compare 4 supermarkets and also shows you switches to cut costs. I decided to do one big shop, so there is always food to cook. It is when there is nothing in that I feel the call of the takeaway! Although, Poppy, I have tried the Asda ones and they are not too bad.

MsMicawber, thanks for your points

However, I think the following things (at least) are missing:
Gas (or are you all-electric?) All electric
Water Had forgotten this - probably about £20 pm

Repairs & MOT for cars (I appreciate they may be under 3 yrs in which case only repairs missing)
Haircuts?
Birthdays, etc. (I know you mentioned that yourself, but you need to budget for everything)
Cash - do you really spend nothing?
Eating out/takeaways? - you mentioned going for a meal once per month, so need to budget for it.
For all of these, OH gets commission which can vary hugely, some months £100, another month £1000, so this is what we tend to use for these. Not really ideal for the repairs - hopefully I can start saving for that, although both cars are fairly new so fingers crossed until the emergency fund is set up. For eating out, if we don't have the money for it we don't do it, same for haircuts to be honest (especially mine).

When you have moved, will your fuel costs reduce dramatically as currently they're very steep? One of the reasons for the move is that OH currently commutes from N London to S London every day, my new job is fairly near his so we hope to find somewhere to live between the two - I reckon it will drop by at leat £100 if not more.

Generally I'm feeling much more on top of the money situation, although there is a long way to go. Looking forward to going under £67000 this month!

On the down side I had been feeling worse and worse at work, so finally went to the Dr. Have severe hypertension (work stress related), so am taking the week off to try to bring it down. Typical! You start sorting out one bit of your life and a different part goes all to crap.

chevalier

my comments are in blue

phoenixchick wrote: »

My rather terrifying SOA
Income
My income £2100
OH income £2000 (sometimes rather higher depending on commission, occasionally lower by up to £300) I would suggest you set up another bank account, so that you religiously put the commission into another account. That way you can then save up to try and do full and final settlement deals on some of the debts.
Total £4100
Outgoings
Rent £1061
C Tax £125 (but this is a big problem, £826.32 arrears for this property and also £557 for this year for previous property - not quite sure what to do about this, although we are expecting some money in the near future which I would put to clear this)If you have any spare money ie commission etc THIS is the debt to pay off first. It is the only debt you can still go to prison for. Is this £125 paying this year that is just finishing or does it include an arrears payment too. For your new place ask to pay over 12 months rather than 10, to spread the load.
Electric £38 (DD to start from next month)
Phone/Broadband £43.50 (DD to start from next month. I hope to combine phone/broadband and sky when we move in April)
Sky £45 combining would save you money, BUT freeview would cost you nothing. And is it worth having sky to get a bundle?
TV Licence £35.12 quarterly DD
Food £200 (this is my first area to reduce dramatically)
Home Insurance £5.74
My mobile £25 (reduced to lowest tariff, contract ends in July I think– will then try to reduce it further)
OH’s mobile £45 (tied into a contract for at least the next 12 months, uses it for work at times)
Mobile (OH’s Mum) £30 (As she had been unwell and is a pensioner OH wants to keep this going)
Car insurance £70.71 (multicar insurance for both cars)when did you last check this? Ie if you have been with the same company for several years, it may be cheaper elsewhere.
Car Tax £32 (need to pay 2 x 6mths this month!)
Petrol £300 (hopefully this will reduce a lot after we have moved)
Car 1 payment £298.17 (£14,113 over 48 months, apr 30.4% :eek: )good grief that is a bad APR! Can you hand it back and get a cheaper one? Or if you are moving to closer to his work could one or other of your use public transport and lose a car? These two items on their own are taking up nearly a quarter of your monthly wage, when you include petrol, tax, insurance and loans. Do you really NEED two cars
Car 2 Payment £284.65 (£13684 over 48 months, apr 19.8%)
Laundry/dry cleaning £20
Partnership CC £80 (DD set up for minimum payment £1600, apr 18.9%)
Loan 1 £266.17 (£4745, apr 43.59% :eek: :eek: )
Loan 2 £317 (£6959, apr 43.43% :eek: :eek: )
Catalogue £58.31 final payment but this amount pm would cover essential clothes If you need to buy clothes then can you shop mainstream even if you OH can't because of his size?
Total £3346.94
Remainder £756Do you know where this is going? Ok it is going on some debts, but keeping a spending diary can get you to focus on what you really need to be spending on not WANT to be spending on.
The eek :eek: debts – currently no payment arrangements made (suggestions greatfully received!)
Priority (and, yes I know I was an idiot )
H Cohen CCJ £397 (my instinct is to clear this now even if it leaves us rather short)
Old C Tax 1 £1935 (Got behind as OH was out of work for about 6 months, fell behind with arrangement and council would not reinstate it. Tried to make an arrangement in writing, they wouldn’t do it – they insisted that a bailiff would have to call round which I do not want)
Old C Tax 2 £1026
Lower priority
My student loan £2655 apr 4.8%
OH student loan £4369 apr 4.8%
Wescot 1 £1996
ScotCall £529 (this is a rather unpleasant one, OH being rather too nice at times agreed to take out a mobile contract for a friend, she would give him the money each month, if she was a bit short he didn't say anything because she was having all sorts of problems. The problems got worse and worse and the bill went unpaid, sadly she died of an (accidental?) overdose and obviously OH has no intention of adding to the burden the family already have to bear)
CapQuest £4185
Mackenzie Hall £4843 (this and previous are old CCs from OH – I think they may be too old to enforce but I’m not sure yet - see earlier posts)
Direct Auto £890 (currently £200+ of it is disputed they claim that this is for insurances, but as far as I can see from the original application the total of insurance at the start was approx £200 and we had been paying the loan for 2 years)
Wessex £800how old are these debts, are you paying anything towards them. If they are over 6 years old they will be statute barred.
Wescot 2 £119
Meritforce £158
The Money Shop £250 (currently paying £37.50 p/m but not reducing amount) Does this mean that you are not reducing the total? In that case this could be where uncle bucks £100 goes to when he is paid back.
Uncle Buck £500 (currently paying £100 p/m but not reducing amount) so in 5 months, this will be done, and you can throw another £100 at your priority debts.

The move (estimates)How are you going to fund this?
Rent plus deposit £2500
Admin fees £250
Removal £600
Total £3350

If your OH is using petrol to get to clients, then can he claim expenses?

Erm not sure how to put this, and I am really sorry if I offend, but cutting out the take aways will be good for your pocket and your OH. Even at 6ft 3, a 60 inch chest means his Body Mass Index will be way too high. So cooking more cheaply will save you money and help with shedding pounds in weight too. That way you would be able to shop in less expensive clothes shops. The other thing to do in the mean time is to look at the US sites for clothes. You may find larger clothes more readily over there. Like I said I am really sorry if I offend, but I was just thinking a little out of the box here.

chev

WorkingHardDFW

Well done on posting your SOA. Its such a relief to get it down on paper.

Whilst I can't pretend to be an expert I can only add the following based on my own experiences:

• budget for everything, no matter how minor they seem. I've found this the only way to get a handle on what we're spending
• Keep a spending diary to not only track against the budget but to see where the 'extra' spending is going. I've been keeping a diary since 1/1 and already I can see spends which aren't budgeted for! I now need to revise the budget!
• As Chevalier has already pointed out set up a seperate fund for extra money that comes in. Its keeps it away from your monthly living costs (which if they are like mine are precarious at times) which allows you to focus on which debt to pay off. I've ebayed for a while but at the start the money just went into the joint account where it disappeared. Now the ebay income and other stuff go into a seperate account where I can pay it off the particular target CC. Its really helps me feel that we are in control of the siutation rather than the other way round
• A list of things which need to be bought, but which aren't budgeted for, so they can be prioritised if and when the money becomes available. Pre LBM these things would have just been bought - hence some of our huge debt.

As I said these are just things which have really helped me focus. We are now living within our means and reducing the debt which is no mean feat when we owe £52k at worst!

Good luck

msmicawber

Thanks, Phoenixchick. I'm not surprised you have hypertension at the moment with all you have on your plate, but think you're doing the right thing by facing up to your situation and looking for resolution.

As the commission varies, I think you're right not to include it in your budget, but to make use of it when it arrives. However, I also agree with chevalier that you should use it to sort out the Council Tax debt as it is a priority.

Best wishes and well done. Try to relax now you've made a start as it'll be better for your stress levels.

ms_london

Meritforce £158
The Money Shop £250 (currently paying £37.50 p/m but not reducing amount)
Uncle Buck £500 (currently paying £100 p/m but not reducing amount)

What are these for?

Also, could you consider selling your cars or at least one of them/or downgrading to a cheaper model - esp since you are moving closer to OH's work, he wont have the commute and surely a cheaper car would be just as good? This would get rid of a HUGE chunk.

So are you moving into a property with a higher rent than what you are currently paying?

Do you really need 50 pounds a month for your clothes budget? Surely you dont need 'essentials' every month? What do you mean?

Also, I agree with what someone else said about moving house yourself, this is a lot of money you could be saving - how will you be paying for this anyway? Please dont tell me you are putting it on a credit card? :eek:

Sky is not an essential, this is money that could be better spent.

Could you move into a cheaper house? Get a lodger?

Food costs can definately be halved.

Have you negotiated repayments with your creditors?

What money are you hoping to come into to clear the council tax arrears? What if this doesnt happen? What will you do then?

Have you worked out how long it will take you to be debt free? I do believe that by making some of the cuts above you could reduce your DFD by a couple of years and save heaps in interes.

xx