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MY SOA – be gentle I feel so embarrassed! ;-(
weimaranermerlin
Posts: 148 Forumite
Ok, here it goes! My light bulb moment was yesterday I guess when I had the third rejection for a credit card in a row (I was trying to put the outstanding balance on an ending 0% card onto a balance for life card). After I was turned down by 2 and accepted by Goldfish for half of what we needed I decided to bite the bullet and look at loans which is why I had to add up all of our debts. In short, we were refused the cheapest unsecured loan as suggested on this website.
To be honest I had many flickers before than but I managed to pretend it couldn’t be all that bad. Anyhow, I haven’t been sleeping properly for the longest time because most of the time I am worrying how I am going to manage this all so yesterday I threw some concrete figures at my husband. I must explain that I sort out all the finances since it “apparently all goes over hubbies head” and I am “apparently so much better at it”. Well, looking at the figures I am crap at it! Anyhow, I need to start sorting things out before they spiral out of control completely!
Outstanding:
Natwest Overdraft: £6000 ((8.5% due to being a Private banking customer)
HSBC Overdraft: £1500
American Express CC: £3200 (fixed for the life of balance on 4.5%)
Goldfish: £3300 (fixed for the life of the balance)
HSBC CC: £3200 (0% just ran out which is made me look at the whole thing). Hopefully getting competitive loan to cover it
Halifax One: £9275 (0% interest until July 08)
Tesco CC: £6000 (this is the one we use to cover our everyday spending and we usually pay off in full!)
Total: £32425
I have done the following budget based on Martin's Budget Planner:
Income: £2200 (Hubbie(childcare vouchers, pension, etc are already taken off that)
£ 670 (based on 21 hours)
Total: £2870
Mortgage £642.00
Council tax £140.00
Healthcare Cash back £78.00
Food £300.00
Pet Food £40.00
ISA £100.00
Phone & Internet £31.00
CC repayment (HSBC) £200.00
CC repayment (American Express) £100.00
CC repayments (Halifax One) £280.00
Gym £40.00
Josh's Swimming £35.00
Josh's Perform £40.00
Tivo Sub £10.00
TV License £12.00
Car insurance £65.00
Car tax £45.00
Car maintenance £75.00
Fuel £120.00
Paymentshield £80.00
Plumbing cover £2.00
Level term assurance £50.00
House insurance £25.00
Pet insurance £60.00
Gas & Electricity £100.00
Water £21.00
Xmas Savings £25.00
Bday Savings £25.00
Days out £50.00
Pet vaccinations £35.00
Cigarettes £10.00
Haircuts, etc £42.00
TOTAL £2,878.00
The “plan” is to get a loan to cover £17000 which should cover the Halifax one card, the leftover from the HSBC card and help with the Tesco card. I would like the tie in term no longer than 4 years but we shall see what we can get at all! Hubby spoke to a loan broker last night who contacted us after our online application with A&L was declined. I will have a look at money supermarket later and hubby has contacted our personal banker (usually a waste of space!0 at Natwest to see what they can do. BTW, I know what you will be saying about BW personal banking which is £220 a year. Hubby has been with them since he had a bank account and I haven’t been able to talk him out of it. I must say tho that we get a preferential rate for our overdraft at 8.8% for 9k which was very useful….
Also we will be selling hubby’s car at the end of the year since he has to have a new one (his company has this silly rule that they can’t drive a car older than 5 years for whatever reason). Anyhow, the good news is that I should have enough (or at least very close to enough) Tesco vouchers to pay for hubbies new car and wanted to use the lump sum we get for the old one to throw at out debts. I did an online valuation for his car and at the moment it is apparently worth £6500 which is a tad disappointing but we shall see.
I also need to ad that we have a 4 year old and 2 dogs and 2 cats. One of the dogs had cancer just over a year ago and the vet bills came to almost 5K. This was when I realised that I hadn’t read the small print in the pet insurance since E&L only paid £450!!! This is probably the reason why the f4 of them are now insured with More than and Tesco…. And we have been using it unfortunately so I’m feeling rather unsure about not having it. One dog & cat are getting old and the other dog is young and stupid and already has a history of vet bills.
We have Sky but only the basic one including the phone – My family lives in Germany and I call them daily. With this package (£21) all the local, national & international phone calls are included!
Healthcare cashback scheme: Looks quite high but both hubby and me use all the dental allowance (£500) plus he uses the optical benefits (£250). On top of that our son had all kind of health problems and regularly sees the homeopath and chiropractor which easily pays for the outlay. Last year we received £2454 back on a £900 outlay! Having said that I am not sure if we would have had all the treatments if we wouldn’t have known there were “free”. Nevertheless paying for our optical & dental needs plus my son’s treatments would easily come to £75/month.
ISA: our mortgage is spilt 50/50 between interest only and repayment. The interest only part of the mortgage is linked to this ISA.
Food: I’m going to try to cut down on our food bill since I have become the “queen of coupons”. I have been lucky to have several “happy scanners” in my local Tesco who allow me to use a respectable amount of money off coupons to cut down my shopping bill. My fridge and freezer are bursting and we are living like kings thanks to them! I will try and see if I can shave £100 off the total…
Electricity: I have just switched to E-ON for both gas & electricity and our electricity usage is apparently 3 times the average household. Hubby is a gadget freak so everything in our house seems to have a blue light … I need to look into this but don’t quite know where to start… I have started to only use the tumble dryer in emergencies….. any more?? BTW, we pay £60/months for electric!
Right, any advice as to where to start and what to do would be highly appreciated. I feel as if I’m kind of “on my own” since hubby isn’t really the “worrying” type and seems to leave it all to me… ;-(
To be honest I had many flickers before than but I managed to pretend it couldn’t be all that bad. Anyhow, I haven’t been sleeping properly for the longest time because most of the time I am worrying how I am going to manage this all so yesterday I threw some concrete figures at my husband. I must explain that I sort out all the finances since it “apparently all goes over hubbies head” and I am “apparently so much better at it”. Well, looking at the figures I am crap at it! Anyhow, I need to start sorting things out before they spiral out of control completely!
Outstanding:
Natwest Overdraft: £6000 ((8.5% due to being a Private banking customer)
HSBC Overdraft: £1500
American Express CC: £3200 (fixed for the life of balance on 4.5%)
Goldfish: £3300 (fixed for the life of the balance)
HSBC CC: £3200 (0% just ran out which is made me look at the whole thing). Hopefully getting competitive loan to cover it
Halifax One: £9275 (0% interest until July 08)
Tesco CC: £6000 (this is the one we use to cover our everyday spending and we usually pay off in full!)
Total: £32425
I have done the following budget based on Martin's Budget Planner:
Income: £2200 (Hubbie(childcare vouchers, pension, etc are already taken off that)
£ 670 (based on 21 hours)
Total: £2870
Mortgage £642.00
Council tax £140.00
Healthcare Cash back £78.00
Food £300.00
Pet Food £40.00
ISA £100.00
Phone & Internet £31.00
CC repayment (HSBC) £200.00
CC repayment (American Express) £100.00
CC repayments (Halifax One) £280.00
Gym £40.00
Josh's Swimming £35.00
Josh's Perform £40.00
Tivo Sub £10.00
TV License £12.00
Car insurance £65.00
Car tax £45.00
Car maintenance £75.00
Fuel £120.00
Paymentshield £80.00
Plumbing cover £2.00
Level term assurance £50.00
House insurance £25.00
Pet insurance £60.00
Gas & Electricity £100.00
Water £21.00
Xmas Savings £25.00
Bday Savings £25.00
Days out £50.00
Pet vaccinations £35.00
Cigarettes £10.00
Haircuts, etc £42.00
TOTAL £2,878.00
The “plan” is to get a loan to cover £17000 which should cover the Halifax one card, the leftover from the HSBC card and help with the Tesco card. I would like the tie in term no longer than 4 years but we shall see what we can get at all! Hubby spoke to a loan broker last night who contacted us after our online application with A&L was declined. I will have a look at money supermarket later and hubby has contacted our personal banker (usually a waste of space!0 at Natwest to see what they can do. BTW, I know what you will be saying about BW personal banking which is £220 a year. Hubby has been with them since he had a bank account and I haven’t been able to talk him out of it. I must say tho that we get a preferential rate for our overdraft at 8.8% for 9k which was very useful….
Also we will be selling hubby’s car at the end of the year since he has to have a new one (his company has this silly rule that they can’t drive a car older than 5 years for whatever reason). Anyhow, the good news is that I should have enough (or at least very close to enough) Tesco vouchers to pay for hubbies new car and wanted to use the lump sum we get for the old one to throw at out debts. I did an online valuation for his car and at the moment it is apparently worth £6500 which is a tad disappointing but we shall see.
I also need to ad that we have a 4 year old and 2 dogs and 2 cats. One of the dogs had cancer just over a year ago and the vet bills came to almost 5K. This was when I realised that I hadn’t read the small print in the pet insurance since E&L only paid £450!!! This is probably the reason why the f4 of them are now insured with More than and Tesco…. And we have been using it unfortunately so I’m feeling rather unsure about not having it. One dog & cat are getting old and the other dog is young and stupid and already has a history of vet bills.
We have Sky but only the basic one including the phone – My family lives in Germany and I call them daily. With this package (£21) all the local, national & international phone calls are included!
Healthcare cashback scheme: Looks quite high but both hubby and me use all the dental allowance (£500) plus he uses the optical benefits (£250). On top of that our son had all kind of health problems and regularly sees the homeopath and chiropractor which easily pays for the outlay. Last year we received £2454 back on a £900 outlay! Having said that I am not sure if we would have had all the treatments if we wouldn’t have known there were “free”. Nevertheless paying for our optical & dental needs plus my son’s treatments would easily come to £75/month.
ISA: our mortgage is spilt 50/50 between interest only and repayment. The interest only part of the mortgage is linked to this ISA.
Food: I’m going to try to cut down on our food bill since I have become the “queen of coupons”. I have been lucky to have several “happy scanners” in my local Tesco who allow me to use a respectable amount of money off coupons to cut down my shopping bill. My fridge and freezer are bursting and we are living like kings thanks to them! I will try and see if I can shave £100 off the total…
Electricity: I have just switched to E-ON for both gas & electricity and our electricity usage is apparently 3 times the average household. Hubby is a gadget freak so everything in our house seems to have a blue light … I need to look into this but don’t quite know where to start… I have started to only use the tumble dryer in emergencies….. any more?? BTW, we pay £60/months for electric!
Right, any advice as to where to start and what to do would be highly appreciated. I feel as if I’m kind of “on my own” since hubby isn’t really the “worrying” type and seems to leave it all to me… ;-(
0
Comments
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weimaranermerlin wrote: »Outstanding:
Natwest Overdraft: £6000 ((8.5% due to being a Private banking customer)
HSBC Overdraft: £1500
American Express CC: £3200 (fixed for the life of balance on 4.5%)
Goldfish: £3300 (fixed for the life of the balance)
HSBC CC: £3200 (0% just ran out which is made me look at the whole thing). Hopefully getting competitive loan to cover it
Halifax One: £9275 (0% interest until July 08)
Tesco CC: £6000 (this is the one we use to cover our everyday spending and we usually pay off in full!)
Total: £32425
I have done the following budget based on Martin's Budget Planner:
Income: £2200 (Hubbie(childcare vouchers, pension, etc are already taken off that)
£ 670 (based on 21 hours)
Total: £2870
Mortgage £642.00
Council tax £140.00
Healthcare Cash back £78.00 You need to cut this, its very high.
Food £300.00 Again, this can be cut, and try living from the kitchen for a month.
Pet Food £40.00 I have a dog, 3 cats, 3 rats, 2 rabbits and a hamster, my food and acc comes to £45 a month by shopping round.
ISA £100.00 Cut this right back?
Phone & Internet £31.00 Cheaper packages out there. Talk talk do talk3 international which would include calls to germany, for just over £20 pm.
CC repayment (HSBC) £200.00
CC repayment (American Express) £100.00
CC repayments (Halifax One) £280.00
Gym £40.00 Cancel
Josh's Swimming £35.00 Cancel
Josh's Perform £40.00 Cancel
Tivo Sub £10.00 Cancel
TV License £12.00
Car insurance £65.00 Very high, get cheaper by shopping around.
Car tax £45.00 That seems high?
Car maintenance £75.00 Do you really spend £900 a year on car maintenance?
Fuel £120.00 CAn you cut this back?
Paymentshield £80.00 Can you cancel this?
Plumbing cover £2.00
Level term assurance £50.00
House insurance £25.00
Pet insurance £60.00 Im sure you could get cheaper.
Gas & Electricity £100.00 Ouchy, swap!
Water £21.00
Xmas Savings £25.00
Bday Savings £25.00
Days out £50.00 Can you cut this back and enjoy free days out?
Pet vaccinations £35.00 A month?
Cigarettes £10.00
Haircuts, etc £42.00 I have a trim once every 2 months which costs £15, can you shop around?
TOTAL £2,878.00
Please dont take on another loan, by cutting back you can easily afford to pay off your cards.0 -
Hi !!
Well done for posting your SOA (statement of affairs). I think the key is not more loans / debt but spending less.
Ciggies, gym etc need to go.
Regarding the ISA why get 6% interest on savings when you are paying 8.5% etc on debts?
You have lots and lots of different types of insurances e.g plumbing, health care, term assurance. Why not review these / scap them and you can always get them back when you are debt free.
To put it bluntly not much point insuring the plumbing or the mortgage etc if the house is going to get repossessed.
It's gonna be a case of either making sacrifices to cut your debt or continue maintaining your current life style by subsidizing your income with more and more debt.
Which option are you and your OH going to choose?
I wish you well.0 -
The “plan” is to get a loan to cover £17000 which should cover the Halifax one card, -([/quote]
So the plan is to pay debt by taking out more debt over a longer period of time?
Taking another loan to pay loans does not reduce your debt.
The key is life style changes or increasing income.
Not being harsh just trying to help you have the light bulb moment.;)
:beer:0 -
You need to get your hubby to look at your SOA and try and make him see sense. You can't do this on your own, you need his help and it isn't fair for him to leave it all to you to sort out.
0 -
Echo above really. You are making the classic mistake of saving when you are in debt. Pay the debts off first. Well done this far though.
Just a query though. is the £60 pet insurance a month or a year? £60 a month is definately too much.0 -
Thanks for that. I will have to look into this in more detail when I get home tonight. The reason I feel the need to take out a loan is that I am on very high CC debt on one card already and will be from June on another. I have tried to shift this debt onto a life of balance card but have been rejected.
Pet food: one of the dogs is on a special cancer diet and one of the cats is on dental stuff cos she has bad teeth. I get the food wholesale via a friend who owns a kennel so I pay £50 for 2 bags of Hill’s Science which are £80 in the shops. I see if I can put the little one on cheaper food but I can’t really change the cancer diet I think.
ISA: Cut it back although it is supposed to be the “vehicle” that pauys off half off the mortgage..?
Car Insurance: I have been shopping around but I have no NCB and just had a crash where my car was almost written off so I assume it’ll go up again. I have shopped around and used Quidco as well….. This is based on 2 cars I should probably mention. Husband is on the road for work and I wouldn’t get to work, etc without a car.
Car tax: It is high! I looked at our cars and calculated it based on the new budget for next year!
Car maintenance: Unfortunately we did! Hubbies car just had service and campbelt and before that I had to pay £300 excess and £300 on top of that to get it fixed after the crash otherwise it’d been a wright-off!
Paymentshied: I have to look at this since we seem to have two and I added them together. One is Paymentshied which covers the mortgage and we were required to take it out and one is Legal & General for roughly the same amount (£40) and I have no idea what we get from them!
Pet Insurance: As I said, a lump sum of my debt is from insuring my dog cheaply and I was left with a bill over 5K of which they covered £450 so I am a bit apprehensive… Any advice on good companies?
Electricity: I will have a go at… Not sure how to find out where we are losing it all.. Hubby insists it’s the fridge freezer in the conservatory and the conservatory (only tiny) itself. I beg to differ… How would I find out where we spend all that electricity?
Days out: Yes, I will cut them back which shouldn’t be a problem!
Vaccinations: This is what I pay/year for complete vaccinations and worming divided by 12 months.0 -
You need to get your hubby to look at your SOA and try and make him see sense. You can't do this on your own, you need his help and it isn't fair for him to leave it all to you to sort out.
I agree with Beanie, if you are to cut back how will your hubby react unless he knows the facts?
I am in a similar situation with my GF who is not interested and seems to think we are loaded, it is causing arguments, there is a 4 day weekend coming up and I have about £20 to spend which does not even cover the petrol for what she wants to do.
There are only 2 possible outcomes and the desired one involves your OH.
All my opinion based on recent experience.
Think about how you are going to manage your spending over time because that is what it is going to take... time...
Anyway, youre not alone. Good Luck!0 -
What about buying worm/flea stuff from pet meds via quidco (5% back)? Have you checked if you can get the special food on there cheaper? Have a look on the code forum, there was also a code for 5% off on there. Never buy worm/flea stuff from the vets, they cost a bomb there.0
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weimaranermerlin wrote: »
ISA: Cut it back although it is supposed to be the “vehicle” that pauys off half off the mortgage..?
Personally I would concentrate on paying the debts off then concentrate on the mortgage once that was cleared.0 -
What about buying worm/flea stuff from pet meds via quidco (5% back)? Have you checked if you can get the special food on there cheaper? Have a look on the code forum, there was also a code for 5% off on there. Never buy worm/flea stuff from the vets, they cost a bomb there.
I have bought my wormers and flea stuff on the web… I only added the cost to the vaccinations to get one price. BTW, I don’t even flea the cats since they don’t go out!0
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