Our road to recovery-Part 2

ltm07

Thanks for the replies folks,sorry i've only just got back to you. I think i will hang fire too & not use CC just yet. As you say you have to be strict but using a CC just to buy petrol is a good idea.

ltm07

Readjusted SOA as had new Gas bill through with new supplier & it's £65 a month we have to pay & not £26.50.

ltm07

firesidemaid wrote: »

just a quick post...

your water rates seem high - are you on a meter? if not i'd go for it. we used to pay the same as you per month, now we pay £25 a month max.

the £390 for groceries etc - that is a lot for groceries/cleaning, but what else does it include? do you have a budget for christmas, birthdays, clothes, haircuts etc or is it included in this?

you should be able to pay off the mint card quite soon and then start on the halifax and other overdrafts - by paying off the higher percentage debts you will feel even more motivated and will have more money (less interest) to throw at the others.

good luck x

About the water meter. Checked the Severn Trent calculator to see if it would be worth changing to a meter & there would be very little difference to what we pay now & maybe we would end up paying more. Thanks for the advice though,it is always worth checking these things out.

Cleosmum

ltm07 wrote: »

My Income(Monthly-net) £1,074.66
OH's Income(Monthly-net)£860
Family Tax £81.46
Child Benefit £44.11
Overtime & bonuses £400-£500
Total Income £2460.23

Outgoings
Mortgage £435.26
Endowment £68.46
Life Insurance(Me) £12.62 Do you need this alongside a joint life insurance?
Life Insurance(Joint)£10
T.V. Licence £11.61
Broadband £10 Can you get broadband in with phone? Talk talk do a good deal for £20 ish inc phone, calls & BB, many others to be had. Cashback via quidco.
Mobile(x2)£40 Can you go PAYG and get it down to £10 each?
Bank Monthly Fee £10 Whats this for?
Council Tax £85 Is this 10 or 12 months?
Car Tax £14.16
Car Insurance £28.20
House Insurance £18.08
Water Rates £43.03
Gas £65 Can you switch? Go via quidco for cashback.
Electric £26.50 As for gas.
Phone £25 Cheaper packages with BB thrown in free. Cashback via quidco.
DD's Pocket Money £32.50 I know DSD is very helpful but that is a huge amount for pocket money, can you reduce this?
Groceries/Odds & Sods £390 Visit the old style board to get this right down.
Petrol £65

Total £1340.42

DEBTS(Monthly Payments in Brackets)

Halifax Overdraft 13.35% £4622.68 (£50)
Mint Credit Card 12.9% £425(£8.50)
Nationwide Overdraft 9.9% £750(£6.50)
Nationwide Overdraft 9.9% £650(£6)
Abbeyloan 6.9% £488.10(£97.62)
Halifax Loan 6.9% £3225.82(£138.59)
Nationwide Loan 6.7% £6659.82(£148.51)
Nationwide Loan 6.7% £3377.02(£97.84)
Citicard 5.85%£3039.20(£65)
Tesco Credit Card £2500(£55)
Natwest Credit Card £3006(£65)
Bank Of Mum! £3415(£20)

Total £32,158.64(£758.56)

Hope the above helps

pavlovs_dog

have you gone through uswitch to make sure you have the most competitive rate for your utilities?

ltm07 wrote: »

Mobile(x2)£40

any way you can bring this down? contract or pre pay? even shaving off £5 a month each would save a tenner - it all adds up. are you on the most competitive contract/tariff? taking advantage of all offers - eg special numbers, free texts etc)

Bank Monthly Fee £10

there are oodles of free accounts out there, so why are you paying? would whatever benefits you gain cost you more if you were to buy them separately?


Car Insurance £28.20
House Insurance £18.08

remember to go through quidco if possible for renewal. shop around - you may well find that having several different policies with the same provider gets you further discount

Phone £25

do you need this as well as the mobiles? we just kept our line for the internet, as we all have mobiles. saved us a fortune each month.



DEBTS(Monthly Payments in Brackets)

Halifax Overdraft 13.35% £4622.68 (£50)
Mint Credit Card 12.9% £425(£8.50)
Nationwide Overdraft 9.9% £750(£6.50)
Nationwide Overdraft 9.9% £650(£6)
Abbeyloan 6.9% £488.10(£97.62)
Halifax Loan 6.9% £3225.82(£138.59)
Nationwide Loan 6.7% £6659.82(£148.51)
Nationwide Loan 6.7% £3377.02(£97.84)
Citicard 5.85%£3039.20(£65)
Tesco Credit Card £2500(£55)
Natwest Credit Card £3006(£65)
Bank Of Mum! £3415(£20)

Total £32,158.64(£758.56)

have you asked any of your providers whether they would let you balance transfer for a low life of balance offer? what are your limits on the cards?

ltm07

Thanks guys. Monthly fee is for Travel Insurance, RAC breakdown cover, Mobile phone insurance & a few other bits & bobs thrown in. We switched Utilities last month through Uswitch. Gas, I can only assume it's that high as still owe alot to old suppliers so catching up on how much we owe. DD's pocket money is quite high,but we save £2.50 a week out of this for her spending money for holiday. CC's all low LOB & 0% til February & April next year,apart from the Mint one. Phone bill not usually that high,but like to overbudget for it. We use 18866 for our calls if we use home phone. Mobiles we pay little more than £20 each on T-Mobile Flex. We were paying double this on Vodafone. Council Tax 10 months & we use the 2 'free' months to make a payment towards our debts,cleared one of our overdrafts by doing this over the last 2 months. Life Insurance I will definately look into,as probably paying double for the same sort of cover! Groceries includes DD's bus fares for school & milk & we do usually stay underbudget most weeks,as we now shop at Aldi which saves us about £30 a week. Thanks for the advice folks & I will pop over to the OS board. All The Best.

firesidemaid

£10 a month for those bank 'insurances' are high. what does the travel insurance cover, as when i tried to claim on my 'free' bank insurance it didn't pay out!

you won't need mobile insurance with a £5 payg phone (£15 lobster from carphone warehouse with £10 quidco cashback).

check the transport tab on this site - can get breakdown cover for £36 (i have taken this out.

also, re. water meter, their websites always make out you will not save ? deliberately. you can change to a meter and if it is dearer you can change back again within a year.

ltm07

Bit stuck with our bank to be honest. Tried to switch to A & L but they could only offer us an overdraft of £2,500 & our overdraft is £10k,although we have moved £5k onto low LOB cards & 0% deals. Overdraft rate 13.35% & if we downgraded account the overdraft rate would be over 18%. May look at getting a PAYG phone but don't think we'd save that much as we only spend £20 each on them now. The breakdown cover you have,is this to a garage within 15 miles or will it get you home free from a long journey? I need to check the T & C's of our breakdown cover before we go on holiday to be honest! Thanks for the advice & we are taking everything on board & you're right, we don't like paying a fee to use our bank.

firesidemaid

re. a+l bank account - i moved to them last year and got them to match my 7k o/d limit. i didn't really use it much at the time, but now i am 7k o/d and it is in a isa etc.

they normally match your o/d limit (2.5k at 0% for a year) - but the whole account is 50p a day up to £5 a month whether you are 1p or 7k o/d. unless they have changed this recently? they also say you must be in credit for a few days a month before you can switch.

re. car cover. autoaid is the name of the company. that money covers all the recovery, relay at home etc (even hotel etc i think) for £36. 'at home' is limited to a certain amount. ?the catch - you have to pay for the repairs and then they reimburse you, but folks say that is pretty quick. read the guide/article on here, lots recommend it incl. martin. fingers crossed i haven't had to claim yet.

if you don't need your phones for work etc, you can keep your mobile costs to £5/£10 a month. each time you make a call, ask yourself if you could have lived without that call?

also, just looked back at your soa re. your endowment. ?any use in selling/cashing in endowment, then going to repayment when debts are cleared etc?

keep on keeping on x

ltm07

Thanks for the advice/reply. Will definately look into swapping accounts as would love to get our 13.35% O/D & 12.9% CC onto a 0% overdraft. I know what you mean about mobiles,but we had bills today & mine was £17 & OH's was £18 & we can use them alot without worrying about the bills being sky high! Mortgage is part interest only/part repayment & we will be converting this to repayment once our debts are more manageable. Thanks again. Back later as have to fetch DD from school. All the best.