My New Soa!

IWantToBeFree_2

Hi All

I posted a thread a few months ago with my SOA on but my circumstances have now massively changed as we are no longer renting, we now have our own house, so mortgage and bills to boot!

Its now even more important for us to cut back because as well as wanting to get rid of our debts, we are also getting married sooner than we originally planned so need to save money to contribute to that!

Anyway, here goes, again!

My Income: £948.54 (could change by a few quid this month with new tax year)
OH Income: £1,370.35

Total Income: £2,318.89

Outgoings

Monthly Commitments:

Barclays loan: £274.37
Egg Loan: £102.54
Halifax loan: £192.23
Store cards: £20
CC's: £110
Mortgage: 521.31
Council Tax: £83
Home Insurance: £29.88
Life insurance: £7.08
Sofas: £54.77 (doesn't start til August)
Sky: £18
Internet: £14.99
Mobile phones: £44
Water rates: £33.10
TV licence: £16.95
Gas: £22
Electric: £25
Shopping: £200
BT Phone bill: £36
Fuel: £80
Friday pub money: £40

Total: £1,925.22

Surplus: £393.67

Surplus is normally all spent, and goes on things such as eating out and football, although over the summer months that spending will be reduced.

The loan balances are as follows:

Barclays: £9,561.74 (last payment Nov 2011)
Egg: £2,016.26 (last payment Feb 2010)
Halifax: £6,151.36 (last payment Nov 2010)

Card balances are:

Barclaycard: £790 (0% until Jan 09)
Halifax: £1,610 (0% until Dec 08)
Tesco: £500 (0% until June 08)
Virgin: £2,320 (0% until Feb 09)

Store card balances:

Dorothy Perkins: £173.77 (29.9% pa)
Evans: £98.49 (24.8% pa)

I also have a littlewoods account but that now relates to stuff that my sister has ordered and not me so I don't include that as I won't have to pay it back (she is reliable so it won't default either).

I did have an ISA with £1,600 in it but we have had to buy numerous things when we moved house and have to bills to settle from old address so the vast majority of that has been spent unfortunately!

I sell things on ebay & amazon but have pretty much sold everything I can. Both me and my partner are members of rpoints, and use that frequently, and we also do surveys on Ciao, Lightspeed, YouGov, Valued Opinion to get a bit of sundry income but its only bits & bats now and again.

Do your worst :rotfl:

ltm07

Hi & I hope that you are happy in your new home. Your SOA is very good in my opinion & the only thng you might want to look at is getting rid of Sky altogether,afterall it is £216 a year that could go towards your debts or towards something else. That said if you watch the channels & enjoy them as your debts aren't really massive so it isn't really stretching your budget much. Good luck.

IWantToBeFree_2

Thanks for the support!

We wasn't planning on having Sky, we had a freeview box which had the harddrive etc which you get with Sky+ but on moving into our new home we found that the signal was appauling and all we could pick up was the BBC channels. Watching TV through the normal ariel wasn't much better either so we bit the bullet and got Sky just so we could watch TV. Most of the houses in the area have Sky dishes on them so I think it must be a widespread problem around here re the signal.

We only have the basics, and the box/installation fee was covered by returning the freeview box.

IWantToBeFree_2

As mentioned in my first post, we have decided to bring our wedding forward. Originally I hoped we would be debt free by the time we got married but that is looking unlikely now but the main thing is to have built up some savings for the wedding and honeymoon as cannot expect my parents to pay for it all.

Seems like my boyfriend has now definatly got on board the money saving train, he keeps asking me how much we are going to have left this month to put back in the savings and how much we should be able to save a month.

He has decided, all on his own, that £100 a week to live on should be more than enough and that is now the budget we have to stick to, including shopping and diesel. He also wants to start a proper spending diary so we can see where all our money is going, I love the idea as it means that I will have another spreadsheet to play with!

Aim for this coming month is to clear £151 off the cards and take them below £5k!

IWantToBeFree_2

Our £100 a week budget is going to run from Saturday to Friday, so we started today, and after going shopping, getting some fuel and the fella going out, we have 98p left of the budget to last the rest of the week which will be spent on a Sunday paper tomorrow!!

Not a great start.

boredofbeingathome

Any chance of getting rid of BT and mobile phones, change to PAYG.There are lots of combined broadband packages, you could get one with sky. some chuck in mobile phones as well..but i know very little about them.
Home insurance might be cheaper ,get through quidco, although i guess you may be tied in with moving house at mo.
I would also go on oldstyle board and look at reducing food and going out as well. It would give you lots more to chuck at debt.
Is there any chance of a second income..every little helps as they say.
Other than that the very best of luck with it all.
Bobx

sophie27

Best of luck! Its always fantastic when you get the OH onboard. Mine is very very slowly coming round to it. Blames on me being scottish and my obsession with MSE!

Your home insurance seems quite high. Is it up for renewal soon?

IWantToBeFree_2

boredofbeingathome wrote: »

Any chance of getting rid of BT and mobile phones, change to PAYG.There are lots of combined broadband packages, you could get one with sky. some chuck in mobile phones as well..but i know very little about them.
Home insurance might be cheaper ,get through quidco, although i guess you may be tied in with moving house at mo.
I would also go on oldstyle board and look at reducing food and going out as well. It would give you lots more to chuck at debt.
Is there any chance of a second income..every little helps as they say.
Other than that the very best of luck with it all.
Bobx

Need a landline for the internet so BT has to stay...

Mobile phones are on 18 month contracts, and to be honest I would be lost without mine & would spend far far more on PAYG than I do with the contract.

Home insurance was through quidco (£55 cashback) cheapest we could find, only just moved into the house, so got no no claims years or anything, plus house is in a not so desirable area and its of non standard construction which pushed the price up a bit. To be honest, I was quite pleased with getting it under £30 because thats unlimited buildings and contents cover.

Food is pretty much reduced as far as possible, we don't buy anything but essentials and don't buy branded products really either, most things tend to be stores own label.

As for second income, we both work from 8:30am til 5 every weekday and I normally work beyond 5pm and at home also, won't have the time for a second job. Whilst I would love to clear my debts, I don't think spending every waking hour working will be the right way for me, I'd just lose the will to live.

I have exams coming up in a few weeks, should I pass (results in July) then I am set for a £10k payrise, so will have loads more to throw at debts then.

IWantToBeFree_2

albertross wrote: »

If you have anything left in the isa, throw it at these asap, along with the sealed pot contents.

Dorothy Perkins: £173.77 (29.9% pa)
Evans: £98.49 (24.8% pa)

Is sky BB (llu) available at your exchange?

I've toyed with paying the store cards off many a time from our savings, but always ended up deciding against it. I know they are at ridiculously high rates and I don't want to think about how much I have paid back in relation to the value of what I bought but my reasoning behind not clearing them is that I don't miss the £20 a month I pay on them whereas if I paid off in full, I'd be gutted that my savings would be £300 down almost...

I think Sky broadband would be available in our area, they mentioned it when they rung to check that we were happy with the service but we are tied into contract with AOL at the minute. I don't think we have long left but we are pretty happy with them & get fantastic connection, whereas everyone I know with Sky goes through hell with theirs. I'd rather pay that bit extra for a better service, I am of the opinion that you get what you pay for and free broadband isn't always the best option.

sophie27

I know what you mean about the savings but those APR's are so high!!! How much do you pay for each storecard? 20 each?

IWantToBeFree_2

£10 on each on a normal month, sometimes a bit more, about £4 a month is swallowed in interest meaning I am only really paying about £6. Its a pain in the !!!! and stupidly high but I just need the comfort of savings being there in case of emergencies.