My New Soa!

PasturesNew

IWantToBeFree wrote: »

Shopping: £200

Surplus is normally all spent, and goes on things such as eating out and football,

Above are the things that stood out most to me.

You are spending £200/month on food AND eating out. You can easily feed yourselves on £100/month ... and stop eating out for a few months. Then when you do eat out see if you can do it cheaper - whether that's a different venue, going for Early Bird Discounts or BOGOFs only or cutting out some of the extras (like the starter or 2 less rounds of drinks)

sophie27

It is nice to have a cushion 'just in case'. House Insurance sounds good value then, always a bonus when it can be quidco'd.

ms_london

Total Income: £2,318.89



Outgoings

Mortgage: 521.31
Council Tax: £83
Home Insurance: £29.88 (assuming you shopped around for best price?)
Life insurance: £7.08 (assuming you shopped around for best price?)
Water rates: £33.10 (assuming you shopped around for best price?)
Gas: £22 (assuming you shopped around for best price?)
Electric: £25 (assuming you shopped around for best price?)
TV licence: £16.95 (this seems pretty high? Or is it because you are paying it over 6 months rather than 12?)
Sky: £18 (I would do without this, it is not an essential)
Internet: £14.99 (could you get a combined internet/home phone package?)
Mobile phones: £44 (could you change tarriff? does this amount change from month to month or worst case scenario price?)
Shopping: £200 (for 2 of you this is double what it could be, thats £100 easily saved)
BT Phone bill: £36 (as above)
Fuel: £80 (could this be cut down at all? cut down on non essential trips etc)
Friday pub money: £40 (a month?)
Barclays loan: £274.37
Egg Loan: £102.54
Halifax loan: £192.23
Store cards: £20
CC's: £110
Sofas: £54.77 (doesn't start til August) (what is total amount for sofas? Interest?)

Total: £1,925.22
Surplus: £393.67


DEBTS
Barclays: £9,561.74 (last payment Nov 2011) £274.37
Egg: £2,016.26 (last payment Feb 2010) £102.54
Halifax: £6,151.36 (last payment Nov 2010) £192.23
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)
Dorothy Perkins: £173.77 (29.9% pa)
Evans: £98.49 (24.8% pa)

Hello! Welcome back to MSE.

I guess I am wondering why you would buy when you were in this much debt to start with, and subsequently why you are bringing your wedding forward also - these are probably the biggest two financial purchases/events of a persons life, so are you sure you are not trying to do the impossible? Also, I am guessing you have just recently bought the sofas if the payments havent even started yet? So wondering why you would add more debt to your current predicament? Not being harsh, just wondering thats all.

When is your wedding date? How much are you wanting to save for this? What amount can you put by each month for this as I see nothing is included in your SOA..

Have made some comments in red above. Its great that your credit cards are on 0% but you still dont seem to be making much of a repayment if £110 is split over the 4 cards. Also if you are splitting the £20 repayment over your 2 store cards, with the amount of interest they are charging, you are probably making no headway with these at all??

You say you have spent the vast majority of your ISA money, how much is left? Personally I would use this, or at least some of it, to get rid of the storecards, and the Tesco CC if you had enough. I know to have savings is a good thing, but these storecards need to go, and make sure they get cancelled. (I had SOOOOO many storecards and they were so easy to rack up let me tell you!)

You say that your surplus gets spent on football/eating out etc. You have already budgeted some 'pub money' in there, and your budget for food is extremely high - if you are not willing to reduce the money spent on food, could your eating out budget not come from the same general food budget? Have you kept a spending diary to see where all of this money goes?

Also, you havent budgeted for car insurance/tax/MOT - or doctors/dentist, birthdays, christmas, etc etc etc.

What is the interest like on the loans/sofas? Could you get these reduced or transfer the balances onto one of your other loans or best still a 0% credit card?

ms_london

I see you have answered a few questions that I just posted in previous posts.

Maybe you could post an example of your shopping list? You say that you have cut your shopping as far as you can? I doubt it. If you check out the Oldstyle board, there are people on there who can feed say their family of 5 for the same as what you spend, if not less. Perhaps you are buying items that you think are essentials but you could easily manage without.

Also, you say you are budgeting for £100 a week? Is this including your food budget & pub budget or are you splitting the $398 surplus and using that? This is all well and good, but it means you are breaking even with no extra money for savings, your wedding, and the other items I mentioned above you have missed off your budget.

Just because you have £100 a week to spend, doesnt mean you HAVE TO spend it, it isnt a goal.

I appreciate the sentiments of not wanting to get a second job, but I used to work from 9-5 and then head to a second job from 6-10, and work most weekends - it helped with my debt in a huge way. If I hadnt taken on this job I would still be in debt and not travelling. Yes, I lost the will to live on many ocasions and posted here saying as much, but travelling was my motivation - surely your dream wedding & honeymoon could be yours? I am not saying go as hard out as I did, but picking up some extra hours would do you no harm.

Oh, I was also going to say - I am not sure if you are thinking of having children, but have you thought about your situation then? Will you go back to work or be a stay at home mum? Can you afford on one wage etc etc. These are all things to consider. Most of your debts expire in a few years but if you want children before then, can you manage your debts with only one wage and the additional mouth to feed etc etc.

xx

xx

IWantToBeFree_2

ms_london wrote: »

Total Income: £2,318.89



Outgoings

Mortgage: 521.31
Council Tax: £83
Home Insurance: £29.88 (assuming you shopped around for best price?) Yes and got cashback
Life insurance: £7.08 (assuming you shopped around for best price?) Same as above
Water rates: £33.10 (assuming you shopped around for best price?) Getting a metered fitted once Yorkshire Water get round to it!
Gas: £22 (assuming you shopped around for best price?) At the minute, no, we just took over the old house owners suppliers, I was advised that it would be more hassle than it was worth with jumping straight into new suppliers straight away as they can barely deal with change in ownership. It will be somthing I will look at in the coming months
Electric: £25 (assuming you shopped around for best price?) Same as above
TV licence: £16.95 (this seems pretty high? Or is it because you are paying it over 6 months rather than 12?) First TV licence so in 12 months we will be paying for 18...
Sky: £18 (I would do without this, it is not an essential) See previous posts, it is an essential when its the only way we can receive a TV signal!!
Internet: £14.99 (could you get a combined internet/home phone package?) Also mentioned in pervious posts, tied into contract & don't want a rubbish connection for the sake of saving a few quid.
Mobile phones: £44 (could you change tarriff? does this amount change from month to month or worst case scenario price?) Can't change, £44 is line rental only, worst case scenario is usually around £50 as we don't really go over our allowances.
Shopping: £200 (for 2 of you this is double what it could be, thats £100 easily saved) We have pretty much cut back where we can, to be honest, £200 is a bit generous and we don't often spend that much in a month.
BT Phone bill: £36 (as above) Its only £36 as for the first 5 months they factor in the connection fee which was £125. OH mum has given us the money for it, but obviously, we still have to factor it into our budget as the money comes out every month. It will be around £11 a month once that has been paid.
Fuel: £80 (could this be cut down at all? cut down on non essential trips etc) This is quite good for me, I used to get through about £80 in a week which is how part of the debt was run up in the first place & once again, £80 is worse case scenario, all depends on how many times I visit my parents.
Friday pub money: £40 (a month?) Yes a month, and there is no way this will be going!!
Barclays loan: £274.37
Egg Loan: £102.54
Halifax loan: £192.23
Store cards: £20
CC's: £110
Sofas: £54.77 (doesn't start til August) (what is total amount for sofas? Interest?) Total amount for the sofa's is around £2k and its interest free credit.

Total: £1,925.22
Surplus: £393.67


DEBTS
Barclays: £9,561.74 (last payment Nov 2011) £274.37
Egg: £2,016.26 (last payment Feb 2010) £102.54
Halifax: £6,151.36 (last payment Nov 2010) £192.23
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)
Dorothy Perkins: £173.77 (29.9% pa)
Evans: £98.49 (24.8% pa)

Hello! Welcome back to MSE.

I guess I am wondering why you would buy when you were in this much debt to start with, and subsequently why you are bringing your wedding forward also - these are probably the biggest two financial purchases/events of a persons life, so are you sure you are not trying to do the impossible? Also, I am guessing you have just recently bought the sofas if the payments havent even started yet? So wondering why you would add more debt to your current predicament? Not being harsh, just wondering thats all.

We bought because we were fed up of renting, I see renting as throwing money down the drain, have nothing to show at the end of it, and we wanted our own place, the house we bought came available at a very reasonable cost and it was impossible to turn down. We've now got ourselves on the property ladder, something that many young people struggle to do and I see that as a good thing rather than a bad thing.

As for the wedding, we want to get married, simple as. We had planned 2010 as that gave us enough time to buy a house etc, but house come sooner than we thought it would and we don't wanna wait another 2 years to get hitched. Weddings don't have to be expensive, and ours won't be, and my parents will be paying for the majority of it anyway.

We needed the sofa's unless we want to sit on the floor for the next few years. I don't see our debt as unmanageable, as you can see, even after being slightly extravagent on 'essentials' we still have a surplus at the end of the month.

When is your wedding date? How much are you wanting to save for this? What amount can you put by each month for this as I see nothing is included in your SOA..

Wedding is July 2009 (hopefully, waiting on confirmation), we have set up a standing order (only just) for £50 a month to go into our savings however, we will also be putting any surplus cash into the savings at the end of the month and we are hoping that this will be at least another £100 a month. We don't have a figure in mind of how much we are wanting to save, we will just have saved whatever we have saved....

Have made some comments in red above. Its great that your credit cards are on 0% but you still dont seem to be making much of a repayment if £110 is split over the 4 cards. Also if you are splitting the £20 repayment over your 2 store cards, with the amount of interest they are charging, you are probably making no headway with these at all??

Not making much headway on the store cards, around £6-£7 a month, already discussed that in previous posts. I know that I should clear them, but I won't be doing. Not just yet anyway.

The £110 is over the 4 cards, thats around the minimum repayment mark, I normally pay off a bit more. Since the end of January I have paid over £650 so its not just always £110 a month.

I don't ever go mad throwing every last penny at the 0% cards because at the end of the day, the money is better in other places where its earning me interest... If they aren't cleared when they come to the end of the promotional period I just transfer them to another card... I don't ever have much trouble getting credit.

You say you have spent the vast majority of your ISA money, how much is left? Personally I would use this, or at least some of it, to get rid of the storecards, and the Tesco CC if you had enough. I know to have savings is a good thing, but these storecards need to go, and make sure they get cancelled. (I had SOOOOO many storecards and they were so easy to rack up let me tell you!)

I don't know how much is left until the end of the month, my guessing is that nothing will be left, but we already have £300 to put back in through ebay sales & my spare change jars.

As mentioned above, the storecards won't be being cleared with this money as I can't bear not to have savings. As for them being cancelled, I don't physically have the cards anymore and haven't spent on them for quite some time.

You say that your surplus gets spent on football/eating out etc. You have already budgeted some 'pub money' in there, and your budget for food is extremely high - if you are not willing to reduce the money spent on food, could your eating out budget not come from the same general food budget? Have you kept a spending diary to see where all of this money goes?

The eating out is a weakness, we would eat out & then throw away food at home which has not been eaten. Total waste of money and we rarely eat out anymore so some of the surplus will certainly be left in the account at the end of the month.

Also, you havent budgeted for car insurance/tax/MOT - or doctors/dentist, birthdays, christmas, etc etc etc.

Thats because I don't have any car insurance/tax/MOT to pay for.

I don't put away for Christmas or birthdays and just buy as and when needed and its never a lot, usually have enough boots points to cover it.

Can't remember last time I needed perscription, dentist is about £15 every 2 years, and my OH doesn't go.

What is the interest like on the loans/sofas? Could you get these reduced or transfer the balances onto one of your other loans or best still a 0% credit card?

Interest rates are not great on the loans, I have recently looked into transferring them but worked out that it wouldn't be worth consolidating them as 2 of them are front loaded.

Phew that took some answering! Bed time now, laptop battery is about to die!

IWantToBeFree_2

ms_london wrote: »

I see you have answered a few questions that I just posted in previous posts.

Maybe you could post an example of your shopping list? You say that you have cut your shopping as far as you can? I doubt it. If you check out the Oldstyle board, there are people on there who can feed say their family of 5 for the same as what you spend, if not less. Perhaps you are buying items that you think are essentials but you could easily manage without.

We don't buy anything which isn't essential.... We also don't buy branded things as I mentioned before. We go to the supermarket, get what we need to get us through the week & come home.

Typical weekly shop consists mainly of fruit and veg along with things to make packed lunches for work, we don't have any luxuary items.

Also, you say you are budgeting for £100 a week? Is this including your food budget & pub budget or are you splitting the $398 surplus and using that? This is all well and good, but it means you are breaking even with no extra money for savings, your wedding, and the other items I mentioned above you have missed off your budget.

The £100 a week intends to cover food, fuel and anything else, including pub money.

Just because you have £100 a week to spend, doesnt mean you HAVE TO spend it, it isnt a goal.

I'm not daft, I know its not a goal :rolleyes: the goal is to get it under a £100 as we spend much more than that at the minute.

I appreciate the sentiments of not wanting to get a second job, but I used to work from 9-5 and then head to a second job from 6-10, and work most weekends - it helped with my debt in a huge way. If I hadnt taken on this job I would still be in debt and not travelling. Yes, I lost the will to live on many ocasions and posted here saying as much, but travelling was my motivation - surely your dream wedding & honeymoon could be yours? I am not saying go as hard out as I did, but picking up some extra hours would do you no harm.

There isn't enough hours in the day to pick up any extra hours, when I am not at work at the minute I am studying. Once I pass my exams, which will hopefully be first time round so I'll find out in July I am set for a £10k pay rise, which will substantially increase my income and mean that any worries about budgetting and debts will be out the window sooner rather than later. My job is demanding & I really don't see a second job as the answer.

Oh, I was also going to say - I am not sure if you are thinking of having children, but have you thought about your situation then? Will you go back to work or be a stay at home mum? Can you afford on one wage etc etc. These are all things to consider. Most of your debts expire in a few years but if you want children before then, can you manage your debts with only one wage and the additional mouth to feed etc etc.

We will be having kids and hopefully we will be starting to try once we are married as its something we both want. By that point, I will be earning a substantial amount more than I am now, and the plan is that I will be the one going back to work and my OH will be a stay at home dad... But obviously we will take that as it comes, it won't be for the next few years and I certainly won't be rushing into having children if we are not financially secure as that wouldn't be fair on us or the child.

xx

xx

I've decided sleep can wait & have got my power cable

ms_london

There is no need to be so rude.

You asked for advice, I gave it. Every suggestion someone has made has been shot down in flames, so out of interest why did you ask for advice in the first place if everything is so perfect?

IWantToBeFree_2

ms_london wrote: »

There is no need to be so rude.

You asked for advice, I gave it. Every suggestion someone has made has been shot down in flames, so out of interest why did you ask for advice in the first place if everything is so perfect?

If everything was perfect I wouldn't be here....

I'm not trying to shoot things down in flames, or be rude and I apologise if my posts are coming across that way. I am simply trying to give honest answers to the points you have put across.

IWantToBeFree_2

albertross wrote: »

The using savings thing to pay off debt is not something to be gutted about, it is the sensible thing to do. You are paying £76 of interest per annum on those storecards, it doesn't take too long for that to add up to £272 which will completely wipe out those savings.

As for sky, it's either free of £5/month depending on what option you choose. There is nothing wrong with the service, another easy win when your contract is up, and another £10 /month saved.

I know its the sensible thing to do, if only I could bring myself round to actually doing it! I paid a bit more off than normal this month so when next months statements come in i'll asses the balance & see if I can at least bring myself to pay the smaller one off.

I am just wary with switching to Sky for broadband as those I know who have it, have all sorts of problems with it... We won't be able to switch just yet anyway, as OH informs me it was an 18 month contract which I think will still have about 4 to run. We were considering going with o2 broadband as we would get that cheaper due to having an o2 phone contract.

We have also considered going with someone like talk talk for getting everything all in, however, as the phone line was disconnected at the house when we moved in, only BT could connect it, and when they connect it they tie you into a 12 month contract meaning that we are stuck with them til at least around this time next year! Frustrating considering that the only reason we need a phone line is to use the internet cos we never actually use the phone itself...

Keeping_Positive

IWantToBeFree wrote: »

Hi All

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!

Groceries £200
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.

Store card balances:

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

Do your worst :rotfl:

Whats the cost is a good idea. It saysit will take you 17 months to pay off the balances at £20 a month paying £53 interest. If you pay it off Im sure it wouldnt take long from the excess £400 ish to build the £300 savings back try £100 a month?

£200 a month on food and then extra on top for eating out is too high if you are serious about reducing your dfd. many can feed a family on that. Im not saying you have to cut it to the minimum but stick to the £200 and include eating out in that. An excess of almost £400 should mean loads extra to throw at debt. If its dieappearing then as you have already said a spending diary is a good idea to see where it is going.

The budget overall is good except for the what Ive mentioned above.

Good luck with clearing the debt, exams and wedding.