My New Soa!

gallygirl

It's a good idea to have some savings for emergencies, but silly to be paying so much interest on store cards. Do you have a credit card that can be spent on? If so, that is your emergency 'fund' at the mo, so pay off those cards & then challenge yourself to replace asap!

You might as well do it as you'll get no peace on here until you do

Only pay the minimum on 0% cards & bung every penny into an ISA. DK where your ISA is & how competitive it is but if you haven't put any money in yours since 6th April you can open a new one. One run over the internet is great as you can transfer 86p over without being embarassed at the bank! I'd sacrifice a little in an interest rate to have one in same bank as current account (assuming it too has internet access) as transfers are instant.

Good luck!

poppyg_2

IWantToBeFree wrote: »

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.quote]

Just wanted to say that I am with O2 Broadband and have so far found it fantastic and with being on O2 mobile contracts it'll only cost you £7.50

phantom9999

Just wanted to suggest getting wedding insurance - doesn't cost too much and will cover you if something goes wrong - think ours covered the cost of any wedding presents at the venue being damaged etc.

Good luck with the wedding plans, and congratulations on the new home!

IWantToBeFree_2

wendy24g wrote: »

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.

We've started the spending diary this week, we normally pay for everything on a cash back credit card, which has a very detailed statement available to view online so I tracked my spending that way, however, its the money we take from the current account that seems to get swallowed up on nothing so we decided that a full spending diary was the best thing to track this and to try and stick to £100 a week which we only have 98p left until Friday

IWantToBeFree_2

ali007 wrote: »

It's a good idea to have some savings for emergencies, but silly to be paying so much interest on store cards. Do you have a credit card that can be spent on? If so, that is your emergency 'fund' at the mo, so pay off those cards & then challenge yourself to replace asap!

You might as well do it as you'll get no peace on here until you do

Only pay the minimum on 0% cards & bung every penny into an ISA. DK where your ISA is & how competitive it is but if you haven't put any money in yours since 6th April you can open a new one. One run over the internet is great as you can transfer 86p over without being embarassed at the bank! I'd sacrifice a little in an interest rate to have one in same bank as current account (assuming it too has internet access) as transfers are instant.

Good luck!

My ISA is run over the internet & is instant access but I cleared it out to pay for bits & bobs when we moved into the house & legal fees.

We are now going to be putting our spare cash into our offset savings account, obviously we won't physically be getting any interest, but we will be saving interest on our mortgage at a higher rate than I have seen from any ISA so thats the plan for the minute.

Its an instant access account as well, get a cashcard etc....

Keeping_Positive

IWantToBeFree wrote: »

We've started the spending diary this week, we normally pay for everything on a cash back credit card, which has a very detailed statement available to view online so I tracked my spending that way, however, its the money we take from the current account that seems to get swallowed up on nothing so we decided that a full spending diary was the best thing to track this and to try and stick to £100 a week which we only have 98p left until Friday

lol thats the way it goes sometimes. How about splitting the £100 into sepErate grocey, petrol and spends? Some weeks you may need more food and/or petrol than others.

IWantToBeFree_2

Petrol & food is pretty constant to be honest, its only because the OH went out on an all dayer...

Hopefully in the coming weeks we will have some money left over out of the £100.

Poosmate

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?

I don't think Iwanttobefree has been rude if anything, I find your interrogation of her SOA to be quite rude. I know you are only trying to help but it does come across as quite aggressive.

Iwanttobefree, I applaud you for biting the bullet and being able to get onto the property ladder in these turbulant times and agree that renting is wasted money if you can - why invest in someone elses property when you can invest in your own?

Your Gas and Electric bills seem very low - I'd keep a serious eye on them.

I understand your reluctance to use all of your savings on paying off the storecards (I'm the same but have CC debt not storecard - not quite as bad) but I must agree with almost every other respondant that you should at least pay off the Evans storecard then you can pay off the other storecard at £20 pcm as you are budgeting for savings out of the rest of your disposable income.

Hope you do well in your exams and get your £10k payrise although don't make the mistake I made and spend on expected future earnings - it can come back to haunt you!

Hope that helps

Poo

Poosmate

Further to my previous post, I would just like to say that people post their enquiried on here for a number of reasons. Some are in desperate need of help and guideance because they find their debts are getting out of control. Others, like Iwanttobefree, are somewhat in control of their debts but are just looking for advice on if they can do better or just assurance that they are going in the right direction.

Just because people appear to be in control or managing their debts it doesn't mean everything is perfect!

Poo

IWantToBeFree_2

Poosmate wrote: »

I don't think Iwanttobefree has been rude if anything, I find your interrogation of her SOA to be quite rude. I know you are only trying to help but it does come across as quite aggressive.

Iwanttobefree, I applaud you for biting the bullet and being able to get onto the property ladder in these turbulant times and agree that renting is wasted money if you can - why invest in someone elses property when you can invest in your own?

Your Gas and Electric bills seem very low - I'd keep a serious eye on them.

My gran said the same thing, but thats what the providers recommended that I pay. Its not a big house and we are out for the vast part of the day so I guess a lot won't be getting used in that respect. We bought off a friend and he was pretty open about all the bills etc and showed them us & he actually got gas payments refunded on paying DDs of £25 a month!!!

I understand your reluctance to use all of your savings on paying off the storecards (I'm the same but have CC debt not storecard - not quite as bad) but I must agree with almost every other respondant that you should at least pay off the Evans storecard then you can pay off the other storecard at £20 pcm as you are budgeting for savings out of the rest of your disposable income.

I've decided that the Evans one will be going when the bill comes in, selling a tumble dryer on ebay so hoping it will bring enough to pay it off. Even if I use that money instead of putting it in the savings I will have over £300 to put in during the week from my lose change & other ebaying so for me it won't be the end of the world....

Hope you do well in your exams and get your £10k payrise although don't make the mistake I made and spend on expected future earnings - it can come back to haunt you!

All our budgetting is on our current wage, when I get my payrise, I imagine that our lifestyle won't 'improve' as such and the extra money we get every month will be used to pay for what we need for the wedding & also off the debts until the debts are cleared.

Hope that helps

Poo

Thanks for the support!