Newbie alert!! All help & advice welcome!!

kirsty24

Hi,

My name is Kirsty, I'm a single mum of 2. My daughters are 5 and 3. I am currently on income support so pretty skint! I was declared bankrupt in 2005 and I want to sort my finances out once and for all and learn how to manage my money so I don't end up there again. I'm already back on a DMP with CCCS and that's bad enough. Although I only owe around £2K at the mo, I know it will just get worse if I don't sort it out now.

I've read LOADS of usefull hints and tips on here and have sat down today and worked out where and how I can cut back my expenses (something I didn't think was possible LOL). I've managed to drop my monthly outgoings by £108 (assuming my will power is strong enough for me to stick to my new budget!!!).


Anyway that's a bit about me and my situation so far. If anyone has any tips or advice for a newbie, please let me know.

Thanks, Kirsty.

ltm07

Hi Kirsty,please post your SOA on here so the good people on here may be able to help you to drop your montly outgoings even more! Good luck!!

SuzySu

Hi and welcome Kirsty. You have definitely come to the right place. It sounds as though you have taken the right steps in sorting this out now before it spirals out of control again.

Good luck to you and your girls.

kirsty24

Hi, thanks for your quick replies. Sorry to sound thick but what is an SOA? I assume its like a financial statement showing my income and out goings??

shinyhead

You've got it Kirsty, sometimes its also known as income and expenditure or I+E. If you could put that on we can take a look and see if there are any suggestions we can make for you.

Keeping_Motivated

Hi Kirsty, you've definately come to the right place. Have you read any of the diaries yet on this board, I definately recommend you do as they are so inspiring for many reasons. One I recommend is Benbenandme's 'diary of my new life' as she is also a single parent and is an inspiration and she even manges to over pay on her mortagage!! Respect!

Good luck
KM x

dmom

Hi Kirsty and welcome to the board. Ditto what has been said already, post an SOA. I've attached a link for you to use.




http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

kirsty24

OK, I don't know how to put a fancy link or anything on here so I'll just list everything with totals.

MONTHLY INCOME

£147.11 - Income Support
£352.51 - Child Tax Credit
£43.33 - Child Maintenance
£130.86 - Child Benefit

£673.81 - TOTAL


MONTHLY EXPENDITURE

£48.00 - Car Insurance
£21.11 - Water
£5.99 - Phone Insurance
£25.00 - Mobile phone
£30.00 - Mobile Phone
£30.00 - Tiscali
£42.00 - CCCS DMP
£11.75 - TV licence
£5.00 - Moorcroft (Virgin Media Debt)
£173.33 - Shopping
£65.00 - Tobacco
£65.00 - Petrol

£522.18 - TOTAL


If anyone is wondering why I have 2 mobile phones it's because I was going over my mins and texts on the first 1 so my bills were huge. I was offered one of those deals where they pay you back your line rental in full every 3 months but ha ha they never sent me a cheque and now I think I'm stuck with a £30 per month contract fr 18 months!! This is also because I haven't had a landline phone since Virgin Media cut me off a few months ago. The Tiscali bill listed above hasn't actually started yet but the engineer is booked for Monday so will start soon.

I've probably missed a whole load of essentials (which would explain why I seem to actually have enough money LOL).

Anyone got any advice???

shinyhead

You don't have any rent, council tax or utilities on this Kirsty. Are these paid for/subsidised as your'e on IS?

kirsty24

Yes I receive full Housing and council tax benefit and my gas and electric are paid on fuel direct so come directly out of my income support. The IS amount I put is after these have been taken off.

OrangeProse

kirsty24 wrote: »

MONTHLY INCOME

£147.11 - Income Support
£352.51 - Child Tax Credit
£43.33 - Child Maintenance
£130.86 - Child Benefit

£673.81 - TOTAL


MONTHLY EXPENDITURE

£48.00 - Car Insurance
£21.11 - Water
£5.99 - Phone Insurance
Can you cancel this phone insurance?
£25.00 - Mobile phone
If you don't need 2 mobile contracts, how soon before you can cancel this one (assuming it's the earlier one)?
£30.00 - Mobile Phone
£30.00 - Tiscali
£42.00 - CCCS DMP
£11.75 - TV licence
£5.00 - Moorcroft (Virgin Media Debt)
£173.33 - Shopping
Guess this is food shopping? Not bad, could probably ratchet this down a bit if there's just three of you.
£65.00 - Tobacco
Naughty. You might as well be setting fire to tenners. Could you try to cut back (a lot) or give up? I gave up alcohol when I started being (=trying to be!) DFW and not only did it save me £££££s, I feel %%%%% better too!
£65.00 - Petrol

£522.18 - TOTAL

There are a few things that you might have missed here. How about home insurance? You also don't list anything for essential clothes for you and the kids, or haircuts. How about nursery/childminder fees? Dentist and optician? Family days out? Do you spend anything on eating out, coffee shop coffees, anything like that? Do you have breakdown recovery for your car? You don't budget anything for repairs or road tax. Are you saving anything for Christmas, a birthday, upcoming wedding?

Sorry to have just barked a load of questions at you! Welcome and all that. :rolleyes: