what a mess- has anyone got any advice?

calculatethis

My finances are in a complete mess.

Im £700 short of my monthly expenses per month. Ive done a sOA and tried to reduce everything I can. I have overspent in the past but for the last 3-4 years I have been living frugally with no luxuries whatsoever. The thing that is killing me is my debt repayments which are £1300 per month. I earn £1900 per month so after paying my mortgage (£700 approx per month) I have nothing to live on, hence my CCs are going up.

Is there a place I can post my SOA for advice?

misspoppy

Hi

You can post you SOA in this thread it helps if you give details about who lives with you as well

**Amy**

:hello:

Definitely sounds like you need to post a SOA here.

If you find there still isnt much you can reduce, you will need to contact someone like CCCS (number at top of forum), and they may be able to offer advice about your debts (i.e. maybe writing to freeze interest, or lower your monthly payments).

x

calculatethis

Thanks. As you can see a lot of them are actually on good interest rates. I have a 5 year old child and a husband but he is not working regularly at the moment so I can't take his income into account. He is a supply teacher but some months gets very little work (e.g. the summer) plus he has been sick recently. He has his own debts (we are not financially connected by any joint debts) and is dealing with them through a DMP. I was always the more "solvent" one but due to him being out of regular work for 2 years I have slipped into more and more debt myself. My job is very secure thank goodness.

Debt amount interest payment
Northern Rock (unsecured) 18366 10% 187
Egg Loan 6300 6.9% 188
Barclays Visa 5800 7% 135
CITI Bank 4900 5% 101
halifax 5100 5% 99
RBS 5750 5% 105
egg credit card 7100 18% 130
barclays mastercard 4840 18% 105
mbna 6000 22% 130
bank of ireland CC 2000 17% 55
total 70974 1309

afterschool care (5yr old) 140 pcm
mortgage 720pcm
council tax 90 pcm
life insurance/pension 40pcm
Tv licence 10pcm
insurance (house) 15pcm
food 200 pcm
petrol 200 pcm
pocket money/clothes/school lunches 50pcm
total others 1469pcm
total outgoings 2778pcm

income and child benefit 2048pcm

Welshlassie

Are you able to do any balance transfers from your higher interest cards onto te lower interest ones? Try calling the CC companies and asking them to reduce the APR's. The interest payments you are paying are these the minimums or what you can afford to pay?

You will need to break down the total others £1469 more in order to give people a chance to identify areas where things can be saved.
Have packed lunches for school.
Can the petrol be cut at all (I know iits difficult presently with the price of fuel), can you walk anywhere etc?

Is you Council tax being paid over 10 or 12 months.
Is your mortgage on Interest Only or repayment you could save a bit each month by moving it Interest Only for a short time to give yourself some room to pay some of the debts off.

plug all your figures into a snowball caluclator which will help you to identify which order to pay your debts off in, show you how much you can save by doing it properly and when you will be debt free. www.whatsthecost.co.uk/snowball.aspx

Well done for facing up to dealing with this, you wil get there.

Do you have anything you can sell on ebay, car boot sales etc. Can you get any extra work, pub shifts etc that can then be used to throw at the debts.

supersavershal

Is there any way you could cancel the afterschool club, if your husband is at home a lot could he collect your daughter.Even if you cancel until september you could save a bit.
Food seems reasonable but have a look on the old style boards for ideas.

supersavershal

Maybe your husband could think of getting a different job even if its short term if he isnt getting the work in supply teaching.Maybe something seasonal just for the summer.

calculatethis

Ive transferred as much as I can onto the better rate credit cards- the offers seem to have dried up since the dreaded "credit crunch" though. Ironically my credit history is great- no missed payments, no ccjs, no defaults etc. I appreciate that 70k of debt is a huge amount.

the other expenses (other than debt payments!) I have are:

afterschool care (5yr old) 140 pcm- I can't avoid this
mortgage 720pcm- on a repayment basis 30 years
council tax 90 pcm- paid over 12 monthly installments
life insurance/pension 40pcm- I could cut my pension payment which is £20 pcm
Tv licence 10pcm- unavoidable!
insurance (house) 15pcm- again, we need this
food 200 pcm- this feeds 3 of us
petrol 200 pcm- We have a 40 mile a day commute, one car
pocket money/clothes/school lunches 50pcm- Ok I could cut all school lunches this would save around £9 per month - my little girl gets school lunches average of 2 times per week at the moment.
so: total others = 1469pcm I could cut this to £1440

My husband pays for the phone and this year paid for the car insurance/tax (which is due next year) I havent included anything for car maintenance- I should really factor in this too.

Honestly, we really live simply, and there are no luxuries, no holidays, no treats, no gym, no sky telly, no hairdos for me, only essential clothes and school uniform.

Welshlassie

Sorry misread the "other total" line.

Welshlassie

Are you claiming all the Child Tax/Working Tax credits you are entitled to?

Check again especially if you DH isn't getting much income at the moment.

WorkingHardDFW

Well done for post calculatethis and welcome.

I think like Welshlassie identified you need to breakdown your SOA in more detail. The difference between your ID outgoings and your total outgoings are maybe where you can make some inroads.

Also the school lunches can be reduced if you make packed lunches.

After school care as supersavershal says could be perhaps provided by your OH when he is home. In the mornings I use a childminder who only charges when I drop the kids off therefore on some monrings when I don't need to be in quite so early I can take the kids to school myself and therefore say a few quid. If you could organise AS care on a more casual basis that would help.

As you can see from my signature I owe a fair bit as well and on my first post my SOA didn't balance. It does now so it can be done its just being able to focus on what can be reduced or removed. You will suprise yourself with what you can change.

I would also recommend a spending diary. I have found this invaluable to ID where you are/were overspending to stop it happening again.

Good luck and I sure some of the very friendly experts on here will be along to offer their advice. :cool: