My SOA - Suggestions needed

domestic_goddess

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1386
Partners monthly income after tax....... 720
Benefits................................ 155
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2261

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 497
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold flat)...... 0
Council tax............................. 110
Electricity............................. 218
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 30
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 25
TV Licence.............................. 13
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 28
Internet Services....................... 10
Groceries etc. ......................... 200
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 200
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 45
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 160
Other child related expenses............ 35
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 16
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 5
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1622

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 120000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 123000

Secured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 73000....(497)......0
Total secured debts........... 73000.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Barclaycard.............1250...............25........19.9
Barclaycard...............450..............15........19.9
Halifax........................4350..........95........19.9
Nat West.......................3000........60........19.9
Tesco..........................450...........15........16.9
Total unsecured debts..........9500......210.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,261
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 1,622
Available for debt repayments........... 639
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 210
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ 429

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 123,000
Total Secured debt...................... -73,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -9,500
Personal net worth...................... 40,500

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.

Hi

This is my SOA and I could really do with some help at the minute. I am expecting the worst with food prices, electricity costs and petrol costs all on the up, so I am looking to get myself in a much better position. I live with my OH and 2 kids (Under 5) and we are really not very good with our money. Our credit card debt just seems to stay the same and we always seem to be in our overdraft each month.

I am really trying to be more organised and am spending the day on the OS board trying to get some tips to help me meet the food budget I have given us of £200. It is currently way way more than this.

We are lucky in that we do have a good amount coming in each month, however, it does not feel like we ever have any spare money

There are a couple of things I should mention, my electricity is so high as I have no gas and just storage heaters. We are currently paying off some arrears at the minute aswell so not really in a position to change suppliers.

I can't do anything with the mobile phone as I am tied in to a contract and am unable to even lower the tariff at the minute as it is a blackberry and this is the lowest tariff I can get at the moment. We have gotton rid of our PAYG phone and just have the one mobile now.

The car insurance is for two cars and they are both needed for work at the moment, OH is looking for a job closer to home so that we can do something with this. I think I have pretty much got the cheapest quotes around and I did use Quidco.

poorandindenial

Hi there well done for posting, it isn't easy baring all for others to pick apart.

One thing that stood out to me is that you are paying £48 for landline, tv and internet, you can do a basic sky package with landline and internet for £30 or just under. Alternatively can you ditch the sky and just have a freeview box??

Is there any way that you can use your car less, £200 is quite a bit for petrol. Are you doing what you can to reduce your electricity (ie not leaving things on standby, using energy efficient bulbs, unplugging chargers when not in use etc). For your electricity bill to be that high you must have a lot of arrears, or have you posted a quarterly figure in instead of monthly?? What proportion of the amount you pay each month is arrears?

Hope this helps, good luck with shaving a bit more off

Magentasue

I can't believe you never buy clothes! No Christmas presents? There are a lot of zeroes in there. On paper, you have enough to live on, yet you have five credit card debts and say you are overdrawn every month. This suggests to me that you spend a lot on things you don't budget for (clothes? car bills? chrristmas?). To see where the money goes and get your debt cleared, you need to include EVERYTHING. Otherwise, by the time you pay your bills and credit cards every month, you run out of money!

domestic_goddess

H

Apparently without the arrears the repayment would be £138.00 per month:mad:

I know the petrol is high, we both work about 20 miles from home, OH has asked for a transfer though, so hopefully that should come down.

Our internet is through AOL and we are tied in for another 15 months, they started us on an 18 month contract when they reduced our price to £9.99

Can I cancel my home phone line or do I need it to get the internet.

I am considering getting rid of sky, my OH is determined to hang on to it as we have a Sky plus box and he watches a lot of shows on living and I dont think you get this with freeview

Thanks for your advice

Frugaldom

Hi there, thanks for being brave enough to post your current SOA and leaving a link to where we can try same!

First thing I noticed is that you're spending over £100 per week on car and childcare, which I am guessing ties in with work. I see £155 per month in benefits, which looks like the standard child benefit for 2 children. Have a look at www.hmrc.gov.uk and run through their eligibility test to see if you qualify for Working tax credits and child tax credits, as this could instantly increase your income. You could also find out about the child care vouchers available from employers and discussed elsewhere on MSE.
Changing contracts for stuff is obviously out if you are tied into 12 or 18 month deals but you should be able to get your electricity down now the better weather has arrived. We mark down the units used every day and night so we can work at reducing consumption. Winter months were 81 units per day average but we have now managed to drop this to about 10 units per day since switching off all the night storage heaters. If you have hot water on your system, it uses about 5 units to heat the tank each time.

Your SOA missed out quite a few items, such as car maintenance, household contents insurance, clothing, gifts etc. I log all cost of living expenses and that way can easily see where or when things start to go off course.

Hope this helps and good luck with your income boosting research via the tax office. Either you or your partner can claim on behalf of the entire family.

RedDino308

Hi There,

I agree with MagentaSue in that there does seem to be a number of omissions from your SOA and that these will almost certainly account for where the money you should have is going.

You may find it beneficial to keep a spending diary where you note down everything you spend. This will help you get a more realistic picture of what is going on and where there are big savings to be made - for instance buying a latte from Starbucks everyday used to cost me £1000/year!!!!!! - that you wouldn't normally think about.

HTH

RD308

Debt_Free_Chick

sickofhavingnomoney wrote: »

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,261
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 1,622
Available for debt repayments........... 639
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 210
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ 429

This is my SOA and I could really do with some help at the minute. I am expecting the worst with food prices, electricity costs and petrol costs all on the up, so I am looking to get myself in a much better position. I live with my OH and 2 kids (Under 5) and we are really not very good with our money. Our credit card debt just seems to stay the same and we always seem to be in our overdraft each month.

I'm not sure why you're worried. According to your budget, you have more than £400 left over each month. You could be putting this (or at least some/most of it) into a savings account.

Do you not have money left over?

If not, then you're spending more than your budget and your FIRST step has to be to look at that. Can you look back over three months statements and see where your money has gone?

If not, then you need to keep a spending diary to see where the money is leaking out.

It's a scary thought but ... if your debt isn't reducing, then you're spending £429 on stuff you haven't budgeted for, each and every month :eek:

WorkingHardDFW

Hi Sickofhavingnomoney

In my experience is the not budgeted for items which throw you over your limit each month or bump up the CC's. Unfortunately I've learnt the hard way that unless I budget for everything we spend each day/week/month then we'll overspend.

The items I've highlighted would concern me being zero since generally they are hard to avoid spending on:

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0

For example if you don't budget for birthdays when they come along where does the money come from....with us it was spent on the CC's which isn't a long term solution.

A spending diary is a fantastic way of tracking what you spend/where and on what and its helped us no end since Jan. Difference people do it differently but what works for me is a spike for all the receipts and a spreadsheet into which everything is entered. Its been fantastic for us and highligted what we weren't budgetting for ....

Good luck:cool: