How do I pay off my overdraft?

RedDino308

Hey Kate,

Well done on posting all that up. A couple of quick thoughts for you...

1) £500 a month on groceries is astronomical. How much food are you throwing away? I suspect that you could cut this in half without even noticing.

2) £35 mobile phone - can you reduce this. It is worth reading martins articles about getting much better deals. You may be able to save £20 - £30 a month here!

3) Do you really spend £1,200 a year on presents?

4) Unless you have 12 cars you should not be spending £180/month on road tax.

5) £200/month on petrol/diesel is quite high. What sort of mileage are you doing?

6) Is satellite TV a luxury you can't afford.


I'm sure more people will be along with there thoughts. Based on what I can see from your SOA I would suggest you target the big areas first and keep a spending diary so you can see where your money really goes. For instance, if you have a coffee and a sticky bun everyday on the way to work then you are probably spending £100 a month on it.

Good luck

RD308

beanielou

Grocceries are really high:eek:

waddy_2

hi there im only quite new to this forum but even i can see from your soa you have a huge monthly grocery bill. avearage is about £200-250 max. where are you shopping? iv started visiting discount supermarkets and couldnt believe difference in price of brand name foods, you could try to reduce this. also how come ur car tax is so much per month?

SamanthaA

count_rostov wrote: »

If you can't get big enough credit card limits to shift all of the overdrafts you could get an Alliance and Leicester Premier Cirect Current Account (apply for it through Quidco for cashback) they have a 0% £1500 overdraft for 12 months and then there's a £5 charge a month which is pretty cheap. Once you're in credit on this account it has a very high interest rate, over 6% I think.

I havent read any further, so apologies if this is mentioned elsewhere.

A & L do indeed have this excellent account, BUT one piece of vital info thats not printed on any of their bumf, and has caught me out in the last 6 weeks, is that they insist on you being in CREDIT FOR A MIN OF 2 DAYS per month. No excuses, don`t do this, don`t get the OD match.

It may not affect you, but I just wanted to point it out anyway.

LilacPixie

I fourth the groceries. How many do you feed for this???

Gas/electricity make sure you are on the best deal possible and switch if needed. In this day and age there is no financial award for loyalty i'm afraid.

other thinks like car tax and £1200 a year for pressies seems excessive and really cannot be afforded.

Look at it this way. if you slice your grocery bill in half then you will have 3k to throw at your debt.

kate705

Hi Everyone,
I have just read your posts and have come back from shopping at Sainsburys!! The amounts shown for groceries are for 4 people, 1 dog, 1 cat and includes toiletries, wine, tobacco. I know it is too high, the reason is that when I am working my OH tends to use corner shops and we don't plan properly. I have just planned a weeks menu's. Lidl is 15 miles away, local supermarkets are Sainsburys, Waitrose and Somerfield.
We do not have satellite TV just Freeview.
We spend 25pm on my mobile and 10pm top up on the other.
Presents: This includes the whole of Christmas, New Year and Birthdays and going out for meals to celebrate through the year (big family). It is too much I know, I was trying to be realistic and it has been shocking to see how much is spent on this. I am hoping to cut down.
We run 2 cars and have spent 500 pounds in the last 3 months getting through MOTs but I must have made a mistake with the figures!! We travel 30 miles each 5 days pw. Basically we spend too much socialising, take aways and going to restaurants to celebrate birthdays etc. My SOA is too extravagent isn't it? Thanks for the replies, Kate xx

kate705

Hi Samantha A,
We were considering this A&L account to transfer some of our overdraft onto. We will not be in credit 2 days per month so sadly it looks like this account is not right for us. It seems a good one for the day that we are debtfree......I'm grateful that you pointed this out. I think we will transfer debt to credit cards as mentioned previously.

Have a nice weekend

RedDino308

Hi Kate,

I think your right in that your SOA does show quite extragavent living beyond your means at the moment so you really should look at reigning it in. Based on your last e-mail four more immediate things spring to mind.

1) Keep a spending diary where you detail everything you spend. This will give you accurate figures and help you identify where you're money is going.

2) Quit smoking.

3) Quit smoking

4) Quit smoking

Ok - so you get the point. You don't need anyone to tell you that it costs a lot and will probably kill you in a truly horrible way that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy!!!

Good luck

RD308

kate705

Red, regarding the smoking, I know you are right....what can I say......I have to set a date and go for it. I have altered the road tax from yearly to monthly. God knows where the surplus is going so from Monday I am keeping a diary. Cheers

RedDino308

Hi Kate,

Good luck with the smoking thing. BTW - I am currently going through the pain of quitting so I do know how difficult and painful it is.

Also, just wanted to bump this up a bit so that people could look at your revised SOA

RD308