The SoA is proving a little tricky because too much seems to be changing at the moment, maybe I'm over thinking things. I live in a first floor flat and earlier last year my landlord replaced the communal steps leading up to my flat. The £2500 is my share of the cost of installing those steps. I've rechecked through my creditors and it appears I am actually paying PPI on one of them! I've gone back through the statements, as far back as 2004, and calculated both how much I've paid into PPI and compound interest on those payments. The total comes up at about £2400. Pay's off that particular debt and gives me £1000 back on top! So sorting the letter out in the morning. I've got a 1% pay increase next month, back dated to April. I need to find out how that effect my calculations. I've dropped my broadband down one level and saved £12.50 per month in the process. I've also applied for a water meter that looks like it would half my monthly water payments in about 6 months time. All in all I think I might be in a slightly better situation than I thought I was last week.

Hi, Yes, I'll post up a SoA when I can. Here's what I got so far... Single person with mortgage and secured loan totaling £450 pcm. I live on my own, have one car. Earn around £1650 per month. Not struggling per se at the moment. Everything's fine for the next couple of months until the Landlord bills me for the new debt, unfortunate side effect of leaseholding (wish I'd never done it now). However I am very much robbing Peter to pay Paul and new problems have traditionally been put on the credit card. As soon as a pay down some of the balance, something new will come along and I'm back to square one. It's been that way for 5 or 6 years. In reworking my budget to cope with the new debt I want to break out of that spiral. After all the essential stuff I have about £430 per month at the moment to cover debts. But then I never budget for "other expenditure" I just pay off the debts, been unsuccessfully trying the snowball method for the past 2-3 years. Of course the "other expenditure" is on the credit cards I'm not clearing. So how much is acceptable to hold back off that £430 for other stuff? To put in a saving account instead of paying down the debt? Trying to be realistic, I think I need somewhere in the region of £170 per month. And that's the question. Since this is a budget I need to stick to long term, am I being unreasonable? Is it reasonable to spend £500 per year on holidays and £25 per month on Sky? I don't do either of these as it goes, don't want to, Instead I go to concerts/bike rides and play video games. But the amounts are probably around the same. In terms of unsecured debt: Landlord: £2500 CC1: £2100 CC2: £1600 CC3: £1500 OD1: £1400 Catalogue: £1100 OD2: £700 CC4: £700 CC5: £350

No, I've been pretty good about refusing PPI. There might be one or two missed payment or late payment charges (nothing in the past year or so). I doubt they add up to anything significant that can reduce the debts. At the moment, due to the extra £2500 I've acquired, I just need to get my creditors to agree to reduced payments for a while. What I'm trying to do is work out my budget so I can both afford to live and repay the debts. The problem is, I've not really budgeted like this before. I've been pretty much living off of credit and maintaining minimum payments (paying extra where I can). Problems just go on a credit card. This just isn't sustainable. So I need to budget to save, but don't want to go to the other extreme and have creditors pick the SoA apart because I'm being greedy. Just looking for guidance to what is acceptable when budgeting.

Hi, I'm just starting to get a handle on my finances after a sudden change of circumstances. I'm in around £8,000 of unsecured debt to various loans/overdrafts/credit cards/catalogues, and now my landlord (I'm a leaseholder) as such saddled me with an additional £2,500 debt which has tipped me over the edge. I'm in the process of opening a new Current Account and Saving Account with a Building Society and am now trying to rework my SoA so I can comfortably afford to repay these debts but also not have to get into further debt when the excrement next hits the fan. Up till now I've budget quiet tightly to keep up with at least minimum payments but when the car breaks, as it did over Christmas, I end up loading up the credit cards again and am back to square one. So I want to budget properly this time and save a little for such occurrences. I've been searching around both this site and various others (many linked to from here) and reading a lot of quality information, but I can't find the answer to one specific question...Just what is regarded to be the industry accepted allowances in a SoA? How much is reasonable for things like Sky TV, Hobbies or Holidays? What is acceptable to save for, like a new car in 4 years time, and what would be taking the proverbial? I want to make sure the figures I use are both realistic and acceptable. Thanks in advance for any advice offered.