HELP! Have cut back all I can but am still over-spending!

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  • Oh well done S&S so pleased you came back to post this. You've made a great start :)
  • Well done!!

    £60 is a great starting amount for a family of four. I reckon every now and then as you get better practised at meal planning and shopping you can drop a further £5 a week at a time until you get to a comfortable level.

    If you do the makesenseofcards SOA it is much easier for others to see where you can make changes. I understand if you don't want to post it up after some of the responses on here but there are loads of SOAs on the DFW so you can read through them, find ones similar to yours and pick up tips from it.

    The OldStyle board is great too x
    Debt December 2012 - Approx £4070...
    February 2013 £2784.64
  • RAS
    RAS Posts: 32,539
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    Well done on balancing the books.

    A few things to think aboput regarding the trip to see dad.

    Can you get everyone on board? Can you get everyone to identify trhose things that they no longer use, wear, want or is duplicated? E-bay, car- boot, amazon. if you could make a few hundred of stuff that is basically clogging up space, that would be step twoards the holiday.

    I know that you are saving for the kids but maybe one of the things that they would really benefit from is seeing their grandad and his home before he gets much older? It maybe for yor dad's benefit but also a key experience for your children?
    The person who has not made a mistake, has made nothing
  • duchy
    duchy Posts: 19,511
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    A novice shop of £60 - so £240 a month .....My bet is within a month you'll have it down to £50 and wonder how you spent so much more before :)

    My nearest supermarket is Aldi and I never get to the till and think "How much ??!!" in a bad way the way I do at Sainsburys and Tesco. I resent paying for carriers though ....so remember to bring your own bags LOL
    I Would Rather Climb A Mountain Than Crawl Into A Hole

    MSE Florida wedding .....no problem
  • Hi SS

    Spent a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon reading your thread when I should really have been cleaning out my kitchen cupboards...oh well !

    Like you I've realised that I need to curb unneccessary spending but I absolutely refuse to go without.

    Live is for living and we only get one shot at it...I don't want to end my days wishing I had bought that one bottle of decent wine or had that day trip to the seaside. For me its about compromise, I've halved my food shop, cut my outgoings to the bare bones but not compromised too much on quality on what I do buy.

    I still have credit card debts, mainly accrued after a nasty and expensive divorce but I have a plan that's manageable and one that won't see my and my daughter going without. I borrowed the money and fully intend to repay it, but due to a chang in circumstances it will be on my terms and not on the banks; let's face it, they are never in a rush to sort their mess out when they owe us!

    I think you are doing a great job and have made some major lifestyle changes in a relatively short space of time, let's face it, Rome wasnt built in a day :-)

    I do think you are wrong on the insurance thing though...I like you didn't have contents insurance, partly due to cost but then suffered a fairly catastrophic leak from my water tank that cost thousands to sort out. I do now have Contents insurance built into my Buildings ins, all done through Quidco so a small sum as cashback, and paying £18 per month all in. Having suffered the financial consequences of no insurance, I would rather go without a daily meal than worry about how I would pay for putting the damage right if I suffered a further incident. However, I totally respect your choice not to do so.

    Similarly, I absolutely won't go without pet insurance as I have three rescue dogs. My little blind Pomeranian excrutiatingly dislocated his back leg last week, my vet xrayed him and within 2 hours I had over 300 quids worth of vets bills run up...she then states he needs a total hip replacement at a cost of 4.5k or more but my insurance wont cover it as the dislocation was a previous injury noted on his rescue centre records.......by this time I'm beginning to feel quite faint.

    Cue second opinion from rescue centre vet's and a 400 mile round trip and it turns out his other leg is fractured as well but they can operate for half the cost of of my locat vet and I can claim after all due to the fracture being a new injury. One doggie operated on and one happy owner without a mahoosive vet's bill.

    Wishing your and your family the very best for the future

    LL
    'Control your money - don't let it control you'
    MBNA - £1067 (was £2000)
    Tesco CC £525(was £1950)
    RBS Mint £558 (was £800)
    NatWest CC £1734 (£930 @ 0% for 6 mnths)
    Mortgage £55,000 (was £68,00)
  • suki1964 wrote: »
    I'm going to hell, I've neither contents,buildings nor pet insurance :rotfl::rotfl:

    We can skip down the burning walkways together then!
  • OP, I was one of the original replys and I do apologise if I came across as blunt but, guess what, I was nearly finished a bottle of wine at the time! :rotfl:

    I have a lot of debt to pay off and much to the disgust of some people I still have a bottle of wine every couple of weeks, refuse to get rid of my dogs (even if they do eat like ponies) and I still have the luxury of 2 vehicles running (car and motorbike).

    You can cut down, like you have found out by just being a bit savvy about your shopping. Well done, the more you stick at it the more it will become second nature.

    Re going to see your Dad, could you have a declutter and car boot, Ebay, surveys etc but put the money away for this holiday. I think you said about savings for the kids (my wine fuddled brain can't quite remember), how about halfing these for now and putting the other half in holiday fund?
  • Ok, this will be my new SOA (not sure what that stands for?)

    Total monthly income: £2,252

    In the home:
    MobilePhones: £10
    TV Licence:£12.12
    Internet:£17
    Home phone:£9.72
    HouseholdMaintenance: £15 will cut this back to set a budget of £10
    Electricity£29.04
    Gas £66.67 turned off some radiators, cutting right back on heating so this should be reduced to £55
    Water:£29.17
    Council Tax:£130
    HomeInsurance £6.42
    Mortgage:£448.40 will swap to variable rate in April
    Food andhousehold shopping: £600 new budget £300
    Drinks forhome £90 cut down to £60

    New total = £1128.54


    Motoring
    Petrol: £280
    Car Tax £74
    CarInsurance: £44
    CarMaintenance: £63
    Breakdowncover: £3.33

    Total = £464.33 (can't see any obvious savings here)


    Debts
    Credit card:£50 spend to be cut back to a limit of £25 per month.

    Savings
    Childrens£40
    Lump sumsavings: £100 (for tax and pension) halve this to £50
    Regularsaving: £16 (spare change saver)

    New Total = £116


    Family
    SchoolTrips: £20
    SchoolMeals: £9.97 (one meal a week)
    PocketMoney: £17.33

    Total = £77.27


    Entertainment
    Days out(incl cinema, etc): £25 new budget of £20
    Books,music, films, etc: £14 new budget of £10
    Shopping forfun: £90 new budget of £50
    Pet Costs:£2.20 (hamster)
    Antivirus:£3.38 will not renew subscription and get freebie
    DVD Rental:£5.99
    DrinkingOut: £65 new budget of £50
    Eating out:£21.67 new budget of £15

    New Total = £153.19

    Clothes,Health, Beauty
    Haircuts:£8.67
    Clothes: £25 clothes now to be included on credit card budget

    New Total = £8.67


    Big One-Offs
    Birthdays:£30
    Holidays(incl weekends away) £83.33 will budget £80pm for holidays
    Christmas:£41.67 will budget £40 for Christmas

    New Total = £150

    Odds andSods
    Newspapers£36.50 get 20p i and Sunday Papers approx £1.50 = £10pm
    Tax and NI:£12.13
    Regularcharity donations: £5

    New Total: £27.13

    Total Spend £2138.46

    Have I done my sums right? If so we are saving £114 per month on our current budget. I haven't factored in mortgage saving yet as I don't know what variable rates will be available in April or how much we will spend but I'm hoping we can save around £50pm by shopping around. That would mean we would save £150 per month. If we carry on saving that much then next year we can definitely go and visit my dad. :)
    "Funny how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse, it does." - Marvin (Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy)

    DON'T PANIC
  • Apologies in advance as I'm slightly number dyslexic so I know I will have got some of those sums wrong. Please don't flame me! I'm good at writing, excellent at spelling and English but naff at maths. Really naff. Quite good with economics though funnily enough. I guess that doesn't really involve any numbers.
    "Funny how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse, it does." - Marvin (Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy)

    DON'T PANIC
  • Delurking!

    SOA is Statement of Affairs (I think!)

    It looks good. I have followed this thread from the beginning and just wanted to say that I hope you do get to see your Dad this year too.
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