time to cut the budget - again

Nickynoo1

hi MSEr's

help needed with my budget again. I have finally been made redundant and am looking for work now. In an attempt to not use all of the redundacy up i'm trying to re work my budget to make ends meet.

I'm not working yet, but will do anything to get maoney coming in. Temping, christmas work etc. So at worse case scenario I imagine i could take home around £800 p/m from a full -time job. i also still have my part-time job, which if i stick to 3 shifts (18 hrs) per week, brings in £280 p/m. So I should have theoretacally £1080 p/m coming in.

So far my budget looks like this:

Mortgage £469.00
council tax £65.00
water £17.89
powergen £36.91 gas and leccy
NTL £40.00 includes, tv phone and broadband
TV licence £10.49
critical illness cover £18.46
Endownment £76.90
Pension £87.73
food £40
drinks out £50
spends/ contingency £20
gifts(xmas etc) £15
petrol £15
mobile £10
car tax. ins, mot £0 will sell in the new year
ISA £25.00 (contingency, case anything breaks)


TOTAL £988.69

This only leaves £71 left with which to pay off the remainder of debt which will stand at £3,400. Doesn't seem to be a lot spare does there? Apart from stopping the £25 isa i cant seem to see anyway to have more spare cash, unless of course i get a better paid job, or take a third job.

Any ideas?

Nickynoo1

System

Rather than cut out the ISA, couldn't you keep that going and instead reduce your drinks budget from £50 to £25? Does seem a bit strange to spend more on drinking than eating! (Not trying to be judgemental though! )

homersimpson_3

1. reduce amount payed to NTL- get rid of tv channels and if necessary broadband
2. look at cheaper ctitical illness cover
3. stop spending £50 on drinking out. get priorities right.
4. what is spend/contingency of £20 spent on?
5. stop £15 per month on xmas/gifts
6. get rid of car & mobile phone- why is this necessary?
7. reduce mortgage- why mortgage and endownment.
8. use redundancy to repay debt.
alot of my friends earn alot less than £1080 & they don't have this amount of debt. sorry it may sound harsh but it's true!

crystal_clear

hi there

Do you not have redundancy cover on the mortgage that you could apply for ??? that with ease up £469 plus a month ????

rprinter

Hi

Could you not put the pension payments on hold?

Also, you could find out how much your endowment is worth; surrender or sell it, pay off yr debts, then when working properly again switch yr mortgage to a repayment one?

Sorry, don't know yr age / how long owned property etc so this may not be viable, but worth considering...

Debt_Free_Chick

crystal_clear wrote:

hi there

Do you not have redundancy cover on the mortgage that you could apply for ??? that with ease up £469 plus a month ????

You should certainly enquire but, typically, these policies only start to pay out once your redundancy pay expires. So, for example, if you've been paid for three months (redundancy pay), then the redundancy cover won't begin to pay out until that three months has passed.

And many of these policies don't pay out unless you've been out of work for 6 months.

You need to check the terms of your policy (if you have one) and call the insurance company or mortgage provider.

Debt_Free_Chick

Wouldn't the redundancy pay clear the debts? If so, you'll be rid of them - you'll avoid interest charges and you'll have no minimum payments to make.

Have you considered this?

Nickynoo1

Hi there.

Thanks for your replies. In answer to some questions

I cannot change critical illness cover due to a hereditory problem, a lot of insurer's now will not insure. So i have to keep what I have to stay covered.

Endownment. Mortgage is now on repayment, so that's covered. I was keeping the endowment going as long as i can afford as savings/ins for the future. It also contains Life insurance and more critical illness. Each policy covers half of the mortgage. I would worry to cancel in case it turns out I have this hereditory problem.

I don't have redundancy cover, and have been paid 3 months in leiu of notice anyway so it would not pay out now.

Can you halt pension premiums without penalty/paying it back? Will look into it.

£50 drinks out is about 2 nights out a month for me. Yes i guess this can be cut. Nasty cold weather on it's way so might as well stay in. I guess i could switch to drinking half lagers instead of jack daniels to make the money last longer. Never really realised i was spending more on alcohol than food!

£20 spends = £5 per week for ... i don't know, anything that comes up. Extra milk, bread, parking, odd newspaper, bit of chocolate.

Am definately thinking of getting rid of NTL. Tv doesn't bother me to go without, but broadband i'm not sure.

The debt is all at 0% interest until June 2006, so want to try and pay off as much as poss before then.

So to get rid of ntl TV, save £10
Reduce drinks out, save £25
Stop x-mas gifts, save £15


Well thats saved £45 so far. Added to the £71, tahts £116 to debt repayments. Maybe i'll do just a couple more hours at the pub too.

Thanks for your advice,

Nickynoo1

System

Some other ones:-

Is your water metered?

You say you're not bothered about going without TV. Do you mean just digital TV or telly in general? If so, you could be saving on the TV licence.

Your £5 a week on bits 'n' bobs - As most of this seems to be food, why not incorporate it into your food budget so you've got a more accurate picture of money spent on food.

Instead of that night out, get your mates to come round for dinner with a bottle. (Jack Daniels - mmm!)

voodoozoe

Please point me in the direction of these £800 per month jobs!!! I'll take one now please!!!

black-saturn

You basically have to live as if your on the dole by never going out, cooking things from scratch and wearing clothes until they are threadbare so that you can get the debt paid off. We all had to do it to get out of debt.