Formally introducing myself

McKneff

wipes at £15.00 amonth,.

McKneff

Wipes at £15.00 a month :eek:
A flannel can only cost about 50p. Sorry, i'm just an old skinflint, wipes
hadnt been invented whey i had my two about 35 years ago.

GeorgeUK

Hi Kym

My comment was basically that anything that we would normally consider for reduction seems to be at a reasonable level already. There may be a few things not listed on your SOA, but from what's there, you're already running a pretty tight ship.

Not sure how much you have in unsecured debts right now, but if your don't have late payments or defaults, a 0% or life of balance (LOB) card may help. Have you checked your credit files recently? (Free at experian if you cancel within 30 days)

sweetpeas_2

Hi Kym, welcome to the boards :hello:

I can't see anything on you SOA that jumps out at me that could be reduced- the only thing I can see if your grocery budget, but you have already said you are going to try and sort that out by keeping check of what you spend.

I know aby milk and nappies really push your budget up- especially if you're buying 2 lots of nappies (which we never had to do, as DS was out the them before DD arrived), but to give you a rough idea we spend betweeen £40-£50/week, on 2 adults and 2 kiddies, all of with are BIG eaters! Since we've cut back on our shopping money, I find that we are actually eating alot healthier. I used to get all the stuff we need- fruit etc etc, them when I knew I had £30-40 left I'd fill the trolley with cr4p. I've always put the healthy stuff first so I know that the kids are getting what they need., so now my budget is halved (or even less then halved) I find myself getting all the healthy stuff and missing out all the trash.
I also don't waste food like I used to- I meal plan for the week in my head and work out what I need for each meal, then I don't ever buy anything we don't need.

The kids still get the odd treat like their monster munch or biscuits, but I'm SO much more aware now then I ever was before.

hope you get yourself sorted with finances, and if there is ever anything you want advice on, or if you just need a chat- post on here and there will always be a friendly reply. (sometimes I just post to moan when I'm fed up, but my friends on here always cheer me up again )


xx

System

anniehanlon wrote: »

Wipes at £15.00 a month :eek:
A flannel can only cost about 50p. Sorry, i'm just an old skinflint, wipes
hadnt been invented whey i had my two about 35 years ago.

Good point Annie, I remember getting my face washed with the dishcloth. I suppose societies do move on, there are technological advacements which do enhance the quality of our lives and I suppose life expectancy does go up. I for one could not imagine changing a dirty nappy without wipes :eek: I reckon I use half a pack on a dirty nappy. Is that because Im a bloke??

sweetpeas_2

£15 on wipes a month is alot Kym, have you got a wilko? there own make wipes are £1.09 per packet bogof at the moment,so 55p a packet. Stock up on about 8 packets like I have for under a fiver, they will last me months and months, but I should think with 2 babies in nappies they will last you the month out.

xx

sweetpeas_2

lennymfo wrote: »

Good point Annie, I remember getting my face washed with the dishcloth. I suppose societies do move on, there are technological advacements which do enhance the quality of our lives and I suppose life expectancy does go up. I for one could not imagine changing a dirty nappy without wipes :eek: I reckon I use half a pack on a dirty nappy. Is that because Im a bloke??

:rotfl: YES! :rotfl:

I used to use about 10 wipes per poop with DS, but when I had DD i became more skilled with the wipe, fold, wipe method

kymbogs

Hi guys,

thanks so much for all your replies I really appreciate them all

As for the baby wipes - I don't know for sure if I spend £15 per month on them, it was a bit of a guess, over the next month I'll add them all up. I have thought about doing it with flannels when at home (can't stand doing it with wet cotton wool it sticks everywhere and can't be done quick enough to stop Molly running off mid change!) I just wondered if it would be worth it with having all the extra washes to do (so extra detergent and leccy)? In particular in winter I'd have trouble drying them fast enough, I'd need an absolute ton of flannels but I could start stocking up lol. I've got a few, I'll do a trial run and see how it goes. I do use flannels for wiping hands and faces when we're at home, but it's easier to rinse out crumbs and weetabix then hang it to dry over the taps than it is babypoo lol

Noggin, I get all my wipes from Wilkos and was dead chuffed when I discovered their own ones at £1.09 on BOGOF, but they always change their BOGOF deals over and at the moment it's the Huggies on BOGOF at my local shop. I'm sure they'll get back round to their own ones soon though and I'll stock up when they do (unless I become a flannel convert that is ) Oh and we already eat very healthily and don't really anything processed or pre-prepared, I've started getting value porridge instead of weetabix, making my own bread, I batch-cook chillis and curries and bolognese etc for the month and freeze it, just a few examples there. Though there's always a box of fish fingers in the freezer for Molly, I tried making my own once and it was a disaster lol.

Lenny, it's definitely cos you're a bloke that you use 10 wipes per nappy change lol.

God I was such a nappy snob till recently, now I buy tesco's own and they are sooooo good. I think I was sticking to pampers and huggies cos we didn't get on well with ASDA's own nappies but now I get my shopping from Tesco's and their own are so much better, in my opinion.

George, I think I do have defaults on my credit file cos Barclays sent me default notices before they passed my accounts over to their collections department. I don't think I'd be able to get a card with a high enough limit to transfer the unsecured bits and pieces over.

Ooh and Lenny again! I am signed up to a few survey sites including Ciao but they annoy me somewhat, I often get emails from them and they say 'do this survey and get entered into this fantastic prize draw....and get a guarenteed 5p'. Then I think well 5p is 5p and it all adds up but often when I put in that I work in retail I'm told I don't qualify for the survey. Might have to pretend to be a stay at home mum or something lol. I sell things on ebay but am running out of things of value to sell!

I know I should sell the girls clothes when they grow out of them but I can't bring myself to just yet. I still get all choked up when I get out the next size of Mollys old clothes for Megan and remember Molly wearing them. Also seeing how little people get for childrens clothes most of the time on ebay puts me off a bit. I will consider it in the future but don't think things are quite that bad just yet, if you get me.

I'll talk to husband about cancelling the payments into the child trust funds. I'd be happier paying a fiver into each one each month but when I set Molly's up the min was a fiver, now the min is a tenner. I'm wary of saying we can put money into them when our debt is paid off but they may be well over 18 by the time the debt is paid off lol. Maybe we could do one year on one year off or something, pay into trust find for a year, pay into debts for a year...but will see if we can find this missing £90 first

I'm glad to hear I seem to be running a 'tight ship' it has really given me a boost, it seems sometimes all I'm ever doing is looking at the bank account and checking standing orders and doing the budget, and it doesn't always feel like it's worthwhile, but that really helps so THANKYOU!!!

Will do a seperate post now trying to remember how much our debts are.

Kimberley and the fishes x

Bargainfinder_3

Hi Kim, welcome. I'm 22 and on a debt free journey with my oh, cant imagine doing it with 2 small children!
Well done you! I'll add you to my subscribed threads and keep popping in to see how you're doing

x

kymbogs

OK so here's a list of the debts we have. I'm rubbish though cos I don't know what the APR is on any of them and it'd take a fair bit of digging to find out but I'll try and do it sometime.

I was dead chuffed last night when I checked the balance on husbands egg card and there's only £1.67 left to pay on it! Can that count as having cleared out first debt when that gets paid? lol. It will be closed down totally when that is paid as he was one of the people who got ditched by egg in recent months.

So...
Credit Cards
Egg credit card - £1.67
Capital One credit card - £500 (at limit, paying a bit more than min payment)

Agreed minimum payment things
CL Finance (old store card) - £67 (paying £5 a month)
Barclays Loan 1 - £3000 (paying £10 a month)
Barclays loan 2 - £1700 (paying £10 a month)
Barclays overdraft - £900 (paying £5 a month)

Loans & Mortgage
Welcome Finance Loan - £15k
Northern Rock Loan - £9k borrowed, probably not much gone off it but will see if I can dig out a mortgage statement as it is on there)
Northern Rock Mortgage - £45k - I imagine it hasn't gone down in the 4 years since we took it by much! It is a repayment mortgage though so it is going down, however slowly.

Oh and there's an agreement with HFC Bank taken through PC World for the TV we got. I'd happily have lived without a TV when ours went bang but husband can't so we got the cheapest plus a 10% staff discount. Paying £9.99 for 4 years. Also owe about £100 to Simply be.

I think when it comes to paying off the debts I'd start with the smaller ones to see the difference quicker rather than the bigger ones. Once we pay off the Egg (hehe) I should be able to clear the CL Finance debt within a couple of months then the Simply Be one, then work on the Capital One card and...well you get the gist.