Any advice welcome

niteowl.888

Hi to everyone who took the time to put a reply in ..I really do appreciate it..the groceries cost i know does seem high..I went through my bank statements and averaged the cost out of payments to Tescos, asda etc over 4/5 months, believe me we are not extravagant ..so Im not really sure..we are a family of 4..2 adults & 2 children...would really like to hear what other peoples average weekly housekeeping costs are, in fact any advice on what could be considered average costs.
Once again thanks for all the tips and keep them coming..I need all the help I can get!!

tealady

Hi I don't know what is an average but if you hop over to the old style board there are loads of great ideas for saving money. I'm a fan of Aldi loo rolls and now often batch cook (usually when there has been a great BOGOF deal around). Meal planning and taking a shopping list are a must now for me otherwise I end up wasting money.
If you are a regular at Mr T's check out the discount codes forum, yesterday in the News of the World there was a voucher for £5 off a £30 spend which thanks to the lovely peeps who post there I got one.
The thing is with this site there are so many great ideas for saving money it would take ages to go through them all but its worth having a browse, I have saved loads of money and log on nearly every day for my fix. As my sig says I'm a nerd and proud of it.
Good luck with your DFW journey, if you get stuck just shout and someone will help you onto the right track.

sparky0107

niteowl.888 wrote: »

Hi to everyone who took the time to put a reply in ..I really do appreciate it..the groceries cost i know does seem high..I went through my bank statements and averaged the cost out of payments to Tescos, asda etc over 4/5 months, believe me we are not extravagant ..so Im not really sure..we are a family of 4..2 adults & 2 children...would really like to hear what other peoples average weekly housekeeping costs are, in fact any advice on what could be considered average costs.
Once again thanks for all the tips and keep them coming..I need all the help I can get!!

Hi niteowl.888,
Welcome to this fantastic site (wish I'd found it 2 years ago lol), I would consider keeping a spending diary, this will help you to see where any spare cash is going, it's amazing what all the small purchases add up to.

http://www.spendingdiary.com

Also start doing the daily clicks, if you pm Eager Learner, she will send you all the info you need to get started, don't forget to join the cashback sites like http://www.quidco.com use this site for renewing insurance or applying for new credit cards or bank accounts.

Well done on having your Light Bulb Moment, and don't forget you're not alone, there are plenty of us trying to become debt free.

:beer:

Yorkshire-Lady_3

Hello,
How old are your children? If very young, they wont be eating a great deal, if older, could your wife get a little job?

Just my thought.

Y-L

Jacks_xxx

:wave: Hey sweetie,

We're a family of four - two adults and two teenagers - and we used to spend £650+ a month in the supermarket so don't feel bad.

I joined the Grocery Challenge over on Moneysaving Old Style and now we spend about £300 a month. (It was even less but everything keeps going up - and I'm still not exactly Nigella in the kitchen! ;) )

You definitely need to get an accurate picture of your financial situation. (it's scary but it's motivating! ) so get all the debt totals and interest rates together and punch it all into the Snowball calculator.

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

In the position you're in my sweet, I think you need to challenge every penny you're currently spending and ask yourself why it's being spent on *that* and on not your pretty sizeable debts?

Maybe check out skys deal to see if getting an internet phone and TV bundle would work out cheaper for you?

If you signed up to their £36 a month deal you could save the £41 you currently spend on internet and landline. (Even more if you got a free view box or signed up to the £16 deal! )

http://packages.sky.com/

If you added that saved £41 to the £20 emergency fund, £80 holiday fund and £50 entertainment fund money - then cut back maybe £100 on the shopping bill and were careful about petrol useage to shave off another £10 or more, plus avoided buying clothes for 8 weeks you could have the Next card paid off in two months. Tops.

So that's one debt done and dusted... One down...

Even better - if you already have money saved for Christmas and Holidays and Emergencies I think there's a very strong argument for throwing at least some of it at the debts to pay them down so that you're paying less interest.

If you look at every category of expenditure and try to cut it back you'll be able to pay off even more. Maybe joining HSA and / or getting prescription prepayment cards would cost less than the current annual spend of £366 on Prescriptions and Dental?

Check out Entitled To to make sure that you're getting everything you are Um... "entitled to":

http://www.entitledto.co.uk/entitlementcalculator.aspx

It might be worth checking out a meter for your water - we pay £17 a month now on metered water - although my teenage son doesn't exactly over-use the hot water system - the smelly so and so!

Cut back on pressies. All adults will just have to understand (you're by no means the only people cutting back this year!) and explain to your kids that this thing called The Credit Crunch they keep hearing about will mean that Christmas and Birthdays will have to be reined in a bit for a while - unless they're really small in which case it's a lot easier to pick up second hand things and small treats so they probably won't even notice.

If your OH could do some babysitting or shelf stacking a few hours a week while you have the kids even a little bit of extra money helps. When you do the snowball try adding just £50 to the amount available for debt repayment each month and see how much of HUGE difference it makes. (Then try it with £100 a month or £200... If that doesn't kick you up the bottom then there ain't much that will! )

Sorry for being so blimmin' bossy but I really want to galvanise into taking action now!

There's loads you can do to improve your cirumstances and it makes you feel tons better to be taking action.

Love Jacks xxx

niteowl.888

Hi and thanks once again to everyone who took the time to reply, thanks to all and I shall be putting all your advice into action, still worried about the future but its reassuring knowing there are people here who are so willing to help..special thanks to Jacksxxx

iwanttosavemoney2008

niteowl.888 wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1763
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 167.12 check at entitledto.co.uk you may be eligable for some extra benefits
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1930.12

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 320
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 101 is this over ten months or twelve ask to pay over 12 to reduce the amount each month
Electricity............................. 57 switch but not yet wait till martin tells you also use less energy where ever you can
Gas..................................... 39 as above
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 43.8
Telephone (land line)................... 20
Mobile phone............................ 10
TV Licence.............................. 12.04
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 36.99 cancell and switch to freeview you will get used to it really quickly
Internet Services....................... 21 switch providers or even if you must keep sky then use them for your landline, broadband and tv package for £16 a month
Groceries etc. ......................... 600 this is very high check out the old style board for help with this you can bring this right down
Clothing................................ 50 untill you can afford it shop at charity shops and/ or cut it out completely
Petrol/diesel........................... 200 walk whenever you can
Road tax................................ 13.33
Car Insurance........................... 18.21 see if you can get a cheaper policy
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 30
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 30.55 if you get a prepayment certificate then you can pay just £10.25 per month each for your prescriptions
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 15
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 10.57 you may get this even cheaper check out the comparison sites
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Haircuts................................ 10 use trinaing days at the salon you will be under the care of an experienced stylist too so dont worry plus you may get it for free
Entertainment........................... 50 cut back on going out till you can better afford it
Holiday................................. 80 no holidays till you can pay for them without leaving yourself short or putting yourself into debt to pay for them
Emergency fund.......................... 20
Total monthly expenses.................. 1838.49

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1800
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 1800

No Secured Debt

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Personal Loan..................16000.....322.2.....0
Personal Loan..................16500.....296.8.....0
Personal Loan..................1800......108.3.....0
NatWest credit card............3462.62...77........0
Barclaycard....................6013.57...135.......0
Tesco credit card..............2650.69...79........0
Next store card................649.04....61.23.....0
Total unsecured debts..........47075.92..1079.53...-
have a word with your card providers saying you are struggling to pay off your debts and wether or not you can come to an arrangement to pay off a lesser amount and get the interest stopped for a period of six months to a year to get yourselves sorted out.

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,930.12
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 1,838.49
Available for debt repayments........... 91.63
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,079.53
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ -987.9

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 1,800
Total Secured debt...................... -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -47,075.92
Net Assets.............................. -45,275.92

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.

======== Enter any other useful information below ========

e.g. the number of adults & children in the household, the number

of cars included in the SOA or anything else that may be useful.

i have added my comments in red, also i will tell you i feed a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 kids) on £50 a week this includes nappies for the youngest 2!!

is there any chance of extra jobs?

get a quidco account they are great if you need to buy anything you can get cashback for buying it. there is one guy on here who ended up getting his car insurance for free and getting £60 cash too.

have a mass clearout and do carboots and ebay as much as you can and use this money to pay off a debt!!

you are not alone and everyone here is really great,very supporting and extremely helpfull no mater what the question.

there is so much advice on here that you couldnt possibly do it all but if you did you could probably live for free!:rotfl:

is there ant way of growing your own food if you have young kids getting them involved doing this they learn a lot and will eat their veg cos they grew it.

if i think of anything else i will post back

hth