Working single parents first SOA (Desperately need HELP!!!!!!)

fiodyl

I don't think I would save much as otherwise have to food shop on line & pay delivery or get taxi.

Ive been shopping online with Tesco for the last year and have never paid the delivery charge so far- there is always a free delivery code knocking around the internet somewhere and sometimes i can get £10-£12 off which more than covers the £4 delivery charge if you choose a weekday evening slot.

tealady

Hi Could your 15 yr old not get a paper round? He could then buy things that he wants for himself. It would also be an introduction to the world of work.

Helen224488

My landlord originally wanted £735 but I negotiated £700. It used to be £655.

Helen224488

My son would never get a paper round. He is a lazy !!! & would rather do without. To be honest he has to walk home from school each day & that takes 45 minutes so he is not home until 4pm. He is trying to get a Saturday job (he just turned 15) but everywhere he has tried they want you to be 16. I don't get any help from the two dads as 1 lives in Australia & CSA are not interested in chasing £ from AU & the other one father is dead.

amyandjon

evening helen... keep your chin up things will come full circle and things will improve.... can you not look for a cheaper flat/house to rent ?? it could be something i think its abit scandalous that your paying 700 quid for rent you could have a mortgage for that ......i would threaten virgin with a move to sky..... i pay 33 quid pm for phone line phonecalls and broadband and tv !! no movies mind but when i need a movie i watch a box office !! good luck on the dfw journey :P xx

Helen224488

Thanks amyand jon,

I took a whole week looking at other houses & I did find a few 3 bed houses with rent ranging from £675 to £695 but they were thro agencys & agencys charge 35% of 1 months rent just for references so this is a one off amount of aprox £250 which is dead money then they want a security deposit of 1 month rent + £200, then there is removal fees etc. So I weiged it all up & thought it would be better to stay here for now until I can save some money to move. I went to the bldg soc to see if I could get a mortgage on a 1/2 buy, 1/2 rent house. They have lots of these in Bristol but Nationwide will not take my tax credits as income only my salary which is only £800 per month. I too used to have the 3 for £30 package, my son had the set top box in his room & I just had a freeview box in the lounge. The problem was I couldn't record from my didibox so I upgrade to 2 V+boxes. If I upgraded to XL package thre was no monthly rental for the additional v+box (in my sons room) so I went for this option. I paid £150 for both boxes to be installed (1/2 price offer) If I were to downgrade to a medium pakage it would cost me more as virgin would charge me for rental of 2nd v+ box. The only option would be to take away V+ boxes & go back to normal boxes but I will loose the £150 I paid for installing them in first place. I would never of upgraded if I knew my landlord would raise my rent. I do love having the option of pausing live t.v & being able to record 2 channels at once etc. also I don't have an ariel in my sons room (which you need for a digi box) & an arial extention could be expensive in my last house it cost me £85 to get a digital arial installed on roof. I think I'm gonna check out the old style boards & try & cut down my food bills. How do these families manage to eat on £100 per month? I was looking at a lady who does manage this & she listed her food shopping items for a month but there was no meal suggestions. I am going on my hols tomor to Paris with the kids probably my last hol for a few years so I will enjoy & look into this when I return.

Thanks for your help.

piglet39

Helen224488 wrote: »

Hi,

I forgot to mention that I only get £34.02 housing benefit every 2 weeks bcuz I am paying back £21.50 a week in housing benefit arrears. The council say I was overpaid by £3000+ so I will be paying this back until Dec 2009!!!!!! I got a causion bcuz they say I did not inform them of a rise in tax credits but I did!!!!!!!!

Hiya

Your payment arrears to HB seem very steep. Have you given details of your I&E to the benefit recovery dept (to my knowledge this dept is different dept to CTB/HB with most councils) to ask them to reconsider.

Appreciate your probs with Virgin Media. We were on same tariff but with 2 standard boxes not V+. I phoned them 'threatening' to go to Sky and they put me on the customer loyalty package and reduced my bill by £15 p/m.

HTH

Piglet

Doom_and_Gloom

Helen224488 wrote: »

My son would never get a paper round. He is a lazy !!! & would rather do without. To be honest he has to walk home from school each day & that takes 45 minutes so he is not home until 4pm. He is trying to get a Saturday job (he just turned 15) but everywhere he has tried they want you to be 16.

If your son would rather do without than I would take away the pocket money. £30 a month could help you out a lot as the LL put the rent up by £45 so that's only £15 to find from somewhere . If your son doesn't like it then that is just not your problem. He should have a paper round. It makes him realise that you have to work for your money later on in life, will make him realise the real value of money and in general help him later on. Giving him this money when he is lazy is NOT going to be beifitial (sp?) for him when he is older. In just 3 years time he will be considered an adult after all. It seems he thinks you can get things for free when that just is not the case really.

The clothes is a bit much. I realise that young children grow out of their clothes rather fast mind. I'm very sure you could free up the further £15 from here a month. Infact freecycle have clothes that you could inquire about. They usually state what gender and size/age they are for aswell which would be usefull as children can grow so fast so you can put them back on when you are done with them.

Food can be reduced a little. When my OH and I lived together in a flat (before it fell apart :rolleyes: ) we spent about £80 a month together for food, toiletries, the mice (then rats) etc. I'm not saying you could get it this low as there are 3 of you. Try reducing it by 10% until it balances out to a good level. That would mean that you would get £6.50 free a week £338/yr or just over £28 for the first month alone. Doesn't seem like much but again helps ALOT.

£3 a week lottery as someone else has said can be forgotten about for the time being I'm sure. When you are better on your feet you could start this up again.

£20 a month for birthdays etc sounds okay to me. However have you tried looking into charity shops for these instead or even during sales etc. I managed to find my dad an amazing christmas prez for £4 last year at my local Shelter. My mum was going to get the exact same thing but smaller from a different store for £18 :eek: . Was rather funny when I told her I got it first :rotfl: , she couldn't understand how I afforded it as I had just lost my job so had very little money as I still had to pay rent etc . It's safe to say that I'm not buying exspencive things this year for people either even though I have a job. In all this could go down to £15 per month I'd say maybe less .

So I think I've found at least £90/month there if you took your sons pocket money away to teach him a life lesson (you do need to be harsh sometimes). This could go up and will do after your holiday is paid for etc :T . This would mean that you could pay everything and put away a little to save incase something goes wrong .

Hope that helps.

Helen224488

Thanks Piglet39,

I might try & phone Virgin to reduce bill. I did phone them after I received my first bill after having v+boxes installed as I am actually paying £5 more than they quoted I would be paying. I had a huge argument with young man (who sounded about 12) the only help he could give me was to downgrade to normal boxes as reducing to medium package on v+boxes would be more expensive due to extra v+ box rental in sons room which is free on ExL package. I will give it a go see what happens.

I am not going to take away sons pocket money of £30 per month as personally I don't think this is alot when you work it out weekly. Also he uses this money to buy art equipment for G.C.S.E art. Anyone with a child of this age studying for art will know art stuff is very expensive. I do admit he is lazy but he will get a Saturday or Sunday job when he reaches 16. He is very intelligent as is predicted to get all A's & A*'s so I know he will stay on next year to do A Levels & most probably go to uni so he knows he will have to get a part time job to help out.

I am gonna try & reduce my clothes bill. To be honest I don't buy much for myself, I work in a school on reception & we have to wear a uniform so I don't need to buy work clothes. Daughters clothes I usually buy in asda & my sons I usually buy in the sale at next. Problem is my son is 15 & is a 36 inch waist so really I have to buy mens clothes. Daughters shoes are expensive clarks boots £36 but I find that they do last compared to buying cheap £10 supermarket shoes which fall apart. I recently sold some of my daughters dance clothes on ebay & made £20 after fees. I also won £10 on the lottery 2 weeks ago & another £10 this Saturday just gone so I'm not giving up the lotto. On a bad note I just blew the iron up!!!!!!!!!!!!! This Christmas I am going to try & make the hamper baskets for people. I purchased some fab baskets from our local 99p shop. (Guess how much they were? ha ha ha) & I just purchased some cellophane roll from ebay 10m patterned & 5m clear free for just over £4 including p&p.

I really want to reduce food bill down. It would be great to have a sample weekly toiletree & food list with a meal plan for the week included. Does anyone know of a post like this?

Anyway thanks for all your help.

KiKi

Helen224488 wrote: »

Thanks Piglet39,
I also won £10 on the lottery 2 weeks ago & another £10 this Saturday just gone so I'm not giving up the lotto.

I really want to reduce food bill down. It would be great to have a sample weekly toiletree & food list with a meal plan for the week included. Does anyone know of a post like this?

That £20, though, only just covers what you pay into the lottery in a month. So unless you're winning this every month...! It's a game of chance. If you really are trying to find more cash, then you have £17 a month just sitting there, being spent on the possibility that you might one day gain from it. You were lucky this time...you might not be lucky for another two years!! Of course, it's your choice to give it up or not, but you were looking for ways to easily save money in the short term - this is the easiest thing you could do.

The food bill and meal plans can be found on the Moneysaving Old Style board - have a look on there, or start a thread explaining what you need. They're a very friendly bunch on there.