My sorry looking SOA

TotallyBroke

I'm not sure what you mean by you live off £200 per month and OH also has £200. Everything you buy should be in your SOA.
If it doesn't fit into a catagory on there then it is not needed and should be stopped. I wish I had £200 to live off per month. Last time I bought clothes was a pair of maternity trousers, DS will be 2 in January. He's the only one that gets clothes (nice second hand ones from NCT sales).
Ask if you can pay your council tax over 12 months if you currently pay over 10. You could also try the same for your water.

mbs1 - I don't have contents insurance or even life insurance at the moment. The £50+ per month I was spending on these needed to be put to better use.

Dithering_Dad

TotallyBroke wrote: »

I'm not sure what you mean by you live off £200 per month and OH also has £200. Everything you buy should be in your SOA.
If it doesn't fit into a catagory on there then it is not needed and should be stopped. I wish I had £200 to live off per month. Last time I bought clothes was a pair of maternity trousers, DS will be 2 in January. He's the only one that gets clothes (nice second hand ones from NCT sales).
Ask if you can pay your council tax over 12 months if you currently pay over 10. You could also try the same for your water.

mbs1 - I don't have contents insurance or even life insurance at the moment. The £50+ per month I was spending on these needed to be put to better use.

Fair enough with the contents insurance, but I feel it's a step too far to do away with life insurance. If the worst should happen then your family will be left dealing with financial problems right at the time when they're grieving. Even just £20k would make a huge difference and the premiums on basic life assurance policies are very small.

Pippilongstocking

Great that you have had a chat - very hard and brave to be looking at things together.

Hope you manage to sort out a solution that suits you both! xx

LoulaBelle

HI there,

I notice that you are paying £575 a month on rent (that is rent right and not a mortgage?) can you not move somewhere smaller and cheaper - when my husband and I were saving up for a deposit on our first house we lived in this very small studio apartment and paid about £350 in rent - and all the utility bills were a lot cheaper too - it may be something worth considering. But if you really aren't breaking even then can you guys move back in with your parents for a while?

All the best LoulaBelle

Jacks_xxx

I'm really glad you've had The Chat lovely - I think these things are so much easier when you're both in it together.

Now this will probably seem outrageously unfair to you right now... but as soon as you said you both have £200 a month to spend on top of bills, rent, mobiles, gifts and travel etc my brain went

:dance: "Yay! £400 unaccounted for I wonder how much of that could be used for debt repayment!" :dance:

When we were first aware of how desperate our debt situation was I used to question every penny I spent for a while ( OK I admit it - I still do!)

I used to ask myself why i was spending this money on *that* whatever it might be rather than using it to pay off my debts - which were causing me sleepness nights and were preventing us from living our dreams of a nicer house and fab holidays etc.

Did I really want the night out/ copy of Heat / new handbag / cream cake/ ready meal / whatever more than I wanted us to be able to live the life we wanted?

It turns out that I didn't!

Freedom from worry and having the chance to live the life we want is worth the two years living tight and paying off the £97k.

As I often tell my husband... The thing we *most* like to do together is free - right? We'll just do more of that, and less of the stuff that costs money. He seems to be Ok with that. :rotfl:

Love Jacks xxx

butterfly_01

what I mean is, if we need food, clothes/shoes, want to go out or get hair cut then that is the money we use.

My boyfriend has said that if he has less than that in his pocket every month then he won't even look at it.

My parents live in Devon and we have no other family that we can live with as we rent my OH Dad's house and he has already lowered the rent as much as possible to help us.

RAS

Hi

Are you renting a whole house or sharign the house with OH's father?

butterfly_01

Renting the house, and he won't let us have someone else share with us!

border_collie

Ok, I don't see this suggested much on here but when I was 20 and living with a person who thought it was ok earn nothing :eek: I got two extra part time jobs on top of my full time job.

I cleaned offices and worked behind a bar.

Two benefits were quick money building up and no time to spend it.



If you both got an extra job you would be rolling in it.

Butterfly

Hello my Butterfly sister x firstly I want to say well done of coming on to this forum for help, it is very brave of you and you are definitely in the right place and amongst friends. You have got yourself in to a pickle...but look at all of us, we have too. You are not alone. The good thing is that you can definitely get yourself out of it if you are willing to learn and educate yourself financially. Even though you are having sleepless nights you do have some things in your favour...you have managed to talk to your OH which is great news, it is a serious situation and the burden needs to be shared with him from this moment onwards. Secondly, wow you are lucky to have a whole house to yourselves for that low rent....that is a real blessing. Even though you aren't allowed to have anyone living with you, that is fair enough, it isn't your property to rent out so you have to respect the rules. At least though you have lots of space for you and your OH to pace around, pull your hair out and get yourselves together. You have got in to debt through bad spending habits, which are up to you to face and change. I don't know about you but I have chosen the name 'butterfly' because butterflies are symbols of transformation....from the crawling catepillar who is engulfed inside a dark cocoon and then emerges as a beautiful light butterfly. Facing our debts and becoming debt free is a process of transformation like a butterfly. You can do it sweetie. It will take a long-term vision, lots of persistence, determination and a keen willingness to learn about managing money. Keep your chin up and all the best of luck and courge to you. *Butterfly* x