Reality hits home

matt83uk

Cost of Living - November 2008
Loan repay to parents (helped out with house deposit 3yrs ago) £60
Building/Content/Accident Insurance £18
Car Insurance £80
Leased Car Payment (cant give back to oct 09) £290
Council Tax £80
Credit Expert £6
Electric and Gas £80
Mobile Contract Avergage £40
Monthly Overdraft Fee £5
My Mortgage £680
Secured Loan (A&L good rate) £85
Sky TV / Brpadband / Line Rental £43
TV License £13
Water £25
£1505

Then I figure food/fruit/vitamins etc.. I must spend £200 a month

Then going out with the lads once sometimes twice a week must be £400 a month.

Reality hits, thought I was fine, but now I understand why my credit cards are
increasing, my overdraft is at pinnacle and all savings have vanished.

To top it off because of credit crunch looking to bring 1.580k a month home after tax for next few months

Yikes..

Where do I start to reduce?

firesidemaid

rather than fit your budget to your spending, start off with what you earn and fit your spending to that.

look at not only monthly payments but also split all annual bills into 12 too.

you might want to post on the Debt Free Wanabee Board where looking at soas and helping to reduce outgoings is commonplace.

depending on where you live you might be able to reduce your water bill - are you on a meter?

cancel credit expert. reduce sky to minimum package ?£17. reduce mobile bill or get a better tariff - check out the mobiles + telephones board on here.

when you renew insurances do lots of price comparisons and then also get cashback through quidco.

there are things missing from your soa such as car tax + maintenance

what is your overdraft limit - i am assuming you are with A+L? what are your credit card rates? whatever the highest rates are, hit these first.

you can reduce those outgoings by £77 a month. can you stop payments to parents for a little while and use all this to throw at debts. then start to live within budget.

can you get a second job or rent out a room at all?

your car is costing you a fortune each month. what about petrol/diesel. do you have any other travel costs?

a single person can spend £20 or less a week on food, vitamins included.

sorry for all the questions x

jonesMUFCforever

Easy £400 per month going out with the lads.
If you don't I hope one of them has a room for you to stay in when you lose your home.

DreamerV

Your car insurance seems rather high. Your screen name suggest you might be similar age to me, 25? I know my insurance just came right down because of this. My insurance for the whole year is less than double that monthly figure. I went through cashback sites to get that (am with esure, got £45 cashback through topcashback). I phoned sky and said my tv broke (it did, crackles if I put it on, then goes off) so I'm paying for something I can't even watch, and I don't want to cancel but can't afford to pay for something I'm not using for at least a few months until I get a new TV (around xmas/jan sales). They reduced sky to £3 a month for 3 months. (I of course used their landline number to phone them, otherwise you might only save what you spend on phoning them!).

I socialise with friends a lot but don't spend anywhere close to what you do. Is it mainly for drinks/clubs? Is there any way one of those 2 days a week, you don't drink? I don't drink as much as I used to, and instead of spending £40 on a night out, I spend £15. Of course, things are generally cheaper in Scotland, and I don't know where you are. Also if you're paying for rounds, that seems to often cost a lot more.

Mobile phone, I pay £35 a month for 18 months (then £5 for wireless) through a cashback deal I did with buymobilephones.net, which gives me 5 lots of £105 back (£525) and also I got something like £25 for it going through topcashback. I wouldn't recommend these companies anymore as many are going bankrupt, but there are a lot of cashback deals where you don't have to send in bills every so often and jump through hoops. Also they're prob a lot cheaper than £40/month. Any way of phoning your current provider and asking if you're on the plan best suited to you?

I can't think of any other advice at the moment, but I hope some of that helps at least

_Andy_

I think it's fairly obvious where you could cut back - do you really need to spend £400 a month going out on the p*ss?
I admire the fact that you want to address your finances but if you've got £400 a month to p*ss up the wall you are in no way hard done by.

McKneff

double on drink than on food - flipping eck
going out twice a week, thats £50 a night.:eek:

Ask your mates round, go round to their places. Save an absolute fortune to throw at your debts.

_Andy_

Electric and gas seem high at £80 if that's monthly.

chuckley

anniehanlon wrote: »

double on drink than on food - flipping eck
going out twice a week, thats £50 a night.:eek:

Ask your mates round, go round to their places. Save an absolute fortune to throw at your debts.

realistically £50 aint nuffin and dont go far.

it includes taxi to and from town up to £10 each way...
entrance fee - up to £25 depending on where u steppin.
drinks some places its £5 for just a bottle of beer! even water is like £2.50 at least!

i knwo folks u spend like ones on just a regular night out!

Becles

Have a look round the Money Saving Old Style board for ways to slash your grocery bill. I spend around £60-70 a week on food but that's for a family of 5 and we don't eat cheap crap! If I had to cut back I'm sure I could feed them all on your £50 a week.

Could you have some nights in? Tesco currently has 15 cans of Stella for £5 and at least one of the supermarkets usually has a "3 big boxes for £20" type deal on.

Fuchsia_a

chuckley wrote: »

realistically £50 aint nuffin and dont go far.

it includes taxi to and from town up to £10 each way...
entrance fee - up to £25 depending on where u steppin.
drinks some places its £5 for just a bottle of beer! even water is like £2.50 at least!

i knwo folks u spend like ones on just a regular night out!

I find that quite scary. I've never spent more than £8 on an entrance fee to go out clubbing, and that was in London. Mind you, I'm not a trendie; obviously rock and goth clubs must be more sensibly priced than most. I wouldn't go out to any club costing near £25 more than a handful of times a year, and it'd have to be *really* good for me to want to spend so much! I also don't drink lots and lots - I understand it's possible to get through a lot more money if you drink more than I do. The most I've ever spent when out, including drinks, transport and entrance fees was about £20 in London, and elsewhere, about £15. I'd say my average has been more like £10 a night or less.

It's perfectly possible to have a really good night out without spending £50.

Regarding soft drinks, ask for tap water. Consider taking the bus / train on the way there if there is one rather than a taxi.

£200 a month on food is a lot for one person! I spend between about £30 and £60 a month depending on how often I cook as opposed to eating ready-made things, and that includes plenty of healthy stuff

Any

chuckley wrote: »

realistically £50 aint nuffin and dont go far.

it includes taxi to and from town up to £10 each way...
entrance fee - up to £25 depending on where u steppin.
drinks some places its £5 for just a bottle of beer! even water is like £2.50 at least!

i knwo folks u spend like ones on just a regular night out!

And that is twice a week??
Twice a week going for p**ss up with taking taxis etc etc??

There might be lots of folks out there who do spend this amount, but on the end of the day - they can probably afford it!!

You can only spend according to earnings!