I want to be happier about money

cally6008

I'm not in debt as such, well not like the amounts that some people have mentioned anyway. I worry far too much, I know I do but I want to be in a better position than what I am in now.

I work 15 hours a week as a Sales Assistant and earn £5-75 an hour. I do extra hours when I can. I was off work from May till September hence money is a bit tight and we're trying to get sorted.

I don't drink or smoke and haven't been out for quite some time now. I try to be very careful with money.

OH pays half the bills and his finances are fine. If I need extra in bank to stop us paying Reserve fees then he does give it to me.

SOA

Electric Meter (EOn) - £20 per month (have put £25 on this month and will do same for Dec/Jan till it starts getting lighter on a night)

Council Tax - £98 per month (Band A so can't get cheaper. Only got Dec and Jan to pay then get 2 months free. Next bill, I'm going to ask them to spread payments over the 12 months instead of 10)

Vets - £17-60 per month (This is for 2 cats and pays for their 6 monthly check-ups, flea and worm treatments plus annual vac's)

BT (phone and B.B.) - £36 per month (For some reason the online section says we're paying £39-50 per month I should check it out but OH says not to worry as its only pennies. Just signed up for 18month B.B. contract and accepted their offer of 6 months free. Debating changing from direct debit to paying by quarterly bill and dropping the payment down a bit)

TV License - £11-95 per month (Necessity really)

Water Rates - £13-15 per month (Necessity really)

Mobile Phones - £50 per month (Both contracts up on 24 Dec, OH ordered new Blackberry and going to pay his from his own bank, I'm debating Nokia 6600 plus new contract on T-mobile for £25 per month or Sim deal with vodafone for £15 per month)

Rent - £375 per month (Necessity really)

OH computer - £13-27 per month (Going to get him to have this took from his account)

Capital One credit card - £25 per month approx (Only got £500 limit on it, currently at £450 to pay but trying to use it sparingly)

Gas Bill (British Gas) - Quarterly (I did cap the price on it about 3 months ago)

Washing Machine cover - £3 per month (Worth doing to be honest)

Shopping is done at Tesco's as and when required - rough estimate £100 per month for 2 adults and 2 cats.

Barclays Bank Account - Overdraft limit is £500 with a Personal Reserve of £500 as well. Trying not to touch the account to be honest and trying to scramble out of using Reserve and not using overdraft as much.

tyllwyd

Hi Cally
What kind of advice are you looking for? You've said that you aren't in excessive debt, and the figures you've posted on your SOA don't look excessive. What you haven't said is how your expenses match up to your income, and your SOA hasn't included anything like entertainment, clothes, travel costs.

You might find it helpful to do a fuller SOA, like the one on makesenseofcards, and that will give you an idea of how much money you have 'spare' each month to save or to treat yourself.

My gut feeling, though, is that you are working part-time on minimum wage. That obviously means that your income must be quite small, and if you possibly can, I think your best way to feel more comfortable about your financial situation would be to try to increase your income.

Numpty_Monkey

Heres a link to the SOA calc that tyllwyd was suggesting
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

A quick one
As your mobile contract is coming up for renewal, you have a strong hand there,
Companies like new customers, don't like to lose customers , they trust that the inertia of existing costomers will continue
check out other suppliers, check out what you use free texts,free minutes if you use them see what you can get

HTH

Ames

Does your OH work full time? It seems a little unfair that he earns more than you yet bills are split in half. If he can afford blackberry's then surely he can afford more of the bills?

Do you really need a mobile? Could you go PAYG?

cally6008

Entertainment - What would come under this ? I rarely spend anything and treat myself. Buying a mag at 78p is what I call treating myself. Getting chips on a sunday on my lunch break to save me going home is my idea of eating out.

Clothes - Zilch. The last set of clothes that I bought for myself was getting a couple of new "interview" blouses and black trousers back in May. OH got me some casual t-shirts back in July. I did get new shoes (9-99 wow!!) a couple of months back but I needed them as I have joint problems as need support from the feet upwards.

Travel costs - Nigh on zilch as well. I'm lucky enough to live in a part of town that is 10mins from city centre and from work and all the main shops. I'm stupid as I will often walk home with shopping instead of paying 70p bus fare or getting taxi for £3.

Work - Yes, I think thats where I need to increase hours and wages. There is a girl who maybe leaving in Jan and I've already been told that I'm the one to get the next increase in hours so thats good. I don't really want to rock the boat at work as I've only been there since Sept but its an ok place to work and I'm wanting to get as much till and shop experience and build up a good ___ (whats the word?) for if and when I do have to leave plus they're pretty ok about my joint problems.

Mobile phone - Unfortunately we're on O2 at the moment and they're not giving anything despite me being with them for over 7 years. I would opt to go PAYG but with having the joint problems I need to be able to have access to credit at all times for if and when an emergency happens. OH is much happier knowing I have this access to credit at all times as well.

OH and work - He works as a Sales Assistant as well but has managed to creep up the pay ladder and is on just over £8 per hour for a 40 hour week. He's supported me, financially and emotionally, through 2 sets of me been unemployed in the past 20 months. The past couple of months he's been putting in 500-600 in order to keep the "bills account" (aka my bank account) out of the Barclays Reserve. If we go shopping together then he will pay on his card for that and he buys takeaways and was taking me out to dinner on a sunday (had to stop cos his hours at work have changed).

Thanks for the replies. I guess I'm trying to write it all down in order to say to myself that I'm not as worse off as I think and I should quit worrying about every last penny. I know the money situation "will" improve slowly. I'm an impatient so and so, lol

savingholmes

I do think if you posted a full soa like on makesenseofcards it would be a bit easier to see what is going on. In your shoes, I would cancel the BT bb and move to talk talk which is what we've done. Our new bill combined is around £17 per month... Your partner may think it is only pennies but as you will soon learn on here pennies count £22x12 = £264 (per year) which is around half your current capital 1 bill. If you do change providers for anything use quidco.co.uk or similar to get cashback.

On the barclays overdraft try and renegotiate your overdraft limit so that the reserve is included in the limit and dump the reserve. It is a cheeky way of trying to make money from you. The reserve amount suggests that they are willing to lend you more in practice. Barclays offered me a £100 per reserve but when I looked at my pre-approved offers they were willing to increase my overdraft facility by £400+ which makes far more sense than using their very expensive reserve facility.

HTH

Ames

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

There's the link to the Statement of Affairs calculator.

cally6008

BT BB - We're happy to stay with BT as its one payment which covers the phone and the broadband. Plus OH's mum works for them so if we have any problems or questions we can just give her a call.

Barclays Overdraft - I've tried asking them to increase the overdraft on several occassins but they wont.

Good news

I had a note on the bottom of my payslip to phone the Tax office up but have been wary of doing it. I'm glad I did as the lady I spoke to said that I shouldn't be paying any Tax on my wages (£5-73per hour, 15 hours contract a week, overtime if I'm needed to) and that she's going to get that sorted out for me and if any Tax is due back (hopefully the £59-20 which I paid last month) then I should get it back.

Fingers crossed its sorted for friday as thats pay day.

cally6008

Update

I still haven't had any emergency tax back and work's payroll system has a "glitch" in it that seems to be only affecting my pay. I get my normal hours paid at the £5-75 nmw rate yet my additional hours get paid at the £5-52 nmw rate. Everything is on the system fine at my work though.

I'm just on working out bills for next year. Have kinda saved £60 so far as have cancelled the TV license direct debit and will pay it in full in June when the new one is due. I did want to do the same for the water rates but the new bill is due in April so I figure, slowly slowly with the bills.

Only one more council tax payment to make and then its two free months, yippee !! The cash will still be going in the bank so fingers crossed that we won't need to hit the Reserve fee for 2 months and can maybe lower the overdraft as well.

kittiej

Why don't you sit down with your OH and have a good look at everything, not just the finance side of things but the way it's affecting yu emotionally?

I can't help thinking that you should each pay proportionally? 25% sounds fairer to me therefore leaving you with some spare cash and not having to rely on OH so much?

You might feel better yourself then.

Hope you can sort something a bit fairer.

cally6008

January Update

9 days to go until the rent goes out and I've worked out that the bank account is £58 short and there's 10 days after that till I get paid so it looks like I might end up paying 2 lots of Reserve Fees.

At least I know well in advance-ish, so can start getting organised and get some cash from somewhere. Im owed £50 for a website so thats a start, fingers crossed that'll come in time and I've got just under £20 in my sealed pot and £30 in my purse so its not looking too bad.

The thing thats killed us recently is getting them blooming new contracts before the other ones ran out and paying for 2 seperate lots of contracts for 2 months. Never again. I've cancelled the O2 direct debit now so will ring them and check that they are cancelling the contracts as agreed last month and ask that they send us a payment slip to pay at post office.

OH has staff meeting tonight. We found out last night that the company has suspended all quarter 4 bonus', which doesn't sound good. He's looking for work elsewhere but I hope he doesn't lose this job in the meantime.