Newbies - spending more than we earn

Rache_2

Thefunkygibbons wrote:

Two further areas

Look at stuff to be sold

The premium baby stuff including clothes could be sold on ebay, every penny counts

Both of you need a spending diary in which every penny is logged, harsh I know, but it will help both of you keep each other honest

Also, work out a debt free debt and then work towards making it sooner

I made £100 last month selling on Ebay.

We have not completed our family and I think it makes more fiscal sense to keep clothes we have already, to be used for numbers two and three (not that we'll be able to afford another baby for a long while yet). The good thing about "premium" clothes is for the most part, they last far longer - my son's cheap clothes (bought from Tesco etc) all had to be chucked as they were neither reusable for future babies nor sellable. But I do regularly go through his old clothes to sort and sell those which even if we had another, we wouldn't want to keep.

Spending diary - great idea. My husband will hate it but I can do it. I'll make him...

Re: a debt free date - it's going to take us a week or two to clarify where we can cut back and how much that will save us per month. But you're right - visualising a time in the future that we will be debt free could be a very powerful motivation.

PS Your mortgage-free post was inspiring! I had a friend at uni who was "tight" (I thought) with money and I used to think her incredibly anal. She has never been in debt apart from her mortgage. I wish I had started out like her now...

Rache_2

highguyuk wrote:

Again I echo previous posts: Good luck.

Selling things on ebay is definetly a good way of making money, although selling clothes just to "downgrade" them probably isnt financial wise, they will have to be replaced anyway. Just concentrate on buying new things cheaper :-) Could always buy them cheap off ebay.

Also, £15 a month for DVD hire? Check out http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1134152286,68176, for Martins way to do it for free.

I am very bad at remembering/being organised enough to cancel dd's etc so I'm not a very good tart <snort>. We have (last night) cancelled LoveFilm and switched to the lowest Amazon rental (£5.99 a month I think). We weren't using the LoveFilm package enough anyway.

I know films are a luxury, but <frantically justifying> we haven't been to the cinema in two years, we don't have sky, we don't ever buy DVDs, and as an ex-film addict in my youth, I would find it very hard, and depressing to do without completely.

re: EBay - see my post above - we plan to sell what we can on Ebay but not those things which we'll use again or have to be replaced (esp children's clothes). I don't have a designer wardrobe - most of my clothes are middle market high street (M&S or GAP) with the very occasional Hobbs purchase. So not extravagant. Again, having bought them I will certainly get maximal wear out of them; and future purchases will be (a) cheaper and (b) made only seldom. My husband doesn't buy clothes (he's probably spent less than £100 in the last 2 years) and sadly his three work suits are falling apart, but we'll cope.

Rache_2

JAMIEDODGER wrote:

hi rache,just had a look at your grocery spend...£300 per month is quite high for 2 adults and a baby, why not check out the old style board, which can help with cutting this down, everything you can chuck at your debt is a good thing x

I know it's high and I'll tell you why:

1) We only eat organic meat (solution: instead of buying cheap and unethically farmed meat, we're going to eat much less meat - maybe once a week)
2) We love wine and get boxes delivered. (solution: drink less wine - and buy bin-ends instead of the posh stuff)
3) Both of us are big foodies - because we don't go out much we tend to "treat ourselves" a lot with posh food. We don't do fast food - we've always cooked ourselves - but we've tended to cook expensive things IYSWIM. Ice cream is "luxury" £4 a pot, beer is microbrewery bottled stuff, chocolate is Green & Blacks etc etc.

We're really up for the old style board. My husband, who is the chef of the family, has found a cookery book on the shelf which tells you how you can get five meals out of one joint of meat. (The New Englsih Kitchen, by Rose Prince) We make our own pizzas already, but we might start cooking more bread, making our own yoghurt etc.

The plan is to join Costco or similar, do a monthly "essentials" shop there, continue to get our vegetables at the farm shop and the meat from the butchers, but to eat less meat, and to eat more (cheaper) seasonal veggies. And batch cook to fill up the freezer. The old meanies Tesco hardly sell loose veggies any more - have you noticed - so you're forced to buy three leeks at a time, in cellophane - whereas our farm shop is (a) cheaper (b) sells fruit and veg loose, and (c) is not a nasty conglomerate sucking the lifeblood from this country);).

jcr16

i wouldn't worry too much about how much your hubby earns now , but i would sit down with my banks mortgage adviser and just see if there anything that can be offered to you if u are in good standing with your bank they sometimes can bend over backwards to help out. there are so many different types of mortgage and mortgage deals always rising it might just worth trying. after all your only losing about 30 mins of your time. and the results might be worth it.

also try looking on ebay for clothes for your son. u can buy decent named clothes at a fraction of the price. or if your offered hand me downs then except them. my kids only get brand new clothes at xmas and birthdays when they are bought as pressies, other than that i get them from ebay or i am given them. unless it a special occasion then i buy something. it not cause i can't afford to buy them clothes, it more because i can't justify £10 on a top which will get out grown in a few weeks. i have a very tight budget and i must stick to it.and my kids don't know the difference. but they would enjoy a tenner spent on going to the zoo for the day rather than a top.

HTH

cazywazy

Your story reminds me that I'm not the only one with problems, in fact the whole site does and it's so good to have a supportive group to discuss things with.
Congrats and good luck
x
CW

sans_2

Sounds like you are getting there Rache, well done! Whe you do need to get clothes why not have a root through the sales, M&S always have some fantastic 'classic' items that would never go out of fashion. When I was in my teens I would never buy my clothes from M&S as it wasn't trendy enough for me, but after reading that Victoria Beckham brough from the Per Una range suddenly I felt compelled to go in and look. Now I can't get enough of their stuff (only if it's reduced though LOL). Has your husband ever tried looking in TK Maxx for suits? They have some nicely cut mens suits in there. Or again when there are sales in the likes of Frasers, M&S etc..

Rache_2

jcr16 wrote:

i wouldn't worry too much about how much your hubby earns now , but i would sit down with my banks mortgage adviser and just see if there anything that can be offered to you if u are in good standing with your bank they sometimes can bend over backwards to help out. there are so many different types of mortgage and mortgage deals always rising it might just worth trying. after all your only losing about 30 mins of your time. and the results might be worth it.

Thanks for that. We'll definitely look into it. The mortgage has been my husband's responsibility and I know there are early redemption penalties etc (we've only had it two years) but we'll certainly look again. I would love to be on a fixed rate.

jcr16 wrote:

also try looking on ebay for clothes for your son. u can buy decent named clothes at a fraction of the price. or if your offered hand me downs then except them. my kids only get brand new clothes at xmas and birthdays when they are bought as pressies, other than that i get them from ebay or i am given them. unless it a special occasion then i buy something. it not cause i can't afford to buy them clothes, it more because i can't justify £10 on a top which will get out grown in a few weeks. i have a very tight budget and i must stick to it.and my kids don't know the difference. but they would enjoy a tenner spent on going to the zoo for the day rather than a top.

We should be ok for the next year and a half as my son now has an entire wardrobe of clothes in the next size up, bought in the sales (before we realised I couldn't afford it). I have bought from Ebay in the past occasionally - I am not a snob about 2nd hand clothes, and do have quite a lot of charity shop/Ebay things myself. I could probably be far more efficient though.

skintchick

Have you considered selling your large and expensive house and moving to somewhere cheaper and closer to the station/your husband's work?

Can you take your hubby to the station and get rid of his car altogether?

Just a couple of thoughts, although I appreciate rather drastic!!!

dinkylou

I dont know if anyone else has mentionned this but I saw in your SOA that you spend £109 per month on books!

This seems an extremely high amount. Could you not join a library or swap with friends and family?

Also, could you cut out the holiday or go somewhere cheaper this year to save money?

Oh and it looks like you are doing really well with changing your attitude towards your money which is half the battle. Keep it up!

Rache_2

sans wrote:

Sounds like you are getting there Rache, well done! Whe you do need to get clothes why not have a root through the sales, M&S always have some fantastic 'classic' items that would never go out of fashion. When I was in my teens I would never buy my clothes from M&S as it wasn't trendy enough for me, but after reading that Victoria Beckham brough from the Per Una range suddenly I felt compelled to go in and look. Now I can't get enough of their stuff (only if it's reduced though LOL). Has your husband ever tried looking in TK Maxx for suits? They have some nicely cut mens suits in there. Or again when there are sales in the likes of Frasers, M&S etc..

Too tempting at the moment.... but I do try not to be too OTT about clothes. I should be ok until the summer as should my husband. Let's pray for a cold wet summer and we won't need to buy any summer clothes