Newbies - spending more than we earn

wendyl1967

Mobile phone £60.00 a month sounds a lot. Could you not find a cheaper contract or use payg and try to use it less.

Rache_2

wendyl1967 wrote:

Mobile phone £60.00 a month sounds a lot. Could you not find a cheaper contract or use payg and try to use it less.

That's 2 lots of £30 (ish)

I think I can find a cheaper contract - my husband uses his more for work - it might not be so easy for him.

Former_MSE_Forum_Manager

Rache wrote:

Is anyone else addicted to this? Both my husband and I are finding the though of being debt-free some day so inspiring, and thinking of ways to spend less is actually quite fun. (But ask me again in a couple of months.....;))

Music to our ears!

I'd just like to interject briefly at this point and say well done to Rache for facing these money issues head on, and to everyone who is contributing to this thread. It's exactly what MSE was set up for.

Petal_3

Hi Rache

I'm glad to see you're getting so much help and support. It's nice here isn't it? I'm in a similar situation to you - I had my lightbulb moment months ago when I first joined this site (and wish I had found it long before). I have now transferred all my c/card debt to a LOB of 3.9% (sadly, no longer available to new customers) and it feels good to have control.

I don't know if it's been mentioned but there is a snowball calculator somewhere (I've tried to find it but can't - and li'l one needs a bath so got to go)....sooo... if some kind soul could post the link for you you can start to think about a debt free date once you've sorted your savings/cut backs.

Good Luck and I'll be watching this thread with interest.

Little_Miss_Winner

Hi Rache,

The snowball calculator Petal mentions is at;-

https://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

Have a play about with it - it's brill you can mess about with different payments and it shows how long it will take to pay each debt. And how much you will SAVE in interest.

Hope this helps

Pot
x

highguyuk

Mobile Phones:

All depends on your contracts/get out clauses etc and usage but o2 online pay as you go at £10 a month for 300 messages/100 minutes isnt bad...

tomstickland

Just a few random thoughts

Wine - Majestic Wine Warehouse do some fantastic deals. I buy beer there and it's much much cheaper than supermarkets, and good stuff.

Books - as well as library, look at buying books on Ebay, reading them and selling them on. I do that with CDs and if I really like the CD I keep it, if I don't I sell it on.

Husband's car - he probably enjoys his hot hatch. However, there are still some very good fun cars to drive out there for a fraction of the cost/depreciation of a new one. So if the money saving mentality takes over, he could sell the new car, buy one that's 5-6 years old, save a load of cash and still have fun and enjoy the freedom of not having such a financial burden. Alternatively, sell one of the cars and buy a £400 job with 12 months MOT from the local paper specifically to drive to the station and not care about. What about a motorbike / scooter for the station commute?

Rache_2

highguyuk wrote:

Mobile Phones:

All depends on your contracts/get out clauses etc and usage but o2 online pay as you go at £10 a month for 300 messages/100 minutes isnt bad...

Thanks for that. Annoyingly I renewed my contract for a year in December, but I think I should be able to switch tariff at least - T Mobile is who I'm with.

I don't use it very often; could probably get away with a PAYG. Does anyone know whether you can keep your number? I've been with T-mobile for 9 years - and I'd love to keep it if possible.

Will find out about my H's phone too.

Another update: my husband is being very reluctant indeed about his car. I think I need to demonstrate that it's not that awful - will look online in Autotrader for replacements and also see what both cars are worth.

highguyuk

It is possible to keep your number - there are people on the mobile phone section of the forum that will be able to help you with that.

I think alot of people have contract phones when they dont need them. All the freebies etc. Not saying this applies to you, but with my PAYG rate on o2 at the moment I wouldnt consider going on contract at all.

Rache_2

tomstickland wrote:

Just a few random thoughts

Wine - Majestic Wine Warehouse do some fantastic deals. I buy beer there and it's much much cheaper than supermarkets, and good stuff.

Books - as well as library, look at buying books on Ebay, reading them and selling them on. I do that with CDs and if I really like the CD I keep it, if I don't I sell it on.

Husband's car - he probably enjoys his hot hatch. However, there are still some very good fun cars to drive out there for a fraction of the cost/depreciation of a new one. So if the money saving mentality takes over, he could sell the new car, buy one that's 5-6 years old, save a load of cash and still have fun and enjoy the freedom of not having such a financial burden. Alternatively, sell one of the cars and buy a £400 job with 12 months MOT from the local paper specifically to drive to the station and not care about. What about a motorbike / scooter for the station commute?

Thanks for the car thoughts - have passed them on to the gentleman concerned. I may have to lead by example on this one.

Have taken note of your Majestic and books/CDs advice. For the present - having spend £109 a month on books - we have called a halt to all books purchases while we get through the backlog. Once we've really run out of things to read, then we'll start on the Ebay/2nd hand Amazon way of life.

Can I quickly thank you all on this thread for your incredibly helpful advice. It was quite scary coming on here at first, especially posting about such sensitive issues - and it would have been all too easy for people to have jumped down our throats for our extravagance (on such relatively high incomes). But you didn't and I'm very grateful. Hopefully, once we've got started on switching/ making better money choices, I'll be able to contribute more to other people's threads rather than just taking all your good advice and not returning the favour. Bear with me.

PS :(I spent £8 last night on taxis to A&E and back after falling down the stairs and injuring my foot. Not the best start to the month!:( I didn't break it though.:)