Absolutely desperate here

Horace

Has your hubby thought of using a factoring service to get money out of clients? Banks often run this service - that way you get paid on the value of the invoice and the bank chases the customer so that they then pay them instead of you. It might be worth a look.

An easy way to save money on groceries is to look in your cupboards and freezer to see what you have and what you need - write a list of what you need and take it with you. Buy meat from the butcher too as this is often cheaper (strange as though it may sound) than buying it at the supermarket. Try shopping in a different supermarket to Waitrose or M&S (I am guessing this is where you shop as your grocery bill is extortionate).

See if you can do without one car - you say that you can't but I bet you can if you try so rather than chauffeuring the kids around get them to walk instead.

beverleyhills

sarahg1969 wrote: »

Urgh. I made some mistakes in my panic to get it all down. Will clarify:

Phone - this is high and can't be cut down. Phone is used for business and comes out of joint a/

Are you sure that you have the best deal for the phone?

sillylittlejill

beverleyhills wrote: »

Are you sure that you have the best deal for the phone?

I agree, surely if you have sky you could change to the all-in-one thing for sky tv, phone and broadband. Even if you have to pay for lots of calls on top of that, you will surely be saving something. Would it not be easier to use a mobile on contract with hundreds of free minutes for OH's work? I'd do that. You can get pretty good deals online, in certain high street stores. They want businesses to sign up so may be worth going in and talking to them.


hope it helps xx

sarahg1969

Thank you all for your help. I have to admit that we've just been bumbling along, not really paying attention, and it's got worse and worse and worse. The bank called DH in a few months ago, and we thought, "this is it; we really need to sort ourselves out now". He went along, prepared to get a rollocking and to sit down with them and work out what we needed to do. In reality, they wanted to sell him an ISA, and upped the overdraft.

We had a chat until the wee small hours (very tired this morning!), and I'm at work today, sitting here trying to find cheaper gas/leccy/phone providers, etc.

We have eldest son's car sitting on the drive, untaxed and uninsured, but it would be a cheaper runaround for me than the huge Volvo estate I'm currently driving. I just feel like we wouldn't save that much y getting rid of my car, though – it's not really worth anything, and we still owe money on it. Realistically, we can't manage with one car. We did try for a couple of weeks last month. Tried really hard, but we need to take the children to school in different directions, and even though hubby works from home, he does need a car occasionally. We can't put the girls on the bus – even that would be almost £30 a week.

No holidays next year (unless we manage to find something cheap with Tesco vouchers).

Will really cut down on shopping. And everyone who comes for Christmas dinner (19 people) will have to make a contribution this year. I think a lot of them see us as very well-off (we do live in a nice house and do lovely things) and they love a free lunch. And packed lunches all round for school and work.

I'm speaking about coming back to work full-time as of next week (shouldn't be a problem, and I've been indulging myself, really).

I think the problem is that we've always thought that cutting back a few pounds here and there would make no difference, but of course it does all add up.

Hopefully hubby can stop his online advertising over Christmas too, which will save us a bit – he's offering clients a discount through December, and that should pull some work in.

Once we've got that sorted in our heads (and it's my priority job tomorrow), then we need to think about were we can find £9k for his tax bill in Jan.

Thank you all so very, very much. We have got ourselves into a real state, and both feel that we can't burden anyone else with our troubles – it's all very embarrassing indeed.

Your advice has made us sit down and realise that we now need to act more responsibly and get ourselves sorted out. If we can get on top of things – and we know it will take a long time – then things should be a lot brighter.

RAS

Hi

The APRs you are paying are not that bad, but your credit card has a high APR. That is what you need to hit and keep hitting with everything you can afford. Pay the minimumon everything else.

Play with the snowball on www.whatsthecost.com.

Given your situation, you almost certainly have stuff around the house that you can sell. Amazon for the CD, DVDs and books you will not look at or listen to again; e-bay, car boot or local ads for the rest. If you can pull together £1000, you will start to turn it round.

In the very short-term, I would suggest you do a store cupboard challenge on Money Saving Old Style board. You list the contents of the freezer and store cupboard and ask them to help you make up a menu plan for the month. The maddest one I saw cost £28 but did include what the OP called gruel masquerading as chicken something or other.

You may well be able to eat for several weeks with just buying vegtables, milk and bread. If you have a street market get your veggies there.

hypno06

You haven't mentioned what the childrens hobbies are, other than that they are expensive.

Have you looked at how you can reduce your expenditure here.....for example, my children ski - a very expensive hobby especially as they train abroad in the winter, and race all year round. To "pay" for their "home based" ski training, OH and I both volunteer at the ski club - I work behind the coffee shop bar, and OH fits boots and skis. For every hour we work, the children get a free hour training.......they couldn't do it otherwise because we simply could not afford it. We have been doing this for about 6 years now!

Similarly, they do karate 3 or 4 times a week.......By doing the admin for a couple of the karate sessions, I got half price training for them. If I help out at a grading session, they grade for free.....

It is not as though I have masses of time on my hands to do this - I work full time and still have self employed stuff going on in the evenings and weekends as well......it is a case of looking at all possibilities and working out a way round it.

Perhaps you can do something similar to offset the cost of the activities?

LilacPixie

if your switching. go thru quidco for additional cashback

Caroline73_2

You need to separate business expenses such as advertising as a business expenses not in your house hold budget. You need two separate accounting systems.

Also your child at uni needs to start funding themselves in some way. Even if it is just paying for their own food, its a start. I've also stopped my pension as I can't afford it at the moment - no point in being in debt now and saving for the future.

Peter_Simon

Why are your business expenses coming out of your personal money? I think the main problem you have is that your business and personal accounting are a little confused. If your husband uses your personal services for work (thereby using phone, electricity, gas, car, travel, car maintenance etc) he should be able to offset a portion of of this to the business and claim back the VAT where applicable.

At the moment it may not be clear whether the problem is that his business is failing or whether your personal money management is poor. In reality your husband is not taking home £3500 if you are paying business bills with it and your overdraft is increasing. You are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Have you spoken to your financial advisor about this?

edinburgher

Re. the expensive hobbies, these can probably be trimmed. I grew up with parents who certainly couldn't afford to pay for these sorts of things and I didn't love them any less for it.

I'm sure your kids will adapt just as well - after all, they'd rather have happy and loving parents than a weekend activity (although being kids, they may not admit it!)