New To This And Unsure

southernscouser

broke_mary wrote:

hi here's my full s.o.a
t.v.licence £10.99
poll tax £96.00
B/T line rental £10.50
Coverplan for washer 2 payments left £7.90
house contents insurance £28.35
virgin.net£12.49
car insurance for 2 cars £57.41
gas £27.00 southern electric
life insurance £13.93
Electric £17.00 same as gas
loan £183.44 lombard direct
mortgage £386.74 cheltnam and gloucester
sky £34.00
sky talk(telephone) approx £10.00
o2 £26.00
loan from parent £20.00 3 payments left

children are 18 months and 3 1/2 elderly grandparents so can't manage childcare and OH works alternate weekends

have been and saved £20.00 on a £34.00 food shopping

Hi there BM,

First things first I would say get rid of SKY. Now you may say what everyone else does and that it's your only luxury so maybe you can reduce the package you have?

Also, your paying line rental to BT so what's the Sky Talk? Sorry not fimiliar with that!

How essential is it if you have 2 cars?

Have you shopped around for the cheapest insurance?

broke_mary

hi
yep think i would say its our only luxury have been reading the article about trying to get sky to let us have the package for half price for 3 months will be ringing them

as for sky talk they are cheaper than BT for calls but you still have to pay BT for line rental

i did shop round for cheaper insurance when they were up for renewal i must look again

as for 2 cars i need it to get my daughter to pre school we walk 1 way but she can't do both ways.

magentadreamer

If you're out of the 12 months contract with O2 I'd shop around for a better deal or ring them saying you've found a better deal - I got a five a month knocked off my O2 online package. Have you thought about combining your broadband and phone into one package? Tiscali I know are doing a package -think it was £19 a month for 1meg broadband plus unlimited Uk landline calls -that'd save you the sky talk fees and some on your line rental as well as ditching Virgin - if you're out of the 12 month contract time. There are other providers who do phone plus broadband packages.

Alleycat

Would you be prepared to put both children into nursery for maybe 18.5 hours a week? Your three year old would get their 5 half days a week free and you would then only have to pay for the 18 month old. Depending on what sort of income you could get, it could give you a bit more freedom financially. Also, could you not take your three year old home from nursery in a buggy if she isn't able to manage the walk?

Depending on employers (potentially yours and your husbands) they may do childcare vouchers. They are great as you do not get tax or national insurance deducted on the first £200 or so.

As already mentioned, I would say to cancel SKY. I know you feel it is something you would like to keep, but you need to find food money and the extra £50 to balance the books. £34 would do much better paying for food on the table. Also could you reduce the £26 you spend on the mobile phone? Also, would your parents be able to forget the last few payments to them? I know its not much but it all helps!

poppy52

If you really want to keep Sky you could downgrade to a cheaper package. I ditched movies and sport and now pay £21. We don't have Freeview in our area and I rarely have nights out, don't buy wine, beer etc so decided to keep satellite! Virgin internet don't lock you into a contract for 12 months so you can change to a cheaper one if you want to.

moggins

That's actually not looking too bad believe it or not if you have put everything in that SOA.

Including the CB I make that a total income of 1050. Total outgoings 941.75. Leaving you with 108.25 for food etc. If you do manage to get a discount from Sky that will give you a little more. It may be a good idea if you ring Lombard and see if you can take a payment break or make lower payments for a little while until you get the CTC sorted out. It's always better to approach them first before it gets to the bailiffs knocking on the door.

It may be worth getting in touch with the Inland Revenue again and speaking to someone else about your change in circumstances - I've found so many times that you seem to get different answers from different people. Hang on in there. There are a number of things that seem to be finishing soon and although it may seem like small amounts it soon mounts up.

p.s. the loan from parent - won't they delay payments for a little while if they know how little you have coming in?

Bestthingsinlifearefree

Hi BM,

Well done for tackling the situation head on. Your OH is very lucky to have a switched on partner like you.

Try not to worry as you have options if you are willing to make some sacrifices.

You need to down grade your sky package. Me and the wife decided not to bother with movies and football

(as we did not get much time to see them and also their is football and movies on ITV / BBC etc if we need a fix).

However we kept some channels we liked music channels, home,bravo, channels etc etc But still reduced the package from around £40 to £20.

To be honest we never even miss the channels we cancelled.

2 cars ...you need to ditch one. You mentioned you need to it to take the child to pre-school as he /she can't walk both directions...well put he/she in a pram or carry her on the way back or on the back of a bicycle or arrange a lift with another parent...etc etc I am sure there is a creative solution.

2 cars is a luxury. Nice and convenient but a luxury. Running just one car will save you lots of money.

My wife drives to work every day.......and for me its on the old mountain bike to job and back every day...yep a bit inconvenient when its raining and cold.

Whats more important your families financial security or convenience / luxury etc etc.

Well its something to thing about.

Good Luck !!

Best things in life are free

moggins

I agree with the above, my car is heading too the big garage in the sky this month as I can't afford to keep paying out to get it through the MOT and I've started driving DH's. I do know what you mean about making them walk though. My DD is 4 and still wants to be carried home from school somedays

Have you tried a buggy board? Best inventions in the world as far as I can see. Your little one won't have to walk but you still save money

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lascal-buggy-board-lady-excellent-condition-clips-inc_W0QQitemZ7737591338QQcategoryZ112378QQtcZphotoQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

broke_mary

hi,

thanks again to everyone i was looking at the MSE site till late last night my head was buzzing when i went to bed took me ages to get to sleep.

have been looking at cutting utilities insurance etc have been looking on uswitch etc they seem good but have never heard of any of the companies has anybody used them are they ok?? also can you change suppliers whenever or does it need to be your renewal date??

the buggy boards look good on e-bay. as for the car i might take it off the road for 6 months and see what things are like then i am reluctant to get rid of it have had it 8 years and know its faults. bit like OH really!! only joking

as for loan from parent they have let me off £300.00 don't like asking for more but will do if neccessary.

i know we aren't locked into virgin but when we took the offer up of broadband same price of 24/7 we were told if we cancelled within 12 months we would have to pay for the modem and admin charges.

definately going ring sky

moggins

You can change suppliers at any time as long as you don't owe them any money.