How to plan, just incase

maninthestreet

£11.92 per month for water rates - that's cheap - where do you live?

maryjane01

cooking from scratch and bulk cooking and putting stuff in the freezer saves a lot of money. making stuff from mince eg, spaghetti bolognaise and bulking it out with carrots and other veg or bulk things out with lentils. Cheaper cuts of meat cook well in a slow cooker. Eg. my husband hates meat on bones so taking chicken as an example he really only likes chicken breast, but he will eat chicken legs and things when they have been slow cooked because the meat falls off the bone.

You could look on freecycle, gumtree or ebay for a cheap slow cooker and bread maker now while you have a little spare cash as they should save you money on food in the long run. (get a bread maker with a delay timer so you can put it on on Friday night and wake up to a nice baked bread smell on a Saturday morning! Money can't buy nice things like that) Look on the Old style thread for tips on cutting the grocery/cleaning products bill.

leiela

maryjane01 wrote: »

cooking from scratch and bulk cooking and putting stuff in the freezer saves a lot of money. making stuff from mince eg, spaghetti bolognaise and bulking it out with carrots and other veg or bulk things out with lentils. Cheaper cuts of meat cook well in a slow cooker. Eg. my husband hates meat on bones so taking chicken as an example he really only likes chicken breast, but he will eat chicken legs and things when they have been slow cooked because the meat falls off the bone.

You could look on freecycle, gumtree or ebay for a cheap slow cooker and bread maker now while you have a little spare cash as they should save you money on food in the long run. (get a bread maker with a delay timer so you can put it on on Friday night and wake up to a nice baked bread smell on a Saturday morning! Money can't buy nice things like that) Look on the Old style thread for tips on cutting the grocery/cleaning products bill.

I have a slow cooker already and we don't eat bread

I do some bulk cooking but i just don't have the room for much in my freezer i used to have 2 freezers but space became a serious issue in my shoebox sized house, and it had to go to allow my youngest to actually have a bed of his own... eeek. :eek:

I've already got loads of tips from the old style boards... unfortunatly food isn't our biggest expence... and cutting it down only helps soo much.

Numpty_Monkey

leiela wrote: »

This is how we'd look worst case

atm we use alot more on petrol, childcare etc but if i wasn't working we wouldn't need those as much so i've taken them off. It's also worth noting that the "internet and sky Tv" is a package that we are currently tied too so it can't go right now... as you can see it's quite dire without my wages.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 730
Benefits................................ 220 check entitledto. com
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 950
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 231 any mortgagae protection?
Secured loan repayments................. 292
Hire Purchase (HP) repayments........... 153
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 79
Electricity............................. 73 Check this is the best deal. use comparrison sites and cashback sites. Turn things off at the wall, change to low energy bulbs where posible
Gas..................................... 50 as Electric.
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 11.92
Telephone (land line)................... 20 Look at bundle packages, phone/internet/sky about £30 a month
Mobile phone............................ 50 is it the best tarrif/contract. go PAYG
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 30cancel, or above
Internet Services....................... 23 landline
Groceries etc. ......................... 250 check OS board they will get this down to under £200
Clothing................................ 0 need to budget for this
Petrol/diesel........................... 80 can you make less trips, save fuel
Road tax................................ 15
Car Insurance........................... 60 As with all Insurance use comparrison sites go via cashback sites
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50 very high
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 70 can you get benefits or vouchers?
Other child related expenses............ 0 ?
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 28 as car
Contents insurance...................... 13 as car
Life assurance ......................... 0 ?
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 budget for this , use dailly clicks and surveys to boost this
Haircuts................................ 0 budget for this
Entertainment........................... 0 budget for this
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1590.92

Assets
Cash.................................... 200
House value (Gross)..................... 90000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 4000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 94200

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 35000....(231)......3.3
Secured Debt.................. 15000....(292)......3.3
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 7000.....(153)......9.9
Total secured & HP debts...... 57000.....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
MBNA...........................3000......27........3
Barcleys.......................5000......100.......0
Total unsecured debts..........8000......127.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 950
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,590.92
Available for debt repayments........... -640.92
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 127
Amount short for making debt repayments. -767.92
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 94,200
Total HP & Secured debt................. -57,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -8,000
Net Assets.............................. 36,200
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.

I've gone through that a bit like it was a real SOA on the DFW board, and found a few bits to cut back on, and a few to add, others on there would add there viewsso don't take it as real

If the worst doesn't happen use the few tips anyway
you need to get the APR's of you debts and use the snowball calc
http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx?country=uk

leiela

Hmmm ... we'd get £173 a week if i was made redunant, and £34 a week if my husband was, that would help.. not save us haha... but i thnk we might manage.

thanks for the link

Numpty_Monkey

If you made some of them changes now you could save some money for an emergency fund or pay the debts of quicker;)

piggeh

I'd imagine you could rein in spending on food shopping and some of the other stuff (mobile, internet, sky etc), car maintenance depends on your car (if it's fairly high value then worth keeping up service history - otherwise oil change and other bits are easy to do youself). If car is a fair value and not tied into any finance you could downgrade. You could approach credit companies for unsecured debts and ask for reduced payments or a freeze on interest as people do on DFW board, it would affect your credit status but if needs be then those are the debts that can afford to be renegotiated/payments reduced.

You could also make money ebaying, doing some of the stuff on up your income board etc.

bunny999

Do you need 2 cars ? Can you cut down on and / or get a better deal on utilities ?

savvysammy

Im currently at risk of redundancy, however prior to this, we looked at our mortage situation as one of the ways to cut back. We were on a repayment mortgage as i would like to think we can be mortgage free by the time we're 50 (as do most!!). Anyway, we have changed to an interest only option a few months ago- we still both have our jobs, however we now also have the amount which we would have repayed (extra to the interest) in a savings account....basically we have planned ahead and although we are now on interest only, we are putting away the extra which we normally pay so if we do get made redundant, we have something to cover the interest only payments until things get better, if not and things are still looking stable in the jobs, we can repay up to 10% of the mortgage in january so effectively (apart from a little bit more interest paid on the still full mortgage amount) we wont have lost anything but yet have managed to prepare for the worst...
Good luck to all in this nasty time...

Wookey

Allways allways keep an eye on job adverts, its far better to be in a position where you can move as a choice to a new job rather than take anything out of need. Should the worst happen be ready with a DMP for your debts, if as someone mentioned you have mortgage protection insurance make sure they will pay if only one of you is made unemployed.