So so !!!!ed off (with SOA)

jayss

When I travelled for work I had 1 credit card which I kept just for this as I had to pay for hotels and food etc upfront. Annoying when expenses were slow but only way to easily keep track.
Watch out that even if your company pays for your hotel the hotel may still need another card at check in and put a lean on it based on number of days stay (this is really really fghjkdfgk annoying).

Taxis etc are hard and annoying, what is your company policy on buying currency? Do they expect you to take it out on debit card? Do they provide any upfront (I know some do, mine never did)?
Do the hotel you are staying in provide an airport shuttle? Or can they provide an airport pickup that gets put on your bill?

tiff

Can you reduce your petrol costs as that seems a bit high too?

I too cant believe youve had the heating on. You need to get a grip on your situation, also its not "I must remember to claim", you just have to claim to improve your situation (sorry to be harsh).

Can you make do with 1 car?

chevalier

my comments are in blue.

slimey wrote: »

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.................... 2do you really need two cars?

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 4800
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0this ties into something below, but can your partner get any sort of work. Eg when you are home can she work? Even if a 'proper' job isn't possible, she could sign up to survey sites, do mystery shops, write reviews on dooyoo, do free scratchcards and daily clicks, do the research to make sure that every pound you spend works the hardest for you. She can also use cashback sites for everything you buy online.
Benefits................................ 0shouldn't you have about £119 child benefit here?
Other income............................ 0if it hasn't been used for 6 months NO MATTER WHAT IT IS, it needs to get sold. So clothes that have been grown out of, dvd's, cd, books, electronics everything. Ebay is your friend, as is amazon for books, play.com to sell dvd's etc. Ebay is also your friend if you need clothes for the children etc.
Total monthly income.................... 4800

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 553 is this repayment or interest only? can you swap to interest only? Or take a payment holiday
Council tax............................. 195ask for this over 12 months not 10
Electricity............................. 120 worth double checking the meters for these. And then checking every month to show how much you are saving to the rest of the family. If it gets a bit nippy that is what those jumpers, socks, slippers etc are for:D!
Gas..................................... 100 (Due to go up to 177 next month)even allowing for the big house this is still TERRIBLE. Agree with other posters about making it a challenge for the children. But now that it is May, your heating doesn't need to be on at all surely. If you must have it on then dial it right down to say 19 degrees C or lower. Well done for putting it on timer again too. Ref the hot water, if you need to always put cold into to cool it down to use, then your thermostat is set too hot, so turn the water temp down.

Next you need to educate ALL the family about switching things off at the wall. A tv on standby or a computer monitor in saver mode, use almost as much electricity as if it was on propertly for example. If a room is not in use,then it only needs to be minimally heated.
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 67 check if you are on a meter.
Telephone (land line)................... 25
Mobile phone............................ 28
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 22
Internet Services....................... 20
Groceries etc. ......................... 450Here is an area where your OH (assuming she does the shopping, and sorry if that is stereotypical) can really help. First do an inventory of what you have in the cupboards and the freezer. Then meal plan from that and make it a game to see how long you can go just getting fruit and milk ie fresh stuff. Anything saved over the next month goes off the highest apr debt. Or to your up front expenses whilst you are in st lucia. Then once you have done this challenge, start to meal plan and batch cook from there. With the list of ingredients from the meal plan in a list that is what you buy. If enough to get free delivery then doing it online saves the added 'oh I will just get that or this' temptation!

Within this challenge is the down shift a brand challenge, the try out Aldi and Lidl challenge (if only for their mega cheap veggie deals they do), find your local veggie market (saves me a fortune over buying it in tesco's or similar, i often have to huge bags or fruit and veg for 4 or us 4 a tenner:D). In this way even with higher food costs I think you could over the next months reduce this by £200.
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 400
Road tax................................ 30
Car Insurance........................... 58 Is this for two cars? go via a cashback site at renewal eg www.quidco.com, www.topcashback.co.uk
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 unless you put something away for this then you are not setting a realistic budget.
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 486 (School fees - will end in August)Great from the finance point of view and I hope that she settles in well. Just make sure that that money gets diverted straight away when you get paid, so that it doesn't get swallowed up. Also of course I don't know why your other child is home schooled, but perhaps now is the time to revisit this. Ie both children could start a new school together so it would be less scary for them etc. It also has an added benefit of free OH for even the odd hour work in the day. You also haven't put down anywhere the inevitable expenses that you pay out for the home schooling - books etc, some of which is paid for when you are in a school? Just don't dismiss the idea out of hand is all I am suggesting.
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0 So no one pays for ANY prescriptions, dental check ups etc?
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 32
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 146 This is absolutely a huge amount. Even if this covered you and the OH, it would still be a lot. Start researching the best deal to change to in August when you won't need such a high amount insured.
Other insurance......................... 31 what is this and can you cancel it?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 Either you need to put some of your wages away for this, or else do a challenge like making xmas money neutral ie all of xmas is paid for in additional money, like car boots, ebay, daily clicks, survey, etc etc
Haircuts................................ 0 again need to factor in something for a realistic budget
Entertainment........................... 0as above
Holiday................................. 0as above
Emergency fund.......................... 0even a small amount in savings jars or piggy banks is better than nothing.
Total monthly expenses.................. 2775


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 265000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 267000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 265000...(553)......2.5
Total secured & HP debts...... 265000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
HSBC Loan......................10128.....596.......0 need to find the APR on this.
Egg Credit card................7787......237.......26.9
HSBC Credit Card...............11496.....281.......21.9
HSBC Overdraft.................2500......0.........0
Barclaycard....................12300.....264.......14.9
Total unsecured debts..........44211.....1378......-

Is your credit rating good enough to get a long life of balance card to throw those high apr cards onto? If not then those are what need targetting I think first. Have a look at the snowball calculator on www.whatsthecost.com to see how much interest you will pay on it and which is the best way to minimise this. It will also give you a debt free date as your payments stand now. Then try factoring in the £450 school fees and see what the date is and then adding that and say £200 saved from the grocery budget in and see what the debt free date is then. I think it will be both eye opening and motivating!


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,800
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,775
Available for debt repayments........... 2,025
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,378
Amount left after debt repayments....... 647 Currently you have a surplus showing here, but I am assuming that this would go down a bit (at first) once you have factored in birthdays, xmas, dental, medical, car maintenance, and home schooling costs. If you still theoretically have a surplus after these adjustments, then I would suggest that you both keep spending diaries to see where this extra is going. One person who did this found they were spending £100 just on a latte habit a month:eek::eek:.
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 267,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -265,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -44,211
Net Assets.............................. -42,211

Sorry for such a detailed reply, but I felt you were really up against it. I hope that it at least gives you food for thought. The other forum areas that may help you are the Old Style forum - did you know you could get limescale off a toilet with cheap vinegar - forget the expensive cleaners lol!. Also the freebies forum for free samples, treats all sorts really, they have had seeds on there recently for example. So you could turn garden over to veggie patch maybe?

good luck
chev

barnaby-bear

Generali wrote: »

Cut the grocery bill, ditch Sky and buy a warm jumper.

Can you take in a lodger as there are 4 of you in a 5 bed house?

Or a pay guest foreign language student/child from an english school - they pay £120+ a week http://www.adoos.co.uk/post/4703640/host_families_wantes
Only a few weeks and it's to help the kids with their culture/language...

whitewing

Slimey, I had to post as I'm fascinated (in a kind way) because you have so much more income to play with than we do. I fully intend to be increasing out income so I think your 'journey' is going to be useful for us to learn from.

I think the quickest immediate thing you can do is the selling of your excess stuff. Or, at least organising of potential stuff to sell. It's quite addictive to have a clearout. You could set yourselves a target of selling enough to cover the family's clothes for example. It could be good practical experience for your son and daughter in a positive way.

Who actually does the budgeting in your house? I would guess no-one? Rather than send your wife out to work, why not get her on MSE doing the grocery challenge, or a live off your storecupboard challenge?

I am certain that the key to money vs happiness is great organisation, and much less to do with actual amounts.

Georgie4

Is there any reason why your wife cannot get a job - even if it is only part time surely that would take some pressure off you?

bubbles0169

i look after the children in the day then when my OH comes home i go out to work

Glen0000

bubbles0169 wrote: »

i look after the children in the day then when my OH comes home i go out to work

I doubt he will be doing 9-5 on that kind of income. Someone has to look after the kids if he is working lates/weekends or away.

Metranil_Vavin

If your company expect you to travel as part of your job, then they should stump up the inevitable costs whilst you are away.

I travel abroad a lot for work, and I have a company credit card that I use for everything from my flights, to the hotel bill, food, meals out with customers etc.

For things like taxi's I get a local currency float before I leave as taking money out on my company card is horrendously expensive and the company have asked us not to do it.

EssexHebridean

Hello - and well done on getting yourself on here to try to sort things out for yourself and your family.

There's a lot of help being given above - I agree with those who have said that your shopping budget is totally out of control - I can only assume for that amount of money that you are buying all organic / lots of ready meals etc, and if that's the case then you are going to need to re-evaluate your views on that sort of thing I'm afraid. We spend £150 per month - this figure includes cleaning materials but doesn't include for any wine, beer etc we buy, not though we buy that much of either usually. This is for two adults. The old-style board is superb for help, advice, and tips, especially when you're just starting out meal planning. To give you a clue re our budget, we buy organic dairy products, have an organic veg box delivered once a fortnight, and all our meat comes from farmers markets or higher welfare suppliers. Eggs are all free range, as are chickens. We eat less meat now than we used to, but of a far higher quality - that way you seem to need less of it. As you can see - we've not eating all value/basics stuff - although that does factor in.

One thing - you mentioned your OH asking about spending £16 on a Boden jeans/top set for your daughter - how much would an equivalent set be in Asda or Tesco, without a posh label?

Good luck.