Aiming to get to payday with money in the bank!

kymbogs

Hi guys
I'm guessing it was roughly a year ago I came along here and posted an SOA and really got into the whole thing. Since going back to work in November from maternity leave I've not been getting on much and am now trying to get back on the wagon, as although I'm still being a lot more sensible than the old days I have been slipping a little.

In short, I'm Kimberley (25) married to Craig (almost 34) with two gorgeous daughters Molly (2) and Megan (1) plus two rather pesky cats. I work 16 hours a week as even with help from tax credits it wasn't worth going to work full time and paying for childcare for two children. I'd have to be offered a hell of a well-paid job to be convinced to leave my girlies full time anyway!

Things have been pretty tough lately. After 6 months of having no bank charges, something went drastically wrong at the beginning of April and we got £140 bank charges in the middle of the month. We did manage to scrape through till the end of the month thankfully but I always feel so guilty for having no money 'on hand', I'm always thinking 'what if something happened and we needed to get somewhere quick' it makes sense in my head anyway lol.

As it happens something did happen. 2 weeks ago a pipe in the bathroom burst and flooded 3 floors of our house. I now have to find £400 to pay the excess on the home insurance (£150 standard excess plus £250 for escape of water) luckily they have been kind enough to do what needs doing without demanding the money up front.

Then when payday came (was it only a week ago?) I was down a quarter of my wage as one of my daughters had been ill the previous month and I'd been unable to go to work so I wasn't paid for that week, not that I was expecting to be paid for it.

Right now I'm trying to take things a week at a time. I was paid on april 30th and we were skint by May 1st. Yesterday the tax credits for the week went in and most weeks I would have had most of it out by now however this week it is all still there, plus £20 from ebay sales. My aim is to have some money in the bank account when DH gets paid on the 25th - I'm not fussed about how much but I'd be very pleased with myself if there was £30 or more there. It's not something that has ever happened before (EVER!) but I realise that we need to completely change our attitude towards money and not spend it just cos it's there. I must say I was incredibly tempted to get a takeaway last night as I knew we had some cash and I was shattered and my house is in disarray cos of the flood but I managed to resist and cooked instead and it felt like a real turning point - my LBM perhaps?

Sorry for rambling on. I hope to manage to keep coming back and see how everyone else is getting on too

Kimberley

RAS

Hi

Sounds like you having been coping with a series of mini disasters but as you say these happen in real life and in the absence of a safety net, things get hard.

You might want to post a revised SOA or explore Boost your Income, or do a store cupboard challenge on the old style Money Saving forum? all will help you work towards your goal/

kymbogs

Hi Ras,
thanks for the reply.

I will do a new SOA when I'm a bit more awake
I used to be addicted to the Grocery Challenge thread on Old-Style and still stick to the principles of meal planning and buying for the plan. The only problem over recent months was sticking to eating what was on the plan and the takeaways were becoming too frequent. That's definitely stopping and it's been a few weeks now since our last takeaway 'fix'. Our monthly grocery bill is about £280 which is considerably less than it was this time last year and it's all down to the Grocery Challenge :j

I'll take a peek at boost your income, I'm running out of things to sell! Have just sent off 4 mobiles to various cash in your phone type sites, have sold all our no longer required large baby items (a cot, highchair, a few pushchairs etc) and when things were tough after those bank charges I sold my Nintendo DS which was my birthday present from a couple of months ago. Ah well I needed the cash.

kymbogs

INCOME

Husband Wage £970 monthly
Me wage £451 4-weekly
CTC + WTC £93.64 weekly
CB £137.40 4-weekly

TOTAL £1932.96 roughly monthly

EXPENDITURE

Northern Rock Mortgage £330.00 monthly
Northern Rock Loan £270.00 monthly
Welcome Finance £274 monthly
Barclays CDCS £11.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £11.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £6.00 4-weekly
HFC Bank £9.99 monthly
Virgin Media (tel/tv/net) £30.00 monthly
Capital One £30.00 monthly
Halifax home insurance £37 monthly
TV License £13 monthly
British Gas Home-thingie £19.00 monthly
Homeserve Plumbing cover £3.98 monthly
Yorkshire Water £37.00 monthly
Groceries £300.00 monthly (includes nappies, milk etc)
Gas £20.00 monthly (don't use this much at mo but wanting to stock up on prepayment meter for winter months)
Electricity £35.00 monthly (keeping a close eye on leccy at mo)
Bus Fare husband £72.00 4-weekly
Clothes, shoes etc for kids £20.00 monthly
Travel & expenses £40.00 (this includes taking the girls out and about, but I never seem to have the money for it, need to find out where it's going)
Council Tax £98.00 4-weekly
Simply Be £40 4-weekly
3 phone x 2 = £30 monthly
Transfer to RBS account £10 4-weekly
Mothercare storecard £25 monthly
CL Finance £5 monthly


TOTAL £1776.98 roughly monthly

Difference = £155.98 a month - would love to know where it is!

tealady

Hi. I have a few thoughts.
Firstly can you ditch one of the phones or put them on PAYG?
What are the APR's? I bet welcome is MASSIVE
Have you checked with the bus company to see that the ticket is the cheapest.In Birmingham we pay a lot less than that (direct debit prices are usually the cheapest and are usually monthly tickets)
Don't use the tumble drier if you have one, they eat electricity. Mother Nature does a great job of drying clothes, she uses wind and sunshine (bit of both here today)
Hope that gives you something to think about.

Primula

kymbogs wrote: »

INCOME

Husband Wage £970 monthly
Me wage £451 4-weekly
CTC + WTC £93.64 weekly
CB £137.40 4-weekly

TOTAL £1932.96 roughly monthly

EXPENDITURE

Northern Rock Mortgage £330.00 monthly
Northern Rock Loan £270.00 monthly
Welcome Finance £274 monthly
Barclays CDCS £11.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £11.00 4-weekly
Barclays CDCS £6.00 4-weekly
HFC Bank £9.99 monthly
Virgin Media (tel/tv/net) £30.00 monthly
Capital One £30.00 monthly
Halifax home insurance £37 monthly Seems high. Have you shopped around for cheaper?
TV License £13 monthly
British Gas Home-thingie £19.00 monthly You could shop around for this too. Hydro Electric are cheaper. B Gas gave us a reduction when we were due to renew.
Homeserve Plumbing cover £3.98 monthly
Yorkshire Water £37.00 monthly
Groceries £300.00 monthly (includes nappies, milk etc) Possible savings?
Gas £20.00 monthly (don't use this much at mo but wanting to stock up on prepayment meter for winter months) Well done on this
Electricity £35.00 monthly (keeping a close eye on leccy at mo) And on this. Wish I could be as good!
Bus Fare husband £72.00 4-weekly
Clothes, shoes etc for kids £20.00 monthly
Travel & expenses £40.00 (this includes taking the girls out and about, but I never seem to have the money for it, need to find out where it's going)
Council Tax £98.00 4-weekly
Simply Be £40 4-weekly
3 phone x 2 = £30 monthly
Transfer to RBS account £10 4-weekly
Mothercare storecard £25 monthly
CL Finance £5 monthly


TOTAL £1776.98 roughly monthly

Difference = £155.98 a month - would love to know where it is!

Hi there
Just a fee ideas above.
Good luck
P

Edit: Oh, re takeaways, I know its so tempting. Maybe join in with the no takeaway challenge?

kymbogs

Hi Primula

Thanks for your notes on my SOA.

House insurance - it may seem high but as we've had a few claims over the years it's definitely the cheapest we could get. We were actually without home insurance for a couple of months without me realising as I found an unopened letter from L&G saying our DD had disappeared off their system (this had happened before - I didn't cancel it) and to contact them within 5 days of they'd cancel the policy. It was from February. Oops. So quickly got signed up with the cheapest that would have us and 10 days later the house flooded so talk about timing!

I'll look at switching the British Gas homecare thingie I didn't realise there were other companies offering the same sort of thing.

I can't think of anywhere I can cut back on the grocery bill. I make all our bread from scratch, including teacakes, tortilla wraps, chappatis etc. I make cakes and biscuits for DH to take with his lunch to work and for the girls as treats. All our meals are made from scratch and they're not extravagent. I get whichever nappies are cheapest which isn't always Tesco's own so it feels like a treat if we get Pampers lol.

I'm not really looking at cutting back on what is on my SOA - I'd be happy if I could find the £150 we're supposed to have in surplus for a start! So I guess for the most part I am trying to make sure we STICK to the SOA.

kymbogs

tealady wrote: »

Hi. I have a few thoughts.
Firstly can you ditch one of the phones or put them on PAYG?
What are the APR's? I bet welcome is MASSIVE
Have you checked with the bus company to see that the ticket is the cheapest.In Birmingham we pay a lot less than that (direct debit prices are usually the cheapest and are usually monthly tickets)
Don't use the tumble drier if you have one, they eat electricity. Mother Nature does a great job of drying clothes, she uses wind and sunshine (bit of both here today)
Hope that gives you something to think about.

Hiya tealady thanks for your thoughts
I don't want to put the phones on PAYG because when we both had PAYG phones we never had any credit and it caused a few problems, particularly when I was pregnant and having issues and never had credit to make calls when I urgently needed to. Besides, I've recently renewed my contract so am tied in for 12 months. DH was using a Blyk sim with free calls and texts but decided he felt left out with me having a fairly snazzy phone and went and got a contract. To be fair this behaviour is very uncharacteristic and for the £15 we are both paying we are getting a lot for our money (unlimited calls, texts, web browsing, emails)

I haven't got a clue what the APR's are I never seem to find the time to get all the paperwork out and find out. I imagine the Welcome one is pretty huge but it was the only option we had at the time. It was a pretty large secured loan.

I frequently check the bus company website for their best ticket prices. They have gone up quite a lot, this time last year it was £15 for a week now it's £18 which I think is disgraceful. They don't offer a direct debit. The cheapest ticket is for 4 weeks which is £60 but we can never afford to pay the £60 up front. Hopefully when we have money left on Payday this month we will get him one

I don't own a tumble drier I am very aware of the electricity they use which is why I don't have one. I dry my clothes outside and in the winter my bathroom looks like a chinese laundry as I have 4 or 5 clothes horses and airers on the go.

Primula

Hiya
Wow that was lucky re your insurance!
Re the gas boiler insurance, we have been with Scottish Gas for years and years and are always really pleased with their service. However this year, just as the renewal came in so did a leaflet from Hydro Electric offering exactly the same but much cheaper, from memory I think it was about £70 per year cheaper but I am so lazy I couldnt be bothered doing anything about it. However, the Gas Board phoned to renew it over the phone so OH said we werent sure, and told them all about Hydro, so in the end, the girl got her supervisor, who reduced our payments down by about £2.50 per month, still not as cheap at Hydro but every little helps so you might even want to try that. We just stayed with Scottish Gas as we have always been really happy with them.
Your gas and electric are fab - how do you do that? :T Are you just very careful and good at turning things off etc? I am still in training!
You seem to be very well organised anyway with all your cooking, baking etc, well done. :T
Only other thing I can suggest is to keep a spending diary maybe?
Good luck, I'm going to subscribe to your thread and will be back again to visit so now you are stuck with me! :rotfl:
P

Changingme

The only thing I can think of is a spending diary this has helped me loads,I just use a small note book which I keep all my reciepts in then write them down at end of each week.

System

Hi Kym, glad things are on the up for you. Your Tax Credits look a little light. I get more than that and claim the old childcare vouchers too and I get £83 for 2 kids (2 and 1 month) and the details they have for me are right. Are they paying you enough??? Might be worth a phone call