How do I cut repayments in the short-term?

mjpmjp

skintchick,

Totally agree that we aren't fully on message with the MSE ethos. Gradually getting round to it but kind of hard after having naff all cash for the last eight years. When you finally earn something reasonable you want to enjoy it for a bit.

Reality check is kicking in fast - me and the other half only realised how bad one another's debt was last night! We only have a joint account for house bills/mortgate etc - consequently that has £1k in profit while our personal finances are in shreds.

Few thoughts:
* Will check on the insurance to see if that can be slashed.
* Water is on a rate rather than a meter, will check if that will drop for two person household
* Used to pay ntl £53 for TV/phone without calls &£26 for broadband but now pay £20 for TV, £10 for phone, still £26 for broadband but about to cut that and then calls so £80 an improvement but definitely room for more savings (suggestions on cheaper suppliers gratefully received)
* Utilities - we live in an old 3-bed Victorian terrace with sash windows - heat flies out of the place! I change my supplier every time Martin says to re-evaluate. I use the utilities cost comparison websites as suggested.
* The food bill includes all groceries/cleaning items/cling films, deodorants, razors etc etc but will see if there is anying unnecessary. We switched from Sainsbury's to Morrisons which saved a packet
* Fair point on the home improvements - unfortunately at present I need to make my other half realise that clearing debts is more important than a half-finished house (anyone with less debt-conscious significant others will hopefully understand my plight here!)
* I guessed the cleaner was for the chop! We both work ridiculous hours but fair point, she's a luxury.
* The foreign travel is a bit more difficult - try telling your pensioner parents you aren't going to see them again unless they haul they're old behinds on a flight to see you. That's a pretty tough ask when they've gone all they can to give you the best start in life!

Thanks once again skintchick. mjpmjp

skintchick

It's a pleasure.

The food is definitely somewhere you can cut down though. My budget includes all the same things as you, and I spend £40-60 a month, so two of you can do £120 easily, with a bit of planning and a lot of home cooking!

I know it seems hard, but if you cook at weekends and freeze things, and don;t buy processed stuff then you can cut it right back.

I shop at Tesco so it's not the cheapest supermarket in the world.

The Old Style board will advise with that, and the phones board will help with your NTL.

And I do understand about carp wages - I am a freelance journalist so am well used to having no money!!!

tyllwyd

mjpmjp wrote:

So, we are getting married in Sept as mentioned in the previous thread. Despite tyllwyd suggesting 3k over budget for the wedding is ridiculous (ever got married? Ever had a wife-to-be who didn't understand that budget meant 'outer limit', not 'nice if you get near'?) our total wedding incl honeymoon is £11k which in this day and age is not extravagant (I have three friends getting married this year, their weddings are costing between £15k to £20k).

OK, 3k over wedding budget may not be ridiculous full stop, but I would still say that it is ridiculous in the situation that you have described.

I was in a similar situation, OK it was 6 years ago so the figures will have changed, but my partner and I had a house we could only just afford on our combined salary and I was pregnant with our first child. We made the decision to cut our wedding/honeymoon right back so that we didn't get into debt that we couldn't cope with (and in the end we had to move house anyway to stay afloat).

If you and your partner want a big day, that's fine, I wish you all the luck in the world. But if you spend out on one aspect of your lives, other aspects are going to have to take a bit of a hit to compensate. If you are going to keep on top of things and achieve your other dreams of a new business and a new family as well as your wedding, you are going to have to be absolutely determined to stick to your daily budget - you are going to be in that situation anyway when baby/business arrives, so if you can't do it, better to find out now rather than later.

lynzpower

Hi there OP! Welcome to MSE!

Re your wedding. Is it all booked and everything? Is there any suppliers that you can cut out? I say this as my best mate got wed a year ago, and the debt they got into for it :eek: but they were having things ( her choice- I take your point) that were plain ridiculous, like matchbooks with thier names on, expensive favours all round, Personally, I think 11k is astronomical for a wedding. If theres any bits of silliness like this, that actually WONT improve your or your guests day beyond notableness ( is that a word- probably not) then slash them out if you can. Do you mean this September 06? Do you have 11k for it saved then or aim to by then? Or are you going to be short. My advice is whatever you do DONT GO IN DEBT FOR IT. My mate banged thier wedding on credit cards & consolidated loans and you could see her face on the day (p****d off) when people were leaving thier dinners and not touching the buffet. She even said to me, keep your invitation, it cost us £8. This sort of thing to me ( as someone planning a wedding, but not actively saving for it yet) is that those sorts of costs are bloody ridiculous, and SHOULD be sliced off wherever possible. Another mate of mine did her own invitations using an internet based template,bought some posh card and did the lot for under £20. Very proffessional too.

I would say, just because others are spending 15-20k on thier wedding , doenst mean your 11k is cheap. I went to a wedding (bloody lovely it was too) last weekend, and they did the whole thing for under 1k. Difference is this one my mates refused to go into debt for it.

Re your business. Seriously, I would say to you you need the very minimum personal debt before you start anything up. See DottyAnnes recent posts to see what can happen if your personal finances are not sorted, you are forced to take from the business. BE VERY CAREFUL, as this potentially will be 2 peoples salaries down the drain if your business cant sustain itself, along with your debts not being met should the worst happen.


Once your NR loan is paid off this december, you can throw that £300 per month at your credit cards, and start paying 430 per month. Not a bad inroad to that debt I dont think.

The 60pcm left from finished SL co. What are you doing with that? You say you are paying shy into the joint account? Or maybe again, its best to throw that at the CC's, if we can shave money off the joint account.

Re your OH.
She has quite a lot of debt here TBH. I suspect shes paying the minimum off her halfiax card is she? unclear here. Regardless, up until Jan 08, she has got £336 per month going out. If she DOES choose to give up working to have a baby, will you be able to cover these payments along with providing for the little one and yourself and cover the bills?

It is unclear to me why shes paying so much more into the wedding fund than you are, when your debts are a) coming to an end before hers b) she earns less than you c) shes got more debt than you. Sorry dont want to be nosey ( sorry yeah, I do ) but why is this?

Re- your cutbacks.
Your veg boxes - do you use ALL of whats in them? I have mates that get them, and week in week out they are slinging stuff in the bin, as either a) they dont like beetroot/ cabbage etc b) they are not in to eat it and it gets binned. Look at this.

200 a month on your other stuff :eek: we are trying to do 20 quid a week challenge me and OH including taking lunches. We are going slightly over, but I reckon it will be £95 per month between us. We eat exceptionally well, and have people over for dinner all the time. We also frequently buy organic produce included in this.


"We have been gradually modernising our house for the last two years. We have £1k in the joint account but estimate remaining home improvements to be as follows:
£400 electrics
£400 dining room
£1000 carpets
£2000 rear yard (concrete deathtrap at mo) "

Personally, Id spend 400 on the dining room, 400 on the electrics and then leave the rest. Leaving 200 quid to put on one of your OHs debts. That isnt very DFW at all, but thats my opinion. If you have saved the cash so far, then use it for that, as it will be WAY harder to save for those things when you are setting up adn trying to run a business with a little one on the way.

Am I right in thinking that you are paying NTL for the freeview channels every month? If so stop that right now, go and buy a freeeview digibox from tescos or wherever for £20. I hate the way NTL and others charge monthly for free channels! :mad:

Phew apologies for the essay, and all the very best of luck with it all.

Lynz
x

mjpmjp

Thanks Lynzpower. Yep, wedding is pretty much all booked but since getting all the advice to date on this thread we've starting slashing things back where possible. Believe me, we're not going down the personalised matchbox route and all our stationery is being done by my sister-in-law.
After skintchick's advice we've decided to ditch the home renovation except for electrics until we can afford it. However, since starting this thread the drains have bust so I'm now ripping up our back yard (which is why I haven't been on MSE for a while and haven't had chance to do the full definitive run down on the finances.
As you suggest, the plan is to channel the £300 from NR loan off the credit card & to add the spare once the wedding's paid for.
To date, the wedding's £1.5k behind budget (I can see the messages berating me now!!) but once we've chopped bits off we're getting closer.
I've also taken on extra freelance work in my spare time to clear the rest.
I'm not quite sure how my other half can put more into the fund than me! Other than to say that she walks to work and when she does drive it is for work purposes and she gets healthy expenses back.
Despite earning more, my tax code is 116L due to company car so my take home compared to hers (incl exes) is only about £150 a month more. I shell out £200 a month in petrol to work and back so it starts to equal out.
I'll check out Tesco for a digibox - we're slowly weaning ourselves off ntl! They are a nightmare in every sense of the word.

tyllwyd

You sound much more in control of things than last time! :T Now that you have got a clear idea of where you are and where you need to be, hopefully you and your OH can work together and make sure that things stay on course, rather than both pulling in different directions. Its great that you did this now, not six months down the line when it might be too late to do anything different.

I totally sympathise about drains - my husband keeps muttering about drains and threatening to dig up our back garden to try to find where they go. I try to ignore him and hope he forgets about it again! I hope you get them sorted OK.

lynzpower

HEY MJMJMP
Sorry to hear about your drains mate.

As an ex employee of NTL, I will support you wholeheartedly in dumping them, in my experience they are absolultely pants and dont give a toss about thier customers ( I was the poor sod who had to phone up customers whod taken a day off work to get thier repairs done to tell them it wouldnt happen cos the engineers had gone to the pub) Very very poor!!

All the very best with planning your wedding, sorry for the slightly bitter note of my previous post, must have been having one of my "strict days" and enjoy! xx

roswell

not much input from me but here it goes.

NTL 3 for £30 package will save you £600 a year to NTL and that isnt even a painfull change 1 mb broadband + base tv package + local evenign and weekend calls free.

yard ..... you obviousely dont really need this any holes coudl be patched for the time being probably cost less that 320 for cement and a days graft.

Electrics obviosuely if its dangerouse get it done ...

with your income there should be shed of spare cash its just finding where its going.

Cutting the debts monthly cost but making the term longer is just stupid in my opinion you have the funds now to fix this issue before you start a family / new business.

The choice is your. I dont think you have had a full light bulb moment yet but when you get the electrics done it will probably a full flood light effect if you go ahead with the new business / family / diy wants

roswell

Oops another thought, do you have PPI on those loans and CC`s ? if so get it taken off that coudl save you a fortune

Willsnarf1983

just on ur electric thing...not sure what u want doing but....

1) goto an electrical wholesaler and find a reputable electrcian...the people on the trade counter will be able to suggest one of their regulars that come in. (maybe visit one or two wholesalers and get a few differant quotes from differant sparks)
2) work out exactly what u need doing and then get them to cost it and then go buy the goods for yourself from a wholesaler.
3) Ask for discount and go for their own branded goods as they are made by the porper companies but just rebranded and on these items look in the catalogue and ask if thats the best they can do....more often than not they will knock a bit of.
4)remember that in a wholesaler vat is exclusive

hope this helps

Will