advice needed please.

all_hours

mobile phone is high
160 on gas and electricity is high too

are you getting all the benefits youre entitled to

cherrypie556

all_hours wrote: »

mobile phone is high
160 on gas and electricity is high too

are you getting all the benefits youre entitled to

Mobile is for both mine and OH, his is high due to work (needs all the mins etc)

£160 is actually cheaper than we were paying as it was £199 aty one point a month!

as for benefits, yes. Not entitles to CT or HB as have to much coming in haha

RAS

cherrypie556 wrote: »

yes i do need a car to be able to get to uni and to placements (im a student midwife)

So you will be getting a student bursary plus possible dependents' allowances, child care cover, unless you have already claimed CTC, reduced CT and placment costs refunded ... and..

How much is your bursary assessment?

all_hours

with 4 children i suspect you have things like playstations and xboxes
switch off at the plug - dont leave on standby
lights off when you leave the room
boil only water you need
dont leave oven heating up for a long time before youre ready to use it
you might be able to trim off a small amount

your grocery bill looks reasonable for 4 kids and 2 adults
so is the clothes

i dont see areas that you can cut back on to make up the difference

can you get a part time job

cherrypie556

RAS wrote: »

So you will be getting a student bursary plus possible dependents' allowances, child care cover, unless you have already claimed CTC, reduced CT and placment costs refunded ... and..

How much is your bursary assessment?

The bursary is means tested and i haven't yet applied for it because of my oh being self employed we need his books to prove his income which we cannot do as we need £300 to pay his accountant which we haven't got. Childcare, we have to pay £522 a week with a maximum entitlement of £182 (if we were to qualify for the full amount) but that still leaves us to find £340 a week which is unaffordable, so we have an au-pair at £70 a week.

WE already claim CTC and WTC.

As for the PT job optin, it isn't an option due to 2 reasons. Im doing 12 hr shifts at placement (working 36 hrs a week) as well as assignments etc plus it all comes down to childcare again. I got a PT job about a yr ago but because of all the TC we lost i was working for £7.14 a week.. pointless!

cherrypie556

all_hours wrote: »

with 4 children i suspect you have things like playstations and xboxes
switch off at the plug - dont leave on standby
lights off when you leave the room
boil only water you need
dont leave oven heating up for a long time before youre ready to use it
you might be able to trim off a small amount

your grocery bill looks reasonable for 4 kids and 2 adults
so is the clothes

i dont see areas that you can cut back on to make up the difference

can you get a part time job

Eldest is only 7 so doesn't have playstaiton etc and already doing everything else!

RAS

cherrypie556 wrote: »

The bursary is means tested and i haven't yet applied for it because of my oh being self employed we need his books to prove his income which we cannot do as we need £300 to pay his accountant which we haven't got.

Can you talk to the University as they may make you a hardship loan which would enable you to sort out the accounts. I assume OH needs to do this anyway for tax purposes? And the tax returns need to be in this month if you want them to calculate the tax amount.

cherrypie556

he's got till Jan till his tax return has to be in, and i will be asking the uni once i start.

Tixy

In post 9 you seem to have missed off the bottom of the SoA. Are all the debts showing on the listing? These total £583.11

The missing section should show
Income £1931
Expenese £1788
Available for debt repayments £143
Debt repayments £583 (or more???)
Shortfall each month £440

So you have a major problem every month. As others have said the electriticy is really high -are you paying off arrears? Is this based on actual readings? Start taking readings every month and see how much you are actually using - you should be able to get tips on how to use less on the utlities board here on MSE or on your elec providers website. This is a high amount even for a family of 6, there must be some way to decrease this.

Car insurance is really high - are you both costing about the same or is one substantially higher? Your OHs share should be a business expense as should the majoirty of his mobile bill, and possibly some of the fuel.
You need to look at his business income less tax and less business costs to give you his business profit and this is the amount that you should include under his income.
Are any of the debts business debts?

Whilst your spend on groceries and clothes is understandable it may be possible to cut back here as well. Look at the oldstyle board for loads of ideas on cheap healthy filling meals. For clothes make sure you are only buying essentials for the children and nothing for the adults at the moment.

Do you have old clothes and other items you could sell to cover the cost of buying new items? Ebay/amazon/car boot/gumtree are all good places to sell different items. Could you consider selling one of the vehicles and buying a cheaper one whilst you are a student.

Unless you are going to get significant bursarys/grants etc from Uni then you need to speal to one of the debt charities for some professional debt advice as your current situation is not sustaniable.

Good luck.

RAS

cherrypie556 wrote: »

Childcare, we have to pay £522 a week with a maximum entitlement of £182 (if we were to qualify for the full amount) but that still leaves us to find £340 a week which is unaffordable, so we have an au-pair at £70 a week.

WE already claim CTC and WTC.

I assume you have to feed the au pair? have you costed this in?