My Budget, Need Help

Legacy_user

Ok, Here is an updated COA, I have been wondering why I have been having issues making payments to Payplan and its obvious really isn't it, I haven't been able to pay tax credit overpayments either, we simply dont have enough money.

Sure there is a few obvious things like.
Mobiles saving £50
Smoking saving £40

You could cut a few extras but this will leave me feeling totally demoralised and make working a pointless exercise. And Yes I know the telephone is expensive but stuck in contract until March.


My Pay 1000
Parnters Pay 376
Child Benefit 132
Child Tx Credit 480
Total 1992

Rent480
Tax Credit Overpayment 60
HB Overpayment 5
Electricity 60
Oil 50
Car Loan 100
TV Lisence 11.61
Telephone (Inc Net) 73
Mobile 120
Mobile 2 25
Road Tax 25
Insurance 25
Petrol 160
Food 400
Maintenance 50
Clothing 50
Childcare£ 300
Dentist etc 45
House Insurance 13
Credit Union 60
Hair Dressing 20
Smoking 40
Lottery 16
Saving 64
Total 2152.61

GREEN = BOTH PAY
RED = PARTNER PAYS
BLUE = I PAY

MrsPorridge

Can you fill in an SOA form on this site so we can see exactly what the outgoings are in that format?

System

MrsPorridge wrote: »

Can you fill in an SOA form on this site so we can see exactly what the outgoings are in that format?

It doesn't let me fill in certain things hence why I took the one payplan have

Tixy

Hi NI Guy

Did you do a budget with Payplan originally? this must have shown you have enough to make payments to them. What has changed between that budget and this one?

To be honest there are more cuts possible on there than you think.
You suggest cutting mobile by £50? I'd suggest a cut of £95 is possible, bringing down the first mobile to a cost of £25 per month.

Have you spoken to the telephone/net provider? They should at least allow you to reduce the package you have, if you tell them you are in financial difficulties.

How many children do you have?
How many cars?
Is the DMP a joint DMP?
Is the car loan a proper secured car loan?
Is the credit union a repayment of loan or savings or both?

Food is high, should be able to feed 2adults and 2 children easily on £250 per month so unless you have a whole football team of kids this could be cut considerably.

Why is the dentist cost so high?
Can your wife either increase hours working or decrease childcare -at the moment is not worth her working with the costs shown.

What are the savings of £64 for?

When you enter in a DMP it does take some time to readjust and unfortunatley you are not likely to have a very high standard of living with a lot of luxuries but that is to be expected until your debts are at manageable levels.

I really think you need to both give your all to making the DMP and your finances work, if you constantly think about what you can no longer have or what others still have you are going to end up depressed. Instead focus on how great it will be to become debt free and how much better it is not to worry about creditors calling or whether payments are going to bounce.

If your Payplan budget was not sufficent you may need to go back to them and redo it. But according to your figures you can't afford any repayment to Payplan at all, and are in fact £160 down before this payment. Presumably on their budget you must have been at least £260 better off?

talana

nirelandguy wrote: »

It doesn't let me fill in certain things hence why I took the one payplan have

The usual one suggested on here allows you to add extra expenses of your own so you can cover all possible items.

Is this just for 2 of you?
- Food is very high for 2 people
- Lottery is a waste of time and cash
- Mobiles, you could save a lot more than £50. :eek: £120 + £225 (is that right?) Plus £73 on landline? If I've understood that right, that's £418 per month on telephones!!! Come on, halve that and it's still a lot.
- Saving, when you're in a better position financially yes. At the moment, that money needs to go elsewhere.

There's plenty of immediate savings you can make here. £400 a month at least for starters.

~Beanie~

nirelandguy wrote: »

My Pay 1000
Parnters Pay 376
Child Benefit 132 - How many children do you have?
Child Tx Credit 480
Total 1992

Rent480
Tax Credit Overpayment 60
HB Overpayment 5
Electricity 60
Oil 50
Car Loan 100 - Isn't this included in your DMP?
TV Lisence 11.61
Telephone (Inc Net) 73 - Should be able to cut this
Mobile 120
Mobile 2 25
Road Tax 25
Insurance 25
Petrol 160
Food 400 - Seems high, should be able to cut it
Maintenance 50
Clothing 50
Childcare£ 300
Dentist etc 45
House Insurance 13
Credit Union 60
Hair Dressing 20
Smoking 40 - Quit!
Lottery 16 - Cancel it
Saving 64 - Saving for what?
Total 2152.61

How many children do you have, you don't actually say?

What exactly are you saving for? I can't see the point of saving £64 per month when you can't afford to pay your debts or your vtax credit overpayments.

As others have said, phone costs are ridiculous. I know the mobiles are still under contract but even the landline is too high at over £70 pm.

£50 per month on clothing seems a lot, can't you wear what you have for a while and just buy essentials like underwear and shoes?

System

Mobile 1 = £20
Mobile 2 = £25

As for my OH doing more hours if she does she losses tax credits which will include childcare element of it, we are right on the boarder.

Actual food itself comes to about £60 a week but then there is nappies, bread and milk everyday, cleaning products, deodorants/shampoo etc. It varies obviously £100 is top line

Dentist £45. That includes 5 prescriptions we get monthly, actual dentist is £10 on one of there plans.

As for savings, this is something my OH does for Christmas time, we need to in order to buy gifts, in saying that half is spent this year already due to a problem we had with the with the car, which was paid from a loan from a family member

System

~Beanie~ wrote: »

How many children do you have, you don't actually say?

What exactly are you saving for? I can't see the point of saving £64 per month when you can't afford to pay your debts or your vtax credit overpayments.

As others have said, phone costs are ridiculous. I know the mobiles are still under contract but even the landline is too high at over £70 pm.

£50 per month on clothing seems a lot, can't you wear what you have for a while and just buy essentials like underwear and shoes?

Telephone includes internet, this is BT we are talking about here.. Yeah the £50 never goes on clothes, as for wearing what we have, if I said I have 2 pairs of trousers I.E a pair for work and a pair for home I wouldn't be lieing, thats how dire my clothes situation is.

The £64 is my OH savings, it will not change, I have posted a thread about her before so we can forget about that one.

lynzpower

400 quid is a phenomenal amoun on food. Is there any reason why you are not using reusable nappies? easy saving here of at least 100- more achieveable in time

Is there really any point your partner working if she only makes 70 quid a month - as the rest goes on childcare. Could she try to work at home eg Arise?

Whats that 60 to credit union, is that another debt that you arepaying back- anyt reason why this is not in your DMP?

ypour telephone inc net is atronomical we are paying 8. odd on 02 broadband ( wireless router etc all in ) and BT landline and its less than 25. SAVING 50 pcm

lottery- unneccesary- 16 saved

I agree with the others there is \LOT sloshing extra here, you simply need to cut back ..I cant see you would even feel the hardship of cutting back on lottery ( doubt you have ever won big!) and the landline, you woudnt even notice.

lynzpower

nirelandguy wrote: »

Telephone includes internet, this is BT we are talking about here.. Yeah the £50 never goes on clothes, as for wearing what we have, if I said I have 2 pairs of trousers I.E a pair for work and a pair for home I wouldn't be lieing, thats how dire my clothes situation is.

The £64 is my OH savings, it will not change, I have posted a thread about her before so we can forget about that one.

But 50 quid a month is A LOT.

Even if you buy from Tescos- you can by home jogging bottoms for 4.00

Wheres the other 46.00 go to?

If you buy from car boot sales you can get great bargains, OH got some BN work Next trousers for 20p - you get a lot of stuff for 600 quid a year.

System

lynzpower wrote: »

400 quid is a phenomenal amoun on food. Is there any reason why you are not using reusable nappies? easy saving here of at least 100- more achieveable in time

Is there really any point your partner working if she only makes 70 quid a month - as the rest goes on childcare. Could she try to work at home eg Arise?

Whats that 60 to credit union, is that another debt that you arepaying back- anyt reason why this is not in your DMP?

ypour telephone inc net is atronomical we are paying 8. odd on 02 broadband ( wireless router etc all in ) and BT landline and its less than 25. SAVING 50 pcm

lottery- unneccesary- 16 saved

I agree with the others there is \LOT sloshing extra here, you simply need to cut back ..I cant see you would even feel the hardship of cutting back on lottery ( doubt you have ever won big!) and the landline, you woudnt even notice.

The credit union is not something they can put on the DMP because its a local outlet, they wont reduce the £60 either.

Yeah lottery again this is my OH's doing

No my partner gets £376 pay, Our child tax credit has a childcare element included in it, If we earn any more we loss that.

My broadband will never be any cheaper than around £16 as we live in a non LLU area meaning we only have BT at our exchange, other providers rent of BT, Our Option 3 broadband is £24.99 per month but we are in contract until March next year