hi can you help please

calleyw

sunflower wrote:

i really dont think sky at £18 per month is a huge issue
the OP doesnt have any debts so his money belongs to him
and wants his kids to have sky - its not as if its the most expensive package either

No it is not a huge issue but when you are pay £216 a year to watch tv on top of your TV licence. When you can pay a one off payment of £30 and have a lot of the same channels. Kinda makes you go :shocked:

And the £18 could be used to take the children out and do things.

I always thought that what was suggested on the SOA was just that suggestions. It is up to the OP to do what they want with the info. And get the best out of their budget.

Yours


Calley

mintymoneysaver

I would just like to say well done! You realise that if you can't afford it, you do without.I bet a lot of us on here wish we had always been like that!
I would suggest cable as your broadband bill sounds high, and I also think you could cut your food bill down a bit.Does your wife work? I think you are doing fantastically well to manage on that budget!

Sea78

Hi,

if you get a freeview box you can still get cbeebies (good for little un) and CBBC, good for school age one. Perhaps get a dvd trial (get the trial, then cancel, move to new trial) and just order kids DVDs - I do this and when we move, cable tv will go as dd LOVES this - she thinks it's like christmas!!

Then you could get rid of sky.

Food is high as is said - I have 2 kids, one in nappies and an OH and I am trying to do it all on £200 a month and I've found i can still get a lot with this (swapped to tesco nappies btw and haven't looked back!!) including baby milk.

Make sure any medicine (calpol, ibuprofen, sudocrem) for the kids is got through the doctors - saves that little bit extra money going out(I should follow own advice, used up nappy cream and had to buy more grrr).

Have a good read through OS board and freebie things to do with kids.

I've set up lots of little savings accounts with ING Direct (do it through a cashback site so you get money for opening it) and now save a little for christmas, birthdays, other bills, car tax etc so it's not a big amount and then what's left I know is mine to spend (or put to debt as my case may be).

There is loads of info here - welcome!

Have a look over on the budgeting board too fo ideas how to stretch things.

Hope this helps!

Sea xx
ps where do you live? If in London- Homechoice (boradband, free calls, tv) is a fab option!

domestic_goddess

"With out wanting to appear rude but you seem to have a very lax way of handling money. As you say "any other bill what pops up like tv licance" sorry but your TV licence just does not pop out of nowhere it is to be paid every year."

Calleyw this is a bit harsh.... the op has come on here for advice and am sure he appreciates the rest of your advice but that was a bit uncalled for. None of us were great at handling money when we came here.
I posted my soa and got some great advice and only positive comments - thats why I am still here.

TOBRUK

Hi dazzanator, first of all well done with managing without getting into debt and have credit card debts! If you really want to save some money I would list everything you spend to the penny for a week - you will be surprised on your findings.

Your food bill is a bit high if you are spending around £90 a week, every week. I am wondering whether you buy ready meals, treats etc. The first thing I would do is meal planning - plan your meals for the whole week, it will take a little time but well worth doing. That way you will just buy the ingredients etc you need for the week. My rule is ALWAYS write a shopping list and stick to it - do not buy anything that isn't on your list. It is always tempting as you go round the supermarket to see something you fancy and just throw it into the trolley! Think of what is on your list - any luxury items you could go without?!

You say you have £347.00 left over for everything else, but you do not make allowance for things like tv licence etc. Well, I am on a tight budget, but I work out all my outgoings including telephone rental, tv licence etc. That way I know exactly how much a week I have left to spend. All my bills - gas, electricity, tv licence, water, phone/broadband etc I pay by direct debit each month. After that I budget for birthdays, house insurance, car insurance etc and after all that working out I know what I have to play with.

Once you know how much you have left you need to divide the total into weeks - if you say you have £347.00 left, then divide by 4 so you have £86.00 a week to spend. If that is the case I would allocate one day a week to take an amount out of the bank, say Saturday and stick to that. If you took £50 a week out and say this is all I have to spend until next Saturday. That way you will save £36 a week which you would save £144 a month!

With sky, you say the children wouldn't like it if you cancelled, well they would get used to it very quickly, and there are a lot of channels on freeview and with Freeview 'topup' the extra channels would only cost you £7.50 a month! On the other hand if you phoned sky to cancel, you are put through to someone in cancellations and ask why you want to cancel. If you say that you are thinking of going to freeview as you can't afford sky at the moment they would probably give you a deal - look up the thread about digital tv/sky savings you'll be surprised. I have phoned to cancel twice now and both times saved money. First they gave me 3 months for half price (I was on £21 a month) £10.50. A week ago I phoned to cancel and was given £7.50 for 6 months! It is definitaly worth a call.

bargainbetty

Hi Dazz,

Have a look at NTL as well - they do a cable/broadband and telephone package for about £30 per month. If you use the landline a lot, you can also pay about £6 per month for a talk plan that gives you loads of free calls (up to an hour to any landline).

I set my kitchen timer, phone people for an hour, and then when it goes off I can hang up and ring them back for another hour for free. Even my mum has got in the habit of telling me to call her back after 55 mins.....

Definitely check the old style boards. The food bill is pretty high, and a bit of creative house-keeping can save a fortune.

Good luck, and keep coming back here - people will help wherever they can.

domestic_goddess

Daz there are some great suggestions for you above. I would also say that I didn't get rid of my sky ( i did everything else but that ). A set top box would give you the c beebies channel which is what my two love. We kept it as much for us and the kids but I know that if we did need the extra then that could go next. I rang sky and told them I was thinking of cancelling and they reduced my price for 3 months - worth a try.

Also you and your partner should have a look on the Moneysaving old style forum to look at ways to cut down your food bills. This has been the biggest saving for us. Do you collect tesco points? if so when you get the vouchers from them go onto the tesco website and you can exchage them for up to four times their value for loads of things including family days out!!!!

good luck

calleyw

sickofhavingnomoney wrote:

"With out wanting to appear rude but you seem to have a very lax way of handling money. As you say "any other bill what pops up like tv licance" sorry but your TV licence just does not pop out of nowhere it is to be paid every year."

Calleyw this is a bit harsh.... the op has come on here for advice and am sure he appreciates the rest of your advice but that was a bit uncalled for. None of us were great at handling money when we came here.
I posted my soa and got some great advice and only positive comments - thats why I am still here.

I did say that I did not want to appear rude. And I don't think that to point out that bills don't just jump out you as being harsh. Also that they are being lax as they don't know where all their money is going. I mean I could said they where lazy with their money. But that is not the right word. Maybe lax was not quite the right word either. Maybe laid back would be a better word.

I stand by what I say. If you wish to report it to abuse then please go ahead.

I am not a rude person in real life. Never have been never will. And I don't use the internet to hide behind a name to be rude. If you look I have posted many messages and had many thanks.

Yours


Calley

dazzanator

hi thankyou for all your reply's the freeview box is something i have looked at before but the channels on was not the ones the kids watched they like tiny pops and nick jr and also i have to admit that i do like the geographic channels aircrash second from disater ect so it does really suit us not to have freeview
the kids dont get pocket money so i feel its not that much money to spend on telly i have asked the older child if she would rather a trip out once a month or sky and she said sky she goes out to the parks and walks around the lakes and enjoys this so i think sky will stay altough i am impressed by the phone telly and internet package i live in the bedfordshire area so who is the best provider for that
i wouldnt say that i am lacks with money as the comment suggested early on in the post it just i have never really done a budget before bills come in and i pay them what sort of thing would you include in a budget
the smoking thing is around 60 per month for both me and wife and we have no life or house cover my wife doesnt work she says she does enough lol she has no skills as such and would only be able to get low paid work and the time we paid child care its not worth doing at the moment she used to work weekends but after 3 years she stoped as we never saw each other and the marriage was suffering no money is worth the break up of our family
the food bill we spend about 60 a week in sainsburys and a futher 30 during the week on milk bread papers ect what i didnt think was to bad for a family of four we do meal plan but it never goes to plan we either to forget to take the stuff out the frezzer or it hasnt defrosted in time so we end up buying more dinners so what sort of thing do you buy if you are doing a shop for 100 per month i have tryed cheeper nappys sainsburys own not the basic ones and they leaked like mad
the rest of the money just goes and im not sure what on but as soon as we break into a ten pound note its gone and im never sure what on

bargainbetty

Dazz,

Use the links on the site to find out your best local providers - MSE has a link to the USwitch site and it rocks!

Failing that, call all your providers and say you can get better deals (which you can) and what have they done for you lately? Never accept their first offer and tell them you are cancelling. You go through to a different dept who have a lot more leeway on 'discounts for valued customers'.

With the food, I know it's tough, but it's got to be about self-discipline. If your missus is a stay-at-home mum - even with small kids - it's no great stress to whack a casserole in the oven, or stick the food in a slo-cooker while she does everything else. Preparing a meal for a family takes less than half an hour. Cooking time doesn't count really, since it sits in the oven.

I work in the city, and I spend two hours on a Sunday cooking up meals for my lunches all week. Saves me about £25 a week on that alone. Pain in the rear, but it's clearing my debts!:D

I hope this stuff helps.