It's worse than I thought!

RAS

beccam wrote: »

I lost alot of weight and treated myself to new clothes as I dropped each dress size, now through things happening and bump weight has creeped back on and more clothes have been bought.

Ok, so think about those clothes. If you are likely to wear them again when you lose weight after the bay, hold on to them. If not, e-bay, car boot, etc.

beccam wrote: »

Same for DD, she has a wardrobe and chest of drawers full of clothes, half of which have been worn a few times before she has taken another big growth spurt and I buy more.

So you know she needs fewer clothes for the future. Pack away those that you know now would suit your second child, irrespective of gender. of the rest pick the ones that you think would fetch a good price and sell them. Box up teh rest until you now the gender for the new baby.

beccam wrote: »

I looked last night at the shelf beside my bed which at a rough guess has about £50 worth of books bought in Tesco etc,

If you want to keep them fine. Otherwise, get an account on amazon and sell them off.

And then join the local library so you and the little ones have free reading material.

beccam wrote: »

Trips to see family in London etc etc.

Not sure where you aare travelling from but check www.megabus.com, the eastcoast line for cheap deals. national express?

beccam

pelirocco wrote: »

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How much lower will your income be , you need to be budgeting with the lower income in mind

I have to speak to employee relations but I'm guessing about £300 lower per month for the last 4mths.

MrsTine wrote: »

Could I suggest you give him a small notebook and ask him to keep a spending diary and do the same yourself. If he's a fussy eater then I suspect you're underestimating what food is costing you (guessing he buys lunchest at work )
Sit down together and do a meal plan for this week - have a list of suggestions and if there are any he DEF won't eat then no point in cooking it, but if there is no home cooked food he will eat then you need to give him a good hard slap!

Can I afford to buy 2 notebooks?? :rotfl:
You're right, I'm off work this week and intend to be as much "no spend" as possible but too easy to miss £1 here and there when back in work again.

MrsTine wrote: »

Hang on - if your income the higher of the 2? Or is HIS the higher of the two?

If it's yours then you're gonna be in trouble when you go on ML! :eek:

Yep it's me who earns more. LikeI say I need to do calculations with employee relations people but I get full pay for first 8 weeks then half pay plus stat mat pay which should equal around £1200/mth.

Hence why the lightbulb came on.....I NEED to get our outgoings reduced significantly or else we are in the poop. One thing I did find out was we can take a mortgage holiday i needs be (wouldn't want to unless we REALLY needed) but at least I know if things haven't improved and maternity is lower than I have planned then it is an option for a few months.

katenut

Hi Beccam, just wanted to join in and add my support. My OH is also a master at burying his head in the sand, and likes nothing better than a cold pint while discussing the footie with his mates. We also are starting with a similar sort and level of debt to you - several small debts and a few big ones.
I started posting here a month ago, and did all the usual - snowball calculation, spending diary, grocery challenge etc. He has tried to cut down this month, but it was only when I told him we'd paid 1.9% off our total debt already this month (thanks to the inspiration of the Olympic Challenge!) that I saw a faint lightbulb go on in his head!! He has now said he's going to try halving how much he smokes, and has agreed to a reduced 'entertainment' budget. I could have nagged until I was blue in the face a few months ago and nothing would have changed, but I'm sure that showing him what we have achieved in 4 weeks has made him realise that there is a way out of this. We've compromised on lots of things (like one Sky sports channel rather than the whole package), and we're much happier than we've been in ages. I also gave up smoking at New Year, and I'm sure my smugness about this has spurred OH to stop. I also make him smoke outside as I've told him it'll be too much temptation for me if he smokes in the house (also very funny watching him stand out in the snow!!).
You sound like you're heading in the right direction already, good luck!
Kate x

beccam

RAS wrote: »

Ok, so think about those clothes. If you are likely to wear them again when you lose weight after the bay, hold on to them. If not, e-bay, car boot, etc.

I'm DETERMINED to loose the weight again! 5 stone came off and I was still going until some "things" happened and in the past year I've gained nearly 2 of those stones back again!:mad:


So you know she needs fewer clothes for the future. Pack away those that you know now would suit your second child, irrespective of gender. of the rest pick the ones that you think would fetch a good price and sell them. Box up teh rest until you now the gender for the new baby.

Good ideas, I don't know if we can find out gender but I'm def not doing my usual and giving stuff away or dumping it!


If you want to keep them fine. Otherwise, get an account on amazon and sell them off.

Don't want them....hoping to do a carboot but maybe amazon would be better? Never sold on it.

And then join the local library so you and the little ones have free reading material.



Not sure where you aare travelling from but check www.megabus.com, the eastcoast line for cheap deals. national express?

Travel from Belfast but big sis will have to cough up from now on if she wants to see us....I probably wouldn't be going over for foreseeable future anyway due to bump and then travelling with 2 kids would be like hell!!

beccam

Thanks Katenut, it's 'nice' to know others have been here, done this and some are still doing it too or like us are just starting! I know it's not nice for anyone but hope you get what I mean!!

beccam

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1560
Partners monthly income after tax....... 700
Benefits................................ 120
Other income............................ 0

Total monthly income.................... 2380

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 680
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 51 (rates)
Electricity............................. 40
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 40
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 15 = 0 (now included in Sky)
Mobile phone............................ 50
TV Licence.............................. 10
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 57 = 44 (sky including broadband and phone + line rental)
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 200
Clothing................................ 10
Petrol/diesel........................... 60
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 25
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10
Car parking............................. 6.5
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 150
Other child related expenses............ 24 (ballet class £6/week)
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10 (glasses for me)
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 40= 33(includes contents)
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 58
Other insurance......................... 13 (Unison membership)
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20=10
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 130 (:eek: husbands fags and booze!)
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 100 (paid into IF savings)

Total monthly expenses.................. 1824.5 = 1780

Assets
Cash.................................... 350 (IF savings)
House value (Gross)..................... 130000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 900
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 131250

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Mortgage...................... 97500....(680)......6.58
Total secured & HP debts...... 97500.....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
MBNA...........................9350......296...... .NaN see below re interest?
Halifax........................4350......103...... .27.95
Debenhams......................200.......8........ .22.4
Argos..........................180.......5.5...... .18.9
Fashionworld.....................0........0.....NaN paid it off today and hope I haven't left us too short on cash!
Littlewoods....................139.......35....... .NaN
Next...........................112.......12....... .NaN
Etam...........................157.......6.5...... .24.96
Total unsecured debts.........14488......466......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,380
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,824.5=1784
Available for debt repayments........... 555.5
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 476
Amount left after debt repayments....... 79.5 = 120

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 131,250
Total HP & Secured debt................. -97,500
Total Unsecured debt.................... -14,540
Net Assets.............................. 19,210



More changes to show payment shield (home and contents) reduced to £33 I'm pretty sure I can still get this cheaper but this was their first offer when I rang to see about cancelling, just need to get more time to form fill and work out quotes.

RAS

Will you need nursery when you are on mat leave?

dancingfairy

Does your nursery accept childcare vouchers and does your work do them? basically you pay for childcare vouchers before the tax is taken off of your pay. It does affect certain benefits though - think it might be working tax credit - might be worth reading up on it - I think Martin has an article on it somewhere. Also depending on the age of you child can they get a free session per week - I know the government gives free session for children of a certain age.
df

Britwife

Will you be able to cut the childcare costs while you are off with new baby?

Hubby can google sports on the internet and get all he needs. Honestly, that sky package is high. We have a sattelite system with a tv tuner in our computer and get so many channels with it, it's great and all we pay is our tv license! And our phone broadband is £20 with talk talk, that includes unlimited international calls and pretty decent internet and free local calls.

RobertoMoir

beccam wrote: »

Firstly you need to change your sig as you're really quite nice or are you being gentle with the newbie??;)

MrsTine nailed it I think. I have a problem with "suffering fools gladly". But thank you for the compliment :-)

beccam wrote: »

Hubby tends to avoid the issue but yes last night he found me in tears and being physically sick over this all so he knows we are in dire straits, he isn't good at financial things, it's always been down to me and to be fair when we married he had no debt, no cards and everything was in my name, it's only now that I'm beginning to accept he has been a major factor in this too but I don't think he has totally accepted that yet as he sees my deliveries from Next and Littlewoods arriving and feels that balances out his spending.:o
I don't want him to resent me for getting him into this but I don't want to end up resenting him for not making an effort either.....not easy when pregnancy hormones are kicking in!

You need to be patient with him and lead him to the place you've arrived at - you have the advantage of doing the money management and you're 3 or 4 pages ahead of him if you see what I mean. You need to show him where you guys are at and you need to give him some time to accept it and have his own "lightbulb moment" about it the way you took time to have yours.

But you do need to make sure he has it. I'm glad he found you upset - not because you were upset or anything, I can imagine how unpleasant it must feel right now, but because he knows there is a problem and you can face it together. There are a lot of men and women who post here who are in a mess and feel they can't speak to their partner about it and whatever other problems you guys have getting things sorted out right now you don't have that one at least.