How do you say No to things you really need

lilac_lady

Keep on going the way you are Jim. Trim the grocery bill by a third, redo the car budget ((£190 per month for road tax?), start a clothes budget for yourself because it's important to have an appropriate appearance at work (no holes in clothes!) and have a weekly budget get together with your wife.

Run the budget by your children if they're old enough and keep money discussions from them if they're too young.

Good luck!

PS - keep reading and posting here.

hermum

Hi, I'm not much help, firstly congratulations on getting well & back to work, you do need to ensure that you stay in good mental health. The £70 medical, if a lot of this is prescriptions do you have the annual pre payment certificate, three month PPC will cost you £28.25 and a 12 month PPC £104.00. Does Mrs Jim cook everything from scratch, stews, cottage pies etc the good old fashioned filling stuff that tastes so much better than ready meals & stuff with chips & can be batch cooked. She can always add dried pulses & beans to them. Get the kids involved in cooking, bread is always a great one, even teenagers enjoy it, helps get rid of some energy kneading it & so much cheaper than shop bought. How much food actually gets wasted? I make soup out of any leftovers, including the odd bits from a roast, sometimes only a small bowl full after 3 days, stock cube & water. Free lunch.
I think that you really need to get your wife to understand that you cannot carry the family alone & unless she helps to keep the budget under control you are likely to become ill again then you will be in the proverbial. If she can't go out to work is there anything she can do from home, with 2 kids there must be stuff unused around the house to ebay etc. I find that clothes are cheaper now from ebay & car boots than charity shops.
Have you shown her your post so that she realises the pressure that you're under?
All the best

zcrat41

Hello Mr Jim,
Just read your post and it struck me that you sound like a very nice man who's doing really well himself. I can't imagine how hard it would be to get the wife and kids on side (as I don't have any!) but I guess lots of it depends on how old the kids are. I hope some other people with more experience of your situation can give better advice than I. Is there a reason she doesn't work? Kids ages etc?

I'd also advocate putting money in your budget for unexpected spends. Then if you don't spend and have a little cushion you can throw it at another debt.

Good luck

ZC

Norfolk_Jim

Thanks for all your replies and being gentle with me - I've been out to the doctors, this is why I have not replied sooner. I wanted to reduce my medication but the Dr she say no! They always say no.

Right... to work

The Road Tax... Yes typo, I put in a years worth, not a months, my goof.
Theres nothing in the budget for maintainence. If it needs tyres, or windscreen wipers or an MOT, theres nothing there to pay that, I have to find a way to get the money together, usually on credit.

Other insurance - Well actually some of that is my Union fees (they didnt have a category for that and its really there in case of needing representation at some point, so its an insurance) My boiler is now insured. They wouldnt insure it before because it was too old. I also have an annual travel policy as I was anticipating a couple of trips to the continent in a more positive moment.

Benefits - we get the basic child benefit and some Tax Credits. If we qualified for anything else I'd be interested.

Internet services - yes probably not the lowest around - a bit of inertia there on my point plus satisfaction with current service. Theres a few scare stories out there about troubled switches which have increased my procrastination on this one.

Groceries. The town we hope to move to has a lot of big stores and places like Lidl and Alsi, wilkinsons, Poundland etc. At the moment we drive 20 miles to get to the shops (we live in a tiny town that got caught up in the "lets buy a flint cottage in Norfolk" madness. You'll get the idea when you know they call a nearby village "Little Chelsea" and Norman Major and Jamie Oliver have homes around here. We've got quite a few art galleries and designer boutiques but just the 1 supermarket. They always have plenty of sun dried obergines but often run out of bread. Shopping there costs 50-100% seriously, than Morrisons or Tesco. I know that in another town we could do way better on this and be much more creative.

as it stands now we could still get our grocery bill down a bit if Mrs Jim would be able to help out. If only she got pleasure out of finding a way to stretch one chicken into 3 interesting meals - I know it can be done. Unfortunately Mrs Jim has all of the cookery talent of a 5 year old - If you cant pop it out of a tin and warm it over a ring then its 50/50 as to if it will come out incinerated or half raw. Half raw is my preference by the way. So I do most of the cooking, about 70/30. I get home from work at 6, generally I'm tired and hungry and just want something quick and easy. Sometimes I do use the slow cooker. It would just be better if this labour was shared a bit better and if Mrs Jim took an interest in creative frugal cooking - but I cant force her to be interested and shes not.

Medical, I pay £7.20pm for my drugs £8pm for her season ticket and the rest is dentistry. Hopefully that will no longer feature for much longer - How much dental work can a person need?
Yes, the dental plan people rue the day they ever saw us. We've had THOUSANDS out of them. Subsequently our premium is now far too high and the benefits on offer far too low to keep on with this.
It would be a thread on its own my quest to get an NHS dentist to take on even just my wife. If we got income support or JSA it'd be ok apparently, but otherwise, always refused unless private. Its a wild story how we got this way, maybe I'll share it sometime.

Council Tax, its over 10 months. Those "free" months have helped out in the past with things like the MOT.

Electricity, yes pretty costly isnt it. I send my meter readings every month. We heat our house through "incidental heating" in all but the coldest times of the year when we have the gas fire on. Our water is heated by gas. Since the new gas boiler went in the gas bill has collapsed!

Energy saving lights everywhere - very wasteful kids and wife though. I keep telling them that they would act different if THEY had to pay the bill

Petrol - Yes Ouch! I drive 1000 miles a month just to get to/from work, on a 4 week month! And everything is 20 miles away. Once we move then this will go way down I hope. Its been the straw that broke the camels back in terms of selling up - we just cant keep up with it and its only going to get worse isnt it?
I'd always bought into the idea that the cheapest car to run is the one thats bought and paid for. Could maybe switch cars and use a bit less but I dont think mine is terribly uneconomical so I'd have to save a lot before reaching payback. Now If I could bike to work then that'd be a real winner at least in summer. I love cycling and you get fit at the same time. This is one for after we move.

Utilities & Insurances - I shop around for these every time one is due. I love the MSE site and have learnt an awful lot here. I use Quidco and Topcashback and have done well with them - drained em dry! I've done just about every click site you could name, matched betting, slice the pie, anything that could give me 1p even. At my worst I hardly slept - I couldnt work so sat through the night doing this.
Part of my recover has been to ease off on this stuff and rest my mind. I didnt get rich doing any of it and now my number 1 priority is staying well mentally and remaining in employment - getting the push is my nightmare.

Water: no meter. With a younf family would I be better off on one? I thought this is great for like a working couple or retired folk but not so good for families. I suppose the advantage of paying a rate is its better the devil you know, but I can see the disadvantage, no scope to economise.

Mrs Jim - Employment - She has tried. Theres a lot of prejudice against the mentaly ill it would seem. Mrs Jim does voluntary work for two charities. It helps her to socialise (having OCD) and also get some references / experiemce to get work in retail maybe. She has excellent references from these charities - Red Cross and BREAK, even awards.
She has applied for jobs locally, they seem pleased with her until they get to the health section. Its tempting to lie but I think she'd be find out.
No one will employ her for pay it seems. She still tries, lots of rejections.

Where we will move to they have lots of national chains. Am I wrong to think they'll be a bit more willing to try her, I mean, people like Tesco like to tick the Socialy Responsible Employer boxes dont they?
I think even Mrs head in the sand Jim accepts that she must find work by the time OD leaves school and the tax credit/CB starts to be removed with DS not far behind.

Can you even get JSA if hubby is employed?

Professional advise- well workmate advised me to go to CCCS - I knew something about them from this board already so gave him thanks but didnt.
Guess I'm just proud, stubborn, foolish. I feel responsible. I always pay my way and I'll pay this back too is my general attitude, just it never goes down, only up.

My solution is to sell the house - its always been the plan, but now its being forced on me rather than choosing the moment.

Living where we do is a big contributor to my difficulties. Ill health for both of us is another. I dont smoke, I dont drink and I dont gamble any more.
I need to sell the house and get the debt repayments way down.

Last - Doing the SOA was a surprise. I had overestimated how much discretionary income we had each month - even with the typo on the Road Tax, it looks like about 0 discretionary income - no wonder it keeps on going up.

We are terribly vulnerable to an increase in interest rates, but with this much debt I'm not sure tinkering with the budget will have the kind of impact I need. Selling and downsizing looks like the best option, plus relocation to a better for work, better for bills town.

At least there is a good bit of equity in the house - thats something I know a lot of you good folk on the board dont have, so thanks for your sympathetic hearing.

Hope I covered it all

Norfolk_Jim

My favourit book by the way, and one I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, is "the complete tightwads gazzette". American yes, so not 100% relevant to the UK but besides the ideas, the general story of the woman (Amy Dzczyn) is inspirational - She achieved her dreams and without debt. I think theres a long wait for it at every library but I've read mine many times.
Mrs jim of course has never read it even once - or this board.
You can lead a horse to water....

gonzo127

Hi Jim, well as far as the petrol goes i think you oculd make a good saving there, i currently drive over 1200 in the same 4 week month (just over 300 miles a week) to get to work, and with my car i still only spend around £160 a month on petrol

zcrat41

Mr Jim, you do make me chuckle! Sounds too me like you want to move for more than just debt reasons - the country can be so remote its untrue. I wouldn't know the ins and outs of which is best for your debt but it does seem to make sense for personal reasons.

Re your wife's employment; I used to work for quite a major retailer; might be worth looking into whether her condition is covered by DDA. Also, if its ocd then I'm sure there's companies out there where an inclination towards it can be an advantage. Food based industries can see that as a good thing. (Obviously I have no idea how bad it is so please forgive me if its an impossibility)


Lastly...... "I keep telling them that they would act different if THEY had to pay the bill"

....make them! My dad made me pay our phone bill once with my pocket money in my teenage years. He wouldn't let me use the phone again till I'd paid my debt. Days of frantic chores ensued!

Good luck x

Lurleene

Hello JIm, I'm currently reading The Complete Tightwad Gazette and looked Amy Dacyzyn up on Youtube out of curiosity. There is a recently added clip where Amy shows you round her beautiful house - it is the sort of house I dream about! The frugal living obviously paid off. Maybe you could get your wife to watch this, it's only a few minutes long? It might spark her interest, and inspire her to look at the book!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUFyD-FTf-E

You never know!

euronorris

Mrs Jim could do some work from home though, no? Like ironing for instance? Or she could offer babysitting services? Or even a paper round?

Is it just the OCD that she suffers from? Or something else? I can't see why OCD would put them off entirely. Sorry, really not my area of expertise and no offence meant to anyone. So, if I have it all wrong, please let me know.

Has she tried offering the paying employers a week's unpaid trial? So they can see that she can do the job etc? Might help.

The kids - how old are they? Can they get a part time job? If so, get them onto it straight away. Every little helps.

It's a shame the wife isn't on board as a) it makes it so difficult to get on top of things and b) it's obviously getting you down. Might I suggest that you remove her access to the money and just hand over the allowance in cash on a weekly/monthly basis? I know this seems harsh but she needs to show that she CAN be responsible with sticking to the budget. Otherwise you're just swimming in circles.

Norfolk_Jim

Mrs Jims OCD responds well to medication, she can work and does good work for Red Cross & BREAK on retail and stock control (including pricing up) so could be a good employee for any retail chain.

Whats DDA please?

I'd love it if the kids paid for ANYTHING themselves - any ideas what they might do to get funds though? we are pretty rural here.

E-Bay - Yes done it, still do it, but its kind of tailed off of late. I've had a few unlucky breaks with E Bay where it ended up costing me money instead of making some. Same with Amazon. Its like the competition on these has really squeezed whatevers there to be had.