My State of Affairs

lynsayjane

youngmum wrote:

Sky I'm going to look into reducing.

Broken down the £300 is £20 a week for Xmas savings, £15 a week for gifts (to cover everyones birthday, anniversarys, mothers day etc), £15 a week towards car fund (MOTs, tax disc etc) and £5 a week towards hair money (for all 4 of us - 2 adults and 2 kids). Are those figures too high you reckon?

And yep, I'm going to work on that food bill

Thanks

maybe a good idea would be to look at these things monthly ie how many birthdays you have that month and how much you would plan to spend on each.

one handy thing for xmas and bday cost cutting might be to set a 'limit' with friends and family, my folks and i spend £30 on each other at xmas meaning i only need about £120 for my mum, dad, sis and stepdad plus a little extra for the couple of friends/cousins i buy for (usually just wee token pressies about a tenner each).

youngmum_2

angchris wrote:

you dont need to be paying £10 a month for your bank account! i fell into that trap with lloyds tsb they upped me to a gold card with a £10 a month charge because my loan worked out cheaper, i agreed without thinking about it:o and must of paid £100`s + £100`s extra over the course of several years, if you dont use the "extra" benefits your bank give you for your £10 then downgrade your bank account asap or change banks like i did through quidco to alliance and leicester, you get £50 cashback through quidco and if someone refers you they get £25 and so do you, so you will be £75 up on the deal and no more £10 a month charges!:j

Wow, didn't know that. Thanks

youngmum_2

Thanks so much everyone for taking the time to look over my finances. Means a lot

sashacat

cancel sky, don't reduce it...cancel it ...you don't need it as much as you need to pat off your debts. And don't buy newspapers, dvds, or takeaways...you don't need them even if you want them, even if they only cost £10 per week ,that's 40 quid off your debts

youngmum_2

sashacat wrote:

cancel sky, don't reduce it...cancel it ...you don't need it as much as you need to pat off your debts. And don't buy newspapers, dvds, or takeaways...you don't need them even if you want them, even if they only cost £10 per week ,that's 40 quid off your debts

I know what you're saying is right. But doing it is another matter.

loobyloo1980

Well I have Sky on basic package and will not get rid as we don't go out drinking, don't smoke, don't go to cinema etc so Sky is our only entertainment. I think if its your only form of entertainment and you keep it on basic package it is justifiable.

loobyloo1980

youngmum wrote:

I know what you're saying is right. But doing it is another matter.

I know what you mean. Like I have just said, I will not compromise on Sky, but we don;t buy newspapers or magazines, and we try not to get takeaways, although the odd treat out of the food budget is ok.

youngmum_2

loobyloo1980 wrote:

Well I have Sky on basic package and will not get rid as we don't go out drinking, don't smoke, don't go to cinema etc so Sky is our only entertainment. I think if its your only form of entertainment and you keep it on basic package it is justifiable.

Yeah, kinda how I feel too.

I am willing though to cut out the takeaways and only rent the occassional DVD however. We rarely go out too.

loobyloo1980

youngmum wrote:

Yeah, kinda how I feel too.

I would cut out the DVD rentals and take Sky to basic package, and limit yourself to maybe 1 takeaway a month as a treat out of your food budget. Works for us

lynsayjane

i guess if you can make enough cuts from the rest of your budget basic sky could be negotiable. i've cut myself down to the near bear minimum except for the gym, i'm going to give it a month trial and see how i cope, but if i still am not making enough headway into my debt it will go too. i may have no life outside work for a time, but at least i'll be debt free quicker! the thought of being in grey pilgrims shoes in the future gets me through the hard times.