I can't see the wood for the trees

barbiedoll

Your council tax also sounds very high, I live in a London in a (small) house which is band C and my council tax payment is much lower than yours, even over 10 months. Check that your flat is in the correct band, you may be able to make a saving there. Also, regarding the mobile bundle, everyone in my house has a £10 SIM only deal from Virgin, along with our broadband, cable tv and phone and we all get free minutes and texts (between 100-200 on each.) We constantly check our balances (free by text) and use whichever phone has the most minutes left. You have a good income and you can easily service your debts but you just need to stop throwing money at unnecessary expenses. Car insurance at £135 per month? You could insure a Rolls Royce for that! :rotfl: I live in a very high cost insurance area but I think that price is extreme.

Skintorama

DarkConvict wrote: »

Would it be cheaper to hire an in house nanny rather than pay over £800 a month in childcare? That is alot for 1 child.

I wish! The average wage for a nanny in london is over £300 a week, and I have looked at nanny share, but the ones I found didn't make much difference in cost once you've factored in the fact that you can't use childcare vouchers (which my husband and I get) as payment.

Bobbins234

I definitely recommend ditching the car. I know it would be very hard psychologically to make the shift, but it just doesn't justify itself in London.

Our family doesn't have a car, and rather than taxis I recommend internet grocery shopping. We order food from Sainsbury's once or twice a month, and if you space it right you can get the bill up to £100 and have free delivery, and all the heavy stuff brought to your door for no extra cost. Fantastic!

Other times we just use the bus, and load up the buggy with the bags.

Also you mentioned you have to move, you can use that as an opportunity to maximise your public transport links. (Even if slightly more expensive should be way cheaper than the car).

Good luck!

WendysWorld

Have to agree about the car insurance, i live in London (Waltham Forest council area) and I think it's a fairly expensive borough insurance-wise, our insurance is £650 a year. This is for husband in 30s with 1yr no-claims (had a company car for years so no No-Claims built up).
As for childcare, this sounds right for London, it's an expensive city if you have children - and this is coming from an Irish person! (Ireland is very expensive for its size). I work a 3-day week, have very reasonably priced (for London) childminders for my two boys (6&3) and pay around £800 - one is just a school pick up/drop off. How old is your little girl? When she's 3, the nursery will re-imburse you for 15 hours a week they get from the government.
Anyway, chin-up, I also find it a struggle to keep money in the bank in London as everything is so expensive. But I'm managing better every month. I agree with you about needing a car, especially with a child, but I do have to question the insurance. Have you tried one of the websites like confused.com? if you're paying the insurance monthly you can switch any time.

best of luck,

BM

WendysWorld

P.S, just an aside and I know nannies are too expensive an option, but why can't you use childcare vouchers for them? If they're Ofsted registered you can pay anyone with the vouchers, even after-school clubs.

Skintorama

Oh BabyMother, you don't know how much it means to me to hear some words of support and understanding, seriously. I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday and a lot of tears and wringing of hands was involved.

The insurance thing is a killer, and I have been making enquiries, basically it looks like we can get it a lot cheaper after all, and fingers crossed we can cancel the current one as we're still within the 14 day cancellation period. I really don't know why they charged so much - all I can think of is that because he left renewing it up to the last minute maybe they hoiked up the premium as they knew he didn't have much choice but to go for it.

Someone suggested earlier on the thread that we use taxi's or a car club, but with a small child (coming up to 21 months) the logistics of carrying both a small child and a large car seat to the closest carclub car (which in my cause is about half a mile away) or even to and from a taxi (as well as fitting it) would be an absolute nightmare! Once the insurance is sorted we hope that it will not be such a costly thing to maintain.

Re. the nannies, all the ones that I looked at (nannyshare that was) weren't OFSTED registered - unlike childminders, nannies don't (or didn't the last time I looked) have to be by law I am counting the months until my daughter is 3 - when the childcare costs come down (fingers crossed the government, whoever they may be, maintains that scheme!).

DH and I are due to sit down tonight and go through our finances and budget with a fine toothed comb - I know we can get our budget down, but by how much is the question, and will it be enough to pay off our debts (i.e. not just the minimum payments)? I really do doubt it, but we will see.

On a plus note - we think we have found a new flat to rent which we are trying to negotiate down to £50 less than we're paying a week now - and it is within second of our daughter's nursery.

Steel_2

I lived in London until I was 19.

I was brought up without a car.

One parent went shopping, either using the bus, a taxi or doubling up with a friend who had a car and giving them a small amount of petrol money. The other parent stayed at home with the children.

Trips to see family in Wales and by the South Coast were done by either hiring a car for the journey or by taking a coach or train.

Skintorama

Steel wrote: »

I lived in London until I was 19.

I was brought up without a car.

One parent went shopping, either using the bus, a taxi or doubling up with a friend who had a car and giving them a small amount of petrol money. The other parent stayed at home with the children.

Trips to see family in Wales and by the South Coast were done by either hiring a car for the journey or by taking a coach or train.

And did both of your parents work full time? Maybe the supermarket was closer as for me to get to the (one of the cheaper) supermarket by public transport would take me about 45 minutes, and then to carry back at least 2 weeks worth of shopping myself would be impossible.

I am finding all this "get rid of your car" talk somewhat strange considering a lot of the other posters who mention their car don't seem to be receiving the same treatment that I do. It is a cheap 2.5k car which we own outright, parking costs us minimal, we don't take it into the congestion charging zone and it is pretty fuel efficient - yes, the insurance is extortion, but I am dealing what that - and I see it as a necessity to enable us to shop, visit family (as well as mine, my DH's parents live in North West London and are both aged and ill - he often has to make "emergency" trips over there to take one or the other to hospital or deal with some crisis or other) and get away at the weekends on occasion to visit the countryside or just get out of London whilst not having to spend much to do so.

The amount of pressure I am under to maintain a "reasonable" environment for us and our daughter whilst reducing outgoings to pay off debts as well as working full time is b****y hard, and there have been plenty of times when I have just broken down and wept because of the situation. I am aware that our budget needs attention, and I really do appreciate a lot of the comments and suggestions, but I came here looking for advice and a little support and I am leaving it feeling incredibly victimised - I am not going to lie to you, I wish I had never posted on here as it has just made me feel worse.

And I still don't really have an answer to my original post!