How can we cut back!?

Rosemary7391

With the mobiles, can you starting making a note of how many minutes/texts you use, and keep a check on what the best tariff would be for you so you're ready to go as soon as you can get out of the contract. Perhaps if you use them a lot then a SIM only contract would be best; I get 300 mins, unlimited texts and unlimited calls to landlines for £10 a month with o2 so it's worth looking into

judy2357

juliethemuse wrote: »

before this gets locked i thought i would mention Steph, competitions, last year i won quite alot of prizes, and if your stuck at home you can spend a few hours a day comping, its a bit hit and miss though at the moment i am going through a mega dry spell, but last year won loads including a trip to Vegas :T and money prizes too, this year cant seem to win a sausage but you've got to be in it to win it as they say,

Yes I agree with this, obviously it is not a guaranteed income and dont expect to win immediately as it can take several months but I find the small wins in particular come in very useful eg mascaras, lipsticks toiletries as if you dont need to buy these you can put the money towards your bills. Dont forget that anything you dont want you can sell on Ebay.

Take a look at the freebies thread and the coupon thread this could save you a fortune particularly with baby items, nappies, creams etc.

toozie_2

Hiya Steph

Firstly let me say i live in a rural area, and would say a car is ESSENTIAL, I work 8 hours a day, and would be out about 13 or 14 hours if I tried to use public transport.

A. If you see any referrals for Pinecone Research, you can get £3 a survey (it was £4) paid into your Paypal account.

B. The possible £100 a year on each others Xmas presents could do with being reduced?

C. Have you anythings you don't need. Sell on ebay, or buy some stuff at car boot sales to sell on ebay. This can all be done with baby in tow.

D. As you said you write review, do as many other survey's as you can. With Pigsback the piggy points mount very slowly now, but by Xmas you may get a voucher or two to use on those Xmas pressies for parents.

E. As someone else has mentioned, enter competitions like crazy on line (or off the comp page on this site) Go for all the ones where you could sell the prize on ebay, as apposed to holidays that you can't really afford at the moment. You may have free time during the day while you OH sleeps, or when he goes to work in the evenings.

F. Mystery shopping-sign up to all companies you can find.

G. Maybe look at the Oldstyle Board and try and cut down a little on food, although your costings are already low. I just bought one of those massive sacks of potatoes from a local cheap greengros for £4, kept in a cold place (shed) the sack lasts for ever, great for jackets and beans for lunch, or potato, onion and cheese bake.

H. Dog walking, baby sitting, take in ironing, leafleting (as mentioned you are going to do this) delivering the local free paper (if you there is one?) What about a small cleaning job, I have a friend who cleans for 3 different elderly people, and they don't mind if she swaps her days around, which you could do if you felt ill.

I. You say you dye your own hair, do you get a dry trim when needed? Much cheaper than a cut a blow. Cut you OH hair yourself?

J. Hopefully you are saving as much fuel as posbible, batch cooking in oven, lights off, no heating-wrap up in a throw, turn plugs off at sockets etc.

K. Maybe think about breast feeding when little one arrives, instead of buying the bottles etc, and having to get the milk for months to come-I know that is a very personal choise, but I found it cheaper, and easier.

L. In our area, they advertise taking in foreign students for a week, and you are paid by the university (its 25 miles away) to speak english to them all week-would there be anything like that in your area?

M. Ensure you are getting, or will be getting every single benefit you are entitled to-obviously more when the bambino arrives.

N. When your OH is sleeping and not out in the car, try not to use it yourself, or ensure you only go to town one day a week and do everything then. I get Tesco to deliver on a Tuesday night between 8pm and 10pm and it's £3 delivery, which is less then the round trip in petrol. Look on the voucher boards for extra money or point vouchers for Tesco.

O. I buy mince on offer or reduced (if I go to shop!), and make a massive spag bol type dish is the slow cooker, which then is frozen into portions for lasagne, chilli, shep pie, pasta bake etc-great with some spuds from that bag!!

P. I personally can easily live with just Freeview, it is a matter for the individual, but when the babe comes you will have plenty to do and may not watch so much TV. Do those competitions instead of watching, and reduce your TV bill.

Q. Never use a tumble dryer (if you have one) dry on line, or on a clothes horse. Fold clothes carefully when brought in, and lots don't need ironing, don't bother with rioning sheets etc, whats the point-maybe you don't anyway-if so good girl!! Ensure washing machine is only run when totally full, I buy shop own brand wash powder works just as well, and with OH being a sec guard, his clothes won't be that dirty (try being married to a welder!!)

R. Forgot to mention when I shop on line with Tesco, I put my essentials (that word again sorry!!!) in the basket like milk, cat food etc, then I just buy from the items on offer, and make my meals around the offers.

S. Have you thought about fostering? Massive massive step, and not one to take when your pregnant, but maybe something to look at in the future, if you love kids, and want to offer a loving home and help.

T. Water meter? Think you can work out on a site somewhere if it works out cheaper for you. Remember the baby won't need much water until it gets to be a teenager!! When my kids were babies i had a bath, OH dunked them in, then he got in after me, while I sorted out the kids!

U. What does OH have to eat in the night, can he take the left over chilli, spag bol, curry and heat in a mircowave, or a can of shop own brand soup and some bread?

V. Ensure you are buying your petro at a garage offering Loyalty Points.

W. Avon, Betterware, Kleeneazie-don't know enough about any, but look into them.

X. Is your car cleared of all crap, as light as possible, to ensure the best fuel consumption, look on web sites that give details of how to save on fuel.

Y. I take it you have gone through Martins recommendations to find the cheapest car insurance- to do this properly it takes ages, but could mean you come up with something maybe a fraction cheaper.

Z. Are you a member of Quidco, I have had loads of money back on that site over the years.

There I wanted to go through the whole alphabet!!!
Hope there is something in there that helps you, good luck, and all the very best for the new arrival.
xxx

elfen

Oh, I saw the bit about £6 CTB, still claim it, as that's £24 a month you can use somewhere else.

Also, join Quidco and Dooyoo, Quidco is a cashback site so you can do your shopping through it (it has referrer links) and you get money back for it...all the little bits add up
DooYoo is a review site, every review you write you get 500 points, you also get points for reviewing others reviews. Once you get to 20,000, you can get a £20 Amazon voucher, or save 50,000 and get a £50 cheque. Could be something to do when babba is napping?

welshmoneylover

Everytime I log onto this forum I'm amazed this thread hasn't been locked..yet!

Margaret54

Hi steph Congratulations on your pregnacy. Please take care and I do wish you all the very best in your pregnacy and for your future, along with your dh. There have been a lot of nasty comments on here and I am shocked at them. There has also been a lot of positive help from other people, and I wish you well. Margaret

dizziblonde

Gotta love posts basically wanting you to pat them on the head, tell them they're awesome and invent some magical way to make money for doing no extra effort or making no cutbacks at all. Trust me, if there was a way to do that - I'd be doing it, we all would but the basic truth are you have three options:

a) Spend less money
b) Make more money
c) Sit and wallow in self-pity and expect the world to owe you a living and then cry hard done by when the banks want overdrafts back, councils want arrears paid off etc etc.

No sympathy at all - you've sat and knocked back every single suggestion given to you, sat and labelled cable and the like as "essentials"... they're not - essential is keeping a roof over your head and food in your mouth, and baliffs from the door. We've been trying for a kid for years, and if I get pregnant I'll have no entitlement to mat leave - but we've sat down and done the sums and know where the cuts in our luxuries can be made to get some money freed up if that ever happens - and yes, the mobile phone contract and cable contract would be pretty much top of the list of things that we'd cut - they are NOT essential and you can at the very least try to get the packages downgraded to the basic level till the minimum contract runs out. You can look into car-sharing with other people at hubby's work to cut fuel bills, you can look at where you shop - but you seem to be not even prepared to consider any of this and just hurl insults when people try to help you - the choice is that you either take some responsibility (why were you taking on phone contracts when you were in arrears with council tax anyway), or you sit and bury your head in the sand. The people on here are good - but no, we can't pull money out of thin air and if I could I'd be selling the secret on the internet for a small fortune and off on a beach somewhere.

avstar

Just skimmed through this post and prob repeating what others have said
Firstly congrats Steph on the pregnancy.

Please remember that what you describe is the norm for many many people. Yes we seem surrounded by people who flash the cash (usually not their own) but there are lots of working families in your situation, you're not alone.

I work fulltime, but can't afford cable TV (we have Virgin for phone and internet but no TV), we have freeview. We only use the landline for incoming calls as we have free minutes on the (cheap) mobile tarrifs we have. We don't eat meals out unless on tesco clubcard points. I cut and dye my own hair. I scour the internet for bargains.
I enter competitions.
I collect points on shopping/petrol.
Cashback sites where possible.
Sell things on ebay

All to eek out the wage a bit more.

It's become a way of life I've struggled for so long LOL!

I'm not going to tell you to cut short the contracts, but as soon as the contracts are up...then get rid of them. You don't need cable TV. You can get cheaper tarrifs for your mobiles....once the contracts are up

You mention buying milk for baby, please look at breastfeeding if you can. It's better for baby and infinitely cheaper than bottle feeding. I hope you are able to, but I know some mums can't (before I get shot down in flames!)

Anyway, good luck.

mattcanary

Dizziblonde - before judging, read what Steph has said in ALL her posts properly! You would then know that Steph has already considered all of the things you have suggested
She has tried to cut down. And she has said she will cut down her expenses further when her contracts end on the phone, etc. Hell, she's already tried to downgrade the contract and the mobile phone company are not playing ball. So read thoroughly before jusging!
She has said she will get charged massive penalty charges if she cancels them now. I actually know that is likely to be the case - it has happened to me too. So cancelling now would only create more debts for her to pay off - hardly good money-saving advice!!!

Steph's grocery bills are very low, and it hardly looks to me as if she is spending excessively. Plus her other half's pay varies considerably from month to month - making it hard for her and her husband to budget.

Basically, Steph is speaking from the heart and learning as she goes along. That's the impression I'm getting anyway (and I hope that doesn't sound patronising, Steph - it's not meant too!) And some of the posts made in this thread are only likely to raise her level of anger - I would be furious myself as well. Comments made by people that in all likelihood live comfortably and have no idea of what it is like to struggle to get by.


Get a job - anyone can get a job. Honestly, some people have no idea!

Anyway, Steph. Good luck with the pregnancy and when the baby is born. And you'll get more moeny from the government anyway, in the form of tax credits, etc!

retrocircles

I haven't read the whole thread... but you can't be bothered to work because 'you'd just have to leave again in 3 months'.

What a poor attitude. If you found full-time work for the next 3 months you could get anything above £1800! Given your current situation that would be welcomed surely?