How can we cut back!?

daveyjp

"sorry but our car is essential. I wish it wasn't but it is. My husband works 10 miles from home, and works from 6pm til 8am, and is not on the bus route, he does own a bicycle, but the only way to his work is along a dual carriageway, where you cannot go on a bike, or should I say where its not safe to go on a bike. Although he is considering it. Also where we live it is difficult to get buses anywhere as the only bus goes direct to the town centre and is £2 each way, so thats £4 just for us to get TO town around £6 return for us both. "

You forget one major benefit you have to a lot of others who are trying to save money and you should take advantage of it to work in your favour.

You rent your property - this gives you the opportunity to move somewhere which is more convenient if you don't have access to a car.

Mark_In_Hampshire

stephbond89 wrote: »

Hi! I am new to this site, and looking for LOTS of advice!!

I am currently pregnant, and looking at our bills and income etc to try and look how we can save some money! We are always skint which gets me and my husband down alot! So any advice would be fab!

Ok so I don't work - not through lack of trying trust me, I was job hunting for 2 years with no sucess, and now I am pregnant, I am not looking as maternity pay wouldn't be given to me, and I'd be leaving again in 3 months!!
My husband works full time, and gets a great wage for one person, he earns after tax between £1250 and £1400, but we use an average of £1300, sometimes it's more sometimes less. We get no benefits or extra income of any kind.

Here is a list of our bills:
Rent: £405
Council Tax: £71 (but we owe around £600 in arrears so I am paying £100 a month to them even though they want more!)
Car Insurance: £124.80 (dont be mistaken we have a great car, it's a 15 year old banger, bt my husband had an accident 2 years ago and is only 22 which makes it very high!)
Petrol/Travel Expenses: £80-£100
Loan payment: £100
2 mobile phones and mobile internet: £110 (these are contracts and cannot be cut down until next year! Plus all are essential and the lowest they can be!)
TV/Internet/Phone: £60
Gas and Electric: £95
Water: £36
Overdraft payment (inc interest): £40
TV Licence: £36
Food Bill: £100
Extras: £50 (this is for unexpected rises in bills)

Total: £1346

As you can see, on approximately 4-6 months, this takes up our WHOLE income, and on some months, it doesnt exceeds the income, meaning we have to lower our food bill.

We will get £20 a week child benefit come september and around £30 a week in Child Tax Credits, not much really, but this will cover the things we need for the child.

We don't spend money on extras, and will only buy ourselves luxeries when we have extra income (so the rare month our income is over £1400), I dye my own hair, but haven't done in the last 6 months as I can not afford it plus I want to grow it out! And we very rarely treat ourselves to a night out or meal!!!

Many people on this income can afford to go out and spoil themselves a little, but we cannot! On top of this we also have £10,000 of debt, but we cannot afford the £100+ a month for a debt management company, so I am trying to pay our creditors ourselves! The loan we have at present ends in August, so that will be an extra £100 in our pocket, but this is also the month before our baby is born, and so liklihood is, we will need another loan from them for bits and arrears etc! Or even a new car if our car dies (which is why the loan was taken out in the first place!).

None of the bills above can be lowered, we owe money to our gas and electric company otherwise our bills would be less for that, but only by abour £10 a month less!!

I am fed up of reading about people who spend £200 a month on holidays and savings, £120 a month on having their hair done, £50 a month on clothes £50 a month on make up, and wonder why they have no money left over, when we really do not spend on luxeries, yet still struggle to pay the bills. We get basic food items (we buy the cheapest of the cheap food we can and neither of us smoke, and I dont drink, my husband drinks around 4 cans of lager a week, which cost us £3 as he buys the cheap lager, and also cuts it out if we cannot afford it).

Does anyone have any ideas of how we could improve our situation??? Of anything we can do, or of any benefits which may help us??? We have applied numerous times for council tax benefit housing benefit income support, I cant even get job seekers allowance when looking for a job!

Any advice would be really helpful!!!!!!

If you want to put the things you've stated as essential into that category, then the alternative way of looking at your situation is that you simply earn too little: most of your expenses are really quite low for the basic like utilities and rent.

When you can, replace the mobiles with PAYG on o2 on the tarrif which gives you internet access & text messages and top it up with £10 per month. Bundle the longer calls you make into one day so you get it at 25ppm for first 3 minutes then 5ppm after that. Don't make too many long calls.

Get rid of the TV - we could afford a top TV package, but we simply have a Freeview box. The signal isn't great so we can't always watch ITV channels, but we're not bothered since IMO there's almost never anything worth watching on them.

We don't have a landline - simply no need.

Our internet is supplied by Three 3G - in our case that's the fastest broadband we can actually get here anyway. £25 per month in our case for 7GB. Use it infrequently and I could get by on £10 per month. If you can get a 3G signal that's an option. It will be pants compared to cable, but will save you money and if quick enough (ours is) you can still watch streaming TV.

I think that even if you do cut back you really need to be looking at options to increase your income - whether promotions, second jobs etc.

stephbond89

Its all well and good saying "can you not do some temping" and that pregnancy isnt an illness...but companies don't see it that way. They see it as paid time off for antenatal appointments every few weeks, paid time off for scans, paid time off for sick leave (which I would most likely have a lot of as I have suffered with sickness since 6 weeks and it hasn't stopped), I got a phone call a few weeks ago from a job I had applied to before I got pregnant, asking if I was still after a job and if I was available to start, I said yes yes I am, but I had to mention been 15 weeks pregnant of course- especially as even at 15 weeks I had a big bump, so it would have been obvious, this job was temping and part time, but as soon as I said it she said "oh thats a shame, just phone us when the baby is here and your wanting to go back to work", I said I was still looking for work until Maternity leave, and she said "oh", and not much else. Nobody wants to take on a pregnant woman, temping or not. If you were a boss, I am sure you wouldn't either. You can't fire someone for been pregnant, but you dont have to give them a job. So I would challenge anyone to find me a temping job for an almost 21 week pregnant woman...

Also, we have all of our baby stuff, we got it all second hand off family and friends, my mum bought our pram for us and our moses basket and stand, and we got our cot and most clothes off my sister who has a 2 year old. There is actually nothing left for us to buy for the baby apart from bottles (which are £12 for 9 of the ones I want), and nappies and milk when they are born, which we plan on the child benefit paying for (I have a separate bank account for it so it doesnt get mixed up with the wages). Everything we got, we got second hand, the only thing we are buying new is a cot mattress, which is £20. (Freecycle was a god send). I refused to pay £300 for a cot which would be used for a year at most then have to be sold as we have no loft or storage in our house. So even if I had the money, this would have been what I would have done.

I have phoned the mobile companies, who have lowered our tariffs, but they can only lower them by one tariff at a time, so if we have a tariff for £35, and the next one down is £30, they can take it to £30 and no less. Which I have very recently done, so that can be taken no lower until November sadly.

Lokolo

Have you thought what you are going to do when the baby is born? I suspect Jeremy Kyle might be in the list!

stephbond89

[QUOTE=I_think_that_even_if_you_do_cut_back_you_really_need_to_be_looking_at_options_to_increase_your_income_-_whether_promotions,_second_jobs_etc.[/QUOTE]

I dont know who you expect to get a second job but if its my husband you have got to be having a laugh, and I would love to see anybody do a second job with the hours he works already. He works 22 shifts a month, and by god they're not short shifts, he works from 5pm to 8am that's 15 hours and he works nights. He has two days off a week, but those two days, one is spent asleep in bed until 2pm as he has been in work until 8am the night before, he has one full day and night off, then the next day he is in work again at 5pm (leaving at 4.20). So it's all well and good saying "get a second job", but I think it is fair to say he works his a*se off as it is. I am almost 21 weeks pregnant, so working isn't really an option for me as I said in the previous post nobody wants to hire a pregnant woman.

He has asked his boss about a payrise, who said no as they simply cannot afford it, the only type of "promotion" as you say available is to become a supervisor in his job, where his hours would be less (12 hours a night not 15), for only 20p an hour more, so he would actually end up LOSING money, or end up on the same amount of wages for having to do more work! He has no option of overtime in his job, as it is a fixed site with a fixed rota, the only time he can work extra is when the other guard is sick and off work, but thats very infrequent and would have to mean him working straght shifts for 10 days.

Again its all good you saying "get 3G internet, get a freeview box", but as I have said about 100 times now, we are in a contract with Virgin until around October. No it's not essential to have the internet or the TV, but life would be blo*dy bland without it, we are already not going out or socialising, I am home alone 5 nights of the week, and so no it may not be 100% essential, but without it we'd probably end up killing ourselves of boredom. Freeview channels are fine if you can get the sigal which we can't very well. The internet on 3G is good if you dont use it much, but as I said in an earlier post, I write reviews to get a little extra cash on the sites dooyoo and ciao, and so I need the internet for that, plus it is the smallest internet available at 10GB and only around £20 a month, I'd pay more on 3G anyway!!!

and a phone line is essential for us, we have a lot of 0845 and 0800 numbers we need to phone (bills etc to be paid also with us doing our own debt management we're in constant contact with debt companies), to phone these off our mobile costs triple what it does on the landline, plus again we only pay for the landline rental (£11 pcm), we have the basic package and again its a contract with virgin. - So even if I wantd to get rid I cant until October!!!

My utility bills are relatively small, our rent is low for our house. And we have the lowest tariffs we can have until contracts run out.

I agree it is our car whcih costs the most, and I wish it was lower, or that we didnt need it as looking into a railcard, it would be much cheaper for us to get trains everywhere than spending all the money we do on the car, but we are one of those families who the car is essential to- my husband has also asked about having a company car, but he cannot until he is 25 (he is 22 now), and he can onluy have that at certain times of the day, but it would get him to work and back, and we wouldnt have to pay for petrol or insurance, so that'd be much better, but it isnt an option for 3 years.

stephbond89

Lokolo wrote: »

Have you thought what you are going to do when the baby is born? I suspect Jeremy Kyle might be in the list!

think thats a bit out of order to be honest. we might not have much money, but we're most certainly not dirty chavvy people like the people on that show. We have a beautiful house, have not once in our lives touched a cigarette or drug. We are in a relationship.

A baby doesnt have to cost a fortune if your not the type of parent to spoil your children with every single thing they want, phones laptops, days out to alton towers every weekend, and a £50 a month allowance. We have already worked out the baby will cost at most £40 a week until it is in nursery school age when we will have uniforms and packed lunches. But we will get around £60 a week in tax credits and child benefit whihc will cover that, and treats will be bought when we can afford them, and not when the child wants them.

Sorry I just really think that comment was really out of line.

stephbond89

bryanb wrote: »

In post 9 your husband's route to work is along dual carriageway, so you say he can't cycle.
In post 12 you say his route to work is small windy roads so the car uses a lot of petrol.
Explain please.

PS. you can cycle on dual carriageways.

His work is part through a town centre, then he goes onto a dual carriageway, and then once off there, the roads are small and windy in the country side until he gets to his office. And as I said it is something we have considered, but he'd have to leave at 3pm to get to work on time, and wouldnt get home until almost 10am, giving him 5 hours between getting home and leaving again, thats not even enough time to get a decent sleep let alone get a shower before work again and have something to eat- also he doesnt want to put his life at risk on dark mornings cycling home- it is something he would do if he had to if the car literally had to go, but it is not somehting he can feasably do without having to change his shift pattern.

Lokolo

stephbond89 wrote: »

think thats a bit out of order to be honest. we might not have much money, but we're most certainly not dirty chavvy people like the people on that show. We have a beautiful house, have not once in our lives touched a cigarette or drug. We are in a relationship.

A baby doesnt have to cost a fortune if your not the type of parent to spoil your children with every single thing they want, phones laptops, days out to alton towers every weekend, and a £50 a month allowance. We have already worked out the baby will cost at most £40 a week until it is in nursery school age when we will have uniforms and packed lunches. But we will get around £60 a week in tax credits and child benefit whihc will cover that, and treats will be bought when we can afford them, and not when the child wants them.

Sorry I just really think that comment was really out of line.

Eek. I wasn't saying that at all. I was more pointing out that you might want to figure out what you want to do with your days, otherwise you will get very bored and end up watching crappy daytime tele which is never good for you.

You're already spending time on here (and it gets addictive trust me :-o ), great way to waste time

flubdub

Although I agree your car is an essential (I have two little ones, and couldnt do without a car) you dont seem to want to change much too be honest, and saying things like your tv etc are essential is silly. That package is ridiclous, as is the car insurance. Cant you speak to virgin? Say you will leave if they dont lower the prices? Granted, you are in a contract, but they will still want you as a customer. Is the mobile broadband used at home?
As someone else said, cant you move nearer work? It would lower petrol, and probably car insurance too.
Have you been on your councils website on its bemefit calcultor to see if you will get Housing benefit when the baby is born? Although on that wage, I doubt it. Also the tax credits website have a tax credits calculator, check it to see what you will get when baby is born, and are you not entitled to working tax now?

Mark_In_Hampshire

Different people will have different views on the word "essential".

I'd put TV, phone, internet and mobiles in the non essential category - especially contract mobiles.

I'd put having a car into the "essential" category unless you live very near work, public transport isn't necessarily cheaper or usable, and if you do want to get a second job especially one on shifts/nights, the car may well be needed; put another way getting rid of the car might preclude that from being an option later on and make things more difficult.

I think the point being made above is that you already have a number of debts and you have some very obvious things you can cut out to prevent the problem escalating. In contrast some of your other costs are so low I wonder how you manage them.

Congratulations on the baby by the way