How can we cut back!?

banwa

Hello steph, welcome to MSE:hello:

Your outgoings at present are approx £46 more than your incomings (in a bad month). If you got a 0% credit card that you could use for all your essential cash spends (like groceries, petrol etc), until your overdraft is gone, you would get rid of that £40 charge (you might have to then move that balance after 3 months to another 0%, and be very careful not to overspend because you have credit available) You can then pay that back in earnest when you are up to date with the arrears.

Why don't you do a full SOA, with your current payments and how long you will be paying the arrears/tied into contracts etc? These DFWs are a wily bunch, I am sure they will come up with some more excellent ideas if you do.:)

I know it's probably a bit obvious but has your husband asked for a raise at all?

Btw, I work 8 miles from home, (don't live on a bus route, have to go down windy roads) and I also see a car as an essential.

Help_required_5

stephbond89 wrote: »

Nobody has given me any advice on switching providers for my phones or anything like that, just said !GET RIDDDD! As though they are the evil of the world and as though I dont need a mobile phone, for me I do need a mobile phone, even if it is only for incoming calls, and brief outgoing calls, but a mobile phone I need- if you have ever broken down in a car in the middle of the countryside in Lancashire with no phone, and at least 30 miles to the nearest village and with a car going past possibly once every couple of hours, in the winter...you'd know why a mobile is ALWAYS essential.

Are you always this stupid or is today some special occasion?

No one ever told your to get rid of them totally, you were advised to switch to PAYG - do you know !!!!!! that is? You shot people down with I am in a "CONTRACT" and I can't do this and I can't do that... what the hell is switching providers going to help? How do you propose to switch providers if you are tied in to a contract?

You had clearly indicated that you had switched from sky to virgin and saved loads and were under CONTRACT.

What a bleeding retard!

Like opinions said enjoy the CCJ and bankruptcy hearings that are going to come your way, you certainly would have brought them upon yourself

stephbond89

No today must be a special occasion just for youuuu! Or maybe its the pregnancy brain, hummm maybe Ill consult my 6 A Levels on it?

Sky isnt a contract, its a subscription which you can end at any time, so long as you dont owe them money, even then you can still leave it, just so long as you agree to continue to pay what you owe. Soooo that made no sense at all.

I meant once the contract was up, or switching providers for other bills, anyone got cheap car insurance, ways of lowering car insurance or lowering petrol costs.

Im sorry but I find the word retard quite derogatory especially considering I have children in my family with learning difficulties. I dont think there was any need whatsoever in that to be entirely honest, i dont care what you wanna call me, but to put down other people, for all you know I could have a "!!!!!!" as you like to say, close family member. And anybody who does who reads that will find it very offensive. So grow up a little bit before coming back with anything else. I may not be very good with money, but I damn well know not to call people "retards" when I know nothing about them or their family.

CCJs come around from usually not paying council or large bills and ignoring the letters you get from it all, and you cannot be made bankrupt for anything under something like £1500, and can only be made bankrupt if you literally cannot pay anything back to them and all attempts have been foiled, so erm I think that also is a silly thing to come back with!!!

Thank you re option of 0% credit card, it would be a good idea if the income doesnt improve, he has asked for a rise a few times, but because the company is trying to save something like £5 billion a year, they wont raise the wage at all, but his boss is continuing to try for him! His income should be improving by arounbd £50 a month (long story involving very confusing tax and subsidence or somehitng i dont quite understand) which might not sound like much, but as you said on a bad month (which happen around 2 months of the year after "short" months!), it is onlyu £50 we are out by. That will be going on til October and then we have the extra money from tax creidts, plus our loan ends in August! So hopefully that will help a little.

I am just worried that in July when our insurance for car is up for renewal we will be killed by them for money, as when I looked into getting "new" insurance with them to get an idea what it would be, it was something like £150 a month, which is more than it is now!!! But I am hoping we can get around that by explaining our road isnt actually a public road, but a private residential road so no cars going past all day, also that the car is kept in a secure car park at night (my hubbys work), I am hoping this will bring it down a bit, at least to no more than it is now! (It makes no sense as he has 0 no claims now, and will have 1 yrs no claims when it is renewed!!!). but I have to wait until July to find out, praying to god its less! But a 0% credit card if I could get one (with our bad credit it may be difficult, even though it is been paid off gradually, going onto a DMP apparenly causes defaults on all debts), would come in handy if we were short one month but knew the next month our wages would be £1400, and more than enough for the bills!!

The problem is my husbands wages are SO unpredictable, an example is in February this year, our income for a month was £1119, then last month they were £1550!!!! Simply because each shift he does is £100 in wages (before tax), so if he only does 18 shifts one month because of how the month falls the wages are down by £300 than when he works 22 shifts!!! It would be a good idea really for us to put some of it away in these high months for the low months, but we tend to spend the extra on paying off an extra bill or some of the arrears we have, or buying something we desperately need for the house, but we will have to get in the habit of putting it away for a low month!!

Thanks for your help, its nice when someone actually talks like a human and not an imbosile...!!! xxx

littlechezza

Hi

Not hear to judge and haven't had time to read everything, just wanted to say about the internet etc., we have phone, tv and internet (lowest connection very slow but won't go up to next one) and it usually comes in around £31 a month, if you phone and basically say you want to leave they usually give you something so you don't (not sure if this has already been suggested)

Good luck with the pregnancy and try and relax, been there my self with the stress but won't do you or the baby any good.

Also try the cashback sites, we do the shop and scan every week and this can ad around £200 in vouchers for our christmas shopping.

Any chance of you also taking on an avon round.

Take care

stephbond89

daveyjp wrote: »

You now have four pages - using the advice how much have you now saved, or are you still in the 'BMWs are essential' mode?

HAHAHAHA I WISH we had a BMW and could afford it!!! We have a 15 year old Proton GL with a boot big enough for a dead horse! A BMW lmao god thats made me laugh!!! Actually I have got loads of stuff off here, just not from some complete idiots.

I am looking into a leaflet distributer job or paperr roudn type thing, we have looked into a moped, and will consider it seriously, but it would take alot of changing things, I cannot drive either a moped or a car, so I would be pretty much housebound bar walking and buses which wont get me far where we live, but still somehting we will consider.

I have also phoned up my phone company and lowered my bill by as much as I could do, which has saved us around £10-£15 a month, which might not sound like much to most people, but will go towards paying some of our council bill or water rates or whatever else.

And I have tried to change my virgin package, but as the contract is only 4 months or so in, I canot until it is 6 months in- can only upgrade not downgrade.

stephbond89

Avon was something I wanted to do, but someone got there before me!! They already do it here!! It was something I was realy interested in!!!

What is the shop and scan thing you mentioned???? Not heard of it! And sounds like a good thing lol! x

My actual bill comes to something like £40 a month but on top of that I have ther phone line rental of £11 a month and then all the calls made, which takes it up to £60 at most, usually its around £51-£55, but it has been £60 last month due to the calls to 0845 number we did alot last month! Wish I could cut them out, but its just not possible they're so expensive! I try to email them as much as I can rather than call!!

Thanks I know the stress really isnt good for baby at all, he/she hates it when I get stressed, can feel them sqiggling around and kicking around as I get irate, tends to calm me down a bit though cause its so sweet! lol, I have learned to just ignore idiots and listen to nice people like yourself lol!

Any more info on the cash back site thing you mentioned, would be fab!

stephbond89

Oh my god, get a bloody grip! Just cause I dont agree with your "you ahve to be completely frugal and have no life" way of lives, doesnt mean Im a thick cow who can't COUNT! No I am not good with money, never had to be, I was looked after by parents who didnt make me work- which maybe they should have looking back, but I didnt need to. I was then fully supported by my partner so again didnt need to work or do anything with money.

Then married a man who wasnt exactly well off, has depression and cannot handle the money as it confuses him even more than me, so yes I am thick when it comes to budgeting and money. But that doesnt mean I am thick full stop, and no sorry nowhere in a psychology or sociology A Level did i need to learn how to spell bloody imbecile and I have never come across so many arrogant wan*ers, that I needed to use the word.

If you have nothing to say which might actually help, then get lost back to your sad little frugal lives of living without electricity and only a candle light to keep you warm or whatever the hell it is you do that makes you so wonderful.

And quit the picking on a bloody pregnant woman?!

littlechezza

Not sure if you have to go on a waiting list, basically go on the shopandscan website and register, if you are picked they send out a scanner which connects to your computer and every week you scan the weekly shopping and transmit, you get 1000 points for this which is £1.00 and they now also have a text system where if you buy something such as an apple which doesn't have a bar code you text this (which is free text) you can claim £5.00 each week for the text messaging, and they sometimes send out surveys so if you text up to £5.00 and the £1.00 this would add up towards christmas, last year we earned around £80 which I claimed for HMV and went towards daughters DS.

You can claim vouchers for Debenhams, amazon, argos etc.,

You might as well give it a go!

Help_required_5

stephbond89 wrote: »

Sky isnt a contract, its a subscription which you can end at any time, so long as you dont owe them money, even then you can still leave it, just so long as you agree to continue to pay what you owe. Soooo that made no sense at all.

That sounds like a contract to me. Plus I was talking about virgin

stephbond89 wrote: »

I meant once the contract was up, or switching providers for other bills, anyone got cheap car insurance, ways of lowering car insurance or lowering petrol costs.

Maybe once you have had a glass of cold water and have calmed down or maybe some other day you can come back and read the posts again, I think that is what people were trying to say. You have 4 pages worth of good advice

stephbond89 wrote: »

Im sorry but I find the word retard quite derogatory especially considering I have children in my family with learning difficulties. I dont think there was any need whatsoever in that to be entirely honest, i dont care what you wanna call me, but to put down other people, for all you know I could have a "!!!!!!" as you like to say, close family member. And anybody who does who reads that will find it very offensive. So grow up a little bit before coming back with anything else. I may not be very good with money, but I damn well know not to call people "retards" when I know nothing about them or their family.

Two things I think I meant it in a derogatory way and secondly I think the term you are trying to mean is that they suffer from a mental handicap

stephbond89 wrote: »

CCJs come around from usually not paying council or large bills and ignoring the letters you get from it all, and you cannot be made bankrupt for anything under something like £1500, and can only be made bankrupt if you literally cannot pay anything back to them and all attempts have been foiled, so erm I think that also is a silly thing to come back with!!!

You clearly know a thing or two about it so you don't need our input on it

stephbond89 wrote: »

the company is trying to save something like £5 billion a year, they wont raise the wage at all

a big organisation like his clearly knows what pennies make a pound mean. Be wise to learn from them before it is too late

stephbond89 wrote: »

Simply because each shift he does is £100 in wages (before tax)

You hubby should seriously consider checking what the market rate is for security men cause at the moment he seems to be getting £6.66 ph for working nights as a security guy. People make that working during the day at tescos (i am talking about tesco wages in London and it may well be different around the country)

I am glad you have decided to stick around, you will pick up valuable advice - whether you take it on board is another thing. Good luck

Help_required_5

stephbond89 wrote: »

My actual bill comes to something like £40 a month but on top of that I have ther phone line rental of £11 a month and then all the calls made, which takes it up to £60 at most, usually its around £51-£55, but it has been £60 last month due to the calls to 0845 number we did alot last month! Wish I could cut them out, but its just not possible they're so expensive! I try to email them as much as I can rather than call!!

This should help you lower your 0845 bills: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/0870-say-no

This might help you lower your phone bills:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/pho...me-phone-calls