Advice on SOA

iamana1ias

Trips to town a few times a week but no time for a part time job? Pull the other one OP.

JohnD76

cycloneuk wrote: »

All lower packages have connection fees or fair use policies, £17.99 a month for a 60gb is good i thought.

If you are talking broadband here why are you not using Sky unlimited? I have just renewed my contract for another year and pay £7.50 for an (upto) 20MB line with no usage cap or fair use.

patchwork_cat

tbourner wrote: »

Why do you need to change towels often? You only use them when you're clean! They should be the cleanest thing in the house!!

Sorry OP to sidetrack, but you can take moneysaving too far - I do understand your needing to run the washer once a day - it is also a catch 22 if you don't have many clothes, you have to do more washes. On the clothes front I do think that £100 when you have debt issues is OTT with little ones, how old is your elder child? Although I know that everyone has different standards. So think about what are you prepared to compromise on. Weigh up if you would rather have Next, Monsoon and Miniman and therefore go second hand or don't like second hand and go Asda.

Towels smell after a while because they are continually wet then dried, in one week that is 7 saturations, at least it is in this house.

Triggles

The bus tickets are for visiting family, i like to go and see my mum once a week and also my brother. They live a 5+ miles away so not walking distance, we also go to the carboot and visit town a few times a week. I worked out that it is cheaper to get weekly bus tickets, return journeys to town are £4 for an adult.

Why can't your brother and mum come to visit you? Do they drive? And what specifically are the visits to town for? Shopping for groceries or just getting out of the house? If it's just getting out of the house, look at some other options, such as a walk locally, picnic, park, or just simply letting the kids play in your garden (assuming you have one if you have a detached house). So based on the above, the bus passes are not needed to take your older child to school. You are adding £160 per month for a couple visits into town and visiting family on weekend. That is a lot of money that could be used towards debt!

Is that £160 for 2 adult bus passes? Or also including child's bus pass - I haven't seen the age of your older child, so don't know.

Consider this - if this is for 2 adult bus passes - even if you buy ONE adult bus pass for the month at £80 (and since you buy them weekly, I would think you could get a monthly bus pass for cheaper). As they don't have names or pictures on them, you can share this bus pass. If you need to go into town to get stuff, you can use the bus pass. If your OH needs to go into town, she can use the bus pass that day. Already that has saved you a minimum of £80 per month. Then trade off visiting duties with your mum and brother - you visit them one week, they visit you the next - that way you are only travelling to visit them 2 weekends per month. You already have the monthly pass, just purchase a return ticket for your OH at £4 each of those 2 days, and that gives you a total of £88 per month, which is still much cheaper than £160 per month!! DH & I did this for well over 18 months when we had no car and could only get into town by bus. We just couldn't justify paying for two monthly bus passes when we could get by with one.

As far as the groceries are concerned, I notice you are loathe to use the basics/store brands. My suggestion would be to try using some basics and see how you like them before condemning them. The ones that are the least noticeable difference are the items you combine with other things such as rice and beans. Maybe make it a challenge to yourself to choose 10 basics/value products at your next shop and use them to see how you like them.

You don't speak much about your OH, and I found one comment you made a bit puzzling about her not wanting to pay off your debts. Is she on board with this?

Also, still curious what in heaven's name you spend £100 (or even £75) per month on clothing?! As far as the children are concerned, even if you buy new you should be able to stay well under £40-50 per month! Most adults have a fairly good supply of basic clothing, usually only needing to replace items such as undergarments, socks, and shoes (and even then not that frequently). Babies do outgrow their clothing fairly quickly, but not only is their clothing inexpensive (try Primark, Sainsburys TU clothing, Tesco, Matalan, car boots, freecycle - there are always LOTS of children/baby clothing up for offer on our local freecycle!) but if you keep it in good repair, you can then carboot it the help pay for more clothing as they outgrow it. And once they hit 4 or 5, the growth rate slows somewhat, but you still have all the same purchasing options as with babies. Uniforms are quite reasonable now, so that's not a major expense either. Do you ACTUALLY spend £100 on clothing each month now???

Be careful with carboot sales. Unless you have will power of iron, it's a good idea to avoid unless you're looking for something specific. Otherwise you can spend an awful lot of money simply buying other people's junk simply because it's cheap.

ciderwithrosie_2

tbourner wrote: »

Why do you need to change towels often? You only use them when you're clean! They should be the cleanest thing in the house!!

Not if you live with my lot (4 blokes), they're either in a soggy heap on the bathroom floor or in their bedrooms in a soggy heap (they get that pond water/wet dog smell) - then they have the cheek to moan there's no clean dry towels Oh and they use teatowels like cleaning cloths for wiping up spills on the worktops/floor etc so I'm forever washing them too :mad:

JohnD76

Cyclone,

You are in a fortunate position since you have no morgtage and are moving to a cheaper house so will not need to take a mortgage out when you move.

However, you really need to come to terms with the fact that the business is not making any more presently. So you need to either:

1. Listen to the advice this good people, who are in a far worse state you than, are giving you freely and ride the current financial storm, praying that your customers will return and you takings will increase significantly.

or

2. increase your income with another part time/full time job.

Either way, do everyone a favour a earn sufficent money to stop claiming benefits please.

JohnD76

cycloneuk wrote: »

This is the only way i can earn an income at present.

Cyclone, can you quantify the above statement?

Are you on disability benefit or similar or a carers allowance? (If so I retract the statement at the end of the post above)

Poeple are trying to help you out, but need some input back.

MyLastFiver

cycloneuk wrote: »

The bus tickets are for visiting family, i like to go and see my mum once a week and also my brother. They live a 5+ miles away so not walking distance, we also go to the carboot and visit town a few times a week. I worked out that it is cheaper to get weekly bus tickets, return journeys to town are £4 for an adult.

Our house is on the market and while i'm upsizing, we are selling a 2 bed detached bungalow in a sought after retirement area and going to get a 3 bedroom semi detached house on the outskirts which is still a nice area but cheaper. So will be left with enough money to clear the big loan and pay all removal costs and estate agent fees.

We could probably bring the grocery budget down to £65 a week if we are carefull, will put that into practice this week and remember not to go when hungry lol. Last time i did the shopping on my own, i spent nearly £100 and couldn't really see what i spent it on.

Clothing could come down to £75 maybe, i can't get rid of Sky, i would be bored crazy.

Nice one - the penny's dropped I think! :beer:

Time to think again about raising your income now. Look - don't take this the wrong way and I sympathise with your illness because I have suffered from depression and anxiety my whole life - it comes on in waves then goes again - but because I have my family to think about, work would be the last thing to suffer. I just have to go in and get on with it. I'm a bit old-fashioned like that. It's the "getting on with it" and keeping busy that helps me through the black periods by taking me out of myself. Not just getting on with work but getting on with cycling, getting on with taking my son out, and other things I enjoy. I think if I was sitting round the house all day twiddling round on the computer, waiting for orders to come through, I would go downhill fast

Now I have no idea how ill you are, but purposeful activity works for me every time. It seems like you are stuck in a rut and you have created this life in which, day to day, you don't have to do very much. I know I know - you are "running your own business" but it's not bringing home the bacon, is it? No wonder your wife isn't happy. You could make her happy, and do your self-esteem the world of good by considering being more productive.

I used to "run my own e-business" too. I got home from my day job, put the baby to bed then checked and picked the orders in the evening. No Sky TV for me, and no time to be bored!

Life's what you make it, etc etc.

MyLastFiver

JohnD76 wrote: »

Either way, do everyone a favour a earn sufficent money to stop claiming benefits please.

Completely unnecessary.

If you have a political axe to grind, take it to the "economy" forum.

cycloneuk

JohnD76 wrote: »

If you are talking broadband here why are you not using Sky unlimited? I have just renewed my contract for another year and pay £7.50 for an (upto) 20MB line with no usage cap or fair use.

They are not in my exchange so i'm unable to get any bundle deals.