In order to pay all my bills etc I need an extra £30 a month...

Tazinijif

Calleyw: thanks for that, we will try those ideas :0) our contracts are already to the bone though unfortunately, I think together they actually total £32 something, I tend to round up with bills, just in case!

McKneff, I would love to do both of those things, as mentioned earlier the phones are on contract and we can't get out of paying them. As for work I work around 15 miles away, a bit too far to walk or cycle, but thanks, it would have been a great idea if work was closer!

burkey365

tazinijif.http://www.localrecruit.co.uk/huddersfield/..heres a list of over 1000 jobs in your area he will find 1 suitable, also a landline is only £11 a month thats less than your contracts, also you should no have got a contract when you can afford it..use PAYG...plus everybody knows grants have to be paid back..not being nasty just a realist, you live a lot better than 90% of people on here..also you can always move back in with parents or relatives

Bogof_Babe

Couldn't you look for a one bed rental near your work? Kill two birds with one stone then, less rent and no travel costs. It shouldn't make much difference to your OH as he isn't working anyway atm.

Jowo_2

Are you in a fixed term contract? On Rightmove, there are 1 bedroom properties available from £350 per month, cheaper for part furnished properties.

Tazinijif

Jowo: we have looked into cheaper places, but in all honesty there isn't much that IS a lot cheaper! My partner is a music technician and has all of his studio gear in the spare room (which he got in various birthday gifts before someone says something about buying expensive stuff) which he uses to do the occasional bit of freelance music production, I don't think in all honesty everything would FIT into a smaller house! It is something we have looked into though as it is a huge chunk of our outgoings.

Pastures New: in that case do you have some advice on how to remove the debts and contracted mobile phones? We have already spoken to the loan companies who have pretty much refused to cut down our payments and our phone companies who said the same. Electricity is so high because our flat was newly renovated from a basement when we started renting it and the landlord had not properly sorted everything out with the electric company. As such we didn;t get our first bill until 6 months after we moved in, the bill itself is only £30 a month, the other £30 is what we have to pay to cover the backlog.

Tazinijif

Thanks to all the people who offered help but I am going to go back to stressing on my own, this 'nice community of friendly helpful people' is not all its cracked up to be.

Morgan_Ree

Ebay?

Or depending how desperate you are, Cash Converters will happily take some of your OH's music equipment off him. They give you a price for it and you have the option of buying it back in 30 days time.
If you haven't collected it in those 30 days they'll sell it.

Worth a look I suppose.

PasturesNew

I can't. I don't know anything about debts or mobile phones.

I do know about big flats and small flats though. I would say move into a studio flat, cheaper rent, cheaper insurance, cheaper council tax, less heating. But with his gear I'd say move into a 1-bed place and use the bedroom for his gear and you can use the living room like a studio flat.

Or, he could find some way to earn just £5-10/day. There are lots of ways (see the Up Your Income board) to earn £5-10/day, it's not like he needs to be earning £1000/month because he's got you for that... but £5-10/day would go nicely while he's looking for proper work.

j0annepsi

McKneff wrote: »

ditch the mobiles.
.

Stop paying two mobile phone contracts and end up with CCJ's? Great "advice".

Deepmistrust

Tazinijif wrote: »

Thanks to all the people who offered help but I am going to go back to stressing on my own, this 'nice community of friendly helpful people' is not all its cracked up to be.

Don't be disheartened. There are a lot of people who live out fantasies on the internet. They like to pretend themselves all high and mighty. But some people have offered constructive advice.

Sorry, I can't really help with regards to specifics about benefits.

Sadly it looks like your loans are the problem, and that the sad fact of life for many graduates is that they are even more so, going to start of their working lives in a mountain of accumulated student debt, or entering into debt management plans, or IVA's etc, as the realisation that big salaries are a way off yet.

A lot of these people probably live in more prosperous areas like London and the South East, and can't fathom the job situation in places like West Yorkshire.

Good luck with his job hunting.