Ok, so we've done the budget planner.....

supa-girl

......and we're over spending by £500 p/m. :eek:

We're not literally at this point in time as we are using our savings to pay for things like MOT, car tax, xmas, birthdays and so on, but of course if we keep doing that we will run out of money and then we'll be screwed.

Yesterday I felt all fired up to "fix it" but today, after a lseepless night I feel a bit stressed and flat.

I can probably save us about £165 in relatively "easy" saves - things like inviting my friends here for coffee instead of meeting in the coffee shop....that sort of thing.

I'm also pretty sure I can save at least £25 p/m on food shopping......

but what about the rest!!!!!

Our big spend areas on on family stuff - days out, birthdays, Christmas, school uniforms etc. We have 5 kids and it all adds up.

I don't know what I'm after really......support maybe? To know it's not just us and perhaps some reassurance that we can get back on track without borrowing. (DP is a discharged bankrupt and I have no credit and would like to keep it that way).

I will be scrolling these threads for advice, but feel a bit unsure of where to start. £500 is a LOT to save each month and it feels like a great big long slog ahead of me. Feeling a bit worried. Has anyone needed to cut back by a similar amount? Any success stories? How did/are you doing it??

Anyway, thanks for listening....

SG

Nottoobadyet

can you post up your statement of affairs so people can give you some ideas on where to cut? Theres a link to the version we like to use at the top of the board.

Great job for facing this before it got out of hand!! Welcome to the board.

Tixy

Hi supa-girl and well done for posting.
Could you post up your budget http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html so we can see where your spends are and see what other suggestions we can make.
Food spending is usually easy to make a large cut in with careful planning of meals and by shopping around. The more of you there are the more you can make savings by bulk buying and bulk cooking. For 7 of you I bet you could manage on £350 per month - what are you spending now?

Then you can look at things like checking you are with the cheapest gas & elec supplier and on the best tariff they have, check your phone & internet are competative, if you've been with the same providers for more than 18months there is probably a cheaper option on the market now. You can check all your insurances are good deals and that you have the cover you need.

£500 sounds like a lot but with £5 here and £10 there and less coffee shop visits(!) it can soon mount up.

Good luck

tbourner

Yep the peeps on here will need to see a SOA before they can give any meaningful advice.

Main things are what are your debts (I assume you have some as you're on DFW)? How much coming in and how much going out. You've just moved? Has your rent/mortgage gone up a lot?

Pee

I am very impressed with the grocery spends by some of the people on the old style board - worth a look anyway.