A little help? Be as harsh as you like - i'm desperate!

gonzo127

muppetx wrote: »

Benefits - CB and TC not entitled to anything else. - have you checked on the entitled to website
Council Tax - 10 months, includes water rates?! - my council tax does not include water rates but each council does things differently
Mortgage - Repayment
Gas/Electric (combined) - Just changed to cheaper supplier, pay both together with 1 DD) - ok good
Mobile - Will phone them! - good as i said worst they can say is no
Groceries - Will try!
Clothing - In lucky position of been given enough clothes for her to see her through first year...this will change! - might be worth starting to work it into the budget and get a few things for when she does start growing out of what she has now
Insurances, these were duw when baby was in the hospital (Feb) we just renewed them without checking, i know they could have been done cheaper. Could we cancel and take out new policies now? - you can do however all policies will have a cancelation penalty so find out how much this is and work out if the saving you would make out weights the penalty
Emergencies - Come out CC repayment money if there are any in month, pay CC with money left before next pay day. Should we still have a savings accoount do you think?

Hate living like this.

Thanks so much for comments so far, trying to type with baby on lap, excuse typos! thanks

personally i prefer to have a small savings pot so i dont have to rely on credit if the brown stuff hits the fan, i dont keep it large but its enough to cover me if anything dies, the amoutn i try to keep in it is between £300-500, i put as much as i can into it to start off with and once it hits £300 i only put in around £10 a month to it

lesalanos

Well done on the good work since March.

some insurances are monthly premiums and can be stopped and changed at any times. Things like car insurance runs for a year and will have a charge for finishing early. have a look on some comparison sites to see if you can get things cheaper. Dont forget to use Quidco or other cashback sites that give you money for going through them.


Can you reduce the £200 groceries? have a look opn some of the other boards (old style etc) and see what you can make cheaper. Reduce some of teh brands etc that you buy.

Do you have over £250 left every month? that is what is showing at the bottom of your SOA. If not where is this going?

lesalanos

muppetx wrote: »

Phoned about mobiles, we only get the house phone (free evening and w/e calls) and internet at that price because of the 2 mobile contracts we have. So no reduction there. (With orange, think 16.95 is quite good for all that inc line rental?)

are you still in contracts for the mobiles? how long to go? how much fr each each month? how many calls do you make?

do you make calls from the house phone?

Lirin

Up to the baby, my story's the same as yours. I've no debts, but my husband has.
Getting married held us up a little in overpaying on them.

One of the things I've done is talk to the credit card companies (well, my hsband has, I told him what to ask!), and transfer the balances to one card, with a promotional rate of 2.2%, which makes clearing it easier for us.

Not sure how advisable this is- there are plenty more people on here who will help you out better, but combining all the credit debt has worked in our case.

We also go shopping later at night, and manage to pick up most of what we need vastly reduced in price.

best of luck- I hate being in this position myself, but there's plenty of help on here.

angelflower_2

muppetx wrote: »

Council Tax - 10 months, includes water rates?! are you in Scotland?
Mortgage - Repayment would it be possible to go interest only for a few months? Interest rates really low at moment, are you on a fixed rate for the next wee while to avoid the inevitable jump which will come in the next few months?
Insurances, these were duw when baby was in the hospital (Feb) we just renewed them without checking, i know they could have been done cheaper. Could we cancel and take out new policies now? possibly wont save you money depending on cancellation charges etc but perhaps worth investigating. Try going through a cashback site and using a comparrison website to see how much better off you could be.
Emergencies - Come out CC repayment money if there are any in month, pay CC with money left before next pay day. Should we still have a savings accoount do you think? Yes I would. below is what I would recommend....

Hi

You are definately missing some costs, ie maintenance for the car. A service and MOT alone will cost you a min of £10 a month.

I would now organise your money into 3 pots essentially. One for regular payments and bills, one for your day to day spending like groceries, your entertainment, petrol etc and one for savings. In ur savings, transfer monthly the amounts for those irregular payments such as the MOT, anything that is not monthly like birthdays etc. In here you could also build up a wee fund for either making further overpayments (above minimums) to debts or having some money for emergencies like home repairs etc. Things like having your property on the market must be costing you money but I dont see this accounted for?

muppetx

I never use my mobile now, husband uses his a lot. Very seldom use housephone, but use internet a lot.

Husband had 4k store cards (his sister paid them off, so we owe her, but no interest and don't need to pay it back until we have paid other cards)

I sold my car last month, was £250 a month, but in neg equity by £1k, my mum paid that, again no interest and no rush. We are lucky!

He also had 10k on a CC at 19% !!!!!! (He was only paying the minimum, which was really only interest, long story, he got divorced, had to set up new home, didn't expect to have another wife and child so soon! lol) So I got a CC and another for him, both 0% on balance transfers for 15 months, of which we have 10 months to run - MUST GET THEM CLEARED FOR THEN!!!! That is my mission!


Yes we have that left over at the end of the month, but trying to use that for CC payments over minimum, aiming for £100 him and £250 me.

angelflower_2

muppetx wrote: »

Phoned about mobiles, we only get the house phone (free evening and w/e calls) and internet at that price because of the 2 mobile contracts we have. So no reduction there. (With orange, think 16.95 is quite good for all that inc line rental?)

Nope, get rid of the lot. We have internet on payg for £10 a month (three and great reception). My phone is payg mobile and I pay in £15 a month and get 300 texts, £10 credit and blackberry internet. My dd's phone is £10 a month for unlimited texts and her £10 credit for calls. Total therefore is 35 rather than the £76.95 you pay and we just do without a landline. In fact, its a relief not to have all the debt and cold callers :T

muppetx

Putting property on market costed £1k, for fees upfront, this was put on CC. Which is accounted for in budget. Hoping (praying) that we sell for 105, with mortgage of 79, meaning we will be able to pay costs and as much deposit as possible on new place (have our eye on house at £65k).

Been lucky so far, in that MOT and service last month was paid for with small windfall. But not having any savings does worry me. Think '3 pots' sounds like a fab idea.

I get a 'summer bonus' at work, £500 less tax, in July wage, what would be best use of this? (presuming I still get this although on Maternity??) Sensible head says straight to CC, not so sensible says take a risk and buy things that you could sell on e-bay? Is this do-able? Have run out of things to sell that I already own!!!! Have a good idea of what sells, i think....

muppetx

angelflower wrote: »

Nope, get rid of the lot. We have internet on payg for £10 a month (three and great reception). My phone is payg mobile and I pay in £15 a month and get 300 texts, £10 credit and blackberry internet. My dd's phone is £10 a month for unlimited texts and her £10 credit for calls. Total therefore is 35 rather than the £76.95 you pay and we just do without a landline. In fact, its a relief not to have all the debt and cold callers :T

This is interesting, and very doable by the sounds of it! Both our contracts don't expire until Feb (24 month contracts) no way out of them I presume? Not sure about phone tho, think we can cancel that...

lesalanos

Its great that you do have some left over at the end of each month for credit card payments. I would pay the one that will revert to the highest rate at the end of the free period first. Also start looking towards the end of the free term if there are any other interest free deals that you can move the remainder to if you have not managed to pay them off by then.

Can you cancel your mobile contract and look at changing your partners.

As Angelflower says there are lots of options for broadband and mobiles. I paid for my unlimited broadband for the year using an quidco offer on O2 who I have my mobile with.

can you reduce teh calling plan on the mobiles or if your partner is using over his allowance and you have some spare minutes then he uses your phone too.