Our SOA Help required

us,thecat&thedebt

Hi all we have just had an offer accepted on a house and now we need to cut back as much as possible over the next three months to bump our deposit..

we dont pay any rent so thats one less expense!!

all help appreciated

Income
Mine £1100 per month
OH £700 PER MONTH
TOTAL: £1800



Outgoings

Council Tax £110
water £18
Gas/Elec £30
Tele/Broadband £40 max
Sky £41 (just come off discount rate)
Food shopping £150
Pet Ins £5
House Ins £20
Car Ins £160
Sofas £35
Tv Lic £23
petrol £120
Overdraft repayments £150
Loan Repayment £100
Tmobile debt £15
Argos Card £25
Vodafone Debt £25


Total £1067


Left Over £733

ideally we would like to save £1000 per month so i need to cut £267 which is prob impossible!!!! but as near as..

any help will be appreciated

Thanks in advance

oakdale_minx

hiya!

I would say to get rid of the Sky altogether and look to switch to a cheaper phone/broadband.

Have a look at money supermarket to see if you can get your house insurance a couple of pounds cheaper.

Are your pets likely to be poorly? Maybe cancel that until you move.

Car insurance £160 a month? That seems very very high!!! Have a look at confused.com for some quotes.

Is your TV licence paid quarterly? It is about £11 a month I think, rather than £23.

Hope that helps a bit.

calleyw

can you cut some off your food bill.

I assume there are only two of you. Could you get more hours at work. Or a second job.

Are you sure you car insurance is £160 a month.

Petrol is high anyway to cut back.

Yours


Calley

us,thecat&thedebt

hi all thanks for the replies

Car Insurance
For two cars mine and oh
£70 for mine (im female but only 20 and only passed my test 2 months ago)
£90 for oh he's male and 22 and only had licence for 10 months

Petrol
£70 is mine as i use my car for work but i get paid £68petrol allowance (included in my wage)
£50 is oh i think he could cut down

Sky
is still in contract but does anyone know about the more basic package???

Telephone/Broadband
Again in contract but includes wireless (which is essential)
and eve weekend calls so should be less that £40 prehaps £35 if i dont call any mobiles

Television Lic
No idea why but i pay £23 direct debit per month smething about paying towards next year i would like to sort this if this isnt normal!!!!

Food Bill
This is a weekness!!! Have been thinking about doing it online to stop the how much!!! at the checkout Does anyone know if they take solo? Tesco Online


Home iNS
Will try and switch (BTW this is for cONTENTS AND BUILDINGS)

Pet Ins
Im terrified to cancel this, they are only kittens so i guess they wont get ill?


More Hours
I work 50 hours a week but do take a sunday if its available maybe once a month pays £30 cash
OH is looking to get another job as he only works 30 Hours a week!! :eek:
Have thought about getting a part time weekend job but unsure if its a good idea

Wonder_Girl

us,thecat&thedebt wrote:

Television Lic
No idea why but i pay £23 direct debit per month smething about paying towards next year i would like to sort this if this isnt normal!!!!

I was once told that the first time you get a TV licence in your name your required to pay it off over six months instead of the year, then you reduce to paying the norm rate of £11 which puts you 6 months in advance

Not sure how reliable the source was but worth checking out

WG x

Wonder_Girl

us,thecat&thedebt wrote:

Food Bill
This is a weekness!!! Have been thinking about doing it online to stop the how much!!! at the checkout Does anyone know if they take solo? Tesco Online

Oh I started doing my shopping online (ASDA) a few weeks ago and I have reduced my bill loads, plus you see the running total so if you get to the end and decide it’s too much you can take some of those treats off

Also I pay with Solo and I have never had any problems paying any of the supermarkets this way

us,thecat&thedebt wrote:

Pet Ins
Im terrified to cancel this, they are only kittens so i guess they wont get ill?

DON'T cancel!!! just see if you can get it cheeper somewhere else, i have been landed with many LARGE vets bills in the past, well worth it if you have to use it. when my dog got run over cost me £1500+ in bills, oh how i wish i had paid £10 a month

biglugs

You've only had your cars a short while - so presumably before that you used public transport. I'd start by looking again at do you REALLY NEED two cars?
Cancel telephone and broadband as soon as possible depending on contract, cancel Sky asap when they allow, move your pet insurance, get rid of your mobiles if you can, see if you can get a credit card with 0% balance to transfer and pay off some of your other debts and get lower interest charges.
Personally I would ask yourself are you REALLY ready to buy a house, given that nearly 20% of your current income is actually going on paying unsecured debt already! I assume that even if you have a low mortgage (say £600 a month all in, including life insurance which is vital) then over half of your entire income would be going on debt.

x_raphael_xx

Wonder_Girl wrote:

I was once told that the first time you get a TV licence in your name your required to pay it off over six months instead of the year, then you reduce to paying the norm rate of £11 which puts you 6 months in advance

Not sure how reliable the source was but worth checking out

WG x

That is correct, cos when I was really hard up and had DD bouncing I rang them to ask to cancel DD and pay another way. I was told I was paid up for the next 6 months and could have a break and not pay anything, but when restarted would have to pay the extra again.

cocalls

hello there

You're not in too bad a position just a couple of suggestions


Council Tax £110
water £18
Gas/Elec £30
Tele/Broadband £40 max (High)
Sky £41 (just come off discount rate) (High)
Food shopping £150 (High have a look @ th os board BLack Saturn feeds 3ish people on 8.50/wk!!)
Pet Ins £5
House Ins £20 (Ive just got mine for 17.80 from tesco plus 15 cashback)
Car Ins £160
Sofas £35
Tv Lic £23
petrol £120
Overdraft repayments £150
Loan Repayment £100
Tmobile debt £15
Argos Card £25 (How much have you got left on this can you get 0% cc?)
Vodafone Debt £25

With sky and broadband i'd ring up the companies and threaten to leave and see what cheap deals they offer you i did this on sat & i'm now paying way less because of it)

Good luck i'm sure you'll do it (and make sure your OH gets an extra job if he's only doing 30 hrs/wk he can get at least another 15 which would bring in another 80 quid/month)

lynzpower

If you want to get as much money together for your deposit as you can ( adn this is very good moneysaving indeed:) then just cull. Its only for a few weeks.

Get rid of sky,
payt off that argos card as a matter of priority arnt they about 19 %?
could you go onto dial up internet, again it really is just until you move, might not be a bad idea will save moeny there too
A few weeks of black-saturns foodplan should sve you a fortune.
Do a storecupbard challenge and tidy out your bedroom bathroom and see how long you can go without buying things for.

angeluk69_2

Since coming on here I have:
Moved House and stopped sky (we had mulitroom aswell)
saved £52 per month:beer: :j :T or £624 per year:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: or £492 in your case

And changed to:

Got a Freeview Box (off Freecycle, should have been £99, checked in the argos book)



Reduce the petrol costs, is there no way of car sharing, or getting lifts even just til you move, that would save you loads of money. Could you not speak to the bank and reduce the overdraft payments that seems a lot to be paying every month