Payrise of £5,670.- in a year - can I do it?

Marru

I am fed up with trying to manage with the income I have. Especially after doing benefit calculation it seems that council is underpaying my housing benefit by approximately £100.- per week. Hence being seriously out of pocket and getting in arrears with child care costs and not having been able to pay back money that I have had to borrow from BF.

Aim is to over next twelve months to be £5,670.- better off so that even if I get zero from the council, my bills will get paid on time and I have plenty of money for food.

Ok perhaps payrise if a bit misleading as I will be doing this by cutting down costs where I can in addition of increasing my income.

This is what my situation looks like at the moment HERE

As you can see if I was to use for house keeping and clothing the amount that national debline recommends to be the upper limit for these to use in personal budgets I am way into negative figures. Even after housing benefit. This means that there hasn't been much money for household or clothing and also that I am getting more and more arrears with stuff as I do have to eat. I used the upper limit for the purpose of this challenge as what ever I can save in my crocery budget can then go as debt payments. Also if I do get something from the council this too would go towards all arrears.

Step 1, Reduce outgoings:

There is nothing much I can do with the first ten on the list but I shall tackle the next ten.

- Cleaner: Instant saving of 720.- per year if I let my cleaning lady go. The more I think about this the more it seems that this is the best option. I would like to get bit more up to date with all the other household stuff before doing this. Aim is to have half an hour per day, Monday to Friday, allocated sorting things out and as soon as I am up to date I can then start using this time for cleaning. Lets say that I could save ten months worth i.e. £600.-

- Gas and electricity: these have been calculated according to the actual usage from last 4 bills. I have already swapped both to cheaper tariffs but this won't start taking effect for awhile, especially as I have both accounts in debit

- Mobile: I am planning on moving into as basic tariff as possible with a bolt on for unlimited calls within family (BF lives 200 miles away). After the change I should be able to save £10.- per month i.e. £120.-

- Car service: I have budgeted £200.- and don't know if I need this much. Need to have a chat with BF.

- RAC is according to how much I paid last year. I might get discount through another membership or failing this I shall cancel it and see if I can get cashback by signing up again.

- Sometimes instead of using the P&R bus I run to and/or from work so every time I run to one direction I save £1.10 This could potentially be saving of £264.- if I do one run every work day. (Injured at the moment so no running I am afraid )

- When I go to change my mobile contract I shall also change my home phone provider to get this down to £15.- per month giving me unlimited calls and also free daytime calls to 0845 numbers so that there won't be any surprises with the bills - also then I need to use less of my mobile and need less minutes in my package. Potential saving £100.- during a year.

- NI: I used to be self employed but have paid now NI through my employment so this is unnesseccary. Need to cancel it and claim back what I have paid this and last tax year saving me £124.80 and also bring back into my purse £156.-

- Website: I have domain name that I haven't done anything with and it is costing me a fortune. I should get rid of it or at least negotiate cheaper pament as the site is dormant and I can't see having time in near future to start working on it as I need more instant revenue and that would take a lot of work before it would start paying for itself. If I get rid of it, saving of £264.-

There - already I am (potentially) £1,628.80 better off plus gas, electricity, car service and break down cover. Only about £4,000.- to find

Step 2 increase income:

- Sell, sell, sell: I have house full of [STRIKE]junk [/STRIKE] delightful items and closing down stock from my online book shop (5000 of them) so getting rid of the stuff is a priority

- I am doing my professional exams and if I do well that will have impact on my salary, also my role is going to change into more challenging one so that would mean increase as well. I have quarterly review booked for the end of the month after the exam results are in, everything crossed.

- Also it has been discussed that my hours will increase beginning of October and again in beginning of January.

Step 3 What else can I do?

- Time is in short supply so I really don't want to commit myself to extra work as already my hours will increase and I need time for studying and keeping the house in order. However I might need to look into doing some freelance accounting work or getting some translation work but at the moment I really don't know how to go about these.

- So better try to find income where my time is not involved like advertising on my car. I shall investigate. Any other ideas gratefully received.

In the meanwhile I will write to council to ask what is going on as my situation is not sustainable, but what ever I get from there won't be calculated towards my "payrise" as the point of the whole exercise is to be able to stop being reliant of them.

jo1972

Marru, sounds like you have a plan! Best of luck hunny, I am sure you can make it work

xx

peedie

:hello:
Have subscribed. Sounds like you have a well thought out plan.
Good luck, will be interested in how it pans out.

Peedie

Marru

Hello everyone and thanks for popping around

What a day today. Stayed late at work to be able to participate to a workshop, dashed home to fetch my guinea pigs, dashed to get DD, took piggies to my friend (I am off for hols tomorrow), got back home late and now I have four letters to write, cashflow to update and to decide what payments I am going to make before I scoot off. I think it is bed time now for me and getting up very early to sort it all out.

I got £50.- paid today for some dogwalking I did earlier this summer and I have still another £50.- coming. I was tempted to use it for this challenge but decided that it would be cheating as the work was already done and also I desprately need that money towards my arrears, so into the bank it goes tomorrow and perhaps BT will get it.

I shall be now offline until Sunday 15th but it will be very frugal as we are going to narrowboat with BF and as he knows my financial situation he will be kind enough to keep us fed. So very frugal holiday.

Off to have cup of decaf tea and watch the news before crashing to bed.

Pippilongstocking

Helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllo I've found you - happy new challenge you can do it - you're amazing!!!!

I kept a running total of my extra earnings each month, it really helped ot motivate me on , using of course your suggestion of edit grid to keep track of it all even the tiny pennies thought about doing something similar and having a running total in your sig?

Marru

I am back from hols and my head is spinning with all sorts of ideas. I shall do a proper update here as soon as I have got my August spreadsheet sorted.

Plans for tomorrow: downgrade mobile, change landline provider, bank rest of the dogwalking money, take tax credit papers to council, call people that want me to house sit for them :j, do weekly foodshop using weezl's frugal mealplan and do the first dinner from the menu, update August spreadsheet

Marru

Marru wrote: »

I
Plans for tomorrow: downgrade mobile - DONE, change landline provider - DONE, bank rest of the dogwalking money - DONE, take tax credit papers to council - DONE, call people that want me to house sit for them :j- DONE, do weekly foodshop using weezl's frugal mealplan - DONE and do the first dinner from the menu, update August spreadsheet

Progress!!! :j
So haven't done any meals from meal plan but have eaten from store cupboards. No update for August yet so that will be priority for tomorrow.

When I took my tax credit papers to the coucil also had chat about my housing benefit and why it is so small. Didn't really get completely satisfying answer so another project now to do is to go back to the start when I started claiming housing benefit (two years and a bit) to fully understand it. I know I got underpaid 08-09 and they refused to back date my changes (I was self employed and wasn't able to provide full info of my icome until the end of tax year - too late in their opinion) but then following year got first temp job, then got made permanent and shortly after got a payrise - not a massive one - and suddenly they claim that I have been overpaid for over £300.-

Also there is discrepency of how they do the calculation and how it was done on the entitledto website. I really need to look into this and pop into the benefits board to have a snoop and perhaps start my own thread to get some advice.

Anyway - hopefully tomorrow I can declare where I am at the moment.

Oh - need to remember to find out how much Mr S points I have and order vouchers - they will come handy for diesel as I don't think any of the other rewards will benefit me or this challenge.

Simon11

Sounds like a good plan:o

However, got a few qs:money:

Firstly I'm amazed why you got a cleaner when your on a low income:eek:

Your mobile contract of £25 still seems excessive:cool:

For example I'm on Virgin Mobile cell only, unlimited texts, 200mins perfect for me on £10 a month a rolling contract. Tesco now do it for £6 but only 100mins calls time

I'd suggest seeing how much you actually use of your credit:D

Also, you should break down your House keeping + clothing section to see where you can further save

Good luck!

Marru

I am recovering from depression and when I was at my worst I needed help and that was the thing that helped me most. Having one part of my life ticking nicely over was such a relief. Also at that time I was doing dog walking and that covered what I paid to the cleaner. As you can see I am now in a process of getting myself organised to be able let my cleaner go.

And I just have upgraded my mobile while downgraded my contract and am now paying £10 per month. Except I am debating getting the unlimited free family calls for bit extra as my BF lives 100 miles away and I don't want to be "on my toes" about how long I chat to him on the phone.

Marru

So I have now changed my gas and electricity tariffs, downgraded my mobile contract and changed my land line provider.

Still lots to do. And that is the problem. How is one going to have time to a) mealplan and cook healthy but frugal meals, b) exercise, c) work, d) spend quality time with offspring, e) keep house in order, f) study and g) still get enough sleep? Especially as I have so much backlog that still needs unravelling. I feel like I am rushing around achieving nothing.

Tonight's priority is to tidy house. It is not direct moneysaving but hopefully completing some of those pending tasks (like tidying clean washing away and finishing filing) will clear my mind clutter and I can get more direct stuff done as well. But I might end up just stuffing all the stuff on my bed (as so many weeks before) as feeling really tired. We shall see.

Forgot to say that I did pass both of my June exams so will be interesting to see tomorrow in my quarterly review if that has any effect on my job and/or salary.

Marru

Woohoo - because I passed my exams and have hit other targets, I got a payrise at work!!! The net effect is £690 for the year and I got it backdated from the beginning of August i.e. from the start of this challenge :T there is promise for more starting January if I keep up the good work and also pass my December exams.

And I got £22.50 worth of money off vouchers from Mr S today (nectar points) - I will use them towards diesel for the car.

Downside is that BT wants almost £80 to let go of my contract - bastewards :mad: - need to call them and ask what the he11 they are playing at.