My Monthly Nightmare!!

colly2218

Domino9 wrote: »

How many of you are there?

What stands out most is the internet £80!!! and water £170!!!

Also, electricity and gas seem high - does this include debt repayment to these companies? If not, check that you're not in credit with these companies.

Are you paying your Council T over 10 months? - if yes, then see if you can pay over 12 months - you hare recieving benifits so shouldn't be a problem.

It looks like you're paying for an over-draft facility you're not using (as thats not included in youe debt anywhere) - if this is the case cancel it as it's costing you £25/month, also consider changing your bank account (or down grading it) you are paying £5/month

Food shopping can perhapse be lowered if you visit the old-style board for hints and tips, but this will depend on how many people you are having to feed on this budget (batch cook, meal plan, take packed lunches). Seems high given you also have an additional £87 on drinks per month (this is very high, and you spend another £40 drinking out every month).

Also, eating out is a luxury that can be cut out until your budget and spending is under control.

Ther's quite a lot of room for savings in your current budget and you should be able to get your outgoing down to be in line with income, it currently looks like you are getting £600 further into debt every month.

We are using the overdraft (all the time at the moment!) Hence the fee, the 25 a month chage is for going over limit.
I have cancelled nearly all my direct debits and am in the process of getting weekly payment cards for all my major bills. Hopefully, this will make it easier to budget as we both get paid weekly.

MyRubyRed

Are you daft or pulling the P? You are spending at least £300 on non essentials but are in arrears with your water bill charges. Give me strength.

bexster1975

Hi colly, it is also worth checking cashback websites like topcashback and quidco for deals on switching internet/tv/phone package and utilities (assuming you are up to date with all payments to your current suppliers). The cashback can be very good (although must remember cannot be guaranteed) and you can save on your monthly costs. Good luck, please try not to take to heart less than supportive comments from others!

bexster

bexster1975

...also, old style board will help you reduce your food bill. I bet you could lose £100 without really noticing!:)

colly2218

IcklePickle;
The CCS didn't question the virgin package as it is for tv (xl) phone(standard) and internet(basic) in one deal. I want to reduce the cost of it so will have a proper try on the phone with them tomorrow to get a better deal.

WASHER

colly2218 wrote: »

This is it. I have faced up to the truth...even though we are on a cccs plan we are still overspending!!!:o
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet[/b]

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,582.67
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 178.00
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00 - reduce to PAYG
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80.00:eek: This is a silly amount, do try and reduce tomorrow
Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cleaning Products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00
Garden Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.67
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.33 - How much arrears do you have?
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115.00
Overdraft Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00
Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725.00
Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346.67
Drinks for Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.67 - Has got to be reduce - easier said than done

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Rail/Bus/Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156.00
Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Debt Repayments

Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hire Purchase Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
cccs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580.00

Savings & Investments

Pension Payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00
Buying Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mini Cash ISAs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump Sum Saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Family

Pet Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
School Meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 - Take packed lunches
Pocket Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.33 - How old are the children?
Nappies/Baby Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry Cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00 - Do not dry clean unless absolutely essential
Children's Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby Sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.00 - Free from the age of three?
Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00
Cinema/Theatre Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big Days Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (eg Anti-virus etc). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 - You cannot afford this
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 - you cannot afford this either

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complimentary Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Beauty Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Healthcare Cashplans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Medical Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00

Education & Courses

University Tuition Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One Offs

Funeral Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00 - each month? This is simply too much each month
Winter Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00 - You can't afford this at this time
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.67 - Cannot afford this either
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Charity Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.33 - take packed lunches
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108.33 - must try and give up
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.33 - again, you cannot afford this


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,760.67


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,098.33


[/font]

I have added comment in above, I can see £400 per month savings at least a month, I do not think you have had your true lightbulb moment yet, and certainly your OH hasn't. You simply cannot afford to continue to spend the way you are at this moment, I am not being judgemental, but giving you my honest opinion, I have been where you are, and nothing, but nothing is going to get you debt free without either increasing your income or reducing your spending, and reducing your spending looks like the easier option to me at this stage.

WASHER.x.

AJHOP

I used to smoke almost forty a day until someone i work with who, without being too harsh, does not really care about me other than the fact that we work together.

Despite all of the arguments for and against smoking, those for being the arguments the smoker will invent and believe, he made me realise that smoking is a vicious cycle and is associated with debt.

You worry about money and to 'help' yourself deal with this ongoing stress you sit there and burn almost 35 pence right in front of your own eyes!

From the advised monthly expenditure, assuming you are smoking cigarettes and not rolling your own you currently smoke 80 a week which is really small beer and can be easily stopped.

The solution is actually easier than buying an Alan Carr book or hypnotherapy.

Always carry an orange and if you feel the need to smoke start to peel the orange and bite a bit of the zest. Do not eat the orange until you really really cannot cope with the craving which at most last for 5 minutes.

This is where it gets a bit silly but it works.

By the time you have peeled and eaten the orange you will not want to smoke as the full craving will have passed.

Vitamin C is good for your, the citric acid will fulfil the sensation you feel when you inhale and it also helps to get your system back to normal.

I have saved £2418 since stopping smoking and all of it has gone on debts with maybe about £20 on oranges!

Just remember that after 72 hours of not smoking the addiction is essentially behavioual and you must learn to unlearn the triggers and become wealthier and healthier.

colly2218

Thanks for the advice from everyone. I would just like to explain a bit more about our situation if i can
We both get paid weekly cash (£596 total)
We are a family of 4 (kids aged 4 and 7)
One week every month we pay out £580 to the CCCS, which leave us with £18!
The following week we pay out £725 rent (which leaves us short)
The other 2/3 weeks of the month we have to pay the other bills we owe, and try to get as much shopping as we can to last the 2/3 weeks when we have no money!
We also need to put back £129 to make up rent
We have used the Money shop a couple of time to tide us through but that just makes it worse in the long run.
We are stuck in a situation at the minute where we have 2 weeks with money to pay bills, then 2 weeks when we ave none at all left over.
My partner works full time daytime and i work 4/5 night time so we have no child care costs except lunchclub at my son's playgroup (not funded)
Hope this makes it a bit clearer
I am very aware that we can cut back on a lot of things, but OH is reluctant to "live like a pauper" even though i think thats what we have to do.
We really don't want the kids to have to give us their clubs and activities as I don't want them to suffer for their parents lack of money sense!

WASHER

Colly, even with reducing your outgoings your OH will not live like a pauper, you have a house, food on the table, water and electricity, they are the basics he needs, he cannot afford the lifestyle he has at this moment, why do you think you are in this situation, it may be difficult to hear this, but I will say it again, I have been where you are, and with years of cutting back we managed to get debt free, not easy but we did it.

I think budgeting is a major problem for you, how about keeping £150 per each week back for the CCCS payments, therefore you will not be short some weeks? It's going to take time to get into a new routine, but with a little hard work and support from this forum, you can be debt free and then you and your OH can have a few luxuries paid for with cash.

WASHER.x.

sofababe

Ask your OH to read through this thread with you. She/He says they doesn't want to live like a pauper but at the moment they are living like royalty on paupers wages. I'm sorry but that doesn't work as you appear to realise. Your OH has to see what's going on or the two of you will never sort your debt issues out and will end up in a much worse situation than you currently find yourselves in.
My ex-OH was much the same. He took out loans he couldn't pay back but could never see why I was protesting. Our situation was different in that he had a gambling addiction and this was SOLELY to blame for his debts. Thankfully he never registered at my address even though he lived with me for 4 years (couldn't quite untie those apron strings!). In the end I couldn't stand it anymore and we split. It was only recently that I told his children's mother that it was me paying her maintenance every week :eek:
Sorry for rambling but my point is that unless you BOTH understand what has to change something's got to give and it would be disastrous and terribly sad if it was your relationship, all for the sake of a few luxuries