Help with budget please

CLAPTON

for known one offs like fencing, new door then clearly need to decide when you are going to do these and save up an amount each month.
in a normal modern house you need to save up an emergency fund for things like washing m/cs packing up, ch going wrong, tiles coming off the roof etc ...the reality is that although its hard to predict what will happen in the next year its virtually certain that something will go wrong and so there is a need to build that on a monthly basis.

toria27

Thanks black-saturn I have looked at your meal planner several times well done it is inspirational but I still don't seem to be able to do it lol
I don't know how you do!
I never thought of looking in the paper for holiday deals so I will definetly do that.
We are not going to cancel life insuance as if anything were to happen to OH for instance I could not pay the mortgage. It is this high due to nature of work and health, was set up by a very god financial advisor who reviews us every year and was the best deal around.

black-saturn

When you are planning your holidays is it sometimes cheaper to book accommodation with a private owner than with a chain. So for instance you could rent a privately owned caravan for a week on a Haven site for a cheaper price than Haven charges you.

Theres a really old fashioned magazine called 'The Lady' that has small ad's for loads of cheap holidays in the back.

toria27

Thanks Clapton, luckily I am very good at saving and did use our savings to pay for these things I never buy what I can't afford. The debt to my parents was from when we moved house last year and was originally at over £7000. this has helped us to not have an even higher mortgage. We still have an emergency fund in place which we will not be touching if we can help it.

toria27

I don't know why my gas bill is so high. They have just increased it fomr £28 a month to £75. I havn't had the heating on this year yet, we use gas for hob not oven and heating and water, water only comes on 1 hour in morning and 1 hour at night. I'm scared to put it on this winter at all!!
And they are still the cheapest for me when I do a comparison.

CLAPTON

have you actually checked the meter reading to see whether they are over estimating.... also i find reading the meter once a month gives you a useful check on your usage

toria27

They come and read my meter and if they don't I do check it myself I don't understand how it can be so much though as this rise was based on summer months! thats what started me worrying. They said the electric isn't going up but we use a lot more of that!

black-saturn

toria27 wrote:

I don't know why my gas bill is so high. They have just increased it fomr £28 a month to £75. I havn't had the heating on this year yet, we use gas for hob not oven and heating and water, water only comes on 1 hour in morning and 1 hour at night. I'm scared to put it on this winter at all!!
And they are still the cheapest for me when I do a comparison.

They wanted to increase mine too but I rang customer services and said it was way too high. Now it's staying at the same amount. I agreed with them that if it ended up I was in debit with them I would phone up then and increase the payments. If I were you I would ring them.

toria27

I did ring them to see if there was a mistake I didn't ask if I could pay less though didn't think of doing that.
Might be worth another call then thanks

toria27

Just wanted to say thankyou to everyone for there advice so far. I thought I was already doing everything I could (apart from cutting food budget further) but I have definetly got some things to look into now. It makes you feel humble when you read of other peoples problems and how they cope and come out of it stronger than ever.
I love this site and without it I don't think we would even be able to pay our basic bills I was wasting a lot on the house phone and bills before.
To avoid using a dryer I am drying my DD's pyjamas for tonight in front of the computer as there is loads of heat coming from it! lol