BabyB wants to be mortgage free (or at least have more equity!)

babyb06

gallygirl wrote: »

It's very difficult to comment on other's SOA's, especially when they are not on the debt board. Didn't stop me having a go though :rotfl:. I think the important thing is what YOU think. Do YOU think £85 is too much for Sky etc? If you are happy with what you are spending on various areas, and are getting each part as cheaply as possible, then that is what matters.

PS - have you got a moat though

A moat, he, he! Well with the amount of rain today one may be forming! But on the water bill front good news! I rang the company and they say my usage is around £30 a month (the average for 3 people apparantly but I do love my baths - about 5 a week - hence the reason my toiletry bill is soooo high - mmmm bubble baths!) so I have been overpaying by a huge amount and will get a nice credit back in a few days:T Thanks GG. With it being my first property I had no idea what bills should be and have not paid enough attention to the letters that arrive - lesson learnt!

My phone is an iphone and lots of the calls are business use, so my personal usage is about 40% of that and the rest goes as expenses. Clothes are also mainly for work - i am a girl that hates shopping :eek: - but i tend to buy a new work suit every year and lots of shoes.

Our SKY package is all singing all dancing, mainly because of my OH - he wants all the sports channels - a need not a want according to him! We have sky movies, but rarely watch them, so I think that could be easily trimmed a little.

Lots to think about!

babyb06

[food - too high. mines £400 pm for 7 of us and we eat like kings
Water - ouch :eek:
Electricity - I presume that this is gas as well ? Mines £83 pm for both
Make up - too high. try mingling brands
Entertainment budget ? Wow every month ? Can you do it cheaper?
Do you really only spend £5 pm on your hair? Cut, colour, tip ?

Try keeping a spending diary as like you said you should have a few hundred left over a month. It probably is the odd snack here, coffee there. But it all mounts up. I account for every penny which makes me a complete bore but at least then I know what I REALLY have to OP.:)

good luck[/QUOTE]

Food is high because I work long hours and am lazy when I get home. My nearest shop is an M&S simply food store and so most nights we eat something from there. I do a lot of paper work of a weekend (I get paid per piece of work) so can't really batch cook and my OH has trouble chopping an onion and until recently couldn't make scrambled eggs! So he is no use!:mad: I think a target to reduce by £25 a week this month and then £50 next etc may work........hmmmm, something to think about

The whole flat is electric, so no gas bill.

I hate having my hair cut so only go once a year and have never coloured it, so it is probably a little less than that:D

Make up is a lot (I use expensive brands - when I started to earn well after years of nothing I made the most of it!) I could cut down - or just use everything I have before buying new. Saw this as a challenge and I am definitely guilty of buying a new product when I don't actually need it.

A spending diary may well be the way forward!

babyb06

why do my quotes not show up like other people's? hmmm, clearly I need to learn how to use this site, not just how to budget!

gallygirl

Iris_Blue wrote: »

G
Make up - too high. try mingling brands

My turn to be rolling about - I read it as 'try minging brands' :rotfl:

babyb06 wrote: »

Make up is a lot (I use expensive brands - when I started to earn well after years of nothing I made the most of it!) I could cut down - or just use everything I have before buying new. Saw this as a challenge and I am definitely guilty of buying a new product when I don't actually need it.

Actually organising what you have and then using it will save you loads of money, not that I'm speaking from experience you understand

babyb06

Thanks for the advice GM4L

Some of my items are business related and so they are tax deductable, I will try and strip these out so I have an idea of personal spending. My car is mostly business, I rarely use it at weekends, but my insurance is high because of my age and low no claims bonus (my car was stolen). OH doesn't drive, so when we go out together it is always in my car, but don't feel like I can ask him to contribute to this (he doesn't even pay for petrol) as it is my car and I earn more than him.

My OH will probably move out if i decrease the SKY package, but I can work on entertainment, whilst it is a rough figure it is likely to be on the low side - shocking I know, but £50 on a Friday night out goes nowhere and now I've thought about how much I spend I am shocked - maybe i should invite people round to my flat for more nights in seen as though I am paying so much for it!!!

I will start to keep a diary of groceries/entertainment/sundries and then in a month or two work out how to cut down (a little at a time!) I have never done this before!

babyb06

Goals/Challenges

• Keep a diary of all money spent on food/entertaining/sundries – then next month look at how to cut down
• Don’t buy any more toiletries until everything I have at home is used (lots of free gift mascara’s etc or bath gift sets that I never bother to use for some strange reason preferring to buy new!)
• Use topcashback for all online purchases
• Overpay mortgage with current account balance that less than £10 every Friday (i.e. £254.98 means payment of 4.98 to mortgage)
• Look at decreasing SKY package (not sport though my OH would kill me!)
• Only have a meal out if I can find a voucher (not including Birthday/Anniversary)
• Look into remortgaging (I want an offset mortgage as I am self employed and so my tax money sits in my savings account all year)
• Decide on a monthly o/p target and make a signature

I think that is plenty to be getting on with for a newbie!

gallygirl

babyb06 wrote: »

Tmaybe i should invite people round to my flat for more nights in seen as though I am paying so much for it!!!

You could ask them round to watch Sky & admire your moat :rotfl:.

Seriously, this is a marathon you're embarking on, not a sprint. It's going to take while & I for one would sooner it took a year longer & I had a life in the meantime. For instance, I'll happily cut down on going out & expensive clothes & cars but don't ask me to forego my holidays :eek:. Also, I have my heating on already as I am very cold blooded so an extra layer just doesn't hack it. You need to look at what you spend and ask yourself if it's worth it. If the answer is 'yes' that's all that matters

Iris_Blue

gallygirl wrote: »

My turn to be rolling about - I read it as 'try minging brands' :rotfl:
It's a new range, we could make a bomb ! Think it would sell??

Brilliant news on the water front! :j

Try phoning Sky and say that your struggling and see what they offer you. you may be surprised. We're currently watching some sports channel for free because I say we were skint.

You know what ...I already knew that you were shopping at M&S - I could tell ! HM food is actually so much nicer...and cheaper. You can whip up 2 chicken br/sts in cider and garlic cream sauce in no time. It just takes practice and routine to do it. I don't batch cook - I haven't the space to store it.

wynnvegas

What trouble an SOA can cause, eh!?

Welcome babyb. As you'll doubtless have noted already, there's no shortage of helpful, yet sarcastic, advisory bodies on the forum.

An SOA on the debt board is a completely different animal than an SOA on here as the non-indebted have somewhat more flexibility in their options. I can't agree with the people who are sitting shivering because they don't turn their heating on until October as a rule and I'm 100% with your OH on the sports - it really isn't a nice to have - particularly on a big weekend of football, golf, football, rugby and football! Iris does raise a very good point - sky are very accommodating (particularly when you have a myriad of other available options in your area) and we currently have all the sports channels for free until mid-October and that's been since the end of June. I have to admit that I'm not above faking the odd redundancy and debt crisis on the phone - haven't resorted to a tearful depression that only free sky for 6 months can fix as yet but there's plenty of time for that...

Because you've got the money to do it, don't skimp on what you consider the essentials. If expensive make-up is your thing (and, let's be honest, who's thing isn't it!) then £50 a month on your earnings is hardly a big splash. I appreciate the long working hours but, for the nutritional values alone, I wouldn't eat ready meals and the like if I was paid to do it - even from waitrose! We can knock up a meal for two in less than 20 minutes from start to finish and I'd bet my dinners against anything from a microwave. I don't do batch cooking just because I prefer food fresh but I don't think it would save us all that much either.

It's the missing money that would concern me. When we started our detailed SOA, we were fortunate to have 6-9 months of detailed spending habits as we buy everything without exception on our credit cards to maximise airmiles and such so I could analyse exactly where all the money went. The daily supermarket run of maybe £7-£10 and the odd wee bargain from Hout UK Deals (maybe £5 three or four times a week), whilst affordable, was incredibly wasteful and we managed to eek out another £500 per month between us by tightening those bits up.

Very best of luck to you!

Cheers,

Billy

Iris_Blue

I don't think anyone's been sarcastic here. If you mean me Billy then it certainly wasn't my intention. Maybe it's my hormones and I've read your comments wrong.