Income not enough to pay for my outgoings. Not sure what to do

pickledonionspaceraider

Hi there, this looks interesting.

£850 a month is humongous for rent on what would be a TWO bedroomed home I assume (if there are three living there)? Is this a local authority house? Can you get on the council, or housing association list, if not?

Can you request to have your elec meter removed and pay direct debit, this is going to be the cheaper option.

When you say £15 for tv, is this for cable tele or sky, or do you mean for tv licence? if it is cable/sky I would be getting rid of that immediately
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Some things that have helped me are simple things like always always always bringing food from home to work, shopping around on a regular basis for the best deals for all utilities, ring them up and be cheeky, tell them you are thinking of leaving and going to a competitor and what can they offer you.

We dont eat fancy food round here, its meals of pasta etc during the week here. I can feed my family a good pasta meal for a quid for all three of us.

I dont know what car you have, but could you downsize to a smaller car perhaps, saving money on fuel, and insurance etc?

I understand your situation re yoru wife and having to stay at home with a young baby, but are there working at home things she could try? or even selling avon to other mums at the playgroup can earn a fortune. I used to make a killing doing this at playgroups and later, around the school gates.

Also, I would cash in those shares. Absolutely. I know you dont want to, but the situation you are in right now, that money will just sit and stagnate, as you are not going to be able to build on it further to get a deposit together.

Hope any of this might help
good luck

themull1

Did your wife work before the baby was born? if your incomings exceeded your outgoings maybe you shouldn't have started another family until you got your debt down to a more manageable amount.

eleanorf

You dont mention child tax credits in your income - you should apply for this asap.

The income limits are over £50k so you should be eligible.

katiesmummy

Op do you spend a lot of money when you have your other kids with you? How old are they?

I live very close to St Albans and one of the things I do with my kids is take them to the lakes by the Abbey- its so beautiful down there. We make mud pies and have a picnic (even in the rain) and they love it down there.

I don't know if you take them to places like Willows Farm or the butterfly house- but those places are really expensive. I save places like that for special treats only (birthdays and the like). There is an indoor adventure playground in the next town that is cheep & cheerful but its fantastic for the children- I think its about £3 a session and if its not busy they tend to let you stay as long as you like.

The farmers market in Hatfield town center is on the first weekend of every month and they have a few animals and some other activities like face painting and a balloon lady- all free.

If I think of anywhere else I will come back and edit.

Bargain_Rzl

eleanorf wrote: »

You dont mention child tax credits in your income - you should apply for this asap.

The income limits are over £50k so you should be eligible.

I fed the OP's figures into the turn2us website and (while I might have got something wrong) it told me there should be £21 per week available in CTCs.

katiesmummy

Where do you do your weekly shop? Have you tried mysupermarket.co.uk? Morrisons isn't on there, but Sainsburys, Asda and Tesco are (and Waitrose) all of which are accessible from St Albans- there is a big Tesco in Hatfield and an Asda, but the one in Watford is much bigger so I am told. I can think of 2 big Sainsburys in St Albans- one in the Savacentre and one down at the bottom of the hill from town near Matalan and Homebase (don't know what this area is called, sorry!).

I always put my shopping list into mysupermarket before going out to see where is cheaper that week- sometimes its Tesco, sometimes Asda. If one place has good offers on things you use then you can save a fair bit from week to week.

HTH