£Money

12bdebt3

My statement of affairs seems alright but I always end up with no money left to put into my personal savings, maybe I'm not a good saver but any advice would help maybe pointing out something blatently obvious I could save on.

Monthly Income

My wage: £960 after tax, which will increase to £990 next month
My girlfriend's wage: £350 after tax
My girlfriend's student loan: £500 £6,000 a year given in 3 payments

Monthly Expenses

I use £500 of my wages for house bills and my girlfriend uses her £500 student loan. This gives us £1,000 a month for house bills.

House Bills

Rent: £550
Council tax: £100 We only moved in at the beginning of October so this hasn't been sorted out yet but this is what I've guestimated.
Gas and electricity: £70
Water: £30.11
Contents insurance: £11
TV license: £24.16
Sky TV, broadband, phone and line rental: £37.50 We need the internet for work and university and without the TV I would spend a lot more money trying to entertain myself. This is split; TV £19, line rental £11, internet £7.50, which would be £12.50 if I didn't have the phone, which is free evening and weekend calls and costs nothing extra.

£1,000 - £882.77 = £117.23

This will fluctuate as anything we buy for the house i.e. furniture, etc. will come out of this account. Same thing goes for anything going wrong or breaking and any unexpected bills.

My bills

Nationwide bldng scty loan: £188
Mobile phone bill: £40
Food: £100 Food bills are halved, we spend around £200 a month. I am a DWP employee and use their employee discounts. I shop at Asda and get a 5% discount using the site. I put the money on a prepaid gift card at the beginning of each month.
Petrol £40 We go halves on petrol, only my girlfriend drives but it's pretty much a car share as anywhere I need to go she takes me. Plus, what's mine is hers and what's hers is hers right... :rotfl:

£460 - £368 = £92

My girlfriend's bills

RBS loan: £35
Mobile phone bill: £15
Food: £100
Car insurance: £70
Petrol: £40

£350 - £260 = £90

My girlfriend currently has an overdraft of £1,250 and is scraping the bottom, so any spare money just attempts to knock her out of that. This ends up being pointless because every few months something will need to be paid out for her car, like tax or maintenence etc.

Any advice on anything. I use online banking and try to manage finances well. Although we don't spend more than we get on a regular basis I am still stuck for any spare money to put into savings. Any advice would help.

Tixy

Hi arron

I'm wondering if you end up shot because you don't have everything budgeted for. Eg from girlfriends £90 spare she has to pay car tax, car maintenance & tyres, MOt etc, presumably she has some costs associated with studying (books, stationery etc)? plus then she'll have clothes, entertainment, presents, haircuts etc so its easy to see why she ends up short.
Again for you, you might not have the car costs but I guess you also have clothes etc you'll need to buy?

It might be useful to keep a spending diary to see where else your money is being spent, write down everything you spend for a couple of months even the odd £1 on a lottery ticket or 60p on a can of coke etc.

If you are the sort of person who tends to always spend their wage, and just ensure you don't go overdrawn then maybe it would help you if you started a small savings plan of just say £20 which you pay out of your account just after your wages have been paid in, that way you get used to not having that money to spend (if you see what I mean).

Regarding council tax, if OH is a full time student then make sure you check if you can claim the 25% discount on your bill.

12bdebt3

Hi Tixy,

Sorry I didn't include a bit about my girlfriend's University fees, her student loan is a few hundred over £6,000 which she buys her books with and she bought her stationary this year with the money she got from selling her old books from last year.

My girlfriend sometimes cuts her hair herself, she dyes it with cheap toner off eBay which cost £5 a time. She hasn't purchased many new clothes in a while, she normally gets clothes as presents for christmas/birthdays and when she does buy anything she gets it cheap from eBay power sellers.

Entertainment is normally TV and internet, keeps us happy, the odd thing we do where we go out I pay for it, which I guess is where all my money is going...

Same for me with clothes, I don't buy any. I am paying back a £3,000 loan for buying things I don't need! Which is why I'm here. I have sorted out all my debts myself before it got worse. I am paying everything off in one consolidated loan, so in around 2 years I'll be debt free. I just want to have some savings to fall back on.

I will have to start keeping a spending diary. :eek:

I am getting a pay rise at work soon, so the extra money off that can go into my savings I guess.

Thanks for your help especially with the council tax whatever spare money I get from that can start off my savings.