The Day The Money Died!!!!

makingendsmeet_2

Ok so today is not a good day in money terms but life goes on. Just wondered what you think is the next best course of action. We are a family of myself. my wife and 4 children. Ages 12,10,6 and 2. We run 2 cars mine is a company car but i have to pay fuel my wifes is her own and we have to pay everything for this one. We live in a village and both have a to drive a 25 miles round trip each day in different directions so unless my wife gives up work we can't give up her transport.


Incomings

Me £1180
Wife £ 530
Child Benifit £ 160 ( there is another child to be added to this but we are awaiting the change of claim)
Working Tax Credit ( £550) Ths is an estimate as we have recently had a change of circumstances the WFTC have said the claim can take 3 to 6 months to sort out. Ouch

Incomings at present £1870

Incomings one day soon £2480 ish


Outgoings

Mortgage £165
Rent £285 ( we pay mortgage and rent as it shared ownership)
Council Tax £ 80
Electric £25
Gas £25
Water £37
Home Insurance £10 (contents only)
TV Licence £11
Food £400 (this includes cleaning lunches nappies and everything)
Clothing £30 (this is including school uniforn shoes etc)
Telephone £11 (bt line rental only we don't make outgoing calls on it)
Broadband £14 (Kids use this for homework and we need it for MSE!!)
Mobile Me £20 (16 months contact left)
Mobile Wife £15 (16 months contract left)
Childminding £380 (if only there was another option)
Petrol £180 (for both cars)
Wifes Car Ins £55 (only been driving 18 month and had a claim we did shop around)
Smoking £160 (Ok I know but we both smoke and it have tried to give up I guess you need more willpower and less stress)

Total Outgoings £1903 (ok so a bit short at moment to even live but should be able to ajust to get by)


Now Debts

Me


Alliance and Leicester Loan £9300 £215pm
Natwest Loan £7000 £120pm only took this out in June
Mint Card £2250 £50pm Min Payment
MBNA £3000 £60pm Min Payment
Natwest overdraft £ 350 £15pm


Wife

lloyds TSB £13000 £300pm Consolidation Loan
Capital One £ 192 £ 10pm Min Payment
Egg £ 2000 £ 95pm
O2 £ 300 A failed Contract


Joint Natwest Overdraft £400 £20pm


Total Debt £3792(ouch)

Total Min Repayments £1047 Plus whatever o2 want.

Ok so it looks at least for the moment that no creditor can have anything as we don't have anything to give them. Even when we do I have not included things like car tax, car mainentance birthdays, xmas etc in our budget

We only managed to purchase our house in June this year and did so because all we could do before was privatly rent and were paying £650pm and thought owning our own home for £200pm less was by far the best option we purchased a 25% share of £26250 and to be honest I would say our share is worth no more than that now so we have no equity. My wifes car is an old banger and is worth no more than £800. The only other assets we own are 2 laptops worth about £200 each. Are we better to say to our creditor that we can not afford to make any payments at the moment and will review in 3 months or do we just declare ourselves insolvent.

jessicamb

Hi there

Can I suggest you look at the benefits of your wife working? Purely on the numbers I think you would save the £380 childcare, a fair proportion of her petrol, money on lunches - all in could you save money with her being at home with the kids?

£400 on food is really high - I think you can be a bit cannier with this and cut this down quite a lot. Try the OS board for ideas with meal planning/cheap meals etc.

Other than that I dont think you can save much on your bills other than by giving up smoking.

Do you mind me asking how the debts built up if you dont have any assets to offset them? Have you sold all your old posessions at carboots/ebay?

aimme13

hi, i was thinking along the same lines as jesicamb, your wife is earning £530 but paying out £380 on childcare, was my first thought 'is it financially a good move'......also make sure you keep on at the tax credits as untill you know this figure you wont know exactly how much you have, in my experience unless you keep calling them they dont hurry along

makingendsmeet_2

Hi thanks for all your speedy replies..

we have looked in to my wife not working unfortunatly she would still have to do the 25ml round trip aday to pick the children up from school and when we work the figures out on entiledto we would actually end up £260pm worse off as our tax credit would go down to £403pm and we wouldn't have my wifes wages either. ok we would save the childcare but the difference is still £260pm. We don't have anything of any value to sell on Ebay (how much to kids fetch on there:rotfl: ) Most off our debt has been spent keeping a roof over our heads before we got this house and before I met my wife I had a bit of a life crisis and ran up £30k debt and no doubt i'm still paying some of that off now.

aimme13

ah ok, the tax credits system is a headache and sometimes just makes no sense!.......i think contacting your citizens advice bureau and see what they can do??.....sorry not any great advice i have but sure someone who has better advice will be along soon, good luck

makingendsmeet_2

Yeah tax credit is a headache. CSA is no better we used to get maintenance for 3 of the children there fathers answer to that was to give up there jobs. The youngest child is ours so he is our responsibilty. Thats this country for you though.

halloweenqueen_2

You can get patches for free in retrn for attending a smokers clinic at the doctors - worth a try? difficult habit to break I'm afraid.
Have you tried shopping at somewhere like lidls - you can't beat a lot of their cleaning stuff and the cold meats cheese and chocolates are really good. May be worth trying the nappies from their as well.
Visiting the old style baord for menu ideas might help but both you and your wife would need to work together on this as you both work and are busy with 4 kids as well! Have you tried own brand products, martin said in his programmes you could save around 15% which in your case is £60.
I think you might be surprised what sells on ebay,have a broswe - but don't buy!!
Good luck - hope it works out!

itsarichmansworld

Hi There a few things I can suggest is Your broadband, Talktalk Sky orange etc all do "free broadband" Talktalk if its in your area may be free check that out.

I work for a mobile phone company so Can I ask what the o2 failed contract was I may be able to help.

Try https://www.uswitch.com or similar sites see if you can reduce the gas and leccy they can even check the Broadband for you too.

As a smoker myself I know how hard it is I faced up to my debts last month and that give me the kick up the !!! to stop. (However fell off the wagon this week But I'm getting back on it asap!)
You can do it too! Your GP shuld be able to give you a prescription for patches a lot less than buying them and cigs!

We're all here to support each other you'll soon be addicted to mse

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