How to live on 65 per week?

Dreamnine

@ the OP, I wish you all the best on this; as others have said it's your outgoings which are going to be the most difficult.

real1314

grumpyoldwoman41 wrote: »

600 cross network minutes and unlimited texts....

That doesn't seem a great package for £25 a month, unless it came with a decent phone?
One option might be to sell the phone and get a cheap pay-as-you-go model to switch the contract to?

Frugal_Mouse

grumpyoldwoman41 wrote: »

Frugal MOuse, thanks - I had a DMP with CCCS which I had to stop from 1st December (£570 per month that I simply do not have) and now looking into BR.

Sorry

I hope that you don't mind me saying this but the answer to your original question is not, imo, a simple one. To manage (will not use the word live) on a very limited income requires one to learn new skills and sadly this is not something that happens overnight. The good thing is that there is so much information on boards like OLD STYLE and others that will hopefully help you reduce your food shopping and gas/elec costs. Personally, I am a lot wiser now when it comes to coping on a tight budget but it did take me a while to get to this point.

FM

MissMoneypenny

PasturesNew wrote: »

£65 JSA for a single person is pretty much survival, rather than living.

It's a shame that all benefits aren't based on that criteria.

FatVonD

I've not read all the replies (just jumped from page 1 to here!) so apologies if this has already been said but would it be worth you taking any job (ie minimum wage that you may be over qualified for) for, I think it's 16 hours per week, and then claiming family tax credits since your daughter is living at home?

Also, maybe there are pet charities who may be able to help with medication bills to help keep your pets with you, they must negotiate good rates with the vets they use or do you have PDSA near you? Treatment is free there if you are on benefits.

Good luck

grumpyoldwoman41

Real - what a brilliant idea, honestly did not think about that, sell the phone, it is a Balckberry curve. Could try to sell it but then I doubt I will get enough for this to pay the £25 to the end of the contract which is a 24 month contract....

Still, need to think on this one, thanks for that.

Just spoke to EDF, my Gas DD was £65 per month, they have changed it to £30 per month , my Electric DD was £40 per month, changed it to £20 per month. All I have to do now is turn everything off/down and hope when we review (agreed on 2 months) that all will be fine.

So another £55 per month theoretically saved now.

Need to find the other post of mine and put those savings together - thanks a lot for all posts, would not have done this without all your support....

PasturesNew

FatVonD wrote: »

I've not read all the replies (just jumped from page 1 to here!) so apologies if this has already been said but would it be worth you taking any job (ie minimum wage that you may be over qualified for) for, I think it's 16 hours per week, and then claiming family tax credits since your daughter is living at home?

The OP doesn't qualify for those. The daughter is 20, so an adult.

For the OP to get WTC she'd have to work 30 hours/week and be earning under about £13,500.

Then... she's still got to find an actual job and win it.

We've no idea what job the OP did previously, she's in a council house, so rent's dead cheap, but it might be possible for her to become self-employed at some point if she's not getting interviews/offers as she'd only have to start with a target of beating JSA+rent+CT, which is easier than trying to do the same in a private rent (which renders it frighteningly unachievable).

One step at a time...

katiesmummy

Frugal_Mouse wrote: »

Sorry

I hope that you don't mind me saying this but the answer to your original question is not, imo, a simple one. To manage (will not use the word live) on a very limited income requires one to learn new skills and sadly this is not something that happens overnight. The good thing is that there is so much information on boards like OLD STYLE and others that will hopefully help you reduce your food shopping and gas/elec costs. Personally, I am a lot wiser now when it comes to coping on a tight budget but it did take me a while to get to this point.

FM

Agreed. Its a huge learning curve when your income drops dramatically but all the resources this site offers makes the transition so much easier.

OP I can't really think of any other advice to offer other than to keep an accurate record of your spending- if you get to the end of the month and you can't pay xyz you can look and see what else you can cut back on in abc.

Seriously check out the oldstyle board- it is (in my humble opinion) the best part of the site for making your money go further & I have gone from someone who rarely cooked proper food to cooking almost everything from scratch which saves so much money. If you like takeaways there are lots of recipes on there for 'takeaway night'- my kids love making homemade pizza.

And I'm sorry, I know you have said that you don't want to ask your daughter for anything I really think you should- she is using the electric, gas, water etc etc the same as you. Even £10 a week until she moves out is better than nothing.

grumpyoldwoman41

Summary for today.....

Pet Insurance from £65 to £30.50 savings £34.50
Mobile from £35 to £25 savings £10.00
Sky from £62 to £43 savings £20.00
Gas from £65 to £30 savings £35.00
Electric from £40 to £20 savings £20.00

SO from 267 to 148.5 per month


Total Savings £118.50

Thanks a lot everyone, looking at what else to cut on and where/how.....

For the moment, heating and light off in the flat....good I can touch type

MissMoneypenny

I haven't read the whole thread, but has anyone suggested using the cashback sites like topcashback to find better deals for utilities and insurances? Somewhere around is a link to 'daily clicks', but I'm not sure what board that is on.