From bad to worse...

boo80

Have you asked your local council about housing benefit? We used to get it when we rented privately. x x

helena83

Possibly £8 per week they said!

boo80

Ok, last one, can you get the child maintenance reassessed?

Has your councils website got a HB calculator on it? Might be worth having a play around on there and entitledto to see what would be best out of your possible circumstances. x x

Londonboy_3

On fuel/ motor costs etc. £300 petrol is a lot - is there scope to change cars to something more fuel efficient, or cycle/ walk more to get this cost down? Do you have 2 cars and can one of these be sold?

RachelS

Helena, I really feel for you as your situation is very, very similar to mine. We weren't good financial planners before we had kids (we have 14 month old twins), and since then it's gone from bad to worse. We are still in contract with lots of things, and I've been advised by the CAB to phone up with a sob story and try to reduce tariffs. Haven't tried it yet but the advisor said it does work sometimes.

You should get extra tax credits when you go back to work to account for some of your childcare costs.

Other suggestions:

* Can you possibly manage with one car? I know it might be hard with going back to work...any way you could do it and save money?

* Could you consider renting out your house for a while instead of selling? We own a house and rent another one and cover all but £50 of our mortgage by doing so.

* Do you have anyone, anyone at all trustworthy who'd take one of your phones? My mum needs a new phone and is going to take over mine. My name will still be on the bill, but she'll use it and pay the bill, saving £25 a month.

* We have £290 a month budgeted for groceries, cosmetics and household products, for 2 adults, 2 14 month olds and 2 cats. This includes nappies for 2. I won't lie to you, it's very, very hard (although people on here manage on lots less)...but it can be done. So you could prob cut back a little here, maybe set a challenge to reduce spend by £2 a week so it doesn't seem so awful. Lidl nappies and the Asda 2 packs for £10 deal both work out between 10 and 11p per nappy, and they're good quality.

* Cut out LoveFilm or at least switch to the new £2.99 package for 2 rentals a month. I hated doing this but now I hardly notice, I put up with what's on tv or read.

I'd say your biggest worries are paying the mortgage plus rent, the petrol costs and the childcare costs. Are those your fees for petrol? If so..unless I've read it wrong, it doesn't seem like you're coming out on top financially much by going back to work at all...definitely chat to someone at the tax credits helpline about what you might be entitled to when you go back. I don't know anything about vouchers though, I'm afraid. Why do they have to make it so complicated?!

Katie-Kat-Kins

With your mobiles, do try getting them to lower the tariff, often they can reduce you to a lower plan mid term. Be prepared to tell them that you are in financial difficulties. I'd consider ditching the landline as you can't ditch the mobile, you must have shedloads of free minutes to use on such expensive contracts.

Have a play around with what it would mean if you didn't go back to work, or if you got an unskilled job close to home that fitted around your DH's hours. Having a couple of years out isn't the end of the world, and you can go back when the kids are at school, you will be able to get back to where you were.

I'd talk to your employers too, especially if they value you. Tell them that you really want to go back but financially it is looking difficult with childcare costs and travel and you may be better off staying home much as you want to return. They may be able to offer you something better, help with childcare (salary sacrifice schemes and things are often available) a pay rise, reduced hours, working from home, flexi time etc.

Consider a slight change, it isn't necessarily a stark choice of return to your old job or get an unskilled minimum wage job. I don't know what you do but there might be areas you could branch out into that fit in better. For example if you were an accountant you could consider doing freelance book keeping from home or working in an in house accounts role part time, or teaching on an accountancy course at the local college/uni. See what I mean?

helena83

Ok now you've made me cry!! Can I go back to burying my head in the sand and hoping for a lottery win??

We will certainly look at getting rid of one car although we live in the sticks a bit so it would be tricky getting around but manageable. The petrol costs are OH getting to and from work which is 80 miles per day and then a round trip of about 200 miles each week to see his kids. We have thought about moving back closer to them but we simply can't raise the costs of moving!

The other house is rented out, thats the £350 per month. We don't really want to pay less maintenance, its an informal agreement at the moment and if we redue it again she'll have a strop and start arguing over the kids again.

I'm scared to ring the mobile people, I have no idea what to say! Any suggestions? We were a bit greedy when things were better and both got shiny lovely phones with 2 year contracts and big bills. I'll just end up in tears.

Just can't believe 12 months ago OH was earning at least twice what he does now and everything was fine, how much things can change in such a short space of time and yet I still feel like I should have seen it coming and prepared for it.

Katie-Kat-Kins

Oh and ditch love film.

Watch the tv instead, there is more than enough of freeview. Start recording stuff off the telly at times when you aren't watching and save it for a time when you are in.

You could also put a notice on freecycle for old videos and dvds that people are getting rid of (you can't sell videos these days as so many people don't have a player so you might get lucky).

Also ask around friends and family and borrow films to watch, lots of people have massive collections and hardly watch them, as long as you are good about returning them they won't mind.

The library have DVDs very cheaply too.

Katie-Kat-Kins

helena83 wrote: »

Ok now you've made me cry!! Can I go back to burying my head in the sand and hoping for a lottery win??

We will certainly look at getting rid of one car although we live in the sticks a bit so it would be tricky getting around but manageable. The petrol costs are OH getting to and from work which is 80 miles per day and then a round trip of about 200 miles each week to see his kids. We have thought about moving back closer to them but we simply can't raise the costs of moving!

The other house is rented out, thats the £350 per month. We don't really want to pay less maintenance, its an informal agreement at the moment and if we redue it again she'll have a strop and start arguing over the kids again.

I'm scared to ring the mobile people, I have no idea what to say! Any suggestions? We were a bit greedy when things were better and both got shiny lovely phones with 2 year contracts and big bills. I'll just end up in tears.

Just can't believe 12 months ago OH was earning at least twice what he does now and everything was fine, how much things can change in such a short space of time and yet I still feel like I should have seen it coming and prepared for it.

A couple of things, the mobiles, just phone up and explain. Say that you have hit financial trouble due to leaving work to have a baby (explaining that it is for a genuine and unforseen reason is good, add in the baby to tug on the heart strings) and you are really struggling to pay the bill. Ask them whether they can put you on a lower tariff to help you out. They can normally do a bit of discount or something, if they won't ask them for the costs of cancelling the contract.

If the phones are lovely and fancy consider selling them and replacing them with dead cheap no frills phones. When DH broke his just before the end of our contract it was cheaper to buy a phone in tesco than to pay the admin charge on the insurance and get a replacement! You can get a phone for about £10.

Also why do you have three contracts?

Other stuff. Could DH look for a better job or one closer to home? It is always worth keeping a look out. Could you consider moving closer to work?

Could his ex deliver the children to you alternate times? Or could a grandparent help out by collecting them sometimes, it could be partly helping you and partly them getting an extra bit of time with the kids.

Could you do anything like rent out your parking space?

Could DH do a lift share?

Can you get more rent for the rented property?

Soph86_2

Hi Helena,

Sorry to hear you're having a hard time, and I know how difficult it is trying to wait for a second house to sell and paying two mortgages when you can't afford one!

My contribution is - is it possible to move back to your mortgaged house? You'd have less housing costs and wouldn't have to worry about selling the house. Otherwise, could you move to a small rented house - there's only 3 of you so you could get away with a 2 bed house for a while?

I'm sure you've already thought about these but didn't want to read and run!

Best,
Soph x