£30 til payday again and sick with worry!

Sakina

Sorry just saw the other posts - to clear things up: Council tax is paid over 12 months. Pet food is included in groceries too plus I included her worming tablets/flea tmt, food supplements in that too and puppy class/agility club fees, totals around £60 a month probably. That will go down soon as she's stopped puppy school at £10 a week and starting agility at £3 a week and as is now older can go onto 3 monthly worming cycle instead of 1 monthly. She is fed on raw food which is cheaper than normal food and doesn't eat a great deal anyway!

I didn't know about the prescription certificate - that sounds incredible and will save so much money! I will look into that straight away.

Also re gas/electric - our house in a 4 bed detached and we are VERY frugal with gas/electric but have terrible insulation - single glazing on one whole wall of our lounge floor to ceiling and open chimney into lounge. Those are priorities to get sorted when share funds come in. Share scheme matures once a year or once every other year, should be getting roughly £2500 in Nov this year then same year after etc.

[Deleted User]

Sakina wrote: »

Thank you for all the advice - I know the grocery bill is high I will start trying to make shopping lists instead and meal planning and try to bring that down, I have a bad habit of throwing out unused food so I know something needs to change there. We did both give up smoking for about 6 weeks last year but then when I went off work I was so stressed I started again and so did he. Last night we both discussed it and decided we both need to try again so will be looking at that, should save at least £150 a month even with cost of nicotine lozenges etc.

Check out this link for info on stop smoking: http://smokefree.nhs.uk/ Also if you go to your GP/local NHS stop smoking clinic you should be able to get lozenges or patches or other nicotine replacement for the price of a prescription of not for free

Gas/electric - I thought that was quite good! I had been paying £340 ish until last July and when my meter was read got a huge refund of £380 then payments dropped to £140 pm and then again last month to £116. Not sure about switching as last time I did it had a larger than normal final bill to pay and so the switching over period cost more than normal and don't think could manage that right now.

This is still very high - even if you don't feel confident about switching companies right now, check that you are on the cheapest tariff with the company that you are already with - online tariffs tend to be cheaper than standard ones

We really need two cars - live in a very rural area and so public transport is not an option - I did look into cycling to work but that's not possible. We want to switch our car which is on finance to a cheaper diesel as soon as the finance is paid off which will help. Petrol is actually cheap for us at the moment as I'm not using the car to go to work every day.

Make sure that you combine journeys then - like going shopping on the way home from work etc

The £3500 asset is my engagement ring - bought in far easier times when we didn't have a mortgage! We've made so many mistakes I wish I could go back and undo - having lodgers and the huge bills (£400 one month for example for going over download limit on internet, didn't even know that was possible!), had large fees for council tax arrears when renting, wish we had got a cheaper and more efficient car - also OH's share scheme takes £300 a month out of his wages pre-tax which we could really do with although it seemed sensible at the time to save for the future.

When does this scheme mature?

bravobeastie

Does the dog really need agility classes?

Soubrette

Sakina wrote: »

I didn't know about the prescription certificate - that sounds incredible and will save so much money! I will look into that straight away.

If you do get a prepaid certificate then ask your GP if any of your over counter medications can be prescribed to you as well.

originalmiscellany

What a great response from the MSE website! I've got nothing to add to your situation Sakina - other than it's great that you've taken the first step (in posting here) and you're willing to take on board comments. It's not much crumb of comfort, but there are a lot more people here who live on a lot less, and I'm sure you'll be able to adjust and cut your cloth accordingly, but please don't be discouraged - sounds like you're acting on the advice already, so well done.

Blobby8_2

Methinks you might prioritize food over a four bedroom detached ?

eamon

On the surface with all the ideas mentioned you can easily be back in control of your finances. But you have an elephant in the room, your interest only mortgage. Have you got a plan for repaying the capital? As I can't see anything in your SOA. You and your OH really need to look at how you are going to deal with this.

Sakina

originalmiscellany wrote: »

What a great response from the MSE website! I've got nothing to add to your situation Sakina - other than it's great that you've taken the first step (in posting here) and you're willing to take on board comments. It's not much crumb of comfort, but there are a lot more people here who live on a lot less, and I'm sure you'll be able to adjust and cut your cloth accordingly, but please don't be discouraged - sounds like you're acting on the advice already, so well done.

Yes - thank you so much to you all, great advice and I can see I was building it all up to be much worse than it really is. A lot of new things to think about too!

We've got another 8 years on the mortgage and the plan has always been to switch to a repayment one when wages increase - up til now though we've somehow always managed to increase our outgoings to match any wage increases! But I can see that when the car loan comes to an end that extra £350 going towards paying off the mortgage would do a great deal of good.

I don't really understand what you mean by saying we should prioritize food over a 4 bed detached - I was lucky enough to have a trust fund and put all the money into this house as a deposit, and the mortgage was a good £250 cheaper than our rent at the time so it made and still makes financial sense. We have capital in the house so I would hope that decision will pay off in the future.

RAS

Hi

On a very practical note, go over to the old style Money Saving forum. Make a list of what you have in your cupboards, fridge and freezer and they will help you live off that for a while. it is called a storecupboard challenge.

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

eamon wrote: »

On the surface with all the ideas mentioned you can easily be back in control of your finances. But you have an elephant in the room, your interest only mortgage. Have you got a plan for repaying the capital? As I can't see anything in your SOA. You and your OH really need to look at how you are going to deal with this.

Seconded. I was reading your opening post and thinking 'what about the mortgage'.

I don't have much more to add other than I am positive you can cut your expenses right down. Your SOA had so much spare fat on it that I'd be taking a hacksaw to it if I were you . But one step at a time!