Proper thought-out SOA that we're sending to the banks...

OneSpike

Hello. Righty-ho, this is the real thing:

Total income:
£1941.53 (includes Child Benefit etc)

Outgoings:

Rent £655
Elec £100 (paying off an underpay too :mad: )
Gas £74 (ditto)
Food £300
Car £151.67 (includes monthly slice of tax, insurance etc as well as maintenance)
Diesel/petrol £145
TV license £10.96
Household £45
Telephone £27
Mobile £15
Clothes £20
Uniform £30
Council tax £155
Water £14

total £1742.63

This is our first month of working to the new budget, so it's bound to shuft around a bit. Atm we have two cars, but one will go on 14th Dec and we'll manage on one for a while, but we live in the !!!!-end of nowhere and can't walk to school or shops or anywhere so two cars and the fuel to run them is a necessary expense generally. Household is a catch-all for the unexpected - £2 for a school trip, a prescription for Nathaniel or me, the odd haircut etc. My mobile is going onto PAYG when the current contract runs out in Feb. We have three school age children, so although we don't buy things every month, across the year it works out about that, esp when you factor in schoes and my absolute refusal to get them anything other than properly fitted good leather shoes. Previously I've bought each child six school shirts and two sets of bottoms, but from now on it will be four shirts per child max and one skirt/pair of trousers. Unfortunately both teenagers will need kitting out again come January, as they're struggling along in clothes I refused to replace in the summer - what an evil nasty stepmother I am! We do have a high elec bill, partly as Nat runs a squillion computers and servers in the office (at the bottom of the garden, so no travel costs!), but now his company will pay £900 a year towards it, which is rather more like it. Previously that's been swallowed up in general debt, but from now on it will go to its rightful destination. We also have a debt on both gas and electricity accounts.

That leaves about £200 a month in disposable income, which we'll be divvying up pro rata between the creditors. When you think that one company alone got £236 a month from us in loan repayments they're going to be seriously narked bunnies!

Any thoughts most welcome, thanks

robnye

school uniform...... why 4 shirts/blouses..... my 2 younger daughters only have 2, and their trousers are washed weds and left to dry overnight

what do you do for day o day money - or is that in the Household figure.

have you tried oding the daily spend diary?
or the food from the cupboard challenge.....

telephone - couldnt you use one the cheaper phone services - the ones where you dial a code before the number and the call is then cheaper - see mse board

do you have sky/cable tv?
broadband?

OneSpike

Tbh I think with three children to run plus the laundry for two adults plus all the towels/tea towels/rags/muslins/bedsheets/napkins, turning shirts around every two days would be a bit of a tall order - well for me anyway!

Day-to-day money is in the Household figure, yes, but tbh there will be virtually nil 'day-to-day' spending - weekend papers are out (but we will get the local one which comes out once a week at 65p), the odd choc bar etc is out too. Nathaniel and I have to agree absolutely everything, but then we're a bit like that anyway ! Neither of us is 'out' to work so we avoid the usual temptations, thank god!

We're just starting a daily spending diary, and I'm a very resourceful cook always using raw ingreds etc, there's very rarely anything languishing in our cupboards unloved and unnoticed! There's been virtually no spending anyway the last 10 days as we're waiting for salary to land in the new account - should be tomorrow now we're told.

Broadband is part of that telephone cost, and we cancelled Sky long ago. We have Freeview, but get no TV reception about 8 months of the year so the whole thing's a bit pointless. We do subscribe to a DVD rental (just checking with Nat where the sub for that comes from), at about £8 a month, and we get massive use out of it so that's worth it.

Thanks robnye, keep 'em coming!

in*the*red_6

Hiya OneSpike

Just a quick note about your gas and electric - have you contacted them recently to check how the arrears stand now? My electric company started charging £95 a month to pay off arrears with a review after 6 months. I called them the other day and after 3 months of paying £95 I'm now in credit by £77! I'm now in the process of switching!

ITR

P.S. Is your water bill really only £14 a month, that seems really cheap to me?

Seaxwyn

Hi OneSpike.

Just a quick comment on school uniform - I've got four children and I don't pay for uniform. I've acquired it free in two ways:

I shamelessly ask parents of larger children if they have any outgrown stuff. Lots of people are actually really pleased to give it.

I've also been known to ask the school if I could help myself from the bottom of the lost property pile. One school secretary told me she takes a bundle to the charity shop every six weeks. She says if something is not named and has been there for six weeks or more, she's happy for me to have it.

Good luck

OneSpike

Seaxwyn wrote:

Hi OneSpike.

Just a quick comment on school uniform - I've got four children and I don't pay for uniform. I've acquired it free in two ways:

I shamelessly ask parents of larger children if they have any outgrown stuff. Lots of people are actually really pleased to give it.

I've also been known to ask the school if I could help myself from the bottom of the lost property pile. One school secretary told me she takes a bundle to the charity shop every six weeks. She says if something is not named and has been there for six weeks or more, she's happy for me to have it.

Good luck

That's great advice. I have a friend with two older children, whose uniform gets handed down to our youngest, but there's no-one to hand uniform down to the oldest. I can ask about the lost property though, might be well worth it!

OneSpike

in*the*red wrote:

Hiya OneSpike

Just a quick note about your gas and electric - have you contacted them recently to check how the arrears stand now? My electric company started charging £95 a month to pay off arrears with a review after 6 months. I called them the other day and after 3 months of paying £95 I'm now in credit by £77! I'm now in the process of switching!

ITR

P.S. Is your water bill really only £14 a month, that seems really cheap to me?

Thanks, we'll check with them. We've been in touch recently to change the bank account from which the DDs are taken and they confirmed that we really did need to pay that much, but I'll speak to them about what would be involved in changing to another provider.

Thanks in*the*red

Serialdieter

Hi

I understand what you are saying with good leather shoes, but are you talking Clarks / Startrite etc? if so, @ £30+ per pair do they actually last any longer? In the past I always bought Clarks every September but found they didn't last til Christmas. The past few years I've bought leather shoes in M&S/Next/Asda/Brantana all in the sale but at around £10. Personally I only put good fitting leather shoes on my children too (they do only get one set of feet afterall) but they don't need to be very expensive. You may already do this - just clarifying.

I agree the water bill sounds very low for a family of 5, I'm presuming you're not on a meter. I'm on a meter and mine is £32 for 4 of us and we do conserve wherever possible. Another thought have you got a "hippo" or similar water saving device in your cistern, this will reduce consumption and cost (if you're on a meter).

I think £300 food is high, particularly if you cook. Ours (family of 4) started out at £280 and is down to £200 and we're looking to trim more off.

£360 for school uniforms does seem high to me. I appreciate you weighing up cost of shirts v washing. Asda / Primark etc do very reasonable shirts / trousers / skirts / sweaters etc for a few £ each. I kitted my dd out for less than £50 including shoes in September and I'm sure some on here do even better.

Just my thoughts.

Jx

lynzpower

Also look out for Clarks factory shops, theres a fair amount of them around and the shoes are dirt cheap in our local one ( 2 pairs for a tenner- bit hit & miss but some good bargains)

OneSpike

Yes, I do buy clarks for school shoes. Both older children have the widest feet you've ever seen - usually SD has no choice at all and has to have the one pair in the shop that will fit her. I have to say a pair often lasts a child six months or more, so I think we do get our money's worth. Unfortunately we're nowhere near a Clark's factory shop, real shame as factory outlets are fab.

I can see a pattern developing here - it's me and firm ideas about where I buy things LOL! I buy school shirts from M&S as I find them to be excellent quality. Both older children are well into their second school year in their shirts and at this rate will outgrow them before wearing out any of them. Both older children are rather well-padded so buying trousers isn't always straightforward, but tbh their mother will often take them to buy things when they go to see her, not least because she has access to a decent range of shops, but we don't. The school badged stuff - two different sports tops per older child, badged fleece for all three and badged polo shirts for our youngest - we have to buy locally and there's no scope to economize as only one place sells them. The hand-me-downs are a boon though and I always take them very happily! I'm a bit funny about ASDA due to its connections with Wal*Mart, which has caused such economic devastation in America. Me and my principles!

I didn't realise our water bill was low. We aren't on mains drainage - would that make the difference? We have to get our septic tank emptied once a year or so (budgetted for!) at a cost of about £100 so that probably makes up the difference. We aren't metered but do try to be careful with water, and all our cisterns have thingies in them that take up space and reduce water usage.

Interesting about our food bill. I genuinely thought £300 was good for a family of five, esp as DH and I are usually at home for lunch. This is our first month of working to this budget so we'll see how it works out. I don't see where we can economize drastically though as I don't buy junk and only get one bottle of squash a month and one litre of fruit juice a week. There are no crisps (well hardly ever!), ready meals, bought yoghurts, fancy cheese thingies and I make our bread, yoghurt, baked beans, peanut butter, jam, chutney, cordial, marmalade etc. I have noticed though that I tend to stock up, and not having had the wherewithall to do that in the last 10 days I've realised that the thing I was sure I was on the verge of running out of has in fact llasted and lasted, so I think I buy things long before I need to. The other thing is that Nathaniel is vegetarian so I have tended to buy Quorn things and veggie sausages, which does get quite expensive. Now I pad out a bag of Quorn mince with TVP and buy own-brand veggie sausages, and make them out of Sosmix bought in bulk from the wholefood warehouse. I do tend to use lots of herbs and spices, soy sauce and other pricey ingreds. I'll report back on progress this month!

ginger

Hi,

I found Tesco's were very good for school clothes - shirts/jumpers and trousers for 9 yr old boy who seems to roll round in the mud everyday - so I too keep about 4 sets at one time. They are washed and washed constantly through the year and always seem to last. Agree with M&S as well - bit more expensive but they do last.

Am struggling with food bill - £100 week minimum for 4 of us. Sometimes can get this down to £70/80 but then next week it shoots up again.

Its not easy is it?