Spend too much on things

tugrin

PS
What kind of dogs are they?

Nargleblast

Wistles - well done for having the foresight to see that you may have financial problems ahead. You have received some excellent suggestions so far, hopefully you will be able to use some of these ideas. I only have a couple of things to add.

1. If you have any loans, store card or credit card debts (apart from mortgage) then consider using some of your savings to get these paid off. You will be paying out more in interest on these debts than you will be earning on savings, and once paid off that frees up more money each month that would have been spent on debt repayments.

2. You are fortunate to have a decent income - at the moment. You cannot, however, take it for granted that you or your wife will always be in these jobs as life has a habit of smacking you in the face with a wet kipper when you least expect it. Either one of you could find yourself unemployed or on long-term sick leave at any time - the world is full of people who thought they were in secure jobs but ended up on benefits. In that situation you would have no choice but to do some radical cutting back on expenses. Therefore I suggest you apply your mind (both of you, in fact, as you are a team) to cutting back as much as possible in order to stabilise your finances and hopefully realise your dreams.

Have a look on some of the other forums for advice on cutting costs in various areas of your life and set to it. Good luck and keep posting, there are always people on here to advise and support.

Indecisionismymiddlename

wistles wrote: »

I am self employed. These overheads affect my take home. Hence they are listed here.

You really need to separate them out. Keep your business' money separate to your money.

Are some of these travel expenses legitimate work costs too? If you don't keep a careful track of which is business and which is yours how do you do your tax returns properly?

I've saved myself a fortune just by tightening things up - always recording business mileage, making sure i paid myself on time so i don't incur bank fees etc etc. Our standard of living hasn't reduced but we've really tightened up and stopped being sloppy with things and it's saved us a great deal of money without reducing our standard of living. I'm worried I sound rather patronising but I'm just thinking of what I've had a tendency to do.

SJ1

Hi

I earn a lot too and I used to sound a little bit like you by justifying everything that I spent with all the good reasons why I needed to spend it. In the past year I have finally taken hold of the whole thing and stopped the stupid spending, but kept the stuff that I feel I can't do without, so I actually spend £200 a month on a cleaner - she is worth every penny.

It's actually quite hard to learn to be different. I started by recording everything on an excel sheet. Not only what I spent on my debit card but also on credit cards as well and it started to shock me exactly how much I was spending. We weren't in debt badly but we had little left at the end of the month. Now we do have money left and I actually have grown to love sticking by my self imposed rules.

I can understand why you don't want to give too many details away but at the same time I think people are going to struggle to give you much constructive advice without details. If you don't want to provide more then I personally think that Belfast girl had the right idea. I tried to do everything at once, cut down budgets, sell stuff on ebay, batch cook all week and I just can't do it, I am too busy with work and small children. Then I got depressed that I was just sooo pants at this and end up spending a complete fortune on something random. When I started looking at money this last time I decided I would just take baby steps - so I would tackle one thing at a time.

So food, I started writing a list of what we were going to eat for each day every week. I was probably spending about £800/month on food before I did this, I just got to the weekend and thought, sod it, I need M&S food and then a roast on Sunday and off I went and shelled out another £50 on top of the £130 I had already spent. Now I limit my online shop to £100 a week and I keep tweaking until it works. I have another £20 cash in my pocket to spend for the weekend but that is it and I keep it in a separate purse as food is one of my worst areas (I am a size 8 but I LOVE food and cooking). I know that my £120/week is a lot more than some people on here but you know what, it's right for me. I know I could cut it by more but I work and I shop online to save time and I get tired. So what I am saying is I have managed to cut to a level where I am not wasting anything, I give it my attention and make sure that I am spending the minimum that I can in my circumstances.

I get the impression from you that things at the moment are fine but it is the future that you are worried about and in particular school fees for your children. My children are state educated and I was state educated, unless you have no good schools in your area then you would be foolish not to at least consider it. I get the impression just from reading your SOA that you are a very careful person, you insure things, make sure that the level of insurance is correct etc and covers everything you need. So I think that private education is to you a sort of insurance that your child will do well. I think that you need to stop thinking of it that way as your children will probably do well in any good school if they are bright so long as they have time and energy from you and your wife at home.

Best of luck and I hope you get something out of your post that will make a difference.

SJ

P.S. Have you talked to your wife about your worries? Sometimes sharing the problem can help and she may be able to take on some of the 'trimming' exercises...

getagrip83

You do not have to be on the breadline to have money worries.

I suspect this is a LBM of a different sort.

If you are looking at top public schools then this probably explains your sense of panic.


So the odd few pounds off the electricity bill does not help.

Its a question of timing and organisation

I don't know how mathematially literate you are, but effectively use a spread sheet to project forward for the cost of the fees.


What we then did was to use a combination of paying off the mortgage (as its more predictable than school fees), saving, help from grandparents and using current income. The nature of schoolfees is that they tend to rise more than inflation so there has to be some allowance for this.

Then create a payment schedeule which uses in the preferred order current income, interest and finally saved capital. If you are really, really lucky you may have paid off the mortgage, paid the school fees and still have some cash in the bank!

Also it will show you if you have any breaks in the demand for money, due to the ages of our children we only had one year when thay all needed paying for.

god luck, quite like that typo so I'll leave it!


There is, as an aside, the problem of what is normal, I live in Surrey, and what is a normal salary around here is skewed in the extreme. When you get caught up in that particular scenario its very difficult to see what is a function of where you live and what is real.

This time good luck
gag

wistles

Thanks all.

theoretica

I suggest you put all your spending into order of priority for you. First there are the things you can't cut back without court cases/or making yourself ill (like council tax) then put everything else in order of how much you value it and try to shave a tiny bit off the things that a really important to you and a lot off the things which are less important until you have the savings you want. Are generous presents more important to you than owning a TV? Heating more than one room in the house? Could you find cheaper but still good places to take clients for entertaining? How about places that will let you bring your own wine and pay corkage? Setting up your own cellar might save money there as restaurant wine is so expensive.

Also look through your bank statements for random general spending which can almost always be cut down on by taking food with you and doing without 'stuff'.