Sparkerly's SOA

pennypusher

Hi Sparkerly, you have a very healthy income and need to balance your spending against it. I suggest you put your expenses in order of priority i.e. mortgage first, council tax next etc and work your way down the list. Check out that you are getting everything for the cheapest you can and then you can adjust your SOA accordingly.

If you can get some of your debt transferred onto a 0% credit card that would save you some interest.

Can you get a cheaper mortgage?

I suggest you show your other half the figures and ask for his ideas for cutting down your costs. If you leave him to think about it he may come up with the same ideas as you!!!!!

Good luck and if you start arguing suggest to him that you leave it for now and discuss it again tomorrow. Hope this helps.

Sparkerly

Morning all

Following all the fantastic advice I have been given here, me and OH had a really good chat last night and agreed to savings. The gym/swim membership will be cancelled as will the zoo membership. Life assurance can be cut down by around £220 pm. We will try and stick to £400 for groceries from 1 June and hopefully will find that we can cut that back even further and takeaways are down to £50 pm.

All in all we have agreed to cutbacks of around £550 pm month :j That will mean we are no longer in deficit each month. Also any money OH does get from his DJ-ing will go straight to the debts. He also reminded me of another £100 we have coming in each month that I forgot about :doh:

As for sky we have agreed to see if we can change packages to save money as we have not long upgraded one of our packages.

D9 thanks for having another look at our SOA and in answer to some of your points. Our 'council tax' is not a monthly expense as we get a bill once a year and have to pay in full within 3 months of the bill, so this is it being paid effectively over 12 months.
Haircut was a mistake - that is the cost every 3 months.
Have already reclaimed all the credit from our gas supplier.
No choice for providers to cover all TV, phone and internet unfortunately.
Health costs are for doctors fees and contact lenses for my daughter. We get free presciptions, but have to pay each time we visit the doctor at an average of £38. If we need a call out than its even worse - last time was £105:eek:
School fees go up every year and are paid monthly. When they take A-levels the fees are slightly reduced and there is the option at the stage to change to a non-fee paying school. This is a discussion we will have with DD as she has one more year left of GCSEs, but hopefully will be in a much better position than.

I am reluctant to cash in the shares right now, afterall if we haven't made any changes we will just get into the same position again. I would rather make the changes first - might seem a bit backwards and not very DFW but in the past when we clear an OD or CC we just start spending again

We have set up a spending diary so we can see exactly where all our money goes and what we can cut back/out.

Finally we had a family meeting today with the kids as they are old enough to understand what is happening and how the changes will affect them and what we need them to do and they were really good about it, and not bothered about stopping the memberships. At the end of it they asked if they could cook us lunch and would make soup with whatever veg we had - have done some really good shopping the last couple of days and got reduced veg perfect for soup. So we have just had a lovely lunch and all we needed to do was make a cup of tea.

Thank you all for you advice, I actually had 9 solid hours of sleep last night for the first time in ages because I was so much calmer about money and feeling positive that we could get there. :T

bouncydog1

Just one thing you may have overlooked if your eldest wants to go to Uni. CI and IOM pay what are known as "Island rates" which are similar to International fees. There may be help from the States of Jsy towards the fees dependant on income. However if there is no assistance, you may be looking at fees of a significant amount particularly if science or medical related, plus all of the living costs.

Taking this into account if your eldest does want to go to Uni, you might want to consider her moving to the State system for 6th form. Our own experience has been fantastic for 6th form, although no regrets about private education up to that stage.

That way you can at least have two years worth of school fees banked towards the Uni costs.

[Deleted User]

Great news!

Sparkerly wrote: »

Morning all

Following all the fantastic advice I have been given here, me and OH had a really good chat last night and agreed to savings. The gym/swim membership will be cancelled as will the zoo membership. Life assurance can be cut down by around £220 pm. We will try and stick to £400 for groceries from 1 June and hopefully will find that we can cut that back even further and takeaways are down to £50 pm.

All in all we have agreed to cutbacks of around £550 pm month :j That will mean we are no longer in deficit each month. Also any money OH does get from his DJ-ing will go straight to the debts. He also reminded me of another £100 we have coming in each month that I forgot about :doh:

As for sky we have agreed to see if we can change packages to save money as we have not long upgraded one of our packages.

D9 thanks for having another look at our SOA and in answer to some of your points. Our 'council tax' is not a monthly expense as we get a bill once a year and have to pay in full within 3 months of the bill, so this is it being paid effectively over 12 months.
Haircut was a mistake - that is the cost every 3 months.
Have already reclaimed all the credit from our gas supplier.
No choice for providers to cover all TV, phone and internet unfortunately.
Health costs are for doctors fees and contact lenses for my daughter. We get free presciptions, but have to pay each time we visit the doctor at an average of £38. If we need a call out than its even worse - last time was £105:eek:
School fees go up every year and are paid monthly. When they take A-levels the fees are slightly reduced and there is the option at the stage to change to a non-fee paying school. This is a discussion we will have with DD as she has one more year left of GCSEs, but hopefully will be in a much better position than.

I am reluctant to cash in the shares right now, afterall if we haven't made any changes we will just get into the same position again. I would rather make the changes first - might seem a bit backwards and not very DFW but in the past when we clear an OD or CC we just start spending again

We have set up a spending diary so we can see exactly where all our money goes and what we can cut back/out.

Finally we had a family meeting today with the kids as they are old enough to understand what is happening and how the changes will affect them and what we need them to do and they were really good about it, and not bothered about stopping the memberships. At the end of it they asked if they could cook us lunch and would make soup with whatever veg we had - have done some really good shopping the last couple of days and got reduced veg perfect for soup. So we have just had a lovely lunch and all we needed to do was make a cup of tea.

Thank you all for you advice, I actually had 9 solid hours of sleep last night for the first time in ages because I was so much calmer about money and feeling positive that we could get there. :T

pleasedelete

Ok. Am I missing something.

The answer is surely that you need to get a job. You are not in a place where you can afford the lifestyle choice of not working.

I know that sounds hard but I am in the same place. My dh takes home almost 7.5 a month and I have just been made redundant. Basically we can survive if we cut back drastically but that's not fair on him or the children. I would love not to work but we need the money to Maintain our lifestyle and so I will have to take a job that is very far from my ideal.

Sparkerly

pleasedelete wrote: »

Ok. Am I missing something.

The answer is surely that you need to get a job. You are not in a place where you can afford the lifestyle choice of not working.

I know that sounds hard but I am in the same place. My dh takes home almost 7.5 a month and I have just been made redundant. Basically we can survive if we cut back drastically but that's not fair on him or the children. I would love not to work but we need the money to Maintain our lifestyle and so I will have to take a job that is very far from my ideal.

If you see my very first post you will see that I am looking for a job and have applied for several with no sucess. I only gave up work because our new home needed renovating and with the job me and OH were doing it would have been difficult to be there to sort out tradesmen and also I have undertaken a lot of the work myself - only had tradesmen in for things I couldn't undertake - electrics, plumbing, plastering etc. I have acknowledged that I need to work and trying to find something, but need help in the shorterm and thankfully a lot of people on here have been very supportive and offered lots of great advice which I have taken on board.

pleasedelete

Ok. Won't any job do as an interim even if not ideal?

I have renovated 5 houses including this one (only half done) being honest I have always been better off working and employing people to do it. I have had students in on minimum wage recently decorating and stripping. Yes I could do it but what I earn makes it more economic to work and pay them.

I don't want to sound unsympathetic but I really am in a very similar position to you. My first idea was not to work or to work part time but that would be great for me but not so great for the family. My dh was great and said I didn't have to work- we could cut back etc etc but being really honest it just wasn't fair on everyone else in the family. I am taking a job that I wouldn't have considered a year ago as it's too boring but needs must.

Everyone is so lovely and helpful. I just felt that no-one had said the obvious. Really the answer isn't cutting back a few bits here and there. It is that you need to prioritise increasing your income.

Are there any jobs at all you can consider even if not ideal?

Sparkerly

pleasedelete wrote: »

Ok. Won't any job do as an interim even if not ideal?

I have renovated 5 houses including this one (only half done) being honest I have always been better off working and employing people to do it. I have had students in on minimum wage recently decorating and stripping. Yes I could do it but what I earn makes it more economic to work and pay them.

I don't want to sound unsympathetic but I really am in a very similar position to you. My first idea was not to work or to work part time but that would be great for me but not so great for the family. My dh was great and said I didn't have to work- we could cut back etc etc but being really honest it just wasn't fair on everyone else in the family. I am taking a job that I wouldn't have considered a year ago as it's too boring but needs must.

Are there any jobs at all you can consider even if not ideal?

Think we need to agree to disagree on this one. Yes I am considering jobs I wouldn't 6 months ago and it seems that I am too qualified for them. I could go for the same job I was doing before but that was affecting my health and I think that having a heathly mother is more improtant than me bringing in a salary.

twinmum07

You are doing a fabulous job of cutting back and I think that is the key thing for you. The money you have vut back has dealt with your overspend and left extra money to throw at the debt.
You do have a high household income to match your high expenditure andI am sure looking for work is a big step for you but I totally agree that you don't just apply for everything indiscriminantly as has been suggested. Sods law would bound to mean you would sign up for a minimum wage job and then be offered your dream job on a proper salary the next day. If your previous career affected your health then i would say you are very right to steer clear.

Sorry to barge in but just wanted to say you are doing fabulously given the changes you are making and the timescale you have done it in.

Sparkerly

twinmum07 wrote: »

You are doing a fabulous job of cutting back and I think that is the key thing for you. The money you have vut back has dealt with your overspend and left extra money to throw at the debt.
You do have a high household income to match your high expenditure andI am sure looking for work is a big step for you but I totally agree that you don't just apply for everything indiscriminantly as has been suggested. Sods law would bound to mean you would sign up for a minimum wage job and then be offered your dream job on a proper salary the next day. If your previous career affected your health then i would say you are very right to steer clear.

Sorry to barge in but just wanted to say you are doing fabulously given the changes you are making and the timescale you have done it in.

Thank you so much for the words of encouragement. I know that I am doing everything I can to get a job, but need to make sure that it is right for me, so that it does not affect the family as this is the most important thing to me. I have worked part time for the last 10 years as I believe it is important to be there for the kids after school and spend time with them during holidays - just like my mum was, but having said that I have applied for full time jobs as well as an income at this stage may be better, but even this has been unsuccesful. Having been rejected for another job that I knew I could do with my eyes closed yesterday, for someone who has so far offered no advice to comment about me not working really upset me, so I really appreciate your commets.

I know I shouldn't let comments get me down, but still being really new to here it was a shock to get negativity after all the encouragement.