My SoA....please help!

Benson112

unixgirluk wrote:

Benson, I don't think people are having a go we are all trying to help.

everybody has been helpful until that post! Granted i was resisting initial advise but a whole 30mins later and i already agree...what was the need to start questionning my parenting skills? That was a dig with the whole "saint" buiness and i dont see why there was any need. Was it helpful at all?

scootw1

can your girlfriend cook? I say that because you said you were too tired to go shopping and cook? Can she chip in a little bit with that side of things? It may help you out a bit

scootw1

Benson112 wrote:

everybody has been helpful until that post! Granted i was resisting initial advise but a whole 30mins later and i already agree...what was the need to start questionning my parenting skills? That was a dig with the whole "saint" buiness and i dont see why there was any need. Was it helpful at all?

You are right. It wasn't helpful. Too many of these threads turn into slanging matches.

Benson112

scootw1 wrote:

can your girlfriend cook? I say that because you said you were too tired to go shopping and cook? Can she chip in a little bit with that side of things? It may help you out a bit

haha tried that and it failed. In a word...NO!

Benson112

scootw1 wrote:

You are right. It wasn't helpful. Too many of these threads turn into slanging matches.

Exactly...do judge me unless you know me and fully understand me, my family, my life, my friends...basically dont judge me unless you are me!

scootw1

I'm sure she could knock up a spaghetti bolognese. Anyone can do that. Or maybe stick some chips in the oven? (if that is the sort of food you eat that is). I couldn't cook when I went to Uni but taught myself. As needs must as they say.

all_hours

Are you sure you're getting the right amount of child tax credit and child benefit?

Look on https://www.entitledto.co.uk

You could cut sky to the basic package or £16 per month. If you like films try DVD tarting, sign up for the free trial use it for the 2 -4 weeks then cancel. If you do this register with quidco and pigsback so you can earn a little cash back for each trial.

You're paying £75 a month on elec + gas. This looks quite high. Switch off anything when it's not being used. Don't leave anything on standby. Switch off lights as you leave the room. Change to energy efficient light bulbs.

You're about £100 a month short. That's without adding the missing expenses that others have pointed out. £30 off sky + £30 off mobile bills + £30 off the food bill + £10 off fuel bills would almost put you breaking even.

Benson112

Thanks very much, yeah the gas and elec was a joke. Its an estimate anyway, i ended up £127 in credit (even though they now want £90 back lol). Ive changed this to Npower now so should be alot cheaper anyway. Im also in the process of trying to change the mentality in our house, lights are left on, TV is playing to nobody in 2 rooms etc all the time!! Im using that https://www.house.co.uk site to cut costs of energy.

Im gonna go to that quidco sounds like its worth while. I did the DVD tarting a while back and cant get accepted for free trials now haha.
Ill cut sky back definately. We have sports at the min (part of my bargain to get my out the pub at the weekend lol) so that can go..i think we pay £10 a month for the sky plus subscription. ill see if i can cancel that too.

Ill check out that site now mate thanks very much

Benson112

scootw1 wrote:

I'm sure she could knock up a spaghetti bolognese. Anyone can do that. Or maybe stick some chips in the oven? (if that is the sort of food you eat that is). I couldn't cook when I went to Uni but taught myself. As needs must as they say.

Lol she can but she cooks things like she is used to eating it. Im soooo fussy with my food its like feeding a 4yr old. So thats pretty much why i cook, because if she does i wont like it! So to retract my previous statement...she can cook, i just dont like her cooking!

Millionare

Benson112 wrote:

Yeah i struggle to get new cards mate specially with that limit! They only just upped that to what it is now by sending me a letter "Hey we have just doubled your deb, i mean credit limit". Sooo we wasted it all!!

Insurance is myself (as a driver of 5 years, no no-claims bonus, crash and stolen car on my file) and my OH as a named driver (driving for 1 year, no NCB yet). Its the cheapest of the cheap policies. It gives us nowt lol. Its full comp on a pug 206 1.1 worth £2700. The car is up for sale (well will be 100% officially once the log book comes through, DVLA messed it up). We have a pug 106 1.5d to move to now worth £1000 so that should cut some more costs. Im with Tescos insruance which offers a "value" insurance now....basically strips all the benfits off your policy for a saving lol. I have to be fully comp as i crash alot lol.

Sky plus....no, the answer is no i dont need it BUT....we have young children therefore have to watch CBeebees all day everyday. Sky plus lets me still watch the stuff i want. And yeah to be honest, having the sky probably saves us more money as we get bored really quickly. If we didnt have sky id be out wasting money a hell of alot more!! I stay in Friday and Saturday nights now too (which used to be un-heard of), i have boycotted the pub compeltely so i need my TV lol. I was spending over £150 a month in the pub...since ive had sky i bet ive spent a tenner in there. So in some ways its expensive, but in others it saves me cash.

Mobile....well. I do alot of messing about with my phones. I do similar to you and do make spare cash which pays for my contract. I do alot of complaining also (which if you have a contract is always worth doing) i get my line rental free most months of the year lol but i still have to count this cost "incase" its needed. Cant remember the last time i paid the full £60 for a month of phone usage. And yes....we batter off our minutes and texys with 2 weeks lol. Weve got the most suitable contract we will ever find (just a shame we cant up the texts and mins a bit)...were on tmobile mix it - which they have now canned because they cant be making money off it lol - we get 200 anytime mins and 500 texts p/m for £30. You can only use it when you have free minutes...if you run out you can top up like a PAYG but you can never run up a bill....i used to pull in £350 a month mobile bills!!

Ive looked into consolidating....and it seems initially beneficial. I spoke to that Freedom finance a while back because i say a dodgy carol vorderman style advert. They basically did loads of credit checks on me and come back with a quote (so they are like brokers). They could get my my £10000 i was after, great me thinks....until i read the small print and would have been paying back £33500!!!!! Are there any that are not complete rip offs that would deal with bad credit eejits like myself?

Lets see, have you tried requesting a consolidation loan for part of your debt with your main bank? forget other companies and that is just a rip-off. they might be able to help you out if you cannot get credit elsewhere. but again make sure you CLOSE THE CARDS if accepted. trust me i made the mistake of using mine. go for part of your debt as your more likly to then get the loan. thats what i did.

also here lies your main problem apart from income being less than expenditure, your credit rating sounds shot to bits(Happens to the best of us) so you must realise that you only other way is to compromise on luxuries and stick to neccesaties unless you want to consider a DMP.

the main in you case in my opinon are mobiles - im sure you can reduce this mate.

sky - see what you can do;) if poss i used to have the full works and thought id die without it, hard at first when i lost the sports channels etc. but you get used to it. go for the basic package if you cannot get rid of it. £15 per month includes most of the kids channels.

Takeways - This is like a "ghost" drain on your finances - i had a habit of eating out like you do and when the s** it the fan and i worked out what i was spending on takeways on top of shopping, it was in the hundreds per month. this has to stop.

Insurance, try online at http://www.kwik-fitinsurance.com/ just recently i saved a friend of mine £400 switching there insurance to them. may help you. also confused.com can get you quotes from various parties and you can see if you get any good prices there.

hope that helps