Advice on money dilemma

theoretica

The problem with contract work is it is so insecure- this is why it pay more. If your OH leaves his current job and takes a 4 month contract what will happen if he can't get another contract at the end of that time?

I am puzzled why child care for one is £355 but you expect two to be £1200. Would this be for full time rather than part time so you would have a higher income than now? Could you either find a cheaper source of child care or something to bring in income without needing much child care?

pleasedelete

£35 a mo th for contacts is massive. Daily disposable are about £23 a month at boots (but they charge more on older contracts unless you object ) but I get ours online for about £16 a month now.

pleasedelete

Remember if you don't go back to work you will probably have to repay everything above statutory maternity pay.

orangesmartie

I pay £15 a month for contact lenses with specsavers and that includes free check ups and also replacement lenses if I lose one (mine are 30 day disposable). And I have quite expensive (toric) lenses, so you can definitely reduce this.

Depending on your OH's willingness and your final budgets, dropping down to this kind of package will save a lot of money. In my budget, contacts are something I'm not willing to compromise on, however good my glasses look. Contacts give me that little extra confidence boost. Also, they are massively more practical if you're out and about in the rain

clearmydebts

pleasedelete wrote: »

£35 a mo th for contacts is massive. Daily disposable are about £23 a month at boots (but they charge more on older contracts unless you object ) but I get ours online for about £16 a month now.

I think it is so high because OH has a stigmatism (sp???) in his eye. I must check up online though to see if he could get something cheaper there. It is an awful price I think.

saterkey

Is the council tax correct as I only pay a third of that amount?
I personally would go back to family with small ones, pay off as much as possible with partner coming back weekends, that way you can get a clean slate more quickly to decide what you want to do after. Youll have help in the week, and realistically a full time job you only really have an hour or two anyway on a night to spend with family and that is generally full of housework feeding etc, so your partner wouldnt see much of kids anyway. Once your settled, then you can double efforts to creating the sort of life and get jobs in ireland that you want.
good luck

clearmydebts

katsu wrote: »

Hi - check that the PAYG will save you money - you might need to be disciplined to avoid spending £100+ on top-ups! If you really make that many calls you might need to be on a contract.

If your intl calls are free and you don't call mobiles then how are you spending £100 pcm?

You mention things like OH's contacts and the flights home which are all not in your SOA. I hear what you say about budgeting month by month, but what we are telling you is that you need to be putting by for these expenses some months. I can't work out how you are making your minimums and paying some of these expenses - can you put the minimums in your SOA and go back through your bank statements to see where your money goes and perhaps list out the big expenses like flights and an estimate for Christmas to see what you really have left over for paying your debts?

I am a serial texter and a lot of the texts are to Ireland so aren't free. I think I could discipline myself to only top up £20 a month. Straight away I would save at least £30.

OH is also going to check out contacts online to see if he can save money.

I am going to go back through the SOA and put in minimums.

clearmydebts

theoretica wrote: »

The problem with contract work is it is so insecure- this is why it pay more. If your OH leaves his current job and takes a 4 month contract what will happen if he can't get another contract at the end of that time?

I am puzzled why child care for one is £355 but you expect two to be £1200. Would this be for full time rather than part time so you would have a higher income than now? Could you either find a cheaper source of child care or something to bring in income without needing much child care?

Thanks for replying Theoretica,

Yes, you are right. Contract work is insecure. I am pretty confident that if the contract work dried up OH would be able to get a permanent job somewhere in the UK though. Not ideal but better than nothing.

Childcare is that cost because OH gets childcare vouchers (£243 per month). It is a salary sacrifice so that's why I haven't included it. I could look into childminders or look into working at weekends if needs be. This is something I wouldn't be able to do until the start of 2012 though.

clearmydebts

pleasedelete wrote: »

Remember if you don't go back to work you will probably have to repay everything above statutory maternity pay.

Hi Pleasedelete,

I only qualify for maternity allowance as I started this just as I found out I was pregnant so I don't need to worry about that.

clearmydebts

saterkey wrote: »

Is the council tax correct as I only pay a third of that amount?
I personally would go back to family with small ones, pay off as much as possible with partner coming back weekends, that way you can get a clean slate more quickly to decide what you want to do after. Youll have help in the week, and realistically a full time job you only really have an hour or two anyway on a night to spend with family and that is generally full of housework feeding etc, so your partner wouldnt see much of kids anyway. Once your settled, then you can double efforts to creating the sort of life and get jobs in ireland that you want.
good luck

Hi Saterkey,

Unfortunately the council tax figure is correct. Our council tax is approx £2500 per year. Because the direct debit took so long to set up (problem with bank) we missed a couple of months and this why it is so high. It usually would work out at about £188 per month.

It is very tempting to move home (for the reasons you have outlined) but I do worry about OH not bonding as much with the next baby. He is a great father. Having said that, to be able to get rid of the debt would be amazing.