Credit card- a good idea to pay off an overdraft?

losingpatience

You can definitely cut back on your food spending, we buy all our meat from a farm shop ( so free range, organic and therefore more expensive than supermarkets ) yet we don't spend as much as you do. A pack of 500g mince, for example, should do the both of you for at least 2 meals, though we can sometimes stretch it out to 3 meals ( bolognese one day, leftover bolognese for lunch the next day and a lasagne). There's nothing wrong with having soup as a lunchtime meal with some bread, I often buy a gammon or ham shank to make soup so the meat makes the soup more filling and is a cheap meal.

Eggs are a very cheap meal option too, omellettes, egg fried rice with some other veg thrown in, poached eggs on toast etc Without trying to sound rude you NEED to cut back on your food spending if your going to make a dent on your debt, so that means that you might have to have a few months of meals that you wouldn't normally have. We spend around £45 a week but that includes fresh veg for our 7 guinea pigs which is about £8-10 a week, and we often get wine or beer too so we could spend less, and would if need be, but we can afford to spend what we're spending. If that wasn't the case then I would make cutbacks.

Willium_Bob_Cole

I'm sorry if I sounded ungrateful or anything about the work thing, I know I have to support myself in the long run, and I by no means intend to stay on benefits and never get off them, however they are the best temporary solution for me now, as I have had two jobs to try and support myself whilst trying to keep up an education and honestly, the stress far outweighed the little extra money. I got the jobs because when I moved out of my mums at 16 she convinced me that I couldnt get any benefits, so first i got a job at brantano... The job was HORRIBLE, if I looked like I wasn't doing anything, I would get in trouble, and the only thing you COULD do was turn shoes to '45 degree angles' (they're rectangular boxes anyway, corner to corner is not 45 degrees!) for hours on end, they would turn your bag and pockets inside out everyday to make sure you hadnt nicked any shoes, and it was below minimum wage. They have since upped the wage, but it is STILL below the current minimum wage! they really need sorting out on that one... So I quit that after a couple months when I got accepted at a nursing home, which was much better pay, and I could handle it for a few months no problem but then it started my physical and mental wellbeing, it got to the point where I was cycling in a meandering fashion, just hoping to get hit by a car or something so I didnt have to go through another 12 hour shift solidly on my feet with barely 10 minutes here and there for a sit down and/or lunch, doing lifts that I was trained to know as 'illegal', and yet everyone said "oh we gotta do them otherwise we can't go home at the end of the day", it was like a factory for cleaning and lifting old people, and when I realised my mum was wrong and I could get benefits, I was more than happy to halve my income for the sake of not wanting to die!

But yes food costs are where I am considering major cutbacks, having things like tinned toms and pasta and some kind of 'erby deliciousness, and more things on toast etc etc, we used to have a lot of eggs and then moved onto the bread rolls which I never realised how much the fillings were costing us... the rolls are 35p for two, but we often spent more than a couple quid on a filling each! So that will probably be the biggest cutback... and slightly less meat (or bigger packs if we can use it without any going to waste)
We're quite good at cooking with proper ingredients, but we are very much carniverous, I've gotten a lot less fussy since I first moved out and had to live on noodles and some very very kind people's genorosity for a couple years, in that I can have vegetables WITH things nowadays, but I find it very difficult to have veg as the focus of anything. It has to be either meat focused, or a large amount of filling, staple foods, such as rice, pasta, potato and sweet potato... which we have less of these days come to think of it...

But yeah, thank you everyone for support, and as of our next shop, I will start looking at cheaper alternatives while still maintaining our food loving lifestyle, and I will be noting down everything we buy and how much it costs, and how often we seem to be buying it. Both changing our habits for the better, and closely monitoring our spending, should help quite a bit! I just wish there was an easier way, like some kind of lump sum that we can pay back interest free, I may be able to get a budgeting loan, but I think they're limited to £400, so even tho it's interest free, I'd be getting less benefits and STILL be paying interest on the overdraft, so doesnt sound great to me... oh well, budgeting for a couple weeks at least to see how much of an impact we can make being extra careful... Everything in moderation as they say =]

-WBC

losingpatience

I'm not sure if your aware or not but there are different minimum wage amounts depending on your age. So as you're only 19 the minimum wage for you is £4.92, you don't qualify for the highest minimum wage until your 21 which is currently £5.93 so could it be that your old employers were paying you the correct minimum wage for your age?

Also alot of shops do bag checks when you finish your shift, it's actually quite normal. I'm also not condoning what you had to do at the care home, but alot of people have to do things that isn't in their job description, thats part of life sometimes!

I find that once you've made a meal if you put out what your going to eat then immediately portion up the rest into tubs then you can freeze it so you have your own "ready meals" for a later date. I'm sure keeping a spending diary will help keep you on track, and maybe try meal planning and only buy what is needed to make the meals, that should help you budget too.

Willium_Bob_Cole

I assure you it was below minimum wage for my age, I was under 18 at the time and at the time, the minimum wage for under 18s was £3.53, and we we ALL paid £3.50 per hour, even the managers apparently... My friend got a job there recently (and quit after a couple weeks as expected), he is also 19 and his wage was about £4.80? ish, I can't remember what he said, but it is rediculous that they get away with it there...

I understand that bag checks are generally considered normal, but I had a thin material, satchel style bag over my shoulder with a couple bits of paper to do with work in, my wallet and my phone. You could see from the outside I clearly had no shoe. No one had a bag big enough for any kind of shoe. It was just a bit unnessecary...

We have a really small freezer compartment so we cant really freeze much, but we have decided to have cheaper lunchtime things like instead of couple quid each for a filling for a roll, we're gonna be having things like eggs, boiled with soldiers or in a sandwhich, or other sandwhiches like ham etc, things we can buy big packs of and use more than one day. And dinner times we are having less meat already, and eating more pasta and rice etc to bulk it out and we've been inventing delicious and cheap sauces and stuff, and got a whole ton of fresh potatoes to dig up tomorrow =D

beadgirl87

Hey,
take a look at some of the pages on here for sorting out your food shop. This link below basically says one week buy everything one brand down from normal, so if u buy mcvities biscuits, try the middle range supermarket version, if you normally buy that then buy the value range. See what you like and don't like, and then adjust from there. You may be surprised at how nice some of the value stuff is, tesco 15p yougurts rather than a 60p muller version etc.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cheap-supermarket-shopping
It does take time to change your methods, don't go when hungry and have a list of what you need for the week, don't buy impluse treats.
Also you can go online and get vouchers, so I was in asda last week, went home logged in with my recipe details and got a voucher for £1.50 on my next shop.
With the meat, perhaps buy in a different way. I usually buy the chicken breasts in the fridges, but find this very expensive as its £3 for 2 pieces or they are very small. This week I bought a whole chicken for £3, so I am going to cook that and use the meat for other meals.
You may have to eat less and everything for while, then when you have more money you can spend more on food.
Also do you really need the sky tv, can you not just cut it down to internet only and get freeview. If the family are paying for it, then the money they give you could go on something more useful.
Once you are at college what will your gf be doing?

PS I don't think you will get a new credit card while on benefits or low income. Especially not good ones like the one you mentioned earlier. sorry.

coolpaprika

Hi Willium,

Not much attention seems to has been paid to your overdraft problem. You said in your OP that family were helping you out with £70 for bills. How about a cheaper internet, freeview recordable box (from ebay) and the difference to a 0% credit card which they take out in their name? You won't have the overdraft interest to pay so that will also go towards it.

Changing eating habits is difficult and you're doing well. Healthy eating says eat every colour of food over the period of a week, keep the beige food to a minimum. Porridge is excellent if you can stand it, but then you shouldn't have too much other carbohydrates, they make you sluggish. Feel-good foods are dark, preferably berries. Try banana berry smoothies made with yoghurt and your favourite juice at breakfast. It helps start the day on a positive note & sorts out 2-3 of your 5 a day.

Your roll fillings, you obviously like good food, but try things like dolcelatte & mortadella with tomato and pesto.

Enough advice already. Keep positive. and remember, lots of work's a bummer, best to do something you enjoy

Willium_Bob_Cole

unrelated to other things here but not sure where to start a new thread, we just recieved a letter from RSM Tenon as an LPA Reciever, with a solicitor's letter from Shoosmiths. They basically want details of our tenancy, yknow, who lives here, how much rent we pay, etc etc, but we dont have a renewed tenancy agreement, we had 12 months which expired 26th February I think, but living under what I believe is called an implied tenancy agreement? So we have to give a months notice and LandLord has to give 2 months? But they want to see a tenancy agreement, what do we do? In fact, what do they do as a thing?

As far as I could research, LPA Recievers come into action when a LL defaults on his mortgage and they take possession of the property... Which is fine if we can still stay in our home of course, but one line has me worried, they say "Please note that it is not accepted by our Client that you have any legal rights to occupy the Property. We reserve all of our Client's rights such as may be required to obtain vacant possession of the Property" (from Shoosmiths)... There's 4 flats here including ours, they wouldn't just kick us all out would they??

Also our rent increased from 500 pcm to 550 pcm at about august last year (ish, i think), however our maximum housing benefit was 506.32 every 4 weeks and the landlord agreed for us to pay him as soon as we got paid that, effectively paying 13 times per 12 months, leaving us (I think i worked it correctly) £5.60 short every year, which he says is fine, would a new landlord still accept this? Also, what happens to our deposit?

So many questions, if someone could just help me out and explain as much as possible in Layman's terms, it would be greatly appreciated, thank you, bit of a panic goin on here...

thanks!