Money and debt advice

bextas

Hi there,
I really need some advice. My partner and I both work. I take home £1,360 a month and he has a weekly take home pay of £270. I pay for the main things out of my wage, rent, council tax, Car and child maintenance for his son. I have a budget planner which basically shows that we are in a position to pay off around £200 a month of debts of around £20k and save £200 a month and yet we live week by week and can't seem to save anything and it just seems to go. I am overpaying on my car each month and the council tax and only have 5 months left on both of these so that would give us even more to save but we can't seem to even save the £200 and I don't know what to do! We got a bit of money come through but that went on catching up on things like tv licence, our sky bill and a holiday - ok we didn't need the holiday but we have not been away or abroad in over 6 years and having gone from a joint wage of only £700 a month to now over £2,400 we wanted a treat and reward. We don't go out much so i'm not sure where our money goes.

I had the next few weeks all planned out so that we can put money away for our holiday so we could take £300 away with us but now the car has failed it's MOT and I have no money to put it right and I have to get to work! It needs new brake pads and 2 new tyres...I just don't know what to do - we have 6 weeks before we go away so we have time. If anyone could give me any pointers or help I would be really grateful. We have the money coming in but we just can't seem to save - even saving £100 a month would be a massive achievement for us.
Thanks for listening or any advice you can give.

ixia

You would be better posting up your SOA and someone with more knowledge than me will be able to help you out.

You should keep a spending diary for a month and write down everything you spend each day. it is amazing where all your money goes to but if you have a note of it you can see where you spend and where you could cut.

You maybe have to revise your budget and make sure you are including monthly amounts for car maintenance etc.

Good Luck

Jariya

You say you have a budget planner but are you keeping a diary of your actual spend?

I'm only a newbie here myself and have only been doing this for a week but it's stopped me from buying quite a few incidentals which I would otherwise have bought - it's working for me.