Sorry old chap, the money has run out!

Triker

Dunno if this is any help re food shopping http://www.approvedfood.co.uk/

nrsql

Sorry if this seems harsh but
>> it seemed like a (reasonably) comfortable life was always just out of financial reach
No - the lifestyle you wanted (decided) to live was always just out of financial reach.

I'm hoping that you have decided that things have to change and you need to live within your means - and that will be more comfortable in the long term.

You seem to be finding reasons not to do things (it won't save very much). Think of how much you overspend per month then look at the savings as a percentage of that and it might give you more incentive.
You say there aren't many savings that you can make with sky - the basic package seems to be around £20, you are paying £60. I think you are looking at the things you want rather than can afford.
Get a freeview box. I keep looking at sky but can't find any justification for the charges considering what you get - I'm continually surprised that people who are struggling find it cost effective.
If you are interested in films a blockbuster or lovefilm subscription would be a lot cheaper.

Don't dwell on that past - that's over an done with, concentrate on the future.


How many phones for £70? Sounds very high and do you need those contracts. Do you need the land line contract - I would have thought most of your calls would be mobiles with that cost - can you change to the minimum to support internet if you use it for that.

It looks like you are paying over 20% on 16k loans.
When does the Halifax 11k loan start charging interest and how much.
You have a 89k mortgage on a 85k house which doesn't leave much room for manouvre.

It looks like you've not been very choosy about taking out contracts and it will probably take some time before they expire and you can cut them down to what you can afford - until then you probably need to make sacrifices to keep going. Things like groceries, entertainment, presents, petrol seem obvious things to concentrate on.

Also have a look through banks statements and make sure you know what all the payments are for. When I found time to do this a long time ago I found things that had been going out for years and were no longer applicable.

Good luck and I hope you get through this.

tony_ack

Thanks for the advice again.

You have it right that without the £800 outgoings on paying off debt, I would have plenty of money to play with and save each month. I would love to be in the situation where my money was my own and I didn't have to pay out on debts. I realise that because we had the lifestyle we wanted a few years ago, we're paying for it now, and the irony is that that lifestyle would be more than sustainable if I was debt free.

The loan charges interest from day 1. I'm not 100% sure on all the details and I really need to look them up. It's a fixed term loan with about 2 1/2 years remaining on it - so the good news is that even if I only meet all my current monthly repayment obligations, that 11k will be cleared by the beginning of 2014.

But I'm going to do better than that.

For the mobile phones, the £70 is for both phones. My basic contract is about £30 a month, which includes the internet bundle. I took the contract out for 12 months and it's over in December. Monthly charges add a couple of pounds to my bill. I still don't know why my partner's is so high.

I do need to budget for emergencies. As I fixed the cars myself I saved a lot of money - £50 per car for MOT, £25 each for service parts. I keep on top of all the unusual noises and knocks before they develop into serious problems, so we spend very little in the garage. £240 is a little low though. House repairs are the same - we got the boiler serviced for the first time last year. I fixed the washing machine when it broke down by soldering in a new capacitor on the circuit board, and I'm about to replace a PCB in the shower to get that fixed. Our fridge broke down, but luckily we kept our old one so are now using that. Luck was probably getting us by until last month.

I've got no unidentified payments going out of my account - I check my account online twice or three times a week.

robbie_dee

This is a great post, I am new on DFW and its interesting and motivating to read all the replies. One thing I may have missed,is your car on sale for £300. If its worth double that it will sell, my Avensis had a book price of £6000 and I sold it 6 months later - this week - for £2900. It was even put on my friends forecourt. However holding on for £300 is costing you £50 a month - maybe more if you include insurance, tax etc, I would stick it on Ebay for a 7 day sale starting at £100 evein ifit only gets £100 (and you will be surprised how good ebay can be for quick sales) that is the equivelent to £200 by end of October... and you will have £100 towards your loans, something that I have learned from these forums, every penny DOES count, if you look after the pennies, you know the rest!

All the best, Rob

Marco_Panettone

You also need to remember that there are thousands of ways to save £1 but very few ways to save £1000 in everyday life. Do the small things and you'll benefit from the accumulation of marginal gains.

lizzywig

My main piece of advice is that if you really want help then try to listen to what people have to say - I don't mean that in a patronising way at all so sorry if it comes across like that. It's so easy to make excuses and to say "but I really need that" or "but I can't cut that out because". Well the reality of the situation is that it's not going to be a fun experience but the advice that people are giving is really good.

I am trying to work out whether you think this is a permenant shortfall or (besides the obvious debt) an issue this month. If it's just this month then 'fiddle things'. Whilst it's great to plan ahead and always put money aside perhaps this is not the month to do that. Don't put money aside for the car (apart from petrol) and then put in the missing amount next month or spread it over a few months. Do the same with the money for presents and other non essential items. At a push do you pay your gas, elec and water monthly or do you just put the money aside monthly? If the latter then for this month don't and use the above principal and pay it back to your account over several months.

Another thought is if you have been putting money aside for xmas etc can you use this money to bridge your shortfall and pay it back another time?

If you have a more permenant problem and you are going to be £400 short every month then yes you do need to make some serious cuts. 1) £400 a month on food is exessive, well perhaps not if you have loads of money. This website might help you cut your costs http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/, not very exciting but debt isn't really is it. Buy a copy of the takeaway secret (book) it should help things feel less frugal. 2) we have Sky, phone, tv and bb and our bill is £46 a month altogether inc line rental. We have most chanels (only one movie package not two and no sports) and we live....lets face it, it doesn't matter how many channels you have there is NEVER anything on TV!!! If you get bored there are plenty more fun things you could be doing ;-) 3) get rid of your garage, I understand why it's been handy but if you need to do work on a car I'm sure a relative or friend would loan you their drive way for a day.

Have you thought about taking on a second (part time) job, even one pub shift a week will give you an extra £100 a month. Alternatively you could stack shelves in Tesco (or somewhere similar) at night, think of the staff discount. You could set up a blog on squidoo (it can pay quite well), deliver catalogues etc.

Lastly have a browse along all of the forums, extra income and old style are really good ones.

tony_ack

Believe me, I AM following the advice!

I need to make up the £400 shortfall this month only, or I fall behind with bills. Most at risk are the ones that fall at the end of the 'pay month' - that means the Barclaycard and the loan. I have found a few things to sell (I already have interest in the project car) which will more than cover the bills shortfall, and also provide us with some food money until the end of the month - assuming it all sells.

I need to reduce my monthly outgoings to tackle the long term problem - we were spending more than what was coming in. I have identified a number of cuts now which should, along with a decreased grocery budget, leave me with a surplus each month. I need to look at exactly how much the surplus will be - out of this I will need to set up an emergency fund, and a fund for Christmas/car tax/car insurance. Anything left over at the end of the month after this goes on paying off the cards.

I also need to stop using the cards, even for emergencies. This is the trap I fell into last month - I hadn't used the cards for ages, then all of a sudden an emergency came along and I needed to squeeze all I could get.

Note that all of my cards are up to the limit, and a couple are just over (all the more reason to meet the payments) - with the exception of the PayPal credit card - this has about £400 credit, but the card itself expired a few months back and they didn't send a replacement.

A second job won't work at the moment unfortunately - I work long hours during the week so I can look after the little one on Friday mornings. I also need to travel fairly regularly with work - last week I was in London from Sunday to Thursday, and I may need to go to the US later this year.

claire16c

Definitely get rid of the SKy sports and movies. The movies are old anyway, youre better off getting the occasional dvd. I pay £47 for Sky broadband, phone and tv.

Phone wise - I have a contract with 02 for £10 a month, and I get a crazy amount of free minutes (which I can use anytime of the day) and texts. have a look when your contract is up. Its a sim only contract so if you already have a phone you just order the sim off their internet site.

I would also recommend doing a car boot, we did one a few weeks ago and made £120. Ive also made £60 on ebay the past few weeks. At the moment every other weekend or so there seems to be a free listing weekend, where you can put something on for more than 99p and they wont charge you for it. So I put everything to start at least £1.50 because like you I found if something sold for 99p I was hardly making anything off it by the time ebay took their fee and paypal too!

the_cat

Have you contacted the loan and credit card companies and asked if you can change the payment date to a mid-month day to stop the issue of some months being a 'double payment'? They will very often oblige.

pickleiamin

Just a quick one.

I see you have a mountain bike and therefore was a biker. Have you considered cycling to work? I did for 4 years and although I walk to work now, I miss it. Its great exercise and it saves you £££