Nibbling away at Debt....

bonnie_2

Why do you need 2 cars though if you are at home all day. I have never had a car and have 3 kids. Surely you can walk or get the bus, it just seems to be pure madness, i would rather walk and have the extra money. Hubby has the car, i never even learnt to drive.

Mice_Elf

We need 2 cars because I *don't* stay at home all day. There is no regular bus service here at present (new development, new builds etc) and the people I visit / places that I go are not on bus routes. For instance my parents live on the A1. Not near the A1 or off the A1 but ON the A1. You have to go through a garage forecourt to get to their drive. The bus stops about 5 miles before them or 8 miles after them (BUT doesn't pick up from Cambridge, where I live) and I don't fancy walking with my daughter down the A1. So I would still need to get to St Neots (I think) to get the bus that goes down the A1.

All my friends are up in Coventry, where we used to live and one has just moved even further beyond that. OH's family are in Reading, some 100 miles away from where we live here and quite often he'll go down to Reading on his own, if his mum needs work doing round the house, or to visit his mates or his dad. He'll stay down overnight and come back the next day somewhen. Even if this is a weekend it means that my daughter and I will be transport-less for a weekend and we're out and about most weekends.

Sometimes it's just to take her to a park or the woods to run about and have a change of scenery, but that's a rarity, to be honest. Also, they have just built a small play park on the green near us, so on the occasions when I would have taken her to the nearest one (needing the car), I am now walking with her to the green and letting her run about. This new playpark is really handy, I've got to admit - they only finished building it last week.

I would love to have a day at home or even a morning, but we're usually out of the house as soon as breakfast is done with and I normally return for daughter's afternoon nap at 2:30.

At the moment I'm looking after my brother's cats as he & his girlfriend are on holiday. My OH leaves for work at 6am at the latest...this week he has not been getting home much before 11pm, so I'd either have to ring mum and ask her to go over specially after coming to me to get the keys, or get her to come over and take me to my brother's to let the cats out in the morning and then again to shut them up at night. Mum lives too far away and is too busy to do this on a regular basis, hence why my brother asked me to do it.

As I said in a previous post, we did have just 1 car for 3 weeks and it was unworkable. If I needed to go anywhere, I had to rely upon the generosity of my mum to drive over, pick us up and then take us to where we wanted to go. Tesco.com don't recognise the Debit card that I have so should I need any groceries and have to get them delivered, they had to be paid for on the credit card...a situation I'm trying to avoid.

Adrasteia01

Hi,
I've read through your posts on this thread in the last half an hour. I think where the car is concerned, it's not really that you can't get by without it but rather than you're so used to having it that you don't want to get by without it. If you don't own a car, then you find ways to get by without it because you have no choice.

If you were only heading out every so often, it would probably work out cheaper for you to not have a car, and walk or get taxis every so often if there's no other simple way to get where you're going. Where your daughter playing is concerned - I understand your motivation to want to go to lots of different places with her, but I'm sure even if she went down to the local park she would be happy with that. Perhaps if you took up a hobby like reading than you'd be happier to not go out?

As for the food, I recommend buying some of the supermarket's own brand rather than finest types of food. There can be great variations in price of food - and lots of little savings add up. Some shops will be cheaper on some items than others - try buying different things from different places (someone else suggested this actually). Pound shops are good for buying some brand name goods - selling the same shampoos/shower gels etc as you'll find in the supermarket. I get handsoap from boots using my points - 96c a bottle in Ireland - 1/2 to 1/3 the price of brand names and with points it works out free.

As for work, any costs incurred in the process of your husband's work should be charged to his company - even if he has to argue this one. I work in accounts, and sometimes process people's expenses. As long as he has receipts for what he's run up and it's justified, I don't see why it's a problem. If they simply won't pay it - I would suggest that he goes out of his way to not run it up. It's much better to have a work mobile for strictly work calls - much simpler all round.

By the way, the amount you're both paying for mobiles is huge. I find that contracts work out much more than PAYG, especially if you're making less calls. It might not work out better though if your husband is using his phone a lot. When converting into pounds sterling, I brought mine down from 20 pounds to about 10 per month (and I would guess that calls are more expensive in Ireland). If you feel less secure about having PAYG then put a load of credit on.. say 40 or 60 pounds.. and check it every so often to see what your balance is. I believe most mobile phone companies also offer free txt msgs from the web.

I always found that Vodafone was overpriced - however if you and your husband both changed to the same network (company), even if one of you was contract and one was PAYG then you would probably get much cheaper calls to each other. A lot of networks have special offers and are happy for people to switch over, even if they're not buying a new phone there.
Oh and if your existing company says that you have to give 30 days notice (they tried this one on me) that ISN'T true.. you just go to the new company and tell them you want to switch and they can do it.. simple.

Tamara

Adrasteia01

One other thing.. you mentioned that your husband is looking for another job? I would recommend being cautious about that for now as he has one of the highest wages I've seen. That could be because he works in London though. If he did lose his job, I can't see you getting by on benefits *at all*. He should tread lightly. However, if he did find another job as well paying and closer that would probably benefit you both better.

You say he pays around 600 pounds a month for this train tickets? This just sounds crazy to me (no offence) but to some people on this forum that would be 75% of their monthly wage! I believe Martin has a section on his site (from the main page) about finding cheap railway fares. I was wondering if it would be possible to get a long term ticket cheaper, but that's not much good if your hubby is planning to switch jobs soon. Would a bus cover the same route? How long does it take him to travel to work?

As for yourself, temp office work would probably only offer you about 7 pounds an hour. I always try to consider how long I would have to work in order to buy something.. for instance.. 4 hours of solid work for a 30 pound item. It encourages me to not spend, because I think most of the time it's just not worth it.

All the best,
Tamara

painted_lady

Sky are doing free broadband - or £5 a month for a better/faster package, if your an existing TV customer. I am in process of signing up for it.

climbgirl

Adrasteia01 wrote:

Hi,
I've read through your posts on this thread in the last half an hour. I think where the car is concerned, it's not really that you can't get by without it but rather than you're so used to having it that you don't want to get by without it. If you don't own a car, then you find ways to get by without it because you have no choice.

Agreed. I still don't think you've really understood the seriousness of this, I really don't. No, let me rephrase - you get how bad this is. What you don't quite fully comprehend is just how much sacrifice it's going to take to pull yourselves out of this.

You can live without two cars, you won't roll over and die from it! Promise! I get the points about the distance between friends and family but if they're good friends/family they'll understand why you have to cut back adn they'll come and visit you. And if it's a question of taking your daughter to a park, invest in a bike with a kid's seat (or her own bike if she's old enough). You can get cheap new ones from places like Decathlon, you might even get them for free from Freecycle.

My mum lived on nothing at all when my father left us, my brother was 1, I was 3. She couldn't afford to run a car so we walked everywhere. My brother in the pushchair, me sitting on the footrest bit (it was an old style one back then!) when I got too tired to walk. She walked for miles just to get food because she couldn't afford the busfare or have a car. I had a really happy childhood, I didn't notice a thing. I thought it was an enormous treat when we got bagfuls of clothes from the older kids down the road!

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about - sacrifice. Nobody is saying it's going to be easy, in fact you'll probably hate it. But you simply cannot afford two cars, two mobiles, sky. You need to cut right down on everything or you risk bankruptcy and losing your house (with negative equity if you're not careful).

You really need to start thinking outside the square here. This requires massive changes, not little ones. And fast. The little ones are good and they all help. But big, big changes are required to make a difference here.

climbgirl

In terms of your husband's work not paying for his mobile calls, cancel his phone. They'll have to pay or provide him with a phone if he hasn't got one! It's completely unreasonable for them not to pay for work calls. In fact, check his contract to see what's written about htis kind of thing.

Ditto the hotel bill, that's crazy. They can't book it for him then turn around and refuse to pay. again, check the contract - most companies will have some clause about work expenses being reimbursed. Quote this at them. I'd write them a rather pointed letter/email about this, it's quite absurd. Not sure about his job security and how much he wants to rock the boat.

bluekp

Hi I don't know if this is any help, but I work out that you are paying approx £84.74 per month for phone, sky and broadband.

Sky are offering their basic viewing package, broadband and SkyTalk (free evening/weekend landline calls) for £26.00. That plus £11 BT line rental comes to £37 which would save you nearly £50 per month and you'd still get to keep all three (assuming you make all calls during the free hours and can live without the sports/movies package??)

toontastic

You mention you only use 150 texts a month, how much are you paying for your mobile just it wasn't split on tour SOA.

Also I know it's nice to have a few savings for a rainy day but this really is your rainy day with your current debt. As someone said cancel savings and that's £100 to throw at debt. Pay of your Barclaycard and that's an extra £15 on top of that £100 to throw at debts. Check out this it will explain it all http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1155574996,4636,

Like lots of people have said your Broadband is expensive put them all in with Sky and you will save a packet. Of course if you get rid of Sky and use freesat instead then just have broadband and a phone line you will save even more.

toontastic

In fact I've just noticed you have another £150 going into savings for your wedding, there are plenty of hints elsewhere for a cheaper wedding and that £150 would give you a total of £265 to throw at your debts. Not sure of the amounts left on your CC but that would certainly get them down.

Also check out http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1094823518,14076, this will get you a much cheaper deal than AA/RAC will get you.

Also have you got and are you using a Quidco account (I think you mentioned you were) and do you keep a spending diary to find out where little bits of cash go so you can plug those gaps. Daft things like lunch for work which your OH could take with him if he doesnt already.