Got to Change

prepareathome

Not been keeping up this diary, but have been trying to work within my budget. Still no news as to whether hubby is one of the people to be made redundant nor anything about my ESA claim. Everyone in hubbys work received a letter saying wages which have always been weekly will be changing to monthly in April. Wages will be paid on 15th of every month and they will be paid 2 weeks in arrears and two weeks ahead, any overtime will be paid the following month, and as hubbys work can 'forget' he has done overtime just the week before and not pay it, we are going to start to keep a note of every hour extra he works as after a month it will be easy to forget if he has worked an extra hour or two. Although they say two weeks arrears, two ahead it will be actually a bit more than that some months as each months pay will be for the whole month 1 - 28/30/32 days.

So if he still has a job in April its going to take some getting used to as its many, many years since we lived on monthly pay only. I must save up from now to be ahead with the rent as he will go two weeks without pay ( will have to survive on one weeks pay for 2 weeks ) and the last thing I want is to get behind with the rent. Also as we have prepaid Electric and Gas meters so will have to build up credit in them. We have been on them many, many years as we found it easier and stopped us getting into debt over them, but we might consider changing to quarterly meters and pay every month, that is something we will have to think about. We have built up a credit of 4 weeks rent so if hubby is off sick we don't need to worry about rent so long as he is only off a few weeks as he only receives SSP when off ill. I don't want that to disappear when he is transferring from weekly to monthly wages so need to put another £280 on the account and rent goes up in April as well so must actually put a bit more than that away.

Luckily the only DD we have are on the 15th and 22nd so we don't need to change them.

I will have to relearn how to shop, or make sure put my shopping budget aside and just spend the weekly amount each week, but I know I am a terrible manager and don't know if I can trust myself, so again have to make sure I build up a stock of food so if I do a monthly shop I don't run out. Its going to be hard, with both of us being hopeless with money and going to have to be very, very strict with ourselves as be all to easy to think oh we have so much and go mad.

Of course if I lose my money then this might not be a problem as we would have to carefully consider if hubby cannot find a full time job whether we are better off with him continuing to work part-time or give up his job, which he doesn't want to do as he enjoys it. Rumour around his work is the whole firm will shut down within two years - usually these rumours are true, each one has happened so might be something we end up not having to think about, but every year he can work with them a bit more redundancy money will come our way - at moment he would get just under £1000, wouldn't even pay next years council tax.

At moment every penny is being used towards a store cupboard so if my money goes we have a bit of a buffer and after Christmas as I still have some presents to buy I need to pay more money to sky as we are stuck with them till July. Just had a thought what date is the DD for sky as I paid 6 months in advance, so just called them the DD was for the 1st so changed that to the 15th now and found there is enough money still in credit to pay January's and just £6 short for February, so have to make sure I start adding more to the account as still have March, April, May and June to pay. I had meant to pay the full year, but when I paid I didn't have enough on my CC ( its prepay) and was going to phone them back to pay the rest and forgot.

Also got to start putting money into BT as paid the years line rental in advance to take the offer of £120 for the year and that also is due July and I put £100 in my account to cover call costs so need to have enough in to cover this, we are still £66 in credit but monthly charges apart from line rental is £6 then there are any calls we make.

Oh my head is spinning thinking about all the money I must start paying into these accounts and working out how not to fall into debt anywhere.

debtfreewannabe321

prepareathome wrote: »

I have redone my SOA minus my DLA and all car related items so I can see exactly what I am working with, as although DLA covers it, it does tend to get spent as it comes in instead of being put aside

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household.........
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 559.87
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 403
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 962.87

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 313.64
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 130
Electricity............................. 80 have you shopped around for better deals, this seems high to me?
Gas..................................... 80 same as above?
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 33.34
Telephone (land line)................... 18
Mobile phone............................ 20
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 42
Internet Services....................... 6.5
Groceries etc. ......................... 325 we can feed 2 adults, 1 teenager & 2 kids on 250 quite comfortably
Clothing................................ 5
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 19.34
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 40
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 10
Total monthly expenses.................. 1134.82


Assets
Cash.................................... 200
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 2700

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 962.87
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,134.82
Available for debt repayments........... -171.95
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 0
Amount short for making debt repayments. -171.95

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 2,700
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -0
Net Assets.............................. 2,700

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Have I read it right that each month you are £172 short? If so I would claw that back from the grocery budget and shop around for new gas and elec tariffs, and i think if you really can't afford sky, please phone them up and explain your situation. I had to do this after my lbm and i got them to cancel HD & some other bits and halved my bill. Are you entitled to any help with prescriptions?

Sorry if i'm not much help. But welcome to diaryland dfw

elantan

hi have had a wee read and wanted to also welcome you ... sorry i have just seen your diary just now i dont always get online ... i see you are planning on quitting smoking i know it cant be easy and i wish you all the best in this ... but have you decided yet how you are going to manage this?

have you been to the OS board for grocery budgetting advice?

good luck