Who's eating my money?

cottonhead

I read with interest as my income is virtually the same as yours and our mortgage exactly the same - spooky! Anyway I was paying only £6 for a 7 year old cat with Tesco. My car insurance is also a lot less - £30 a month with Hastings. I guess with a few claims there might not be much you could do. Could you get a cheaper car in a lower insurance group and add on another named driver who has a good no claims? How about taking an advance driving test? That might help a bit. Do you really have to have 2 cars or is it just easier ? Obviously I dont know where your work is etc but is there is bus route / could you change your hours to get a lift from your husband? We did without a car for 2 years by my husband walking and me catching a bus. I had a nice Audi but when I was honest with myself all I needed was to get from A-B. I surrendered it to the finance company. I even shed a tear when they collected it ( ! ) but I knew it was for the best as it saved me £170 a month in repayments and the insurance / petrol was more than a little run around. We then borrowed a family members car at weekends and saved loads. Get rid of the thrid car thats just a waste of time and the older it gets the less you will get for it when you do sell.
I also cancelled my life insurance. Thats a personal thing I know. I decided that if the worst happended my husband / child would be safe because my parents would take care of them financially so I cancelled it for the time being.
Things will get better because of course eventually your loans / cards will be paid off and that money yours again. You do have quite a good sum left over compared to many people. Again I have about the same but never get to see it. Then again I know its because I waste bit here and there on silly take away coffees and things!

MummyDrusilla

MonkeyMad wrote: »

But are you really saving? If we were to be very generous and say that you now get an extra 50% mpg on average across both cars compared to before you are 'saving' £150p/m compared to your old cars. If it cost you £4000 total to swap you will need to keep the new ones for more than two years just to break even. That's not even accounting the massive depreciation on a new car.

I think I understand what you are saying. Though I'm still not sure how we're not saving. Our monthly repayments are a couple of quid less than they were with the audi. Not much but better than being more expensive. The tax is cheaper, the insurance is a little cheaper and the fuel is much cheaper. So day to day running costs are cheaper overall. It won't need to be MOT'd for the next 2.5 years, and any repairs needed within the next 6 months are under warranty.

I view things as being cheaper if our monthly outgoings are fewer.

MummyDrusilla

cottonhead wrote: »

I read with interest as my income is virtually the same as yours and our mortgage exactly the same - spooky! Anyway I was paying only £6 for a 7 year old cat with Tesco. My car insurance is also a lot less - £30 a month with Hastings. I guess with a few claims there might not be much you could do. Could you get a cheaper car in a lower insurance group and add on another named driver who has a good no claims? How about taking an advance driving test? That might help a bit. Do you really have to have 2 cars or is it just easier ? Obviously I dont know where your work is etc but is there is bus route / could you change your hours to get a lift from your husband? We did without a car for 2 years by my husband walking and me catching a bus. I had a nice Audi but when I was honest with myself all I needed was to get from A-B. I surrendered it to the finance company. I even shed a tear when they collected it ( ! ) but I knew it was for the best as it saved me £170 a month in repayments and the insurance / petrol was more than a little run around. We then borrowed a family members car at weekends and saved loads. Get rid of the thrid car thats just a waste of time and the older it gets the less you will get for it when you do sell.
I also cancelled my life insurance. Thats a personal thing I know. I decided that if the worst happended my husband / child would be safe because my parents would take care of them financially so I cancelled it for the time being.
Things will get better because of course eventually your loans / cards will be paid off and that money yours again. You do have quite a good sum left over compared to many people. Again I have about the same but never get to see it. Then again I know its because I waste bit here and there on silly take away coffees and things!

Ha ha, that's weird! Unfortunately we need both cars. My husband works long hours and if he added a public transport journey onto it, he would add 1.5 hours each side of his working day which isn't an option. I travel between different sites in the area during my working day and so couldn't do this by public transport.

We are currently advertising the 3rd car for sale on various websites and local noticeboards.

I don't think we can cancel our life insurance as it's a stipulation of our mortgage for us to have one. I am going to look for a cheaper one tomorrow though.

Hillbilly1

Please be careful when switching pet insurance. Anything they have been seen for, claimed or not, may not be covered.

Please speak to your vet first, it may be a cut too far.

Paul_iow

If your 3rd car is in the garage then cancel the insurance and SORN it. SORNing a car is free and won't affect it all. You can also send the tax off and get money back for it. Just means it wont be taxed when you sell it but that's not a big problem really.

MummyDrusilla

Hillbilly1 wrote: »

Please be careful when switching pet insurance. Anything they have been seen for, claimed or not, may not be covered.

Please speak to your vet first, it may be a cut too far.

Thank you. Thankfully neither of our cats have any medical problems declared or undeclared.

MummyDrusilla

Paul_iow wrote: »

If your 3rd car is in the garage then cancel the insurance and SORN it. SORNing a car is free and won't affect it all. You can also send the tax off and get money back for it. Just means it wont be taxed when you sell it but that's not a big problem really.

Thanks. We weren't sure whether sorn would affect the hpi check. We shall look into this.

MummyDrusilla

Well I had a very productive day yesterday. I've managed to cancel the old pet insurance and take out 1 of the new ones. I tried the 2nd but the website crashed on me :mad:. That's tonight's job.

I was also really strict and honest with myself and did our monthly household spends using the ML budget planner. It was eye opening and I've realised the SoA I posted at the beginning is rubbish. I shall post the new one when it's all complete (and will add in the rates of interest for all our debts to do the snowball thingy). And I've started my spend diary

I'm going to blitz the house room by room and list everything that we can get rid of to raise some funds.

I have just paid my own tax bill so that's a weight off my shoulders. Unfortunately we had to borrow money from my parents for the rest of DH's tax bill. I really hate this but those are the last 2 bills as we both became employees so there should be no nasty surprises from now on (I hope).

As for life insurance - I didn't realise critical illness insurance was so expensive :eek:. I'm trying to convince DH that we might be able to do without it temporarily. I'm not sure if he'll be convinced. He's insured to the hilt - we have level life insurance on a joint policy, joint CI cover and he's got income protection insurance. I don't think we currently need the CI and income PI but he debates a good case for keeping it. Not sure what to think about that one. If one of us were to go on sick for some reason, we wouldn't be able to afford our bills on SSP (which is all either of us would get) so in that respect it's a good idea. But we could do with all the cash we can get. Don't know. Any thoughts?

MummyDrusilla

Oh and forgot I've joined the free trial with Credit Expert (through TCB ) and my PIN is on it's way. Hopefully I'll see that my missed payment was over 6 years ago so I can switch cc's. If not, at least I can put the date to switch in my diary.

jonjamie1970

Hello, I like reading posts that are similar in income etc to my own. A few years ago I was in the same position as you, high income, but outgoings were high and I struggled from month to month saying to myself "I earn good money these things I have are normal" but it isnt, so, I havent had Sky for 10 years and I dont miss it one little bit, I cleared my debts and have a small amount left to go, (about £3k).

I'm saying these things and forgive me for saying it but I really don't think youve had a proper light bulb moment yet, and this is essential for you to start making a real difference to your life.

Get the car sold, get it SORNed meanwhile, its just telling the DVLA its not on the road which is normal. Ger rid of Sky and start putting the money towards the massive loan and credit card debts you owe.

Good luck in your quest I shall follow this thread

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