Help! My outgoings are more than my income

Bengal_tiger

OK, this is slightly embarrassing, as after having said I was sure all the figures were right, I've just looked again at them and I had my insurance down as £400 a month, rather than a year! I've recalculated and that has reduced my overspend by £4465 a year, so it is now £1762 a year over my income. Not quite so daunting a prospect to try and reduce...

camuk81

That explains why Tixy was struggling too!

Mellypoos

Yep and that £360 saving in fuel will make a nice little dent

Bengal_tiger

The idea of house sharing for a year or so is good, as I could save quite a bit from that, and it might help until (and if) I find a better paid job. I don't know what I will do with my furniture though, as long term storage costs would add up. Flat sharing is another option but I don't know anyone to share with. I'm looking to downgrade my car in the summer (I had to re-tax it this month, but only bought sis months' worth, as I know it's a bit of a gas guzzler compared to smaller cars out there on the market - a little 1.2 litre car would be much cheaper to run).

Tixy

Thats better!

To me your in your home breakdown already looks lean (assuming council tax is after discount). I notice you don't have water in it, have you accounted for water rates somewhere?

I guess that if you can't increase your income then the other places to try to look for cutbacks might be clothes, health & beauty or odds & sods.

In clothes health beauty- anything in there you could shave a bit off? eg for things like haircuts or similar could you go a week longer between cuts? or use a slightly cheaper stylist? if you've got optician/glasses costs or similar in there keep an eye out for free eye tests & the cheap online specs. Could you reduce clothing spend at all? (or sell some old clothes on ebay to use to buy new ones?).

In odds & sods can you reduce anything?

camuk81

What about the council tax and single occupancy bit?

Bengal_tiger

Thanks everyone for the posts. This is really helpful to me. I feel I might actually be able to get this back to a saving situation rather than going into debt now! The £372 a month saving on my car did help

I have taken off the council tax that I had overcalculated, and the overspend is now down to £1329 a year (still too much, though).

My payments on optical bills came out at £28.30 a month, but this included a new pair of glasses for a change of prescription last year, as well as my contact lenses, which I wear occasionally. I realise they are a luxury, but I do use them for sport and for going on dates (when I can afford those!)

I'll have another look at this when I get back this evening and see what else I could reduce and then try and post a full breakdown of what it comes out at.

camuk81

Well done Bengal, glad you've had your light bulb moment. Onwards and upwards

Tixy

Glad you are feeling a bit more positive.

Regarding your lenses - might be worth checking out on here - Contact Lenses you might find the same lenses cheaper than you pay now? (I halved my bill by switching to buying at Asda)

rising_from_the_ashes

I'd echo the smaller car option .... I "downgraded" (use this term loosely as I actually love my wee car!:)) from a gas guzzling 1.6L medium sized car, to a small hatch (which was actually still rather high on the running costs unfortunately) to one of the, what's termed a City car ....

I live in the sticks so road use varies from single track with passing places :eek:, hilly twisty horrible roads to motorways and I have to say it's absolutely fab ..... the big savings on running costs are:

• tax = £30 / year - down from £165 on the small hatch and around £240 on the big car
• fuel = 44 (min) mile / gallon up to 48 - up from 38 on the small hatch and only 25 on the big car
• servicing = gone from every 9k miles or 1 year to 20k or 1 year
• parts = generally a lot cheaper too, from tyres to wiper blades
• insurance = about the same as the small hatch but around £150 / year less than the big car

HTH