Budgeting after losing everything...

Fray_Bentos

Hi Guys,
During last year I managed to lose my home, followed by my wife and on Christmas Eve I was made redundant. I have now used up close to all of my savings whilst searching for work and have no pension plan worth talking about.
My financial position is not great;
Age 35
Bank account £1,200 in credit
Credit Card £1700.00 borrowed on 0% until Feb 2013.
I am renting a 1 bedroom flat @ £500 per month.
I am unfortunately forced to claim JSA.

As luck would have it I landed a job 2 days ago (yippee!) and the salary is going to be £26k per year + company car
My wife since I was 21 always dealt with our finances. I have never even thought about budgeting until now and don’t even know where to start. It all gets very confusing with TV, Insurances, Rates, Shopping, Rent, Council Tax, Pensions... It’s a bloody nightmare! (Yes, I know at my age I should have a grasp on these things!)

I hope I haven’t given you too much or worse, completely irrelevant information.

My problem is that I don’t know how to start from scratch with no assets at 35 years old and would love some money saving budgeting advice to help get me on my feet and rack up some savings a.s.a.p.

I cancelled my TV licence so that’s £14 per month savings. Then I got stuck for ideas...

What's the first step?

sorcerer

You need to start buy writing up a list of your outgoings and income each month, and see what you have left. After you have done this, you can then look at the outgoings to see if their anything you can do to reduce them.

If you income is more than your outgoing then you can use the excess to pay off debts, save or put in a pension.

If is the other way round, you either need to increase your income or decrease your outgoings.

CLAPTON

first start looking at a budget ... it must include 12 months worth of spending outwise you will always be over spending

try the following which is a good start

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html


where necessary take yearly spending and divide by 12 and put this down monthly; these amounts you need to SAVE so that when the yearly amount become due you have the money safely saved up



secondly ; keep a diary of everything you spend and compare it to your budget
where necessary change the budget and where necesary reduce the spending
but most of all make sure you save something each month

grabasnail

I'm so sorry to hear this. Well done though for starting to get yourself back on track.

I use MoneyPot which you should be able to find if you google MoneyPot and FieldIT (who created the software).

Its really good, its helped me through many a difficult patch and its nice as you can see money accumulating/debts reducing in the forcasting bit. I also used their suggested MoneyPots to help me create a list of all my outgoings and income, this should help you with your budgeting. Good luck!

Snabs

poorgirl-54

im very sorry hear ur sad story, 35 is never to young to save and start

just read many many posts be fellow mse'rs on savings etc, great advise from savy people

Write down everything you spend and then you can see where spending most and can cut back and put in savings

wen i started saving 2 yrs ago i tred to keep my expenses basics, in order to start savings, and pay off your debt asap with your salary- to reduce the intrest to pay on it

open a ISA and aim to fill it for this tax financial year, as much as you can

get a halifax reward current account - put in £1k a month to get £5

goodluck

saterkey

we have a nationwide flex account, most bills go out direct debit, set it up once and you dont need to worry about it just make sure theres enough in the account each month to cover.
heres an idea of what goes out. I have a spreadsheet and just adjust the totals from the monthly statement if anything goes up/or down.

Electricity
Gas
TV Licence
Sky
BT
Council Tax - 10 months?
Housing Insurance
Car Insurance
Car Maintenance
Visa Bill - allocate about 320 for food for 4
Visa Bill - allocate about 150 for petrol for 2 cars
Life Insurances
Internet
Kids stuff - scouts, gym etc

once set up I dont really have to do much just keep an eye on it about once a month. Good luck hope the job goes well.

xylophone

Talk about the misfortunes of Job! However, you're back on track. Congratulations! Take heed of advice above and be sure to sort out your tax position asap, especially in view of the company car. Join the company pension scheme if there is one available. Pay off the credit card in full at the end of the interest free period. Good Luck!