Teatime's Diary.

PollyOnAMission

Thanks for finding me, guys!
Polly x

debtfreewannabe321

Teatime wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the advice.

Funnily enough DFW just before I read your post, I had managed to get BT down to £27 per month so much better and I think I will stick with them just now.

OH is supposed to be sorting out gas/electric - could take a few days!

Fresh air - thanks - I will get OH to check with his work today. That would be a help and they are quite a forward thinking company so may already do that.

:T fab reduction! And good luck for getting the new tariff on gas/elec. See if you can get cashback too every little helps !

xx

Teatime

Woo - leccy down to £40 per month.
Can't get gas down just at the mo as we are slightly in debit due to winter extending into May but they gave us a refund in December so I think we are probably slightly overpaying if average out for the year. And will obviously try to reduce our usage from now on.

So shortfall down from £97 to £37 so far. And a few other tinkering bits to get added soon eg hopefully get the national insurance payments stopped. Entertainment to zero for next few months will also help and haircuts, clothes to zero too until we need to get school trousers in August.

It's all looking so much more promising.

Naomim

Teatime wrote: »

Hi Everyone,


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2 Any chance of downsizing one car to something smaller?

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2028
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2576
Benefits................................ 134.8
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 4738.8

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1381
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 213
Electricity............................. 72
Gas..................................... 85
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 58.5
Mobile phone............................ 65
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 200 This is really low! Are you sure you don't spend more? Do you do a lot of batch cooking from scratch?
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 250
Road tax................................ 31.25
Car Insurance........................... 36.27
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 42
Car parking............................. 5
Other travel............................ 58.8 - what's this for. Any chance it can be reduced?
Childcare/nursery....................... 554.4
Other child related expenses............ 30
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 30 Do you use this much? Would it be cheaper to get a prescription certificate?
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 70 Any chance of getting this lowered at all?
Buildings insurance..................... 10
Contents insurance...................... 10
Life assurance ......................... 95 Is this high becuase of your mortgage?
Other insurance......................... 22.61 What's this one for? Any chance of cancelling?
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 80
Haircuts................................ 40 Knock on the head for a while if possible. If you have boys, buy a pair of trimmers and do their hair at home, if you have girls. let it grow. lol
Entertainment........................... 30 I'm tempted to say keep this. With two kids you have to do something and not everything can be done for free!
Holiday................................. 150 Have you booked somewhere already? Look out for deals if you feel you have to have a holiday (The Sun newspaper etc)
Emergency fund.......................... 50
Dog food................................ 30 Can you drop a brand?
Swimming Lessons........................ 25 Can you or OH teach kids yourself? DH took DS everyweek and taught him.
Overdraft expenses...................... 40
Family wedding.......................... 50
NI...................................... 13
CTFs.................................... 20 Might have to shelve these just for a few months.
Professional expenses................... 289
Memberships/Charity..................... 16
Hobbies................................. 33 These might have to be shelved for a few months too.
Household miscellaneous................. 20
Total monthly expenses.................. 4237.95


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 270000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 15000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 285000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 233750...(1381).....4.99
Total secured & HP debts...... 233750....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Loan 1.........................11388.....317.......7.06
Loan 2.........................13000.....305.......6
Total unsecured debts..........24388.....622.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,738.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 4,237.95
Available for debt repayments........... 500.85
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 622
Amount short for making debt repayments. -121.15

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 285,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -233,750
Total Unsecured debt.................... -24,388
Net Assets.............................. 26,862

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

Hi I hope you don't mind me jumping on your thread and making a few suggestions. We are a family of 4 too so our expenses are kind of similar except we don't have a dog and luckily my MIL looks after DD during the day and DH is at school.

Have a look at the old style & freebie boards. Join up to Quidco to try and make the most of cashback offers too.

Also, do you keep a spending diary? You can download free apps to your phone to keep track. It was a real eye opener for me where I splashed my cash.

Naomi

Alleycat

Teatime wrote: »

Thanks Polly and Wiggle - lovely to have some extra support.

OH's work do do the Childcare vouchers so he is going speak to someone about it tomorrow and see if we can use them.

We use a registered child minder - does anyone know if she can take them? I assume I would be a case of her claiming them back?

This will be fantastic if it works out for us as child care is such a huge cost so any little offset against it will help.

Thanks so much for the heads up, fresh air.

:wave:Hi Teatime!

Re the childcare vouchers - as long as your childminder is ofsted approved you can use them with her. She will need to register with whichever scheme your husband uses and you can either pay her with a paper voucher or do it all online and *I think* the money just transfers into her bank account. She doesn't have to pay anything.

We use them and it's a real godsend to go towards the childcare. We're in London so childcare costs are so expensive!

freshair_2

Teatime wrote: »

Thanks Polly and Wiggle - lovely to have some extra support.

OH's work do do the Childcare vouchers so he is going speak to someone about it tomorrow and see if we can use them.

We use a registered child minder - does anyone know if she can take them? I assume I would be a case of her claiming them back?

This will be fantastic if it works out for us as child care is such a huge cost so any little offset against it will help.

Thanks so much for the heads up, fresh air.

No problem, hope it works out for you. Your childminder will just need to register on the scheme that the works use, i think its fairly easy.

eta. Note to me remember to read to the end before chipping in!!!!

Teatime

Alleycat and freshair - looks like the childcare vouchers are go. It seems they are going to save us about £50 a month which is a big help. :-)


Naomim - thank you so much for all those suggestions - I do really appreciate it.

I'll answer some of them here -

Cars - we have downsized as much as we can - have one Micra which we use as much as we can but unfortunately need the 4X4 for my work and our giant dog. They are both about 5 years old.

Groceries - we usually spend about £300 per month but I joined the grocery challenge and thought I would try to do £200. I think this is unrealistic at this stage so I am going to try to keep to £250 for this first month.

Other travel - OH uses the park and ride to get to work so those are his bus fairs. He tends to cycle to the park and ride and this seems to be the cheapest way to do it. He does travel to some fairly remote places for work so he needs the car on those days.

The medical costs are for dental insurance. We are on waiting list for an NHS dentist.

Pet insurance/vet bills - unfortunately this can't be reduced. Dog food we get as cheap as we can too. We have a giant breed. He is going to cost us a lot.

The insurances are all high. They are next on the list for OH to review and try to get costs down a bit here. Thanks for mentioning these - they do look to be a rather large proportion of our incomes.

Haircuts - yes, we need to get rid of this. My hair is long so I can go without. The others are probably going to go and try a barber so we'll reduce this dramatically this month and then decide if we can reduce it to zero altogether.

Entertainment - You know, I think we might get rid of this for just now but keep our hobbies at the moment. I know the hobbies are expensive and may have to go if we aren't managing to make ends meet otherwise but I am loathe to give them up. Will review them next month if things aren't looking great.

Holiday - we have a timeshare week twice a year in this country so this pays the fees for that and also extra for spending. We can cut the spending bit down for just now and have an economical holiday but I hope to keep the timeshares if we can.

Swimming lessons - I would like to keep for this term as older son has developed a phobia of the water which we are just not managing on his own. I think he and I clash a bit and both get uptight with each other. The swimming teacher is doing wonders with him. Again, I will review after this term if I need to.

CTFs - that's a good idea - can stop these until things are less tight.

Loads of great suggestions, thanks. I know I am being a bit pathetic and saying I want to keep a lot of these expenses. I won't be stupid, though, and will review them bit by bit - I think maybe it is just going to take a bit of getting used to having to make these sacrifices and I will do it when I get to the point that I realise I can't do anything else. I am getting there - just a bit of adjusting to do.

debtfreewannabe321

You're not being pathetic, you've made changes and they all need to be sustainable if you are to stick with it. Simply getting rid of all hobbies, entertainment etc etc is no way to live your lives would be a misery if you were to keep that up long term. I still send my ds to boarding school and the cccs were fine with that. We have cut down on areas that we knew we were over spending and kept the budgets that were important to us (schooling, entertainment for younger 2 kids etc)...

Do you have a slow cooker if not i'd see about investing in one, when i first started on the grocery challenge i made a lot of bulk meals from scratch in mine and i would sometimes get 3 or 4 helpings so i could freeze them. It's an easy way to cut down the grocery bill and we went from £500+ to £250 (for 5..i spend slightly less when ds1 at school) also lots recommend a bread maker which you can get cheap from freecycle or ebay

xx

Eliza_L

Great news on the childcare vouchers saving your money. I'm also one for reccomending the slow cooker and bulk cooking. Today I'm making a batch of bolognaise with pork mince I got half price at the weekend and I'll bulk it out with finely grated carrot or red lentils. That should get us two meals out of it.

Teatime

Thanks DFW and Eliza.

I do have a slow cooker but a member of my family has had it for the last several years - I might go ask for it back.
No breadmaker but we do tend to make a lot of our own bread by hand and have plenty of flour in the house just now. OH made wholemeal rolls and some wholemeal flat breads too over the weekend. Yum.

Make a massive pot of bolognese at weekend which fed two families one night, having another load of it tonight as chilli and one other lot in the freezer for a meal next week. Not bad.

Okay, got to go work then really need to decide what I'm going to do next. Have added the extra £50 to the grocery budget and taken off what we have managed to reduce so far but that still leaves us with more going out than coming in so I need to keep working at it.