Here's my budget. Any helpful advice please ?

EmSp

You've said you're paying £15 per month for your bank account. Do you use the benefits that come with the account? If not, switch to a free account as soon as possible.

If you sign up for first direct's 1st Account, you'll actually earn £100.

At £250 per month, your food and household shopping seems rather high – I'm sure you'll be able to make some cuts here.

The same goes for meals at work. Try to get into the habit of making your own lunch and taking it to work with you.

If you have a smartphone, try out an expenses app like Toshl – you can set yourself a weekly or monthly budget then type in every penny that you spend each day.

I've been using it and it's made me think a lot more about what I spend my money on and helped me stick to a budget.

If you do manage to cut your outgoings so they are lower than your incomings, I'd recommend overpaying on your personal loan. The sooner you get this paid off, the better.

Try the new app/website OrSaveIt. You can set yourself a savings goal, such as '£100 per month to pay off debt', then whenever you make a little saving, use the app to transfer this money to your goal fund. At the end of the month, use whatever you've managed to save to pay off a bit more of your loan.

Finally, I'd say your gym membership seems very expensive. Do you use it? If not, cancel it as soon as you can. If you do use the gym regularly, perhaps look into joining a cheaper one.

Best of luck.

ctmangwaira

Thank you for all your advice.
Let me try and explain myself in some areas that most of you saw a problem.
The budget is for the 2 of us.
I pay that amount for my internet because includes the land line which gives us free , unlimited international calls which we both use.
The gym is a joint membership for the both of us...which we decided to cancel after I made the budget last night ;-) .
I pay £15 for my bank account because I have phone insurance included, travel insurance, breakdown cover etc.
The mobile phones contracts are killing me, i know, but we just got them recently and if we want to cancel them we have to pay the full amount for the remaining of the contract, which we can't afford.
The eating out,and the meals at work i have probably put too much ... we don't really go out at all ....and we're in our late twenties/early thirties (sad, right? :-) )
The 'courses' are my college fees. We pay so much for diesel because my husband uses the car for work, which is 30 miles away.
The rent is for a 1 bedroom basement flat...down south. We are thinking of moving up north but you know how expensive is to move houses when you have to pay the rent and a deposit in advance.

Thank you for all your help, I will definitely look into the areas you all highlighted .

beecher2

Keep a spending diary so as you know for sure how much you're spending. Food should be the easiest area to make savings - stick to a budget, only buy what's on your list and stop buying food at work. Allow yourselves a specific amount for clothes, entertainment and once it is gone, don't spend any more.

McG_Clan

Hi. Well done in taking the first step and looking at your budget in the cold light of day, we did that a fortnight ago and I nearly had a heart attack! We used Martin's budget planner and got a big RED box at the end telling us we were overbudget by £1700 each year based on what we paid for things now, even though I try to be really careful and only buy basics brands when food/household shopping unless the deals work out cheaper (I'm the one in the supermarket with the calculator app on my phone working out the price per gram etc!).
BIG WAKE UP CALL!!! I sat down with the last 6 months bank statements and starting totting it all up, then divided by 6 to get a monthly average. My first step was cutting out all the chinese or indian takeaways/pizzas etc that we had when we couldn't be bothered to cook late at night (that was an eye opener!). I batch cook lots now and it only takes a few mins in the microwave or I use a slow cooker instead. We are going to allow ourselves one pizza night at the end of the month if we can afford it! We also agreed I would prepare sarnies for hubbie for work each night while I'm cooking tea. Saves a fortune!
Next we looked at car insurance, we were paying £1177 p/a for both cars. I've got it down to £501 for both, fully comp with the same cover as we had before. It's a day spent well on the computer! Then came the buildings and contents insurance - halved the price again by shopping round for hours !
Next challenge tomorrow is to look at breakdown cover for the cars. Mortgage is fixed for 3 years on a cheaper rate as of last month.
Already we are into a GREEN box on Martin's budget planner, but we need to stick to it! We have 2 bank accounts - one where money goes in, and where food and fuel come out of, the other is just a Bills Account and we put a monthly amount in there to cover all our direct debits and bills and to put money aside for MOTs, services, annual bills.
Now all we need is to be able to put money aside to save, not easy!
£180 p/a on bank charges for travel/phone/breakdown cover is a lot. Shop around for your car insurance and they will often include breakdown cover in the premium or free on special offer. Travel cover can often be cheaper elsewhere too. Phone-wise, do you really need cover? Is it a top of the range phone? You need to haggle/change your phone provider asap and see if you can get cover included or take out separate budget gadget insurance (not sure how cheap this is?).
Internet - we have just upgraded on our Sky package (by £3 p/m after all the deals and offers) and now have unlimited calls, including lots of international calls, Sky TV(entertainment package), internet, line rental, upgraded router and HD box for under £50 p/m. (I know some will be saying that's too much!). You could get a really cheap internet connection then use Skype for your international calls - assuming people on the other end of the call have access to the web? Otherwise I know there are some phone SIMs which offer really cheap international calls on their packages?
Lunchtime food - make sarnies the night before (boring I know, but saves loads) and add a piece of fruit and a yoghurt, take a drinks bottle with some squash in and hey, presto, you've got your lunch! Save a fortune at the vending machines on drinks and a fortune on food!
Sorry for waffling on, but if we can all share ideas and things that've worked for us, hopefully they'll work for others in the same situation too!

kboss2010

Protect my bubble does cheap mobile insurance from around £4-5 per month (£48-60 p/a)

The green insurance company do breakdown cover for £57 per year fully comprehensive for my 2005 vw polo (check the small print on your bank account cover, based on price I think I've worked out who you bank with and it may not be as comprehensive as you think!)

How often do you travel? Many insurers offer single trip policies for less than £7 or if you travel more than twice a year maybe look at joint annual cover if you and your partner travel together.

That should save you at least £40 per year.

As for eating out, see if your city has a spree book. Not very useful if you're single but it has literally hundreds of BOGOF on main courses at loads of local or chain restaurants as well as discounts at cafes, coffee shops and days out. It costs £23 and is valid for a year. The new one is just out for 2012/2013. I bought mine in may for £11 as it only had 6 months left on it and so far I have saved at least £50 by using the vouchers*

*on money we would have spent anyway remember it's only a saving if you were going to buy/spend it anyway!

kboss2010

Oh I should also say, if you need insurance for yourself and your partner's phones a Barclays joint account with a tech pack (£6.50) will give you both cover for accidental damage, theft or loss with an excess which is below £100 for an iPhone. Sounds steep but would you rather pay £6.50 per month to cover two phones and then pay a bit more * if* it's lost/stolen/damaged or pay more every month and find you haven't claimed at the end of the year? That's £78 per year and then go and find cheaper quotes for your breakdown cover and travel ins.

OneMansMoney

I almost had a heart attack when I saw how much you were spending on lunch at work. Have you now changed this? Are you coping alright with taking a packed lunch?

I recently changed this and it's a little difficult to start with but now is a breeze.

LandyAndy

The OP made one post and hasn't been back since 16 September.

I think we can assume that they either didn't like the advice given or got all they wanted from it.

ctmangwaira

Hi all

Sorry for not replying quicker.... it's been an interesting couple of weeks... with mixed emotions. Last week I found out I'm pregnant. Yaaay but scary ! I have no idea how we're going to do it... First thing in our mind is that we need to change house, because we're currently renting a 1 bedroom basement, dump flat ... ... That's a struggle on its own because we need money for the deposit and agency fees ...
On the other hand, thanks to your advice, we managed to cut some bills down, which can only be good.
McG Clan well done !!!!! you're doing excellent !!!! keep it up and thank you very much for your tips.
A big thank you also to beecher2, kboss2010, OneMansMoney !

ctmangwaira

LandyAndy wrote: »

The OP made one post and hasn't been back since 16 September.

I think we can assume that they either didn't like the advice given or got all they wanted from it.

I had 2 posts and I'm sorry I couldn't reply earlier to the advice given but I haven't been online that much .... a lot going on in the last couple of weeks.... I don't think we should be quick to judge...