Advice needed

bextas

Ok so I am currently 30 weeks pregnant and due to finish work at the end of the year. I plan on taking a full year off. I get the standard 6 weeks at 90% pay and 33 weeks SMP and then will have 2 months of no money coming in apart from OH's wage and then next december get all my holiday pay so just over a months salary (around £1,600). We have got all the stuff for the baby and been buying nappies each week with the weekly shop so that's all sorted but we have no savings whatsover and around £21k in debt. This debt is very very old debt so all interest has been frozen but I have just buried my head in the sand with it all. Anyway I need some advice on how to tackle this whilst having some reserves in the bank. Up until the end of January 2013 my OH's weekly wage we can pretty much bank most of it for savings which means I will be able to take a full year off but after doing a budget I just cannot see where we can reduce anything. Can someone take a look and advise:
Rent £650
C Tax £180 (overpaying as we got behind) usually will be £120
Sky TV with internet and home Phone £60 - this is our only luxury we never go out.
Maintenance for OH's son £150
RAC breakdown £10
Car Insurance £45
TV Licence £25
Water £27
Electric £50 again overpaying by £10 each month
Food £180
Petrol £160
My Mobile £37
OH's mobile for him and his child £100 - locked in for 18 more months
Car finance £200 finishes in 2 months time
Leading up to Xmas we have around £350 budgeted to spend on presents and I need £200 for car repairs and road tax so this eats into the extra that I did want to save.
Debt repayments £112
I take home full salary £1500 a month after tax but my last full salary will be in December
OH takes home £290 a week after tax
I have worked out pro rata payments to my creditors totalling £112 as I feel this is manageable and am in the process of writing to them all with a budget sheet. I am desperate to get into good money ways and actually save some money. This is the first week ever in my lift that we have managed to save £25 from OH's wage. I know it's not much but that feels like a big achievement for us.
Any tips or advice I would be very grateful.

Happytogetdebtfree

Hi and welcome to the board you might be better posting a standard statement of affairs so that people can comment.List all creditors and APR rates, have you any items you can sell on ebay to make extra money etc can you negotiate a cheaper price with sky etc ? Any chance oh can reduce his phonebill? Tv licence seems high at 25 pm its 36 some pence 3 monthly so about £12 can you reduce how much you spend at xmas? discuss not buying for some people due to budgetting etc ?. It will be easier to comment on a standard SOA that you can find in one of the stickys at the top x

FireWyrm

May I ask...is it necessary to take the entire year off...why not just 6 months as is more usual?

What do you plan to do when you inevitably return to work...I assume there will be childcare costs or have you already taken care of this?

rising_from_the_ashes

If you can post up a full SOA http://www.stoozing.com/msoc/soacalc.php you'll get much better advice as it's easier to look at and see exactly what's what.

Couple of things that really jumps out at first glance are:

Mobiles both yours and the ones for your OH & his child - sorry but this is absolutely astronomical and you all need to contact the supplier and say you can't afford them and need to downgrade.

TV license should only be £12.12 / month

RAC - £10 / month? Seriously, that's HUGE! Shop around as cover is available for only £38 / year (incl home start) http://www.autoaidbreakdown.co.uk/

Sky - not essential and I'm afraid you can't afford this if you're not going to be earning .....