Nearly there but need help cutting back please...

ptee

Ok here goes.... not sure if anyone can help but worth a try!

Nearly cleared the last of the visa, only £800 to go then I'm onto the mortgage :beer: however the wife has just finished paid maternity leave and has in effect given up work to be a full time mum (though her work don't know yet so shh!), and as you can imagine money is now a little tight.

Luckily I earn a good enough wage to support us all (2 adults, a 2yr old, a 5month old and the dog!) but only just!!

So anyway we're now looking for ways to cut back.
SOA is below....

Wage £3,542.64
Child Benefit £116.60
Child Tax Credits £82.07
Tax Paid -£611.00
NI Paid -£227.20
Pension -£98.41
Staff Products* -£490.73
SAYE Share Schemes -£250.00

*Staff Products include Childcare vouchers, Shopping Vouchers, Dental Insurance for myself, Life Assurance for my wife (I get mine free with the job), Critical Illness Cover for myself and the wife.

Take home pay/benefits £2063.97



Mortgage £877.75
Council Tax £123.55
Car Insurance £100.00 (£730 for the year, trying to pay it off in 7 months rather than 12)
Home Insurance £50.00 (£400 for the year, trying to pay it off in 8 months rather than 12)
Pet Plan Insurance £16.06
Dental Insurance (£5.75 taken from salary as part of staff product payment)
Life Assurance (£8.10 taken from salary as part of staff product payment)
Critical Illness Insurance (£9.68 taken from salary as part of staff product payment)
Gas/Electric £100.00 approx (average of last 6 months)
Water £38.90
Sky - TV/Phone/Broadband £43.50 - seriously considering getting rid in favour of freeview
BT Line Rental £10.84
Vodafone Mobile Monthly Contract £20.00 variable but not usually over £20
TV Licence £11.37
Car Payment PCP £222.51 - ends July 2009
Petrol £40.00
Childcare (£277.20 taken from salary as part of staff product payment)
Shopping (£190 taken from salary as part of staff product payment)

Bills £1654.48


Income = £2063.97
Expenditure = £1654.48
Money left = £409.49

From this both myself and the wife take £200 spending money leaving £9.49!!
Any clothes/haircuts for the kids/ourselves comes from our spending money or the shopping money.

Overtime is not an option, we're trying to spend less on the shopping and the car is staying (if i was to sell it now i'd make a loss and its too nice to sell).
As stated above we're thinking of getting rid of the sky but I think if we did we'd have to find a new broadband/landline supplier and I'm not sure how much this would be? ...and we can't get cable.


I'm scratching my head as to where we can cut back, might have to revert to plan Z and send the mrs back to work but really don't want it to come to that, any ideas welcome!



On the plus side if we can get through the next 18-24 months on what I'm earning then I have some nice share plans maturing which will make us financially comfortable but I really don't want to revert to using the credit cards after clearing £7k in the last 12 months! :T

beanielou

WQell done on clearing nearly all of your debt.
Some of your insurances seem very high-can you shop around for cheaper?
As you say Sky could go.
Child care costs will stop wont they if wife is not going back to work?

ptee

beanielou wrote: »

WQell done on clearing nearly all of your debt.
Some of your insurances seem very high-can you shop around for cheaper?
As you say Sky could go.
Child care costs will stop wont they if wife is not going back to work?

Thanks beanielou, its been hard at times but very satisfying now :O)
Yes i think the big axe is rapidly falling on the sky+, hopefully can squeeze a few months free/cheap before it goes

I don't know what it is but I just can't find cheaper insurance!

Home insurance is Buildings and Contents, AD on Buildings but not Contents.
We live in a 4 bed mid terrace in a good area of town but the nearest quote I've found is £525 with Barclays, they'll price match upto £100 and give back £50 apparently so I can save £25 here I think, just need to decide if it's worth the effort.

Car insurance, nearest quote was £900ish, had a bump in March which didn't help.

As for childcare, we're leaving our lad in nursery, he currently goes two days a week, and he really enjoys it (And it gives the wife some much needed peace and some quality time with the other nipper). He's only 2 n a bit and it has really brought him out of his shell, he was a bit shy. I think though in January we will get a free childcare place from the government so that will reduce the cost massively.

If it comes to it though we could maybe cut him back to a day or day and a half.

beanielou

Why dont you cut nursery down to maybe 2 half days meantime?
Your wife could take him to toddlers or playgroup?

angelavdavis

Hi and welcome.

I think you might have double counted the following as you seem to have discounted it at the beginning(?):

Dental Insurance
Life Assurance
Critical Illness Insurance

Definitely give Sky a buzz and threaten to pull out. They will offer a discounted rate for a period of time.

Look at the gas/electric - this is high so I would see if you can get a better deal shopping around (look at uswitch). I appreciate it looks like you have a fairly large house from the mortgage and house insurance, but its still pretty high.

Shop around for car/home insurance as both are fairly high too. Use quidco for deals.

You could save by meal planning on the food. Look over at Old style for your OH to see ways of saving.

bonnie_2

Why don't you halve the spending money, and put the rest in an isa for a rainy day, you don't seem to have any cover for emergency spending. i.e car, house, washing maching etc. These things always go in 3's you know.

Cork_Sniffer

Might be worth a though. Scrap the Sky, keep BT, use one of the 'phone overiders from the telecom section of the site, my call bill is about £5.00 a month landline + Mobiles, Tesco Value Broadband, at £13.95, and Freeview box from Asda £19.99. Try Direct line for Pet Insurance, but is it really required, if things are tight you may get it fixed on PDSA, or perhaps you might have an elderly friend / relative who can adopt for the day. See if you can get an Asda Credit card, use just for fuel at Asda and save 2p/ litre, and they round up from 0.85 ltres, I filled up with 25.85 ltres and got 52p discount. Could try a water meter, just remember that you have 12 months to change your mind, have it installed for free, check the bills and if less, review in 11 months. Have a daily look in Adsa & Tesco 'bin box' for near end of date food, they will always last a couple of days longer. Good luck.

ptee

thanks all for the suggestions, thought i'd give a quick update seeing as you've been kind enough to help... :T

rang sky to cancel however we're apparently tied into our phone/broadband contract for 12 months. They said we could cancel the tv but we'd then have to pay for the phone/bb which are currently free.
Think we'll just get rid of sports(only watch the footy and season ends in a few weeks) and movies for now which would save £17.50 but then we'll then need to pay £10 sky+ subs
Saving £7.50

Decided to cut the young uns nursery back to 2 half days starting May.
Saving £120 approx (not eaxctly half as we use vouchers so ill have a touch more tax to pay)

Trying to go this month on £125 spending money instead of £200! :eek:
Saving £150 (if we can manage!)

Cancelled the shopping vouchers so will try cut back the shopping bill from £200.
Hope to save £25 to start with and take it from there.

Total savings £302.50 :j :beer: :j

Hopefully we can make more savings on the insurance and utilities once i've done a bit of shopping around :O)

Ptee

mae

Ptee just looked at your quick update, you've done great so far its amazing isn't it when you think you've done all the cut backs you can then you come on here and people point out a few things and hey presto you've managed to save £302.50 per month. Its so inspiring, keep up the good work.

GirlRacer_2

Don't forget Ptee when you are renewing insurances, go through Quidco and earn some cashback.