no debt, no savings, no assets, just blah. HALP!

lessavyfav

Hi there..I'm a long time lurker, first time poster and have come to a point in my life where I am beginning to freak out about money, or lack thereof..

I am approaching 30 any day now, no debts (:beer:) but not a single iota of savings either..I truly do live paycheck to paycheck, the final week before payday is me telling my friends I am on a budget and living off £12 a day. I am sick of living like this! There are a lot of things I want to do in my life; having a modest emergency fund would be a start.

Here's my SOA:

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 0

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1913
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1913


Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 634
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 37
Electricity............................. 10
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 9.91
Telephone (land line)................... 6
Mobile phone............................ 36
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 6
Groceries etc. ......................... 120
Clothing................................ 80
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 40
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 100
Entertainment........................... 425
Cleaner................................. 14.50
Holiday................................. 100
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1643.41

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR

Total unsecured debts...........0...........0........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1913
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1643.41
Available for debt repayments...........
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments.......
Amount left............................. 269.59 (theoretically, but it's all lies as i really have nothing left)

So my entertainment does look high and realistically I may even be spending more than that..this is due to me enjoying eating out at least a night or two per week at a nice restaurant/cafe + usually a drinking night per week.I know, I know, it's too much. My problem is Keeping Up with the Joneses. All of my friends earn a fair bit more than me and I get a bad case of FOMO (fear of missing out). This is something I need to work on though.

I am good at bringing lunches into work (do this 3-5 days a week), make dinner most nights from scratch (no frozen, prepackaged meals), my electricity, internet, etc are very low costs, don't have cable or tv license and I ride my bike to and from work when it's not pouring down.

I live in London, hence rather expensive rent but I fear it will go up by around £70 in a month or so as I'm looking to move out soon and rent in this area has gone up. I want to live in the same area to be close to work and I have a good network of friends around here.

In the long term, I want to save for a deposit to buy my own place, as well as possibly owning my own small business..I fear if I have one, I can't have the other though. It's definitely a generational thing to want to have it all. Why can't I have it all!? :A

Please feel free to give your opinion or suggestions on how to cut costs. Hell, rip me to shreds if you must. But one thing I can't budge on is moving out of my area!

tlh858

lessavyfav wrote: »

Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 634
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 37 Really?
Electricity............................. 10 Surely this is a mistake - only £120 per year and no gas or oil?
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 9.91 As with the electricity, how can it be this low?
Telephone (land line)................... 6
Mobile phone............................ 36
TV Licence.............................. 0 Do you not have a television?
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 6 Implausibly low. Are you really paying just £12 for phone and internet?
Groceries etc. ......................... 120
Clothing................................ 80 Every month? Could easily be cut in half or even more.
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 40 Not impossible, but as you have no car, how are you travelling to various places? Less than £10 per week won't get you very far at all.
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0 Need something here - you can't realistically avoid these
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0 Need this as well.
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 100 Ridiculously high - this can be reduced massively. £1200 per year!
Entertainment........................... 425 You already know this needs to be cut
Cleaner................................. 14.50 Although not a lot, as you have no spare money, this is a luxury you can't afford.
Holiday................................. 100
Emergency fund.......................... 0 If you have no credit card etc. you need something here
Total monthly expenses.................. 1643.41

There is obviously a lot of stuff missing here, and some of the figures provided must be wrong.

happycamel_2

I'd say that other than entertainment, haircuts, clothes and the cleaner are the obvious targets?

In your case I'd set up a standing order for into a regular saver for the day after payday and then budget your expenditure from there.

You could use dress agencies for 2nd hand designer labels if that's your thing or at least sell on the stuff you've bought. Hairdressers require models for training and charge much less for that or otherwise have your hair done every six weeks and see what you can do yourself.

When you eat out have a good lunch and just have an appetiser or main. Or you could have a bowl of cereal before you go out.

You seem to have under called utilities and council tax unless they are somehow included in your rent. Do you no have a TV? No contents insurance?

I think you need to keep a spending diary and go through your bank statements to work out where the money really goes.

HappyMJ

How many others do you share with...even if quite a few £10 a month on your electricity and gas is very very cheap.

What do you want to save for? You aren't in debt so you can spend whatever you want even if it everything you earn as long as all of your essential bills are being paid then you can go out and spend the rest on whatever you want.

If you really want to save for a deposit on a property then your entertainment budget must be drastically reduced to something like £20-£30 per week.

Do you really spend £80 every month on clothing?

stephane_2

You are living on a knife edge...in case of an emergency then you would be in real trouble.
You need to cut your entertainment by at least half for a good 6 to 9 months and put the difference in a saving account. You could potentially save £1500/£1800 by doing just that. Also...haircut...how can you spend £100 per months, that's a luxury you can no longer afford. I personally spend £8.00 every 3 weeks, you have to cut that by at least 3/4. Get rid of the cleaner...What do you have a penthouse? Also clothing budget is far too high.
You are complaining you don't have any savings...but you have the choice between living a life of luxury you can no longer afford or have saving ready for a rainy day....up to you!!

lessavyfav

wow, that was a quick response! Thanks all.

The hair is a ridiculous expense, it's because i had white blonde hair for the past year that needs to be maintained by a professional..I have recently gone to a more natural colour so that I don't have to do it so frequently but I don't trust myself to do it at home (also, having such bleached hair underneath means it will go green if i do it myself at home). so yes, i will be looking for a much cheaper hairdresser and much less frequent visits which will keep costs a fair bit lower.

I live with two other girls, hence why council tax is really low, same with electricity (we pay with one of those top up stick things that costs us a tenner per person every 4-5 weeks). water is 29 per month, then we divide that by three. Probably should have mentioned that at the start. No tv either! Medical..well I haven't had to get any medicine or paid prescriptions since I moved here 2 years ago.

I don't have a lot of transport costs due to my bike! hence only £40 per month on my oyster PAYG.

Cleaner..we have one come fortnightly as my housemates are DISGUSTING, and i mean DISGUSTING (hence why i am moving out). These girls don't clean and they have two cats. I would rather pay a little bit of money for the common areas to be cleaned than have to clean up their mess. Sharehouse living is really difficult at times..

Totally right about the entertainment and perhaps clothing too...it's not like I buy that much clothing every month but when I buy, I tend to invest.

One thing I haven't accounted for is stuff like beauty/makeup which probably makes up a fair bit of my SOA too..I have been cutting down and getting the less pricey shampoos lately.

I think my first priority is saving for emergency funds, followed by some kind of high interest account.

I don't have any contents insurance, is this bad? don't shoot me!

lessavyfav

OKay, so I'm going to bed now. But over the weekend I will make sure to go over the past year's worth of bank statements and see where it's all going - scared!!

HappyMJ

lessavyfav wrote: »

wow, that was a quick response! Thanks all.

The hair is a ridiculous expense, it's because i had white blonde hair for the past year that needs to be maintained by a professional..I have recently gone to a more natural colour so that I don't have to do it so frequently but I don't trust myself to do it at home (also, having such bleached hair underneath means it will go green if i do it myself at home). so yes, i will be looking for a much cheaper hairdresser and much less frequent visits which will keep costs a fair bit lower.

I live with two other girls, hence why council tax is really low, same with electricity (we pay with one of those top up stick things that costs us a tenner per person every 4-5 weeks). water is 29 per month, then we divide that by three. Probably should have mentioned that at the start. No tv either! Medical..well I haven't had to get any medicine or paid prescriptions since I moved here 2 years ago.

I don't have a lot of transport costs due to my bike! hence only £40 per month on my oyster PAYG.

Cleaner..we have one come fortnightly as my housemates are DISGUSTING, and i mean DISGUSTING (hence why i am moving out). These girls don't clean and they have two cats. I would rather pay a little bit of money for the common areas to be cleaned than have to clean up their mess. Sharehouse living is really difficult at times..

Totally right about the entertainment and perhaps clothing too...it's not like I buy that much clothing every month but when I buy, I tend to invest.

One thing I haven't accounted for is stuff like beauty/makeup which probably makes up a fair bit of my SOA too..I have been cutting down and getting the less pricey shampoos lately.

I think my first priority is saving for emergency funds, followed by some kind of high interest account.

I don't have any contents insurance, is this bad? don't shoot me!

I still think the electric is extremely cheap. How is the house heated? Is the heating included with the rent?

Depends on what you value your contents as. If you lost everything in a fire would you be financially ruined or could everything be replaced for not very much? With your monthly spend on clothing I find that unlikely. You'll need photos of anything of high value and those photos need to saved on the internet for any future insurance claim.

i1189

If you like nice shampoo/conditioner, it's worth trying one of the professional salon type warehouse type shops - my hairdresser suggested this.

I get the same conditioner that my hairdresser uses in the salon, it costs about £20 for 4 litres, which lasts me about a year, and it's better than anything I've bought on the high street.

I buy other hair products from Ebay as this is sometimes even cheaper for things like serums which are lightweight and cheap to post.

foxgloves

Hi, I'm going to answer this because when I was almost 30, I too had a 'wobble' regarding my finances.....I was hopeless at budgetting....I just never did any & overspent my income every month without fail. I did manage to buy a small house around then, because a relative died & left me enough for a small deposit, but Lightbulb Moment vanished again & I continued to overspend & borrow until I was 40......yes another decade of having no emergency funds, etc, & worry, all my own silly fault, & I read your post & thought OMG, it's like me all over again, right down to the high hair colouring costs!! Please get a grip now. Right now. Keeping up with the Jones is the worst excuse for spending money you can't afford. The good news is that you don't seem to have debt at the moment, but it will come if you don't set & stick to a realistic budget becuase you are already aspiring to a lifestyle you can't afford. The other good news is that you have room for manoevre in your SOA. It will take a change of mindset. You have the choice of carrying on as you are, spending mroe than you have to spend on unnecessary stuff OR you can cut that right back & start an emergency fund. I didn't get together an emergency fund till I'd finished debt-busting & it's such a relief to have one, especially in tough times. My advice would be the following: 1) Reduce your mobile contract. Mine is £12-ish a month, came with a decent smartphone & all the mins, texts, data I need, 2) Cancel the cleaner. Do a bit more yourself just temporarily if necesary, but if you are moving out soon, no point in paying for your mucky housemates to be left a nice clean pad! 3) £100 a month on haircuts......that is breathtakingly unaffordable. I used to have my hair professionally coloured bright copper & was often 'talked out' of doing my colour at home by the salon as I couldn't guarantee the colour it would turn out from all the processing. I decided to go ahead anyway.... so only £5-99 every 5-6 weeks. My hair is still copper, has not gone yellow, green, weird orange or any of the other freaky shades I was threatened with!! 4) £425 a month on entertainment???? This is enough to build a decent emergency fund on its own!! That's far more important to you at the moment than all this eating out, drinks, etc, & needs to be cut WAY back, as you know. 5) £80 a month on clothes. Too much if you have no reserves. Cut this sum in half & buy better then you'll get maximum wear out of everything & stuff will go together better. From these cuts alone, I'd estimate you can save about £400 a month into a separate account for emergencies OR if you don't have any emergencies, it'd build up a very nice deposit on a house. That's around £4,800 a year from my basic calculations. Who in their right mind would turn that down? If youo are not sure where your surplus is currently going, do start a spending journal. Even though we are now debt-free, I still sometimes do this for a couple of weeks if I think my money's started leaking away on nothing. You can turn this around.....just do it now & don't wait another decade + like we did! Good luck! x

heartbreak_star

lessavyfav wrote: »

Hi there..I'm a long time lurker, first time poster and have come to a point in my life where I am beginning to freak out about money, or lack thereof..

I am approaching 30 any day now, no debts (:beer:) but not a single iota of savings either..I truly do live paycheck to paycheck, the final week before payday is me telling my friends I am on a budget and living off £12 a day. I am sick of living like this! There are a lot of things I want to do in my life; having a modest emergency fund would be a start.

Here's my SOA:

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 0

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1913
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1913


Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 634
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 37
Electricity............................. 10
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 9.91
Telephone (land line)................... 6
Mobile phone............................ 36 too high
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 6
Groceries etc. ......................... 120
Clothing................................ 80 quarter it or Ebay old stuff to offset
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 40
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0 need this
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 25
Haircuts................................ 100 drop to £20 MAX
Entertainment........................... 425 drop to £100 MAX
Cleaner................................. 14.50
Holiday................................. 100 halve it. Where do you usually go? Check earlybird deals
Emergency fund.......................... 0 need something here
Total monthly expenses.................. 1643.41

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR

Total unsecured debts...........0...........0........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1913
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1643.41
Available for debt repayments...........
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments.......
Amount left............................. 269.59 (theoretically, but it's all lies as i really have nothing left)

So my entertainment does look high and realistically I may even be spending more than that..this is due to me enjoying eating out at least a night or two per week at a nice restaurant/cafe + usually a drinking night per week.I know, I know, it's too much. My problem is Keeping Up with the Joneses. All of my friends earn a fair bit more than me and I get a bad case of FOMO (fear of missing out). This is something I need to work on though.

I am good at bringing lunches into work (do this 3-5 days a week), make dinner most nights from scratch (no frozen, prepackaged meals), my electricity, internet, etc are very low costs, don't have cable or tv license and I ride my bike to and from work when it's not pouring down.

I live in London, hence rather expensive rent but I fear it will go up by around £70 in a month or so as I'm looking to move out soon and rent in this area has gone up. I want to live in the same area to be close to work and I have a good network of friends around here.

In the long term, I want to save for a deposit to buy my own place, as well as possibly owning my own small business..I fear if I have one, I can't have the other though. It's definitely a generational thing to want to have it all. Why can't I have it all!? :A

Please feel free to give your opinion or suggestions on how to cut costs. Hell, rip me to shreds if you must. But one thing I can't budge on is moving out of my area!

Few comments from me in purple.

Keep a spending diary - even 50p for a bar of chocolate goes in there. This will help you see where your surplus is going. Never carry cash - use your debit card for every transaction, and check online banking once per day. Round down to the nearest £ into a savings account

Set yourself challenges. £12 a day is a high budget - try £5 a day, three days a week and work from there.

Good luck!

HBS x