Struggling - whats my next move

Firewalker

Here is what I think:

1) Gas bill needs looking at - it may be worth servicing your boiler (having it working properly saves a lot; we just did it);
2) Groceries bill is really large; particularly if you shop in Morrison's. Have a look in your waste bin - it is likely that you throw away a lot of food. If you: a) meal plan and buy only for what you cook; b) cook from scratch; and c) cook also stews and soups (which is also healthy); you will easily save over £200 on this one.

Apartment in Bulgaria - keep. Prices are rock bottom everywhere and people don't spend on property at the moment. St Vlas is a nice place (love the marina) and will probably pick up. Can you rent it out?
3) Consolidation may be worth it of you can get it. But don't get too hung up on that. The mastery of money management is to make sure that you live within what come in regularly every month and put all else (your bonuses) towards the debt. You will be surprised how fast it will go down (this way we paid off £100,000 in three years). And once the debt is gone you can build wealth because the habits stay.
4) Target one single card first - get it paid off and mve on. Don't decrease the amount you are paying off. Go for it with the single minded focus of a hunter!
5) Any chance your partner can start doing something from home? There are opportunities around.

Hope this helps.

Firewalker

annmaria2

Excellent advise and I think you can really cut down on your gas bill by shopping around its horrendous. I also think your partner should look into evening job i.e. even filling up shelves in supermarkets etc this would help you loads.
Also shopping in places like Lidl/Aldi/local farmers market etc will half your food bills.
Good luck there is potential to get things fixed.

annmaria2

sorry also a quick pointer about your mobile phone - its is quite high
can you lower your tariff or look into different provider? I am on 2500 minutes/unlimited texts/unlimited data for £17.00 per month from virgin
your land line is also quite high - is it really needed? you can only have it for incoming calls for half of that amount and you and your partner can use mobile phones within the same network ( free calls to each other) and lower the costs
is your tv/internet/land line separate or can you switch to a combined deal?

foxgloves

Hi,
Yes, I definitely second what's already been said about the energy bills. This is a very high spend on gas, particularly. Ours has just gone up to £100 a month for both gas & electricity combiend & I wasn't happy with that, so your spend seems enormous. It may be that you are on a high tariff. If so, changing suppliers could help but it's so high, that it's likely that there is energy wastage going on somewhere that you're not aware of. Try doing a bit of an audit of your daily useage. Are you switching things on out of habit? Having the heating just that little bit hotter than you need it to be, for instance if you were to put a warmer layer on? Are you having lots more baths than showers? If youa re on Economy 7 for electricity, are you making full use of this by setting the washing machine to wash overnight on the cheaper tariff? It's well worth having a really good look at anywhere you can make savings. Don't assume you won't be wasting any. You will be! I've jsut discovered for e.g that my partner has the kitchen lights on in daytime.....that's 6 bulbs, & pretty unnecessary unless it's the depth of winter!
Grocery bill is extremely high. Before we started debt-busting, we used to spend £320 a month for 2 adults & 1 pet. We can now get monthly grocery bill to come in at around £200. We did this by meal planning, making strict shopping list from meal plans, having first checked freezer, pantry, etc, to avoid overbuying, & cooking meals from scratch. We throw virtually no food away. This month, we have composted 1 lemon, which went furry overnight, that's all. A Sunday roast usually goes on to provide meals for at least 2 or 3 further days, as well as a couple of packed lunches. Batch-cooking & stocking up freezer so there are plenty of meals for the next month also works. Good planning will stop the need for top-up shops, which badly erode grocery budget. Shop around. No one chain is the cheapest for everything. We use Co-op, Waitrose, Aldi & the local butcher & market. 3 huge bagfuls (bag for life size) of fruit & veg from our local market has never come to more than about £12 & is often as low as £7. There really are savings to be made here.I totally understand that you are a bigger family than us, but even so, I bet there are similar sized families here getting that bill in at £300, and a £200 saving a month is too good to miss. Good luck!

bargainbetty

rotherham123 wrote: »

hi

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 0

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2000
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0 You should qualify for Child benefit - where is this?
Other income............................ 0Could you and the missus join online survey sites to earn cash and vouchers towards the household budget. Use Quidco and Makeitcheaper to switch service providers on things and get cashback or Amazon gift cards.

Total monthly income.................... 2000

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 471
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 157
Council tax............................. 113 10 months or 12?
Electricity............................. 58 High combined price. Check equipment and usage.
Gas..................................... 110 As above, plus supplier switches!
Water rates............................. 43
Telephone (land line)................... 32 Strictly necessary?
Mobile phone............................ 60 Strictly necessary?
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 26 Strictly necessary? Could you go freeview for a bit, see how you feel in six months? You'd be able to sign back up and get a new joiners deal too.
Internet Services....................... 25
Groceries etc. ......................... 500 This is very high. Your OH is at home, batch cooking and meal planning should be manageable. Cooking treats with the children will teach them how to cook and reduce silly spends too.
Clothing................................ 30 Ebay your old stuff. Kids clothes sell very well, and the money adds up.
Petrol/diesel........................... 140
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 27
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 20
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 28 Shop around?
Buildings insurance..................... 35 Shop around?
Life assurance ......................... 70 Shop around?
Other insurance......................... 12 ??
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Boiler insurance........................ 11
Total monthly expenses.................. 2040


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 150000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 150000

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
BARCLAYCARD VISA...............5000......131.......0
MBNA...........................3000......42.46.....0
NATIONWIDE C/CARD ............6600......100.......0
TESCO LOAN.....................2500......212.......0

I make this £485.46 per month, which makes a total of £2525.46. You will need to make some significant cut backs to bring your income and expenditure into line.

I've decanted everyone's comments into the SOA, but you are going further into debt each month as it stands, even if you bring home £2400.

If you can use the snowball calculator to see how to pay off your debts most effectively, that will help too, but you are going to have to sit down with your OH and work out what you can cut out of your expenditure.

Start by doing an inventory of what you have in stock (foods, kitchen, bathroom etc) and meal plan to use things up and reduce your shopping bill this month by meal planning and not stockpiling.

Clear out junk, old kids clothes, toys etc and start hammering ebay, boot sales etc to sell junk and throw the money at the first debt listed on the snowball calculator.

good luck

PollyOnAMission

I agree with what others have said; there has been some great advice.

The one thing I will add is that you currently pay £83 per month for your landline, broadband and TV subscription. Could you cancel your subscription and switch phone/broadband providers to make this cheaper? A lot will offer a big discount if you get your landline and broadband together, for example.

I cancelled Sky and switched to Freesat (not the type where you pay a subscription fee to Sky). My landline (free evening and weekend calls, line rental included) and broadband (unlimited) costs me £18 per month (with Orange, now EE) and I got £70 cashback when I took out that contract. I can't remember if this was a 12 or 18 month contract, but it works out to either £14 per month or £12 per month for the length of the contract. This is a huge difference to the £57 you currently pay. Factor in cancelling your TV subscription and that could save you up to around £70 per month.

Verbatim

Only thing I could add is to ask whether you have a spare room and could take a language school student. if you have a school nearby, or failing that a lodger. If you're near a large town there are sometimes people who live a distance away from where they work who would pay to have a room Mon - Th nights thereby leaving just you and yours for the weekend.

kittiej

The very first thing I look at when people post their SOA is their grocery bill because I equate an overspender on debt with an overspender on food - you probably chuck out food I expect unless it's posh nosh

OK I'm originally a Meccy lass and a spade is a spade and never a shovel, so I think your wage is mega bucks! Do not whatever you do put unsecured debt onto your property - it's a sure-fire way to self-destruct.

You will be OK, you will get through this but I do think you need to get OH into the spirit of cooking ( unless she's like me and burns everything)

rotherham123

hi

thanks for all the input :T

couple of things to note, i leave for work at 7.30am and get home at 8pm so its hard for the wife to go out and work, it may be old fashioned but i bring the money in and she runs the house and kids..

i didnt include child benefit for 2 children and also forgot that i ahve a 2k overdraft that is cleared when i am paid and back up to max limit in no time, eg its the 17th today and i have £300 left with more bills and card payments to leave my account..

so first things first, small steps etc... i will need to these one at a time, once they are complete i will move onto the next.

1. Gas bill & Electric bill - looks like everyone is in agreement this is high so i will tackle this first... i will go and get my reading and look at my account online...

back in 10 mins

rotherham123

heres my gas bill info, i have just done an online reading and at the current rate and paying my normal £100 per month direct debit i will be £120 short on my final bill...

definitely need to sort this, i can now see i am way off the mark with it somehow, any ideas?

Gas bill:

British Gas - monthly direct debit

£220.06 in debit

Unit Rates:
Tier 1- 8.002
Tier 2 - 4.461

Readings From Jan 2013

17 May 2013 20616 Customer read 3313.00 04 Apr 2013 20320 Meter Reader 10733.00 15 Jan 2013 19361 Meter Reader 257.00 13 Jan 2013 19338 Customer read 7614.00

All numbers below are inclusive of V.A.T.

• Tier 1 applies to the first 2680 kWh per year, pro rated across your billing period. All subsequent consumption is charged at Tier 2.
  
• Direct Debit gas customers will receive a discount off your Tier 2 consumption charges of 0.196 p/kWh, up to a maximum of £65 per year pro rated across your billing period.
  
• Gas customers paying by Cash, Cheque, Debit or Credit Card, whose payment is received within 14 days of the date on your bill will receive a discount off your next bill's consumption charges of 1.7% up to a maximum of £3.75 per quarterly bill.
  

[1] £27 Direct Debit Discount: Direct Debit Gas customers will receive a discount off your Tier 2 consumption charges of 0.196 p/kWh, up to a maximum of £65 per year pro-rated across your billing period. Based on average annual gas consumption of 16,500 kWh as at 12th January 2012, is rounded and includes VAT at 5%. Discount received varies according to seasonal consumption.