My new SOA can any improvements be made?

sistafromanothermista

MrsGSR wrote: »

Also could you shave £10 maybe £20 a week off your shopping bill? Maybe by switching supermarkets or making sure you use your store cupboard and freezer well. We have a £150 budget a month for the 4 of us but it's not really enough so we will be upping it to £200 for a month to see how it goes. Maybe that could be worth a try?

What sort of food do you eat? I'd like to see your receipts as i cannot imagine £50 pw feeding all 4 of us

ifstar

Do you really have £880 left each month after bills? If so then you'll be cleared off in about 8 months. If not then you need to find where this money is going.

sistafromanothermista

ifstar wrote: »

Do you really have £880 left each month after bills? If so then you'll be cleared off in about 8 months. If not then you need to find where this money is going.

:wave: Yes we do, well around that amount anyway. The aim is end of April as our Debt free date. Fingers crossed!

PiggyBankShaker

You could try and reduce your food budget further. We're a famly of two adults and two children and very similiar income to you. We pay around £200 a month on food. It can be done.

Good luck

MrsGSR

sistafromanothermista wrote: »

What sort of food do you eat? I'd like to see your receipts as i cannot imagine £50 pw feeding all 4 of us

We eat quite a lot of simple meals, jacket potatoes, egg and chips, cottage pie. I bulk out meals with mushrooms, lentils and other veg. I'm quite tight with portions too. I do have a very well stocked freezer and store cupboard which really helps thanks to the fact hubby and i both work at supermarkets and we get a lot of bargains.

MrsGSR

sistafromanothermista wrote: »

That's something i definitely want to look into. I think i need to find out my prescription though.
That's the next thing i'll do. Thanks MrsGSR

No problem:o
I guess it does depend on your prescription, my DH is blind as a bat but I'm not sure whether it makes his prescription complex or not.

[Deleted User]

sistafromanothermista wrote: »

Car insurance is cheap as DH has paid his off in full so just mine on SOA.

I think you are still supposed to include it.

Put in 1/12th of the annual premium.

System

With regards to the council tax we are in a new build and our category was incorrect. Part of the same size properties on our estate were in Band C and some were band B, same size, same bedrooms etc, I appealed and got ours reduced from C to B.

Took several months and twice they tried to fob me off saying that C was the right band, I appealed it to the relevant body that they told me about during their second rejection, within weeks it was sorted and 110 properties where I live were re categorised to a cheaper band, made me feel pretty great

It is always worth checking, you can use the VOA.Gov.uk website (or something like that) to get an idea of bandings in your area.

I also noticed that my neighbour wasn't on the council tax register at all, told her (but not them) and almost 2 years later they finally caught up with her and gave her a hefty bill....! Still, I tried to help lol