where to cut?

chili1496

i personally think £450 per month on food for yourself and a child is alot, i also think to have a surplus of £500 to shall we say squander a month is also alot.

I'm left with about £500 each month for clothes, cosmetics, entertainment, vacations, home repairs, medicine, etc

lucky you

chaplin1409

We are a family of 6 (2 adults and 4 children) and we only have a budget of £500 a month for food so maybe cutting that down a bit, as already mentioned dropping down a brand will make a big difference.

I know what you mean about not dropping anything else for your child we have quite a big spend each week on the kids activities but they dont do that much and are not children for long.

joncombe

litespend wrote: »

£5 is for my photo website hosting and while I know I could plug that off, I don't want to, as it's my only hobby and I had that website since 2005. I did already cut my photo mag subscription, I think £5 for a hobby is decent.

Quite understand, we all need to leave a little money left for things we enjoy and £60 a year is not exactly a lot.

getmore4less

litespend wrote: »

@getmoreforless: the £6.50 bank acct fee includes extended warranty appliances (all of which I bought last year when I also bought the flat - that's where part of my debt is coming from) and it also includes mobile phone and photo camera insurance. I've already made use of the mobile phone insurance...

white goods should have been In the buying budget.

go back to when you bought the place and try to account for every spend since then to find out where the leakage is. Until you establish how much of the Debt is overspend and over what period you won't know how much you have to cut back each month just to break even then more to start paying it back. Once the interest kicks in on the CC you could be in trouble.

getmore4less

Use the standard SOA calculator it will be easier for you and other people to see what's going on. it also adds stuff up.

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

DragonQ

chili1496 wrote: »

i personally think £450 per month on food for yourself and a child is alot,

That's a good point actually, I only spend £75-100 a month by myself.

[Deleted User]

if you are paying £100 per month on your debt that is all on 0% rates and it's not reducing, then you are spending an an additional £100 per month.

My advise would be to stop paying with your CC's, and try and stick within your income for incomings/outgoings.

You also say that your 0% rate will be in place until 2015 - although you don't say the month, if in were JAN, that's 14 months away. In order to pay it all off before you start incurring charges you will need to be paying £250 per month towards it (and not continue spending on them), obv. this will be lower if it's later in 2015 - divide the outstanding balance by the nos. of months left. (in effect, you will need to cut your spending back by an additional £150 pm to pay this off interest free).

But as you're currently spending £600 on "other things" which you don't detail here (and I'm not suggesting that you do), but you really need to know yourself where this is being spent (even if you don't share it with us), so my advice would be to keep a spending diary so that you can get a really detailed view of your personal spending. keep a note book (or use your phone if it has the function) to note down EVERYTHING that you spend money on for a couple of months - from the really small things like chewing gum bars of chocolate, postage stamps to the bigger/regular spends like DD's, CC payments, mortgage etc and absolutely everything in between. Once you know where your money is being spent you will be able to adjust your spending to meet your financial goals (ie pay off debt), but you will also be able to make a conscious decision of what spends can be cut completely, what you can reduce, and what you absolutely can't live without.

HTH,

D9

theoretica

I agree that your food bill sounds high, and you might want to think about changing the balance of which foods you buy. I am thinking of more carrots and apples compared to sweet peppers and strawberries sort of thing. I am sure the old style board here could help with recipe ideas that are healthy, cooked from scratch and cheaper.

atlantis187

Can I just say definately keep the barclays bank acc for £6.50 a month. I have this account which they no longer sell, it is extremelly good value for money and believe me you will not find a cheaper account covering all the items on this account elsewhere, I have looked.

pjread

You say you've "started racking up debts" in your opening post. I assume that means total debt is increasing?

It's easy to poke at the TV cost etc, but really you just need to look at the £500 excess that seems to be evaporating. Food's a bit high, but if you can maintain that £500 excess and are eating healthily I wouldn't get too upset about it (other than maybe cut the work lunches if that's easy). I think I do probably 500 a month on 'supermarket shopping' for 2 adults/2 kids.

Honestly, that catch all "clothes, cosmetics, entertainment, vacations" is where to focus IMO.