would LOVE to get rid of debt

parker_posey

To get rid of non-mortgage debt, to start with...

Although my income is decent I managed to rack up £4500 in credit card debt in the past two years, which is making me feel depressed. It's currently on a 0% MBNA card but the 0% will end around July 2015 for about one third of the debt, then end around Sep/Oct 2015 for the rest of it. So I'm planning to ditch the other credit cards (freeze them? ) and paying off the debt as much as I can possibly pay.. easier said than done.

Bills/essential expenses (rounded up) are £1920 per month:

£1020 mortgage
£8 contents insurance
£34 unemployment insurance
£104 service charge (also includes ground rent and bldg insurance)
£100 council tax
£70 gas and electricity
£25 water
£40 Internet, TV, home phone, including international calls
£4 web hosting
£12 TV license
£25 mobile
£7 bank account fee (it includes mobile phone & photo camera insurance)
£100 monthly tube pass
£375 before/after school fees, holiday club fees, extracurricular activities, and school meals (average per month all year round)
£45 min payments for CC

My net income is £2820 per month, including child benefit and child maintenance. I don't qualify for any tax credits. I COULD take childcare vouchers however presently my child's school providing before/afterschool care doesn't take them (I am trying to influence them to.. but they are a pain to deal with).

So this leaves me with ~ £850 per month for food, entertainment, clothes, cosmetics, holidays, etc -- plus obviously I NEED to allocate some of these money to pay off the debt. It doesn't seem a small amount but it IS... as I've been obviously overspending for the past two years. (I don't have any savings either; I do contribute to a private pension and I signed up for unemployment insurance to cover mortgage and bills in case I'm being made redundant.)

On food, I spend around £400 per month - on groceries and household cleaning products and work lunches. That seems to be too much for 1 adult + 1 child but I'm actually probably underestimating it

The rest of the money, I don't know how I manage to spend them - I do need to create a budget and stick with it... it does seem easy for the bills but for not for stuff that's variable and doesn't happen monthly.

My action plan is to stop using the credit cards I'm using for spending - as in completely stop. And create a budget for food and non-essentials... but this is where I'm stuck, how do I budget for these. And where can I cut?

Any help and suggestions are appreciated. Thank you! (sorry for the lengthy message)


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bambos

parker_posey wrote: »

To get rid of non-mortgage debt, to start with...

Although my income is decent I managed to rack up £4500 in credit card debt in the past two years, which is making me feel depressed. It's currently on a 0% MBNA card but the 0% will end around July 2015 for about one third of the debt, then end around Sep/Oct 2015 for the rest of it. So I'm planning to ditch the other credit cards (freeze them? ) and paying off the debt as much as I can possibly pay.. easier said than done.

Bills/essential expenses (rounded up) are £1920 per month:

£1020 mortgage
£8 contents insurance
£34 unemployment insurance
£104 service charge (also includes ground rent and bldg insurance)
£100 council tax is this over 12 months?
£70 gas and electricity
£25 water
£40 Internet, TV, home phone, including international calls try & get this down
£4 web hosting
£12 TV license
£25 mobile payg is cheaper
£7 bank account fee (it includes mobile phone & photo camera insurance)
£100 monthly tube pass
£375 before/after school fees, holiday club fees, extracurricular activities, and school meals (average per month all year round)
£45 min payments for CC

My net income is £2820 per month, including child benefit and child maintenance. I don't qualify for any tax credits. I COULD take childcare vouchers however presently my child's school providing before/afterschool care doesn't take them (I am trying to influence them to.. but they are a pain to deal with).

So this leaves me with ~ £850 per month for food, entertainment, clothes, cosmetics, holidays, etc -- plus obviously I NEED to allocate some of these money to pay off the debt. It doesn't seem a small amount but it IS... as I've been obviously overspending for the past two years. (I don't have any savings either; I do contribute to a private pension and I signed up for unemployment insurance to cover mortgage and bills in case I'm being made redundant.)

On food, I spend around £400 per month - on groceries and household cleaning products and work lunches. That seems to be too much for 1 adult + 1 child but I'm actually probably underestimating it holey moley :eek:we are a family of four & ours is half that a month

The rest of the money, I don't know how I manage to spend them - I do need to create a budget and stick with it... it does seem easy for the bills but for not for stuff that's variable and doesn't happen monthly.

My action plan is to stop using the credit cards I'm using for spending - as in completely stop. And create a budget for food and non-essentials... but this is where I'm stuck, how do I budget for these. And where can I cut?

Any help and suggestions are appreciated. Thank you! (sorry for the lengthy message)

I would firstly suggest doing a full SOA so that people can see how much interest you are paying and where your money is going, I'm sure someone will kindly post the link as I don't have it. You have made a positive step toward a debt free life by coming on here and I'm sure you will get lots of advice and guidance throughout your journey. Good luck

indesisiv

SoA template is here
If you can use this it will give people a much better idea of what your debt payments are and where to cut back on.

May also help suggest things that you are paying that you have not thought about.

parker_posey

Thanks!

I pay council tax in 12 instalments yes. Mobile phone - on contract with Vodafone until June 2015.

£40 Internet, TV, home phone, including international calls: I don't really know how I can reduce this one (plus it's also on contract until end of this year). This is the split:

£15.40 line rental
£5 TV (child boost), the rest of TV includes freeview channels
£3.50 international calls (free calls with Europe and North America which I use extensively and I can't drop it)
£15.50 is the fee for the package that includes "Plus TV, Broadband & Phone"

@indesisiv: I'm not paying for anything else regularly. I don't have any subscription or membership of any kind. Just a professional membership that's paid for by the company I work for.

Re food, I don't really know how to reduce those costs - I don't drive so I shop online once per week. I cook everything from scratch, no prepackaged food, no take out.

I currently use Tesco but I tried Ocado, ASDA, and Waitrose and went back to Tesco, no price difference really. I can't switch to in-person shopping - as a single mother I can't simply find the time for it. I work full-time and I'm away from home 8-6pm everyday, Saturday morning is extracurricular activities for my child and house cleaning. I could probably switch to packed lunches for both myself and my child however that would mean a lot of sandwiches, as my workplace doesn't have a microwave. Work lunches cost me about £4-5 per day.

Will try to fill out the SOA although the above list does include all regular outgoings...

foxgloves

Hi,
Well the good news is that there is money to be saved here. The grocery shop is the one which jumps out. For two adults (my husband has a colossal appetite), we budget £250 a month which includes all cleaning products, pet food & basic toiletries. If we need to have a tighter month, we can manage on £200. The key is meal planning, cooking more from scratch & really using your freezer as a money saving friend. The occasional batch cooking day & shoving it all in the freezer means you have dinners ready on days you don't have much time. Take packed lunches to work. Make them the night before. We worked out that we saved £2000 a year (absolutely shocking!!) By doing this. We shop around, always with a shopping list & save lots by using the local market for fruit & veg. Also, cut the amount of cleaning products you buy. I use 'Stardrops' diluted in a recycled spray bottle for nearly all cleaning jobs, own brand loo cleaner, washing up liquid & laundry powder. There's no need to waste money on different sprays, etc, for different jobs. Am sure other people will have other suggestions, but a £400 grocery bill for 2 people was the thing that jumped out at me, as this really CAN come down without any reduction in how well you eat. Good luck x

foxgloves

Oh, we cross posted. Just read your comments re food shopping. I think its meal planning that will maybe make the difference then. We sometimes have to shop online too, but we still come in on budget. £250 a month means between £50 & £62 a shop for us, depending on how many 'shopping Saturdays' there are in the month. Could you try an experimental week of setting yourself a budget of say £50 or £60 & planning meals which will fit this budget? At least with online shopping its easy to see the running total as you shop. If you don't have £400 per month spare to spend on groceries, then something has to change.......less meat meals could be an option? Dropping down a brand? Visiting Aldi once a month to stock up store cupboard? Despite being a bit of a 'Waitrose Girl', I've swapped to Aldi for several basics & haven't noticed any problems with quality. Am not being critical.....we had a high spend too pre- debtbusting, but it can come down with a change of approach.

parker_posey

Thanks I think that's a good idea to try not to exceed £50pw on groceries and cleaning products, it does work sometimes but it's often extra stuff that I forget to buy online that adds to it... I stop by on my way home in Sainsbury's and another £10-15 gone. There is no Aldi nearby, not that I know of... but I could try the one brand down thing, I am a bit of a 'food snob' like that (a habit from when I was in a couple with more than double family income...).

Any idea about of a website with recipes for batch cooking and freezing? As strange as it sounds I've never done it before... I pretty much cook daily or every 2nd day and my freezer is mostly empty apart from some meat.

Sinhanada

I haven't got a website for recipes, but when we do cook there is usually one portion always left over. This gets frozen. We also cut down on portion sizes. Examples of our freezer at any given points:

Lasagne, chilli con carne, chicken stock (made from roast chicken bones), curries etc.

The key is when you do dish out the food, most of it can be frozen, just wait until it's cooled down. Especially when it's sauce based, so most pasta sauces, chilli, etc.

A lot of people do not like freezing rice as there is some potential toxin which can be present when freezing - not that I've ever noticed!

The best part for me, is we eat well during the month, and towards the end we generally have our "frozen" meals which works a treat

foxgloves

Hi again, Parkerposey,
I don't use any specific recipes meant for batch cooking. To give you some examples of how I batch cook: We did a roast shoulder of lamb over Easter. The next day, I cut up all the leftover meat, divvied it up & made a tray of lamb slices in gravy for a 'free' Sunday dinner, 2 portions of lamb madras & 4 portions of shepherds pie. It all went in the freezer. There's just two of us, so that's 4 days of dinners ready made. Also, if I buy a kilo of mince, I divide it into 4. This makes 2 quarter pounders to have with a pitta & salad one night, a spag bol (can stretch to 4 portions if plenty of veg goes in too), a chilli con carne & some meatballs. I've already got onions, chopping board, pans out to make one thing, so may as well make batches of stuff & freeze. Another thing I did was buy a 99p butternut squash which I used for 4 portions of a Hairy Bikers veggie curry recipe, 2 portions of butternut & bean crumble & 2 portions of pasta sauce. I think batch cooking works because it sort of banks meals up in the freezer & every so often you can have a week where you barely need to buy main meal ingredients at all. Re brands & drop in income. We were also bringing in 2 professional salaries & used to eating pretty much whatever we wanted but we really haven't noticed much difference. Our portion size is more sensible but we still cook & eat lovely food. There are items I always buy from Aldi now because they are v good & paying more for a well known brand would be pointless i. e their reduced fat mayonnaise. Its 75p for a decent sized jar & easily nice enough for me to abandon the big brand which costs way more! Its a case of experimenting & finding what methods work for you. As you already cook from scratch, you are better placed than many to be successful in significantly reducing your grocery spend. Oh.....& avoid top up shops. They are lethal. A pint of milk instantly becomes a whole basket of shopping. Knock them on the head asap! x

parker_posey

@Sinhanada and foxgloves: thank you, that is very good advice re freezing meals, and yes I know re: top up shops on my way home are the worst kind... M&S, Sainsbury's, and Morrisons - all small ones and pricey.

Now I have to find the discipline to do all this... and also stop eating out, I do have the habit of doing that every now and then, and don't necessarily go cheap . Old habits don't die easily.

joedenise

I don't specifically batch cook but do always make 4 or 6 portions of anything I make which will freeze, as suggested above chilli, curry, lasagne etc; as there are two of us that means there is always 2 or 4 portions of leftovers which I freeze for later in the month.

My budget for 2 adults for groceries & toiletries is £250 and this includes some beer & wine for weekends. I menu plan a month at a time and usually do a fairly big shop when DH gets paid including all the meat and generally spend between £60-£80.

I do a weekly shop to top up on bread, milk, sandwich fillings etc and go to the market on a Tuesday to get fruit and veg. If I haven't got time to do both shops then I would go on a Tuesday when I can get to the market easily but I like to go twice weekly as it gets me out of the house.

You might find it useful to join in the Grocery Challenge on the Old Style Board - you'll find loads of recipes in the first few pages as well which might inspire you with some cheaper options.

Sorry for the long post but hope you will find it useful to reduce your spends.

Denise