Our Situation SOA

dancingfairy

You might need to get back in touch with the old council collecting the council tax as your SOA shows you only have £68 a month spare so there is no way you can afford to pay £100 a month towards it.
You'd be better off offering £50 and sending them you SOA to prove you are already on a very tight budget.
df

Simply_Saving

Definitely look into the insurance policies as they aren't expensive at all. I'm a single parent and I rent at the moment and my life insurance makes me feel secure in the knowledge that for £11 per month my daughter will get approximately £300k if I die. As for contents insurance, I pay £9 per month for approximately £75k worth of cover including key replacement .

N x

ellesbellesxxx

Valued Opinions are amazing... Onepoll has taken me a couple of years and am still a pound off payout level but in fairness, I only log onto that in holidays really whereas valued opinions I do as many as poss...get paid in vouchers.


Def get rid of virgin, plusnet are good for internet/phone. how long until your mobile contracts are up?This will make a big difference x

[Deleted User]

amileigh wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1 Expected
Number of cars owned....................

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1000 Varies as he's on a rota but this is average
Benefits................................ 0 - You don't qualify for any benefits? HB, CTC, WTC?
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1000

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 450
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 152 - If this is over 10 months, swapping to 12 will reduce it to £126-66.
Electricity............................. 40
Gas..................................... 20
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 80 - This is :eek: Go PAYG (at around £10 per phone) ASAP.
TV Licence.............................. 0 - This is 12.12pm.
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 40 Virgin with internet inc. Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 150 Again, varies but this is avg
Clothing................................ 20 Average monthly on ebay
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0 - No buses, trains, taxis, ever?
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0 We have a cat so would like to start getting insurance!!
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0 - You need this. About £10pm.
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 - Nothing ever?
Haircuts................................ 0 - Never?
Entertainment........................... 0 - Not even renting/buying a DVD, bottle of wine, takeway etc.?
Holiday................................. 0 - Not even days out?
Emergency fund.......................... 0 - You need something in here.

Total monthly expenses.................. 952


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

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,000
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 932
Available for debt repayments........... 68
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 0
Amount left after debt repayments....... 68


Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -0
Net Assets.............................. 0

So, straight away, you can save around £60 on the mobiles and (if currently over 10 months) £25-34 on Council Tax.

You should also be able to save a few quid on phone and BB.

I'd certainly check your benefit entitlements, because £68pm isn't going to go very far, for buying things for the baby.

Any chance your OH could find a better paid job, or maybe some additional PT work?

[Deleted User]

amileigh wrote: »

The Virgin is also on a contract but was thinking of just having freeview and broadband when that finishes as we don't use all of the channels anyway.

So you do watch live TV?

In that case, your SOA is short by £12-12 for your TV Licence.

And the council tax we'll be paying off 100 odd every month until paid off, can't remember the exact amount.

As someone above has already mentioned, you don't have £100pm to put toward CT arrears.

You actually have, on a good month, less than £56.

Fosterdog

You have nothing for water charges, is this included with the rent?

You may be tied into contracts on the phones but you should be able to lower the tariffs to less minutes, texts and data to save a bit. Even if they only allow each to be cut by £5 that's an extra £10pm for you.

As for costs with the baby, I know it's completely your choice but breast feeding is free and better for the baby than formula, it will save you quite a bit when there is no extra money to spend. Reusable nappies also work out cheaper in the long run but you do need a bigger outlay to begin with so may not be feasible.

Meatloaf1981

If you switch your home phone, broadband and mobile phone to Utility Warehouse, they will pay upto £200 to buy your way out of your current contract and then you only have a rolling monthly contract with them where you can pay as little as £7.50 a month for a basic package. Their broadband is currently free for 6 months when you take up their phone service too. I really have saved a huge chunk in getting rid of O2 (I was paying £20 a month, now paying £12.50 with UW), and saved £10 a month on my broadband/home phone. You pay one bill and if you wanted to, they would also switch your electric to UW which is normally cheaper than competitors. You can add another mobile phone to your package if you wanted to, though I think the £200 buyout only applied to the first mobile, and only if you also switch EITHER electric OR home phone/broadband to UW.

***EDIT: Forgot to add, I jettisoned SKY very early on. I was paying £24 a month or so for the privilege and have since found that for £5 a month, I can watch NOWtv on my Smart TV and still watch probably 90% of my favourite programmes on there. There is absolutely no need to pay the extortionate prices that SKY, BT and Virgin charge.

theoretica

Chase your universal credit now, and get it set up for when the baby is born. You will have far more time to chase and organise it now than once the baby is here. Also you should look into the sure start maternity grant, but I think you need to get the universal credit sorted first.

Also, you probably have friends and relations who will be giving gifts and outgrown babystuff - many people can get away with buying much less than first expected.

Toomuchtodo

Hi, you may already be aware but post office do free life insurance for new parents, it covers you until baby's first birthday, costs nothing worth having when baby arrives

MrsSave

Hi, I'm pretty new to all this so others will be a lot more help, but I have a 12 month old son so have experience with the cost during the first 12 months. Obviously there are things like nappies, wipes etc. What about milk? Before having my son I said I was breast feeding. There would be no cost. But, I couldn't. My son had to go on formula immediately, which is expensive. Round £8 a carton now and we were buying 1 a week. Wipes, we fly through them, still do. I buy supermarket pack of 12, which is just under £9 and lasts possibly a month (I'm not 100% sure).

Nappies we decided to go for a cheaper supermarket brand. But then, ds leaked at night (and once they are old enough to sleep through, I wouldn't wake them to change their nappies). He is now in a supermarket brand during the day and a more expensive brand at night, solves the leaking problem but more expensive. You can easily be spending £50ish a month on just formula, nappies and wipes.

If you're like us, he had lots of clothes when he was born, but now we're in bigger sizes, we've run out so are buying new clothes every couple of months. This can be done cheaply (fbook, ebay etc or even supermarket clothes), but still costs.

We decided to take ds swimming. For that we needed swimming shorts and a swimming nappy. They're not cheap! £4-£5 for a pack of swimming nappies, similar for the shorts. Ds was a summer baby, once it got colder he needed things like a coat.

I'm stopping there because I've probably scared the life out of you, I don't intend to do that but you do need to be prepared. Will you get maternity allowance from the government? Chase up all benefits to see what you're entitled to. Maybe pop along to the cab to see what they say with regards to benefits you're entitled to. Survey sites are good. If you buy online, use cash back sites. See if you can cut back further on groceries for you and your oh. Phone your mobile company, explain the situation to see if there is anything they will do. Same with the TV people. If you've got things around the house you don't use/need, sell them. Have you got DVDs that are gathering dust? Or CDs?

I hope this helps xx

ETA: I apologise for the spelling/grammar mistakes. I've corrected a couple but it's late!