Please Help Me Find A Way out!!!

Storm

Ask your local council about Sure Start/Children's Centres in the area - you can normally start getting some stuff from when you fall pregnant, although each centre can vary wildly. Ones local to me have a range of groups & free courses running, a free 'baby-proofing' service with socket covers, cupboard loacks etc as well as 'bring & buy' sales of old baby stuff.

The £185 a month for child support - it might be worth contacting the CSA & asking for a re-assessment once your little one is born - I don't know exactly how they work the figures out, but another dependant I would have thought would affect the amount they think you can afford each month.

Agree with freecycle - there's always loads of baby stuff being given away on there, and Ebay can be great apparently for getting bundles of baby clothes.

pnq06

Thanks again,

I'm going to try council tax and housing benefit again but I never seem to get anywhere with them!!!

The freecycle site looks great, I've just been excepted but don't quite understand how to ask for an item lol

I went on the csa calculator and the csa will reduce by £30 a month once our bubs is here.... Didn't expect it to by that much so its a nice surprise!!!

Reya

pnq06 wrote: »

Unfortunately my house is privately rented and the winter months here were truely unbearable even with extra layers of clothing. The storage heaters needed to be on practically all the time cos if they were turned off they would take until the next day to come back on again.... No good if your cold there and then but if I would of known the cost of using them then believe me I wouldn't of touched them!!!

Here's a tip from me for the future. It will mean you need to keep mainly to one or two rooms during the winter months, but it's worth it in the savings you'll make. I've lived with storage heaters, and believe me they're the worst inventions known to man when it comes to keeping warm and cost-saving!

What I've done is to buy a couple of little halogen heaters. They're very cost-efficient (having one bar on costs 3p an hour, and two bars is 6p an hour) and by God do they kick out some heat! They cost only £8 each from the one of those Factory Store/Warehouse Clearance places, and they have a stabilising button on the base that means if they're knocked over they immediately switch off, which is handy if you have kids around.

ETA: This is the type I have, and it looks like Wilkinson are stocking them for only £7! (link)

I'm a single person, so I tend to nest in one room, gather everything I need and love in that one place, then just run the heaters when I need to. A single heater will make an average-sized bedroom toasty warm in about half an hour, and two heaters will comfortably keep a large living room warm.

Another hint is to tuck curtains up onto the window sills at night when they're drawn, and to weight them down with anything heavy (candle holders, ornaments etc) so that heat isn't lost behind the curtains and out of the windows.

There was a great thread on the OS board last year about saving money on heating during the winter months, and while it's summer now those chilly months will soon roll around, and it's a useful thread to have bookmarked: Avoid using gas and electric this winter (link). Lots of hints and tips there

pnq06

Thanks for the tips Reya... Made very good reading!!!

I think I'll definatley invest in some of those heaters- think I'll get them sooner rather than later!!!!

Robflh

Hi pnq06

chevalier wrote: »

Ref overdraft, can your OH get an A&L current account? They will match your current overdraft at 0% for a year, which would save you a fair bit in charges. Also if you go via www.quidco.com, then you can get £50 cash back too.

I would check this out first and cancel the insurance on your personal loan.

At the moment, you are paying £30 per month in interest on the overdraft and it is not going down. Transferring that to a credit card with 6% interest for the life of the balance, would mean paying only £13.50 per month in interest.

Unfortunately, the minimum payments, at 2% of the outstanding balance, would be £54 each month. However, that will leave you with £40.50 per month that you can spend.

Now set up a DD to pay Powergen via the credit card and not through the bank. You will need to pay £103 per month to the credit card instead of the £88 to Powergen but you will not be paying £30 a month for the overdraft. That is not much of a saving but the £2,700 will start to go down.

Monthly Outgoings
. .£385.00 Rent
. .£214.17 Personal loan
.. ..£92.00 Council Tax
. ...£15.00 Sky
. ...£88.00 Powergen/electric £103.00
. ...£22.90 Water
. ...£25.00 Internet
.. .£185.04 Child support
. ...£10.95 TV license
. ...£14.08 Legal aid
.. ..£20.00 Gym membership
......£9.37 House insurance
... .£30.00 Overdraft interest ..£0.00
...£120.00 Food
.£1,231.51 Total..............£1,216.51
.....£18.49 Left................... £33.49


Once the baby has been born you will get a £30 reduction on the Child Support, so pay an extra £30 each month off the credit card. The same goes for any other reductions, like when the gym membership ends or the legal aid payments stop, pay extra off the credit card.

Do not use the credit card, I repeat, do not use the credit card for anything else. If you cannot trust yourselves to do this then do not move the overdraft to a credit card.

However, once you have reduced the debt on it by around £400 you can use it for emergencies only. Like the washing machine breaks down or you need to replace an expensive item.

I was going to suggest redoing your personal loan but £16,000 over 84 months would be about what you are paying now, so there is no point in doing that.

The other day I was watching an item on TV about re-usable nappies. They have come a long way in the last few years and as you can put them in with your normal washing, you do not have to wash them on a separate hot wash program. That saves time and money.

I am sure someone reading this will be able to tell you a lot more about them then I could. The same goes for how to reduce you shopping bill. There is loads of information on here for that.

Someone told me that if your landlord kicked you out, the council would have to rehouse you but I am not sure if that is true or not. Ask your local CAB and then let me know if it is true.

Storm

If you get a low LOB card to transfer the OD to then the one thing you MUSTN'T do is spend anything on it - the transfer rate is for the balance transfer only & normally the purchases rate is extortionate! Plus, the CC company gets to decide which of the balances you're paying off first - which they always do with the lowest apr first, so the interest would actually increase each month, as would your minimum payments.

If you can get something like the M&S &More card at 4.9% lob then the interest on £2700 would be about £11 a month, with minimum payments (assuming 3%, although apparently they're reducing these to 2.5% soon) of around £81.

With your budget as tight as it is, you can't really afford to start paying it back right now, so it would just make your situation even tighter.

There are a few small things you could do to ease the situation a little - most councils will allow you to pay the council tax over 12 instead of 10 months, which would free up about £15 a month, check out pigsback, quidco etc for cashback & vouchers, sign up for Mystery Shopping, AQA etc - anything that you can do from home to bring in a little bit more.

You've done really well to clear off 2 credit cards already, so be proud of how far you've come already.

nzmegs

I know you are pregnant, but could you work a little. Perhaps delivering a local paper once the baby is born. Walking out with the baby can only be good for you and the papers will go under the pushchair. or possible work one afternoon a weekend while your husband watches the baby - you might appreciate the time to yourself (I know I did!)
Also is there anything you can make to sell - crafts, knitting, sewing? Put them or anything else you might have which you don't want on Ebay.
Mystery shopping is good too - there is no reason you can't take your baby with you.
All you need is an extra £100 a month to see your overdraft fall dramatically in no time. Doing just a little bit of work (ironing, cleaning, babysitting) along with making a few savings will do wonders.
Good luck with your birth and keep calm about your debts for the sake of your baby, you will be fine, I promise!

pinkkaz

chevalier wrote: »

Ref overdraft, can your OH get an A&L current account? They will match your current overdraft at 0% for a year, which would save you a fair bit in charges. Also if you go via www.quidco.com, then you can get £50 cash back too.

Just a tip with the A&L account. They will only match your overdraft if you've been in credit for a certain period in the month proceeding your application (think 2 days but check this) - otherwise you might just get £500. I made this mistake when sorting it out for my boyf. Oh well, the excess has been put onto a 0% card now