Saving and Budgeting help

Catcherupper14

I suggest that you look through the posts on


1. the debt-free wannabe board - re-post your SOA there and you will get some really great responses as to what you can cut and where - you don't need to be in debt as the people on that board are very generous with their help


2. Look at the Old-Style board for all sorts of practical ways ot save money and time on food, cleaning etc




I think your technology costs are quite high (even ignoring the TV licence glitch).


Telephone (land line)................... 16.99
Mobile phone............................ 80
TV Licence.............................. 145
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 16.99
Internet Services....................... 16.99


I have joint landline and internet with EE and it comes to about £26 with all calls. I use this more than my mobile (PAYG about £5 pm)


Obviously you need to consider where you want to spend the money - many people rely more on the mobile. If so, see if you can cut the landline and internet costs.


If you want to save quickly, get rid of the cable service - unless of course it helps you save money by not going out.


You will see that it is not a "one size fits all" as what saves money under one heading can lead you to spend more under another.


I hope it goes well for you.

getmore4less

The number don't add up, rent, emergency, entertainment are over £2300 over £3k for everything


go back over the last 12month and see where your money have been going.
You won't be able to cut them all out instantly

IT takes time to get a working realistic SOA that is liveable so don't worry.

fix the number so they are all yearly/12 and check the numbers add up.

You need an accurate SOA to work out how much you may have spare to start saving.


Your biggest single expenses that you will need to have is going to be where you live.
If you want to save more move into the cheapest/best insulated place you can, to cut the rent and bills.

Next will be your food/drink some manage £50pppm I prefer to spend more.

Then your connectivity(internet TV phones) mobiles are very high. do you need a TV package.

If planning to drive then that will be a killer, running cars is VERY expensive.

getmore4less

RyanWarner wrote: »

I have got around 7k in our emergency/rainy day fund should I move some of this now?

Ryan

Stick this on the SOA in the asset section, you could add 2 extra entries emergency fund and house fund if that's the way you prefer.

the SOA should have everything on it is a snapshot of your assets, income and expenses

With no car and renting that is probably more than enough as you won't have that many emergencies

For loss of one income you can last for a long time with £7k
For loss of both incomes it would last 6month+

Once you have a house you need to keep building houses get bills.

Dobbibill

RyanWarner wrote: »

Household Information[/b]
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 0

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1946
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1379
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3325

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 650
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 78
Electricity............................. 35
Gas..................................... 35
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 33
Telephone (land line)................... 16.99 - this can be reduced
Mobile phone............................ 80
TV Licence.............................. 145 - this needs to be divided by 12 months
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 16.99
Internet Services....................... 16.99 - this can be added to the phone line cost and together get a better deal (mine is £21.49 for both and I know lots of people on here get better deals than that)
Groceries etc. ......................... 300 - this can be cut for just 2 adults
Clothing................................ 0 - never?
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 15
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 124 is this monthly?
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 15
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 50
Entertainment........................... 700 this is alot, go through your statements to ensure this is accurate, not estimated
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 1000 - well done, keep up the good work
Total monthly expenses.................. 1610.97 - re-do the calculations


Assets
Cash.................................... 1796
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 1796

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Credit card....................80........5.........39.9 - get shot of this in full
Total unsecured debts..........80........5.........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,325
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,610.97
Available for debt repayments........... 14.03
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 5
Amount left after debt repayments....... 1,709.03

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 1,796
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -80
Net Assets.............................. 1,716

Just a few areas I can see where there may be a little tweaking to do, go through your statements and account for every penny.

Good luck with the deposit savings challenge :money:

DB

FireWyrm

Two adults spending £300 on food? I do 5 for £250 or less. If you really want to save for a house, you'll have to cut your budget to the bone. Anywhere you can save a penny, do it. If you stuck to the budget as it is, you would save just over £20K in a year. Depending on where you want to buy, you'll need a bigger deposit that that. 5% is a minimum, but to get the decent rates, you'll need north of 25% at a minimum. You will need at lest £5K set aside as your sinking fund for fees, stamp duty, surveys, moving costs etc. You will be shocked at how quickly that goes. My guess is you are looking at between 2 and 3 years of hard saving to get a decent deposit. The more you put down, the less mortgage you pay and the less interest you suffer. Do not be tempted to get anything more than a 25 year mortgage, you pay a heavy price for even an additional 5 years. Once you have your house, you'll want to overpay your mortgage at a good clip (usually caped at 10% per year), so you are looking at more than just a short term change to solve a problem. You had best get used to austerity stretching into the next decade.

Somewhere along the line, children will probably come along, in which case, you'll have even less to play with, but it isnt all doom and gloom. You earn more than I do and I still manage to keep a family of 5 and save over half my income.

RyanWarner

Thanks to everyone that has replied and given advise! I will go back over my SOA and try and figure out where I went wrong, I will re-post it once I have figured it all out.

We do spend a lot on Technology, we both have mobiles that cost £40 per month each which we got out on contract so we have no way of cutting these down yet not for the next 12 months.We have already got Home phone/broad band and TV all with Virgin for £50.99 per month I just split this into 3 equal parts to put on the SOA.

The food shopping bill includes food for our 5 cats and all toiletries/cleaning products.

Yes the pet insurance/vet bills is £124 per month all 5 are on the healthy pet club at the vets so we kinda pay for all the flea/worm and booster injections throughout the year by making monthly payments, plus if they do get ill they get discounts on medicine I did work it out and it is cheaper than paying for it all individually.

The £700 in the entertainment bit was just what we have left at the end of the month not needed for anything, we buy all clothing/presents out of this too.

Once again thanks to everyone for taking the time to give advise, I know we have got a lot to learn!

Ryan

Archi_Bald

RyanWarner wrote: »

We do spend a lot on Technology, we both have mobiles that cost £40 per month each ......We have already got Home phone/broad band and TV all with Virgin for £50.99 per month

both these are at the higher end of what people can live with very happily. £15 a month for a mobile with plenty of minutes, data and texts on 4G is perfectly possible on a SIM only basis. Though may be not for you if you are in a contract and need the latest and greatest technology (but do you?)......so may be don't commit to another contract when your current one is up. £50.99 for Virgin is expensive unless you subscribe to lots of film channels that keep you stay at home rather than going out and spend lots of money.

RyanWarner wrote: »

The food shopping bill includes food for our 5 cats and all toiletries/cleaning products.

you should really split this out in more detail. How much is food for people, how much is food for cats? How much is cleaning/toiletries?

RyanWarner wrote: »

Yes the pet insurance/vet bills is £124 per month all 5 are on the healthy pet club at the vets so we kinda pay for all the flea/worm and booster injections throughout the year by making monthly payments, plus if they do get ill they get discounts on medicine I did work it out and it is cheaper than paying for it all individually.

how much are you going to pay for your kids each month if you are happy to pay £124 for your cats?

£1,488 a year just for pet insurance and vet bills... would buy you a sumptuous 3-piece suite for your lounge when you get your first house. Or a double bed and a wardrobe. Etc etc.

RyanWarner wrote: »

The £700 in the entertainment bit was just what we have left at the end of the month not needed for anything, we buy all clothing/presents out of this too.

You should break this down into smaller amounts so you can identify whether you can save some of this money.

RyanWarner

HI Archi Bald,

We got the phone contracts out about a yr ago now we mainly did it because we didn't have any credit and was told that getting a phone contract would give us a credit history which we would need to eventually buy a house, you are right tho we didn't need to go for a really expensive one but guess we got a bit carried away.

We don't have film or sports channels, I thought £50.99 for all 3 combined was good, guess that's why shopping around is so important.

I know we spend a lot on our cats but our oldest one has a heart murmur so has always cost us a little more, we adopted them all for different reasons, for us spending the amount on them that we do is worth it, but yeah you are right we probably will end up over spending on any children we have to!!

Ryan

Archi_Bald

My Virgin is £43.64 a month for phone and basic broadband, no extra channels. I have had this for a year, so I suppose I should ring them and ask for a better deal....

At some stage a couple of years ago, and because I considered myself needing lots of bandwidth, I had subscribed to some superfast 50meg BB from Virgin, just to find they happily took my money but throttled my throughput. Without even telling me. When I did find out I was throttled (not easy), I cancelled the 50 meg and went back to their basic offer, which turns out to be perfectly sufficient for me, after all......you can only spend so much on mobiles and broadband before you need to ask yourself whether you live for the communication companies or for yourself. And same for cats, I suppose......

getmore4less

You have the classic problem/trap that loads fall into.

Because you had no goals to save you thought you could afford things that really are just not good value for money.

Check you mobiles often you can reduce the tariff.

Nothing wrong with virgin just review the deal.
(there is a board here on getting deals with virgin)


The key will be a much more detailed SOA breaking down those bigger items into their categories you currently have little idea what you spend you money on.

If you really want a house and kids you will have to reprioritize adopting cats.