Fed up

McKneff

£62 a month is ridiculous per month for a mobile phone, see if you can downgrade.


Buy an electric hair cutter and see videos on how to cut hair, saving 40 odd pounds a month.


You could easily knock £100 off your food bill.


Put just a nominal amount away for presents etc until you can afford more.


See if your other half can work more hours

northerner999

Your SOA has you down as spending £2,400 a year on presents, surely that is not right?

I am not sure how old your kids are, but whenever I buy gifts for little uns I have rarely spent more than a few quid at a time. They certainly don't care about the price tag. If you and your partner are serious about tackling debts, you won't expect fancy presents. I'm sure other family members would be understanding too.

I have a "present box" where, when I see something that I think would be good for a friend/relative in future, I buy it and stick it in there. Whenever the event comes round, my first port of call is to look in there - and I usually get compliments on how thoughtful my gift is (though, I have occasionally given someone the same gift two years in a row!).

quidsy

I don't buy strawberries unless there is a special offer & I earn 3 times what you do. You need to be realistic in your requirements. The kids wont die if they don't get strawberries for snacks & not having a garden for another couple of years is hardly a hardship. My son is 7 & has never had one, there are local parks.

I use my slowcooker a lot, it allows for cheaper cuts of meat to be used, can make a lot of the SW meals in it too & it saves alot energy compared to microwave or normal oven. Most things can be put in fridge & used for dinner next night too, no need to freeze, my family are well used to eating the same thing 2 nights in a row & no one complains. lasagnas, casseroles, whole joints of meat & poultry, soups, pasta, rice & even bread & cakes can be cooked in it.

The hardest part of trying to save money is to realistically look at how you CAN live in your means as apposed to looking at how you WANT to live.

The period of cutting back hard wont last for ever but whilst you have a lot of unsecured debt, it is in your whole families interests to make adjustments.

Good luck with it.

Tiffany_Aching

wigglers wrote: »

Yes I am on here to try and save money also work out what in gods name going to do about my debts I'm not trying to justify anything will give the super 6 a go what kind of meals do you make with that then? We have a fridge freezer but unfortunately no chest freezer else we would freeze a lot of things and do tend to keep leftovers etc for lunch the next day

Just a few quick ideas for the super six veggies..

Baked potato with cauliflower cheese (SW version would be easy to grate your cheese allowance over the cauli and melt it.); Cauli and chick pea curry with potato wedges (dried peas cheaper); vegetable soup; any other soup with meat of your choice and leek/ onion/carrot/pots; potato and leek soup; roast dinner with either cheap meat or quorn - the Linda Mcartney sausages are £1 for a pack of six in Morrisons at the moment, the normal ones are 2 syns each but the Red Onion and Rosemary ones are syn free:j

Really, there are loads of things you can do with the current offer - I'm very happy with it and will be buying loads!

wigglers

The 62 for a mobile is me and my partner our contra t is £30 a month each , no I said previously we spend about 200 a year not a month on presents and haircuts mine is £9 every 3 months my partners is £70 every 6 monts, we do use a slow cooker, but thanx for your suggestions

Tiffany_Aching

You have haircuts down at £45. I think this is quite a lot but, to be honest, I haven't paid for a haircut for almost twenty years! My hair is long and my husband trims it for me a couple of times a year to keep it neat and in good health - I trim my daughters long hair and my husband trims his and our 4 boys hair with a set of clippers with a selection of grade attachments - we have just had to buy a new one as our old one died after 20 years of work, the new one cost about £20.

If your wife really doesn't want you to do her hair then ask at a local college - they are almost always after models and are much cheaper than a hairdressers.

Flutterby83

A lot of the lovely mse-ers have already beat me to what I was going to say but we do check the Aldi super six every week to see what's there and if we can use it, again we get our strawberries from a plant we have in our garden as my partner was shocked by the amount strawberries cost so he bought a plant! We buy two packs of the Aldi bananas (68p a pack) and they last a week, the same with apples although they're slightly more expensive so we buy one pack (the fun size ones, there's about 7 or 8 in there) we also eat a lot of veggies such as carrot sticks, and salad is always a hit.
Someone else touched on hair cuts - I cut my partners and our sons hair which saves on barbers, my girls have a cut twice a year for £5 each (so £30 a year) and I don't bother as mines long and normally tied back anyway. I know that's not to everyone's lifestyle but as already said, colleges offer reduced rates and I know people who regularly use them as they are as good as professionals, if not better.
We have 3 mobile phones in our house and they all total £25 a month (£10 for mine and my partners, £5 in credit for my sons but he does chores to earn it)

wigglers

Is it a good idea for me to write to the company's and ask them to freeze the interest or go in to a dmp? to be fair thats the last thing I want to go into but it's no good paying off debts with more credit...

quidsy

You run the very sure risk of destroying your credit with DMP or IVA for 6 years, it might be worth talking to the debt advice line to discuss options but make sure you are fully aware of what risks you run if you do go down that route.

Is there no way your wife can increase her hours or get a full time to help with the costs of the debt?

Mara_uk7

wigglers wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

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

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1500
Partners monthly income after tax....... 260
Benefits................................ 519.2
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2279.2

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 500
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 117
Electricity............................. 49
Gas..................................... 49
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 29
Telephone (land line)................... 15
Mobile phone............................ 62 Cancel contracts if possible, go PAYG
TV Licence.............................. 12.5
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 7
Groceries etc. ......................... 320
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 120
Road tax................................ 30
Car Insurance........................... 31
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 30
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 165
Other child related expenses............ 40
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... [STRIKE]200[/STRIKE]20
Haircuts................................ [STRIKE]45[/STRIKE] £20
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. [STRIKE]1821.5[/STRIKE] £1616.50


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 4000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 4000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description............Debt......Monthly...APR
partners barclaycard....5218......115.......8.9
barclaycard .............1750......45........19.9
matt hsbc credit card....................1978......48.68.....19.9
car loan payment........1950......270.......0
tesco credit card ......1317.83...25........0
capital 1 credit card...................172.31....6.79......30.34
halifax credit card ...................869.35....24........18.9
Total unsecured debts..........13255.49..534.47....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,279.2
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1616.50
Available for debt repayments........... 662.70
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 534.47
Amount over............................. 128.23

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 4,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -13,255.49
Net Assets.............................. -9,255.49



thanks for your help guys :S

oh dear i also forgot to add on my £250 a month payment for my personal loan which has 3 payments left and is taken out by dd on the 1st of each month, so december will be the last payment that goes out.

So correcting your haircut expenses and rounding your £200 present budget up to £240 a YEAR, It makes things look much cheerier already ! Im sure I must have missed something too .. Good Luck !