Advice welcomed! :)

Madnessa

Congrats on having your LBM.

I don' have much experience on here but io have to agree with the food thing. It is very easy to feed two adults on £25 per week (and my OH eats like a horse... a very big horse)

So with the little ones inclluded cutting it down to £250 should be easy. With some effort £200 will also be possible.

We also kept track of all the food we were chucking out when we were tring to cut down from £50 a week minimum spend. The stuff that was going in the bin was horendous. Also never go shopping when you are hungry.

Good luck anyway!

Shineyhappy

I would try and keep hold of your home but really tightening your belts for a while.

Have a look at the challenges on this board for money making ideas especially the Olympic Challenge.

Get your wife to have a look at this site and then try to really change things. A lot of your SOA seems very expensive, have a look at Uswitch and try and go through Quidco to get cash back on changing insurances and ultilites and do you need two mobiles and a landline? Fifty quid seems an obscene amount for just a home phone line! Have a look at the utlity boards on this site.

Your food bill does seem very high. Do you buy branded goods Ie Ribena and Pepsi instead of supermarkets own? I get my coke fix from Asda at three 2 litre bottles for one pound. What supermarket do you shop in? Some are much more expensive than others.

Good luck and keep posting!

Shineyhappy

Oh and you could probably tell the estate agents that you want to put the price up and that would help your property not sell or just complain about the neighbours to people viewing to get out of paying four hundred pounds if you decide to stay put.

HairyHandofDartmoor

I agree with others that selling my house would be my very last resort. We have 3 children and spend 260 per month on food. I manage this by buying value brands and special offers, and by cooking as much from scratch as possible (ie I would never buy a cheese sauce mix as it is so easy to make one, and much yummier). My kids are extremely healthy.

Your phone bill is high, so are your mobile bills, and your gas and electricity are high (who is wasting it?). There are many ways you could cut back and overpay on you debts with the money saved. That is what we are doing. We would never sell our house unless we were forced to (and I mean forced)!

I'm sure you can do it. Go to the old style board for money saving food ideas, etc. Good luck.

katglasgow

I have my homephone and braodband via TalkTalk for £20 pcm and this includes unlimited calls to landlines, so your wife can talk for as long as she likes!Can you have an emergency month this month and spend minimal on food budget (consider it a challenge) if you could cut down to £200 this would give you another £200 to put towards car repairs. I would maybe also suggest working out an amount to save every month towards car (tax, repairs, MOT) for now on so that things are evened up over the month. Set up and standing order to a savings account - passbook only so its harder to access money for other things!If you go to see your DOctor you can get lots of support re. giving up smoking including free NRT. Its not easy but it would save you a fortune and your kids will thank you for it.x

david_hellier

Hi and welcome.

According to my figures you have £38.54 per week to spend on food, clothes, fags and anything else.

This is an emergency situation because if you spend more than this you are overspending.

The others have given you good advice on cutting back but you need to contact CAB or CCCS to try and tackle the CC payments. I have calculated these as 5% of the balance. I have also included a figure of £50 per month od payoff.

Your idea of selling the house is probably a good one, but now is not a good time to sell at a price you expect; you may have to lower it to sell it. If you do sell and end up with a clean slate it is imperative you stick to a budget or you will overspend again and be in the same boat again.

Good luck, the figures are as follows:

incomeweeklymonthlyself1400.00partner350.00cb160.00tc250.00total0.002160.00divide by 4.33 £ 498.47 £ 498.47 total weekly incomespendweeklymonthlyrent/mortgage600.00council tax110.00elec56.00gas56.00water30.00secured loans225.00TV licence12.00fines0.00mobile50.00landline phone50.00car ins45.00petrol70.00mot20.00car tax10.00life57.00home ins27.00od payoff50.00cc1300.00cc2225.00total0.001993.00divide by 4.33 £ 459.92 £ 459.92 total weekly spendStart= income - spend = £ 38.54 per week

Summer_Rain_5

Lalala wrote: »

Can you find out out what the interest rates are on your cards

I have been doing some moving about recently, and have almost all of the balances now on 0%.

This may sound ridiculous, but I am half-tempted to write the credit card companys and tell them that I cannot meet the repayment figures. I will ask them to stop all interest, explain my situation and offer them say £20/30 month each. Will this kind of technique help, or is it likely to dig me further into trouble?

mrsspendalot

I have a family same size - 3 children, 2 of whom are pre-school, and we spend about £35-£45 a week on shopping. We eat healthily but we have changed to own brands, value brands, no convenience foods, no expensive toiletries, no luxury food items - just a list of meals for the week and a list of what we need to buy to make those meals. No one here goes hungry and the kids haven't complained once. £400 a month is loads on shopping. Even shaving £100 a month of that would make a huge difference to you.

Storm

If they're on 0% already then there's no point contacting them about the interest, and most won't take reduced payments without a SoA - and yours currently shows that you *can* just afford the minimum payments.

As you need to get the money together for the car this month there's a couple of things I'd suggest doing:

- go onto the old style board & post up a store cupboard challenge - you list everything you have in cupboards, fridge & freezer, explain how many people you're feeding etc & lots of ideas will come flooding in - this will mean your food bill can be drastically reduced as you only buy a few bits & fresh stuff.

- is it possible for either of you to get a 2nd job for a while?

- sell off whatever you can - baby stuff can go really well on Ebay so unless you're planning on having more kids get it listed!

I would also recommend contacting CAB for advise on your employment situation - and JobCentre Plus for help with getting your CV up to date & looking for work.

Bank charges - these can be claimed back and there's a whole board dedicated to the subject with template letters & support from those who've been through or are going through the process.

bedhair

If you reduce your bills as much as possible, then you should be living within your means. By reducing the CC payments, it will only prolong the debt and thus pay more in interest. I agree that speaking to them and explaining your situation may make them reduce the interest rates but as you have the balance on 0% rate at the moment, this seems pointless.
Good luck
Bedhair.