Aiming to clear debt of £8,852

FireWyrm

helpme_115 wrote: »

I dont see why they figures would be reversed, £40 on entertaining us both and the kids for a whole month seems a bit unrealistic (and im likely not to stick to it!),

Why not? Do you seriously rate your entertainment ahead of securing your future and all that is necessary should you be out of work for any length of time? £480 a year is a lot to throw down the drain as it is, but I acknowledge that some people depend on this to get by for the sake of their morale.

helpme_115 wrote: »

£225 into an emergency fund sounds excessive to (unless its just the emergency fund for that month and doesnt roll over), after 1 year there would be £2,700 there incase something goes wrong instead of reducing debt/interest paid. I currently have a Emergency Fund of £1000 so maybe i should take away the budget for it all together (until i have to use the funds of course)

Excessive? Really? If you lost your job tomorrow or were incapacitated, not only would you still not have enough after a years saving to last even one month, you would not last until you could fill out the social security forms and get paid by the government. Your finances are precariously balanced on a knife edge of continued good fortune which is by no means guaranteed. You are as yet making no effort to deal with the £91K you owe on your mortgage and interest rates WILL go up eventually rendering your position even more precarious than it already is. Sensibly speaking, you ought to be throwing every penny you have at all debts inclusive of the mortgage for as long as the interest rates remain so low - it is practically free money you are making since you are paying off the principle far faster than the interest is accruing.

Your unwillingness to part with your entertainment budget and your failure to see that you are by no means even comfortable let alone safe should the worst happen suggests that you have not yet had your light bulb moment.

helpme_115 wrote: »

Hi Mrtight. The £60 is for 2 contract phones which are both heavily used (i travel a bit) and thats with 20% for working for a partner of Vodafone's.

PAYG is usually cheaper. Look at your actual bills and work out how many calls you made and how much that really would have cost you at non-contract rates. Contracts exist to trap the gullible into costly and extended forms of debt. Most people dont even realise what is happening.

helpme_115 wrote: »

For the Virgin... Yup its expensive. The issue I have is that i regularly work from home so need a good stable connection,

Which Sky will provide for considerably less than £50 a month. Even fibre is only around £30 a month all in.

helpme_115 wrote: »

£50 includes 100mb internet,

See above....

helpme_115 wrote: »

TiVo and all channels (excluding premium sky sports etc)

With your extensive 'entertainment' budget, you could buy any series you wanted to watch and not be forced to sit through adverts.

helpme_115 wrote: »

and phone line (which we dont use).

I'm sorry? Why are you paying for something you dont use?

helpme_115 wrote: »

Usually that package costs more but i get a discount as i know people who work there. Looking around i could get UPTO 16mb for £26 a month (including line rental) but would leave me without TV channels so would there for need to splash out more cash on installing TV Arial/Satellite dish for freeview/freesat.

Catch UP.

helpme_115 wrote: »

Boiler has stung us a few times and isnt that old so dont want to buy another just yet.

And you question the need for an emergency fund even of modest proportions suggested? You could buy a brand new boiler and have it fitted by a GasSafe accredited engineer for £1500. You however prefer to spend that money on entertainment.

I am pointing out here the sheer waste that is the elephant in the room. You will spend on boiler cover (with British Gas by any chance? You do know that they have so many caveats and addendums to their 'cover' that it is barely worth the paper it isnt printed on?) but not put that money into a 'broken boiler' fund which you could fill entirely within the year. I take it also that your appliances are all brand spanking new? Your fridge, freezer, washing machine etc are all not in any danger of dying? Three words for you...built in obsolescence. None of those appliances are designed to last longer than a few years. They are intended to be replaced every two or three years. What plans do you have to deal with even that minor annoyance if one should break? Dont answer...it was rhetorical. My point is that it is doubtful you could a) replace even one appliance, let alone them all, b) are paying through the nose for 'insurance' against a boiler breaking that you could replace within a few months and c) could not last the six weeks required to get over a minor broken bone which stopped you working.

Just out of interest...how are your plans for retirement?

helpme_115 wrote: »

the boiler cover includes plumbing/wiring etc which we have had to use recently

If it is BG...chances are you could get it cheaper from any GasSafe engineer. BG trade on fear, not reality.

helpme_115 wrote: »

(drains out side cracked and leaked) so fairly keen to keep that cover.

But you have repaired the issue have you not? What are the chances of that happening again anyway?

helpme_115 wrote: »

We did do meal planners and it helped but the same old excuse's come out for not doing it im afraid. I was made redundant last year but was put into a temp role, worked my socks off to show how valuable I was (which paid off as Im now fully employed again!) but did impact stuff at home, we have a 3year old and 1 year old and i wasn't around as much as i would have liked to have been and therefore couldn't help as much as i should have. This resulted in us both becoming lazy with food/money as we were both on the go all the time. We are also both very indecisive with everything, when it comes to "what you want for dinner" the easy answer was a takeaway, we have discussed this and will both try harder (so frustrating when i suggest something for dinner, she says she doesnt fancy it so i ask her then she doesnt know what she wants and it goes on and on... it happened tonight lol)

Suggestion; Buy a whiteboard which is marked up for days of the month. Sit down at the beginning of the month and plan the meals for the next month. Buy what you need to make those meals. Agree who will cook them if you want to at the same time. I'm sorry, but there is no substitute for discipline. Nothing is going to change your finances for you...you must do it yourself via will and discipline.

helpme_115

Well i was fairly motivated until your post, whilst im sure you are trying to help it comes across in a fairly different way (e.g. calling me gullible)

You may want to consider providing constructive feedback like the others instead of telling me what I should be doing and not accepting anything else.

Maybe its just me being defensive...

The entertainment thing.. yes i need to reduce it but cutting it dead on month 1 will not help me, ill go over budget, lose motivation and just go back to the way i was (been there and done that!). We are all different and whilst you may be able to change your life in an instant others cannot.

I've considered getting rid of Virgin a few times but with the next cheapest internet provider being £30, i dont see £20 a month extra that much to have TV channels that we watch regularly (wife stays at home and especially if i cant do anything any more due to no entertainment budget) including reliable extremely fast internet. We have the Phone line as part of the package, if we took the phone line off it would cost alot more than what we are currently paying.

Boiler Cover/Drain etc cover is with HomeServe (probably not much better). A service is usually £60 every year so for a extra £60 a year i get piece of mind that im not gonna get stung with a big bill should something go wrong (e.g. drains would have cost £300+ if i didnt have insurance as it was a big dig up job). this year it actually only cost me £10 for a years cover including service as i got £100 cashback (and its been paid)

zenshi

You've not included any contents cover?! Do you not have any?

I have just renewed my house and contents insurance and it includes cover for boiler, water etc etc

helpme_115

Yes i do sorry, should be an additional £10 in there, thanks for highlighting

interesting that boiler cover is included, will certainly check that out on my next renewal due in July.

Meatloaf1981

You need to set yourself realistic milestones, but you need to temper that with knowing what the end result is, what your ultimate goal is.

Having a budgeting tool like YNAB is great if you know you are going to stick to it. The key to dealing with debt is being honest with yourself and developing some self-control because, lets face it, none of us would have debt if we didn't overspend on occasions when we know we shouldn't.

Firstly, I would separate things out quite simply into a list of needs and a list of wants. What do you NEED to get through the month? All of your standard bills fall into that category, but the key thing here is not to sit back on your laurels and think "Ok, well my phone bill is high because this and that". Hunt around for a better deal.

On everything.

Absolutely everything.

Car insurance? Shop around, never accept the renewal price. Same goes for all other insurances, including your boiler if you really NEED it.

I chopped down my mobile, internet and home phone bills by switching to Utility Warehouse for all of those bills. I saved 20% by doing that (Now paying £40 for the lot, instead of £50). Ditto with the TV. Get yourself a NowTV box for a tenner and you can watch all your favourite Sky channels for £6.99 a month, no contract. No need for a satellite dish, say hello to live-streaming!

Once you've got your NEEDS sorted and can see the savings you're making there, take a long hard look at the WANTS column. Entertainment budget for you is very high, as you've noted. Again, it comes down to assessing what your long-term goal actually is versus what you're prepared to sacrifice to make it happen. It IS a sacrifice, I don't care what people say. When you're used to a certain way of life, having less and expecting it to go further makes you realise there are some things you really won't be able to do like you used to. I used to love going to the cinema a couple of times a month. Doing that now would cost you £20 a time for the ticket and snacks for one person. I've got it down to a fine art now, going to our local arthouse style cinema for £2.50 a ticket, and smuggling in my own popcorn and drink for maybe another couple of quid. Saved myself 75%! Now what that doesn't mean is going four times as often, otherwise that defeats the whole object!

With kids the age you have them, taking them to a park for a walk, or to the forest to open the door to their imaginations will be every bit as worthwhile as taking them to a theme park or whatever else you spend on them, and best of all it is free and educational. Quality time with them, engaging with them directly. They will love you for it all the more.

Board games are not a necessity, albeit I accept they are your big love in life. That's fine, but realistically, I think you could save this for the "must-have" games and make sure you actually have the money budgeted for it before you spend it.

Takeaways are the bane of peoples lives. So easy to blow £30 on a meal for two that way, which is probably half the weekly food budget for a lot of couples out there!

In short, you can easily make savings and crack down on those debts in no time at all, but you've got to want to prioritise doing so, got to have the willpower to do it and the strength of your convictions.

And if you ever need encouragement and support, this is the right place for it!

helpme_115

List of WANTS/NEEDS is a great idea, historically as soon as we have wanted something it goes straight to the need list. This is where we need to sort our self-control.

Didnt realise that NowTV had live streaming, checking the channels in entertainment package they have some of the key channels we watch. (and we have a ChromeCast so no need for a box ) Going down to Internet only plus NowTV would bring it to £35 instead of £50 (and we would prob get rid of netflix too saving a further £6.99). We have always had "all the channels" though so that will be challenging.

Thing im gonna find the hardest is saying no to social events (often going to pub for lunch at work), im not the sort that can sit there with a pint of tap water while everyone is drinking/eating

Thanks for the pointers, some good ones in there

Meatloaf1981

Hey that's great to hear! Even with your mobile phone packages, it costs you nothing to ring up your provider and get a better deal, even if you're still in contract. Utility Warehouse actually paid me £200 to buy off the remainder of my O2 contract and saved me £5 a month on a like for like plan. Best of all, I'm not tied into a contract at all!

You will develop a nice habit of challenging every price you're offered, right down to haggling for things at the market! I was in Morrisons yesterday and they had bottles of Coke Life reduced from £1.85 to £1 a bottle, right next to a label for their previous promotion that said "BOGOF". This old label should have been removed but hadn't been, so I haggled at the till and saved myself another quid! Every little helps! Wrong supermarket I know...

I still go to the pub with mates but don't drink (Never did really anyway) or if I do, I make sure I can afford it firstly, then I simply buy a pint and make it last. Don't get involved in rounds and if you're feeling hungry, get some Nobby's Nuts or whatever and munch on them! Save yourself a lot of money and saves you the embarrassment of not turning up and having to make excuses. "I'm driving" is a great one!

helpme_115

Sent this to the wife, sounds very do-able to me...

So... few options:

£66.99 a month on TV/Internet/Phone/Netflix (what we have now)

£35 a month for Internet and NowTV (Live channels include Comedy Central, NickJR, discovery, Disney, Sky 1, Sky Atlantic and a few others, 13 in total, also has TV Series on demand) Would have to watch other stuff on iplayer, 4od etc. and we can NOT record - SAVES £31.99 a month

£35 a month for Internet and Netflix BUT would also giveup TV Licence (£12 a month) so cant watch live tv (can still use catch up though) - SAVES £43.99 a month

Personally think we should give Internet/NowTV a try and see how we get on. The only channels we watch are Comedy Central and Nick JR anyway, plus you get sky atlantic other programmes we watch are on catchup.

What do you think?

Meatloaf1981

One thing you have to bear in mind with NowTV is that because it has the capacity to watch Livestreaming channels, it would still require you to have a TV licence, even if you state you don't watch it. Very grey area but I believe you would have to maintain a TV licence despite having NowTV. Even so, the savings are immediate and huge, I'm sure you'd agree.

helpme_115

Yeah that's why I said the TV licence saving would only be with internet/Netflix. Though in theory if u have internet access u need a licence as u can get iPlayer (but let's not get into that argument )