Aiming to clear debt of £8,852

Mrtight

The good old BBC TAX you have to pay tv license not worth the hassle! You tube some clips about tv licence and how people tell the inspectors that they have no tv. Bit of an eye opener but I wouldn't want to do that on my door step.

What you say about food sound very much how Wife was/is. Rule is the cook (me) chooses the food. She use to say "don't know where the food money goes" as she was eatting samon... Now I ask how's the liver and mash!
Just think what your food mom use to do full of goodness and tend to be cheap meals.
Your food bill is good but if you stop haven so many takeaway I would say this would go up. Aldi is the answer and by the mirror at end of month £4off a £40shop

FBaby

How old are your children? Your budget seem to show little spent on them. I am guessing that they are little (not eating too much yet, no school diners, activities, clothes that are not second hand etc...).

My advice would be to consider that children cost more and more as they get older, much more! The worse is when they are still at primary school because you are still limited with childcare.

Your income is not that high but yet seem to live your life as if it was higher in regards to luxuries. Is there any plan for your wife to increase her income?

FireWyrm

helpme_115 wrote: »

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.

OK, look at it this way....why would I spend my evenings writing fairly long responses and have done so for several years? I dont know you from Adam and it's no skin off my nose either way. I do it because you (and many others) dearly need someone to tell it like it is and that is the only way you will see what is wrong and where to fix it. Yes, you are being naive and I see you have come to realise at least part of this by re-organising your TV watching to something a little less stratospheric. There is no substitute for discipline and nothing less than a Damascene moment is going to turn your finances around. Every second you delay, you are robbing your future self of comfort in retirement, every second you delay, has the potential for disaster that renders you and your family incapable of taking care of yourself. Tomorrow, you could end up in an car accident (god forbid) for which you are totally and entirely unprepared. You are living paycheque to paycheque with absolutely no safety net and all because of your unwillingness to make a tiny sacrifice of your 'entertainment' budget. I'm not saying that it will happen, or even that it is particularly likely, but you still dont seem to see the enormity of how precarious your situation really is.

None of us here are capable of turning our finances around without motivation and this should be yours. Someone upthread has raised the idea of YNAB and this is good. I didnt want to frighten you by raising that too early, but since it has been....here is your chance. Think of it as one year to save your (financial) life. If you master YNAB, if you do what has been suggested and not just tiny changes, but dramatic and necessary ones, this time next year you will be sitting on a reasonable emergency fund, be slightly more prepared for adversity and wondering why you didnt do this 20 years ago when you first earned a paycheque.

You are frittering not just your future, but the stability and comfort of your family for a short term gain now. Yes, I may sound evangelical and why should you listen to me...you dont know me. But rest assured, I have been where you are, I have gone hungry more times than I care to remember. I have frittered the future and time is running out for me as it is for us all....but at least, I see. I just want you to as well.

Your user name is 'helpme'. We're trying to...let us.

helpme_115 wrote: »

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)

If you have Homeserve for the next year, there is probably no reason to change it now, but you need to think carefully about this for the future. You need to weigh the odds of what is likely and what the result of adversity will be and in most cases, you could do much better with a healthy emergency fund and some common sense rather than being swayed by fear. It's all I have to say. Saving £10 here or there is nothing...it's a drop in the ocean. You need to make much bigger savings and much more quickly. Tinkering around the edges of your financial life is pointless...you need to rethink it, from the top down, bottom up and every way else that matters. 3 months of YNAB will do that for you and then...you will wonder what on earth you were thinking for the preceding decades.

Firewalker

You've decided to pay off your debt in 2015? Great.

Now, about your 'budget'. From some of the comments I'm getting the impression that it is a 'nerrative' - in other words a story that you are trying to fit on your life. My experience is that it's always better to start with your life and change it.

The 'entertainlent' burget is very generous - have a look at it again and think how you can bring this down without feeling deprived. When we were paying off our debt (and we paid off £100,000 in three years) I found that we had great fun with little ot no money. When I ask my son what he rememebers from this time, he doesn't seem to remember all the times we went to the cinema (expense), eating out (expense) etc. but he remembers us playing tennis on the communal tennis courts; or playing badminton on the street (free). Just saying.

One budgeting idea that helped us a lot is known as the ERR strategy for money management. This is simple: you create a record of what you spend on and how much and then look through it andd place the expensiture in three groups: eliminate, replace and reduce. Take-aways, for instance, can be eliminated; all waste in your budget (forgotten direct debits, included) should be eliminated. You can change the way in which you do things with a bit of imagination so that you continue leading a fulfilling life and pay much less for that (a friend was telling me she saves a fortune by going back to borrowing books rather than buying them). And finally, you can have less of some things (board games, included).

Try the ERR money management - it is real, it will reflect your life and values and you'll find that your money goes much further.

To pay off your debt fast, you may also think of increasing your income a bit (can your wife earn a bit more, for example?).

Firewalker

helpme_115

Mrtight wrote: »

The good old BBC TAX you have to pay tv license not worth the hassle! You tube some clips about tv licence and how people tell the inspectors that they have no tv. Bit of an eye opener but I wouldn't want to do that on my door step.

Dont like that they put fear into people but if i dont use something I dont really want to pay for it. Paying £12 a month just so that someone doesnt knock your door is wrong...

Children are 3 and 1, currently dont spend to much on them (clothes we tend to get hand me downs or bags from ebay, food they just have a bit of ours)

No plan to increase wife's income at the moment but when the children are in full time education we will certainly be looking at it (childcare costs for 2 make it pointless to work unless in a really well paid job)

I had purchased YNAB and installed on both our phones before I made this thread, the wife has signed up to it so touch wood we are all set to go.

Firewalker, Entertainment budget has gone down to £125, £50 each and £25 for her Rock Choir, this is something i really dont want to take away as its her only out of the house time she gets and really enjoys it. Will recreate the SOA when things have settled a bit (its a real pain having to fill it all in again)

Will take a look at ERR Strategy thanks.

Update to Virgin package, was £57 a month for everything, now £24.99 for internet only (fixed price, not just intro offer but new 12 month contract), will also be getting NowTV for £6.99 for the few channels we watch and on demand content and have cancelled Netflix

Before: £64
Now: £32
Saving: £32 a month

Thank you guys for the motivation to get me to actually do it!

in_need_of_direction

Truly love that you see your wife's rock choir as an essential. She not only needs the time away from home but also the company of other adults. Well done you.

SmlSave

Hi

I have a suggestion about the entertainment money. Can you write down every penny you spend on things you class as enjoyment and what they are for a few months? It's a surprisingly hard thing to do but you'll be able to spot what changes you can make. For example...do a no buying board games challenge where you have to play all the ones you already have.

I also agree with MrTight where the cook chooses the meal and the others job is to say something nice about it. (My dh is a fussy eater but will always eat some of what I make so the kids see us all eating the same thing, he then has a sandwich once they're in bed.)

Lots of luck from me! We are still finding a balance between our needs and wants, its too easy to buy lunch than take a packed one. See if you can reduce the lunches/visits to the pub one at a time till it's just once a week so you can look forward to it.

Good luck with your debt