A nervous hello

flukeas

From your soa (the more experienced will be along soon to help more) i have a few questions. 400 for food is very high head over to the old style board they have some great meal plans that save a lot of money.

Clothing 20 a month is a lot is that nessisary?

Petrol costs. Can you walk/bike more?

Car insurance shop around is this the best deal you can get?

Presents. You mean to tell me you spend nothing in the year for presents?

20 a month hair cut is this nessisary? Can you do it yourself? Find a local take and get a student to do it cheaper.

Entertainment again 0 you don't go to dinner/movies/?

holiday fund what is this for?

Emergency fund.... need money here.

381 do you have this left over after the end of the month? Where does it go? Keep a spending diary.

northerner999

You haven't put your partners income, but some expenses (groceries, childcare) look to be included in full. Does your partner contribute to these? If so you may actually have more income free than your SOA says.

Is your partner fully aware of these debts and your determination to sort it out? If so, could he pick up a bit of of the tab for one of these areas on a short-term basis to free up your income to make an impact on the debts. Getting rid of the Zopa loan, for instance, would make a big difference in terms of interest.

Lawa

Thanks hun my car is silly big engine convertable not great area and 3 poinnts opps!

Food yes this is an area i need to stop. I do use aldi but convientiantly pop to tesco on my lunch

So I have started leaving purse at home this week and have bought lunch every day!

Lawa

My partner pays all of our rent and bills and also overpays our motgage (currently in negative equity)

Food I agree.

20 a month hair cut probably reduced to 10.00

Clothing is 20 as daughter with shoes and clothes ect ( i do buy second hand)

I save a small amount in a pot a week for our holidays we go to my paretns caravan so save a little each month for petrol and spending when their.

Before this month all of my leftover went on smoking

KirstyO

To show you that you don't have to deny yourself of Tesco or other mid-range supermarkets...


My housemate and I were both away for about 2 weeks over Christmas with family. We cleared out the fridge before we went but this meant a big shop when we got back...


I spent £53 on Ocado (I know a lot of people will have a sharp intake of breath at this!) however I got £20 off because I used a voucher code I got for using the app for the first shop, so around £75 worth of shopping delivered to my door. This filled the fridge and topped up the freezer and the cupboard to bursting point.


Since then I've done a £15 top-up shop at Lidl. This week we've sorted our own lunches as we won't really see each other for evening meals, so I spent £5 on lunches for the whole week (instead of £5 a day!) and could have spent less if I went for sandwiches! Housemate spent about £10 on lunches and something for the evenings for herself (I'm out 4 evenings this week). We both did our shops for this week at Tesco, and went for stuff that was on offer (but not BOGOF or 3 for 2...biggest con ever!)


Over the weekend or on Monday next week I'll probably do another top up shop at Aldi/Lidl to the tune of probably £20-30 as we are running out of fresh food and veggies.


We are very good at using what needs using - even though it leads to some interesting creations we are still getting nutritious home-cooked food 95% of the time (other 5% is occasional eating out or a ready meal if we're super short of time).


So there you go, 2 adults for 4 weeks will have cost us no more than £113. It's quite fun to see how cheap you can make a monthly shop. In November we had loads of stuff in the freezer to use so it turned out we spent £37 over a whole month just topping up fruit, veg, bread and things like yoghurts and milk! I think we will struggle to do better than that!

northerner999

If viewing this as something to deal with together rather (we don't know the nature of your relationship so it's a bit of a guess), you may wish to reconsider those mortgage overpayments - as I imagine the Zopa and Sainsburys loans are charging far more on interest than your mortgage.

That would mean it'll be longer to get out of negative equity, but house prices seem to be going up rather than down and if you are likely to stay put for a while it's less prohibitive than the debt on the life and health of you and your family.

Lawa

Thanks for this but we have recently taken on a intrest only as we rent our flat out and rent out a house.

I have just whipped up a food plan for the week.

I am going to do an inventory of what is in my freexer tonight meat wise and see how long we can live out of that.

I also have a veggie plot at the house to so come summer I will not need to buy veg

KiKi

I agree about not overpaying the mortgage until the debts are paid.

'Negative Equity' only really matters if you're looking to sell. Otherwise, the fact that your house is 'worth' less than your total mortgage debt really doesn't matter. In fact, your house is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If you're not planning to sell in the near future, then there is absolutely no point reducing your mortgage by overpayments when you have higher interest debts to pay (esp if house prices are likely to go up in the next 5-10 years, in which case you might come out of negative equity anyway).

Chances are your mortgage rate is somewhere between 2.5-6%. So assuming that's the case, you're better off paying overpayments to the debts, where interest rates are higher. And psychologically that will clear some debts and they're gone. However, if the mortgage interest rate is higher than the interest rates on your debt, then stick to overpaying the mortgage.

Well done for stopping smoking, that's fantastic - your body (and your child's health) will thank you for it!

KiKi

Lawa

TBH grace never saw me smoke as i would only smoke outside ect but i feel really good about myself at the moment so I trying to keep the ball rolling

KiKi

Lawa wrote: »

Thanks for this but we have recently taken on a intrest only as we rent our flat out and rent out a house.

I have just whipped up a food plan for the week.

I am going to do an inventory of what is in my freexer tonight meat wise and see how long we can live out of that.

I also have a veggie plot at the house to so come summer I will not need to buy veg

I guess it depends how much your partner earns, but if you have nothing in savings (hence the debts), and your current property is in negative equity (and interest only, which perhaps suggests you can't really afford it), then you may be better off considering selling one of your rental properties, paying off your debts and a chunk of your mortgage, and put some into savings for when you need to spend. (I assume you also know to pay income tax on those rentals?)

Just a thought.