SOA - am I doing it right?

jo1972

Hi there :wave:

Welcome to the board and well done for posting!

Sounds as though you've made a good start already, I can't believe your OH can't get working tax credit, it shouldn't matter how old you are!

If you go over to the old style board you will get great tips on how to cut back on your general spending, shopping, cleaning and such like and also the moneysaving in marriages, relationships and families board will give you great moneysaving tips for when the baby comes along. Babies do not necessarily have to be expensive, freecycle will be a great source of things that you need for the baby, just because things are second hand doesn't make them second rate. I personally would only give something away if it was in a state I was happy to receive and that's what most freecycle members are like.

Anything you do buy, buy online and through Quidco if possible, if not try Pigsback or GreasyPalm for cashback.

Good luck to you and your OH with the baby, I look forward to hearing your progress - you're in the right place :beer:

Jo.

matthewking26

The tax credits are due to my low income for 06-07 tax year, once the 07-08 application is completed they will presumably stop with the higher income?
I applied as a single person as my partner is not yet living in the same house, she moves in soon. the water is paid monthly but there's a 2 month payment break each year. I use internet banking to pay for everything so I can see it going out.
The credit card payment minimum is 2.5%, but I am overpaying (minimum payment was something like £214 last month) I can't overpay by much more sadly but as it goes down I aim to carry on paying £250 every month so the overpayment will gradually be a higher percentage of the total (made good use of whats the cost website!)
The main expense looks like being nappies when the babies born as we couldn't afford the one off big bill for reusable it's going to have to be ongoing costs of dsposables.
I love the idea of a notebook to record weekly spend against weekly allowance for food. That'll probably encourage us to spend less and keep better track of where it is going. Genius!
Have got a P46 from HR, filled it in and given it back, thanks so much for suggesting that as that could make a big difference to the tax they take. They said its only on a 1 month basis until my P45 appears, does that mean I'll have to fill in another one in September if it doesn't? I'll be on a 522L emergency tax code if that means anything to anyone?
Will be a long hard slog to get debt free but I'm determined to make the debt get smaller, not bigger! Want to be able to provide for partner and baby for a very long time! And by Nov 2010 I'll hopefully be on here breathing a huge sigh of relief and trying to pass on tips to other people (and probably still be trying to sell the car:p )

jo1972

Matthew, trust me there'll still be a lot of us here with you :rotfl:

At least we're all doing something about it rather than keeping our heads stuck firmly in the sand!

tyllwyd

When the baby is born you should get child benefit.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childbenefit/index.htm

You should also get child tax credit (which I think is a bit higher for babies under one year old).
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/TaxCreditsandChildBenefit/TaxCredits/DG_4015478

Ms_Piggy_2

Babies needn't cost much!

Cloth nappies are far cheaper than disps (not to mention the other advantages, like not adding to land fill etc). Try freecycle to start with, but you could also get them second hand (and sell on afterwards!). There are lots of different types, so there's sure to be a type that suits you.

Encourage your partner to breastfeed - it's cheap (free!), convenient and best for her and the baby! Look into joining a La Leche League group (or similar) so that if she needs help and support she already has a network in place.

Join NCT - they have some great second hand sales.

HTH

Robflh

Hi matthewking26

22% for a credit card is a lot. Whether you do or do not get the Goldfish credit card, wait two months and then apply for a Tesco credit card. They have a 0% offer that lasts for twelve months.
http://www.tescofinance.com/personal/finance/finance/creditcards/index.jsp

If you could transfer all of the £6965, you would be saving £130 a month. However, you would still have to make the minimum payment each month (£175).

Use the Tesco card to buy your food. Whatever the bill comes to, take away from it £130 and then pay that much more for that months credit card bill.

Ie. Shopping bill for the month £170.00 minus £130 equals £40. When the next Tesco card statement arrives, you would pay £175 plus £40 equals £215. That means most of the cost of your food bill is being paid for by the interest you was paying and you have another £130 in your pocket.

Two months before the Tesco 0% offer ends, apply for another 0% credit card and transfer the balance.

As long as you shop at Tesco’s or you are paying back what you have spent, you will pay no interest for twelve months. Now setup a Standing Order to make extra payments to the loan or if that is not possible, pay every penny you can into an ISA or a high interest account and then at the end of the twelve months pay a lump some off the loan.

Online banking will allow you to increase or decrease the Standing Order, whenever you need to.

matthewking26

It's long, bear with me! And it's only the 10th so far

Well, I've started keeping a spending diary and staying to the weekly budget is tricky. I have £20 in my overdraft left until the end of the month. My OHs bank balance is healthier but she did go shopping yesterday. We should do ok maybe?

I shouldn't complain as last time she went a few months ago she spent £90 on makeup and £100 on clothes and this time she spent £45 including £8 on nappies so big improvement.

She bought palmers cocoa butter oil for stretchmarks. She read the normal one for £3.50 and the one for pregnancy for £5.00 and the only difference was the pregnancy one had 2 extra ingredients, orange scent and collagen. As she said, what's the point of collagen in a tube, it has to be injected into you to make any difference! So saved £1.50 there. Her best purchase was a £7.50 big purse (not too expensive I hope?) so she can fit all the receipts in there she's going to keep from now on to put in the spending diary. I love her!

Had to put £20 of petrol in my car though on my credit card. OH put £25 in hers so mine had to go on CC. We've been for one day out and went to an English Heritage place to use our membership and go somewhere for free. We took packed lunch too to save buying anything there.

We can renew in January using our clubcard vouchers (how's this for tactical, sent off several family old phones to Tesco for 500 points each, built up enough for £30 in vouchers = £120 in deals, renewing membership will cost £70 of deals which leaves us enough for RAC cover for OH car (£14 of vouchers) or magazine subscription to parent and baby type magazine (£8 )

No interested buyers in my car so don't know whether to pay £15 to put it on autotrader or pay to get the dent removed first but risk that being wasted money if still nobody wants to buy it. Any suggestions? Should I ebay it or does that risk ebay taking a fee and the car not selling anyway?

Took the takeaway advice, since the start of August we just spent £6.00 on a takeaway for 2 from Asda when we did our shopping which saved money. And everytime I think about buying a snack or magazine I calculate how much it would cost, don't spend it and then next time I'm on internet banking I pay off that much of my credit card, it may only be a few quid per time but it all helps. I especially like trying to pay £1 off the credit card everytime I go on internet banking, psychologically it means I'm paying bits off all the time rather than a single big amount at the start of the month and then not being able to pay anymore off for a whole month.

And I'm not doing bad having looked in detail at my credit card statements:
In May £8278 (highest it's ever been), also major light bulb moment!
June £8000
Jul £7225 (change of jobs so 2 payslips for this month, put all of one jobs pay onto card)
Now £6966

From now on though I'll only be able to pay off £250 per month though so will take longer but it is more than the 3% minimum (just!). If I ever sell the car it'll take the balance down a fair bit.

I have rung the boss of my old Saturday job so will be doing Saturdays in that job. Working 6 days a week from now on but will be an extra £200 per month coming in to help bite into credit card debt for as long as possible, don't know if I'll be able to do it after the baby's born though but any extra amount helps for now!

Need someone to nudge me though to clean my old bike, take some photos and put it on ebay. Anyone any ideas whether it's cost effective to post a bike though? How would I go about it? Or better to specify collection only?

How am I doing? Sometimes feel as if I'm making progress, and sometimes banging my head on a brickwall and not moving anywhere! I do like the total change in mindset of me and OH now though, we see debt as something to get rid off, not ignore. And we don't fall for marketing anywhere near as much!

Me and OH have set ourselves a challenge of only buying from fruit and veg shop or the costcutters for bread and milk for the rest of the month though as we spent £45 in Asda on Monday (plus £6 for the takeaway) and want it to last all month. Can we do it? I hope so! We were in there nearly two hours, looking for the cheapest of everything, reading the ingredients and trying to get tinned or frozen everything so it lasts!

The big expense is her car has to be serviced and MOT'd this month, £262 quid! And for her to move in with me the letting agency want an admin fee of £77! Why is it there's always something that want's to take a bite? Ouch for both. Hopefully by doing no more supermarket shopping we can afford both.

Any advice/encouragement greatly appreciated!

CharliesAngel

Blimey! I wish I was that organised, nice one!

I do my asda shopping online as you can see the total at the bottom and you can still get the same deals as in store. It also makes you think when you add things to your trolley - do you want to buy brand beans or smart price beans at a third of the price?!

Also found that I spend 47/50 quid on a shop and it lasts me a good 7 weeks... good old beans on toast!

Aldi is fab for fruit and veg and really cheap...

Have you looked locally for a local government MOT test centre? They do really cheap MOT's and don't advertise, be worth ringing your council or putting it in a search engine, my last one with service cost 79.80.

Bear in mind also on the moving in front, council tax is likely to go up now you're not a single inhabitant... but as suggested before, if you can ask them to pay over 12 months instead of 10, it shouldn't be too much of a pain..

lol @ posting a bike... you could always try it make them come to you is what i say lol

good luck with it all... you're both doing so well.

CA

trying-very-trying

Sorry if someone has covered this already, but I think you should maybe phone the tax credit and ask them if your increased wage will affect your payment amounts. I know that the credit paid this year is calculated on last years income, but they assume that you earn the same money this year. If you don't tell them about your increased wage they may ask you to repay any overpayment next year. Hope that makes sense.

matthewking26

Well, we haven't managed to get to the end of the month without going supermarket shopping again. Oh well, nobody's perfect (except Homer). At least we went once a fortnight instead of once a week. And we spent £45 mainly on frozen as we were given an extra freezer (more electric use versus less food waste???)
On the plus side have managed to chip the credit card down by another few quid, it feels so good to knock off a few quid each day even though it would be easier to do one big lump sum each month.
got a quote for repairing the car, £350 for the side and £200 for a dent in the bonnet that appeared while it's been parked in the street, grrrr! so £550 to get it perfect. Will it add enough to the resale value to make it worthwhile?
And anyone know how I can get something for my partners birthday at the end of August without spending a fortune but not looking like a tight git?