Balancing the finances!

krispyg76

I will be the first to admit I am terrible at this. Like this month I am now left with £70 to last me till Fri 17/08. That said I don't have any bills to go out bar about £15 to BT but that's it. However I have had to throw some stuff on ebay just to have some money to get by on for the next 12 days.

So what I am thinking is what is a good plan for the month. Like take out whatever money from my bank that is not due out on bills and direct debits. Out of a basic £1200 per 4 weeks I pay out

£681 mortgage
£115 Council Tax
£40-50 Mobile bill
£12 Overdraft charges
£80 House/ Contents insurances
£18 Broadband
£15 BT
£52 Bus pass
£150 - 200 towards shopping

So I have about £40 for me so whatever I do as overtime is like spending money but that's it.

So what would work as a good plan?

lynzpower

Welcome
First off, you need to do a FULL SOA. Do you have any debts?

that 80 quid for your contents & house is HUGE- get it switched! Join quidco.com NOW, and hunt for a better deal and get some cash back for it- it will take a while to arrive tho.

Snaggles

I don't know if it would help, but we have separate accounts for different things. Our salaries go into our own sole accounts, and we have standing orders set up into our 'bills' account and our 'shopping and petrol' account.

That way, we know our bills are definitely covered, we know exactly how much we can spend on food and petrol, and whatever is left (not much!) is ours to spend.

Keeping a spending diary is a great way of keeping track of what you are buying too - it can be a bit of an eye-opener when you find out you have a £250 a year magazine habit... :eek: (just me then? )

Conor_3

Well for a start, the buildings and contents insurance is FOUR TIMES what I'm paying. The mobile bill can be cut a lot as well as can the phone/broadband - Martin has just updated how to get phone and broadband for £18 a month.

krispyg76

The insurance thing is for contents/building and also life insurance to pay the mortgage in case anything happens to us.

The broadband I got knocked down from £25 from Virgin.net to £18 but I need to see out the last month of the contract before I can switch. The deal that sky do seems an attractive one although I had loads of problems last year with Orange broadband so the idea of changing provider is one I find daunting.

The mobile is £40 a month but that covers all my texts and calls, all I pay on top is VAT plus whatever I use for wap access.

My BT bill is pretty much just the line rental and a couple of quid worth of calls.

Shopping I want to bring down somewhat becaused we have a huge Tesco 2 mins walk from us so instead of cupboards full of food I want to buy what I want for lunch,dinner that day as and when we want it. At the moment we have enough food in to supplement or go with about 2 weeks worth of dinners but I cant use any of it to make a meal as such. i would rather look at it and think right Monday I want a curry, Tuesday I want something italian and then on the Monday just buy what I need for the next day or two. It's not like it's any hassle.

I'll be honest my weakness is twofold, one I am crap with a debit card. It's not like I keep track of what I use it for and cos it doesn't show up on statements for a day or two I forget about purchases. Secondly I am reckless with spending, instead of looking at my calendar and saying this month I have x, x and x direct debits so I need to leave in the bank £900 I forget about them and a week before payday I have £10 left for me.

I really need to just take out my "spending" money at the start of the month and what I have in my hand is what there is to spend.

But i think I can juggle this and balance that and it just does not work as the next time I get paid, the money I gewt is eaten into from last months bills and then it carries on from there.

Money is not my strong point lol

redsquirrel80

krispyg76 wrote: »

Shopping I want to bring down somewhat becaused we have a huge Tesco 2 mins walk from us so instead of cupboards full of food I want to buy what I want for lunch,dinner that day as and when we want it. At the moment we have enough food in to supplement or go with about 2 weeks worth of dinners but I cant use any of it to make a meal as such. i would rather look at it and think right Monday I want a curry, Tuesday I want something italian and then on the Monday just buy what I need for the next day or two. It's not like it's any hassle.

I'll be honest my weakness is twofold, one I am crap with a debit card. It's not like I keep track of what I use it for and cos it doesn't show up on statements for a day or two I forget about purchases. Secondly I am reckless with spending, instead of looking at my calendar and saying this month I have x, x and x direct debits so I need to leave in the bank £900 I forget about them and a week before payday I have £10 left for me.

I really need to just take out my "spending" money at the start of the month and what I have in my hand is what there is to spend.

But i think I can juggle this and balance that and it just does not work as the next time I get paid, the money I gewt is eaten into from last months bills and then it carries on from there.

Money is not my strong point lol

Shopping - how many people is that for? Have a look at the Old Style forum and especially the Grocery Challenge for tips on getting your bill down. A lot of people find meal planning helps - work out what you want to eat for the week, write a list (with prices if possible - keep old receipts or check online), then go and ONLY buy what's on the list. Personally, I try to have a big stock of basics, then go shopping with a priced list of fruit, veg, bread, cheese, then allow myself x amount for meat/ fish depending on what they've got cheap. You might find that doing a weekly shop would cut down the temptation to spend on extra bits and pieces. Either that or find out what time of day your Tesco has good reductions and go then.

As for the debit card, if you can't trust yourself, then don't take it out with you. Try giving yourself a weekly budget, take it out in cash at the start of the week and leave your card at home.

Good luck!

painted_lady

krispyg76 wrote: »

The deal that sky do seems an attractive one although I had loads of problems last year with Orange broadband so the idea of changing provider is one I find daunting.

We did this switch in feb and Orange were terrible, the service fromSKY so far has been much better!

The mobile is £40 a month but that covers all my texts and calls, all I pay on top is VAT plus whatever I use for wap access.
This still sounds dear!

peanutNboo_2

Your rates are rather high also. I assume that your payment plan is over 9 or 10 months up until Feb 08 as usual. You can contact your council and request they recalculate your rates and allow you to pay over 12 months right up to March 08 it might save another £20 a month :beer:

I have to say I don't understand how a cell fone bill can be £40-50 a month but if you like to chat why not chat completly free ! get a cheap headset and microphone download Skype for free and you can talk all day and all night to anyone in the world for free . Get a £15.00 webcam and you will be able to see each other too

krispyg76

Thanks for all the help so far.

Regards shoppping I want cupboards with very little in them and just buy the food I want for that days meal, thats the idea of living so close to a supermarket. In the past I have tried a big shop at the start of the month ie tinned, packet stuff and then each week just buy the fresh stuff. But my cupboards are full of tinned tomatoes, soup, super noodles etc from back then. Then I decided something similar each week and buy fresh as I want it. Same thing still happenned. So now we have tesco open, I want to buy food each day for what I need.

A meal planner would be a great idea, sit and work out what I want each month for the 28 days untill i get paid again.

I might spend a few hours doing that, going through online recipe sites and coming up with different ideas, any good recommendations? The other thing i find with that, as it's just two of us, if I buy a pack of something then I use it once and I might not need it for ages. I use dried herbs and fresh stuff like ginger, garlic, chillies I buy in preservative (Really lazy co.) cos they last me. I also have to be careful what we buy as we are both eating sensibly to try and lose weight so buying fresh and cooking is better than packs/jars/packets etc But say I make a recipe and it requires 1 onion, 1 apple, 2 carrots (Pork casserole) then I can't always buy such quantities. So I buy a bag of carrots and then a few days later they are going mouldy so it's wasteful.

Mobile - I have tried to look at it that I will get a tarrif that covers what I need, I have gone through my bills in the past and looked at what i'm using each month and getting a tarrif that ensures I don't go over.

Broadband - i will look at when I have had it for 12 months, as it's with Virgin there is not a 12 month contract but there is a £50 charge if you want to cancel it within the first year so it's worth waiting.

Conor_3

krispyg76 wrote: »

The insurance thing is for contents/building and also life insurance to pay the mortgage in case anything happens to us.

It's still too expensive. Home and Buildings insurance shouldn't be much more than around £20 a month. Life Insurance no more than £10-£15. Remember when taking out the buildings insurance, the amount of cover is to cover the cost of rebuilding the property, NOT the market value. There's a huge difference between the two. Mine would cost £50k to rebuild but it's market value is over twice that. Many people make the mistake of putting in the market value when filling in the form and therefore pay more than they need to.

The mobile phone is also too expensive. I pay £32 a month on "3" for 500 minutes and 100 texts PLUS internet access. I use mine for business and rarely use the minutes every month. You're skint. You need to prioritise your spending and waffling on a phone you can barely afford isn't a priority. Go for a lower tariff and get people to call you.

saxmund

I think you'll find that planning your menu a month in advance is too difficult: I do it weekly, and manage to buy most of the food for the week in one go at the weekend. For meals at the end of the week, meat gets popped in the freezer for a couple of days and I try to use veg that will keep the week (or frozen peas). There is no need to buy stuff in jars: garlic keeps forever with your vegetables; chilis and root ginger keep for quite a while in the fridge.

If Tesco won't sell you basic veg loose rather than in big quanities, you need to vote with your feet and go somewhere else - this is one of the things that most annoys me about supermarkets.

I pay about £38 to Virgin for combined TV, phone and broadband, with free evening and weekend calls, and about £10 a quarter for a pay as you go mobile. It works for me. I'm thinking of cutting the TV part of the package to a cheaper one as I don't really use it that much.

I organise the buildings insurance for a block of 6 flats - it costs £75 a month for the whole block. On top of that I pay £80 a year for my own contents insurance. So you must be able to get it cheaper if you shop around.