Soa

petsitter2000

Hi, I'm new to this forum. My income has gone down quite a lot due to retirement and I need help to live within my means.

Thanks in advance.


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,416.67
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile phones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
TV licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53.50
Home phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cleaning products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.33
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Council tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84.00
Overdraft cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Bank account fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524.00
Plumbing/Boiler cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage payment protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Food and household shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.67
Drinks for home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.67

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88.96
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.00
Car maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Rail/Buses/Taxis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Debt Repayments

Credit card repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200.00
Hire purchase repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134.00
Personal loan repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car loan repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149.00

Savings & Investments

Pension payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Buying shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cash ISAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump sum saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Family

Pet food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pocket money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby-sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Playgroups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family days out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cinema/Theatre trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big days out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (antivirus, etc) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complimentary therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.17
Beauty treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Healthcare cash plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private medical insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Work clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New children's clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00

Education & Courses

University tuition fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One-Offs

Funeral expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46.67
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Winter holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.33
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers and magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular charity donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,416.67


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,955.42

downshifter

Is there just one of you? If so, the things that jump out at me are your food/household shopping,which is huge; drinks at home, and petrol. I spend around £25 a week on food/household, after all if you're at home more you have time to cook from scratch. Lots of ideas on the old-style board. Drinks at home - not sure what this is about but obviously this can be cut completely, then petrol - if you don't have to go to work then you can cut this down hugely. Plan a shopping trip to town on the same day as you visit a friend etc, rather than lots of separate trips etc. Walk to shops if poss. If you're over 60 get a bus pass. All common sense really. Whichever, you'll need to budget for car maintenance/breakdown won't you?

Your heating bill might go up a bit if you're at home all day, depends on how well insulated your house is, how many jumpers you're prepared to wear and so on.

More ideas will I'm sure, follow.

DS

anna_1977

Hi,
Just a couple of things that are glaringly obvious:
as above how many in the household.
The Food/Drink stand out as a LOT
Internet of £53 is also huge, even if this includes TV pacakage, drop to the basic
Hair cut of £20 per month could surely be reduced
Summer holiday so probably be forgotten
New clothes are not a necessity

petsitter2000

Thank you Downwshifter.
yes there is only me. Will check out the oldstyle boards. Drinks are for wine. I'm partial to a bottle of wine of an evening but will cut this down by 50%.
I change my car for a new one every 3 years so no maintenance or mot etc. My car has no tax either. Just a payment of £134 per month.
Regarding petrol yes I suppose I won't need so much now I'm not working. Will monitor my use.
I'm prepared to wear a woolly jumper or two if this cuts my fuel bill.

dirtycredit

Cut down on the food and keep the vino! :beer:

downshifter

petsitter2000 wrote: »

Thank you Downwshifter.
yes there is only me. Will check out the oldstyle boards. Drinks are for wine. I'm partial to a bottle of wine of an evening

Haha, aren't we all?!! It's just that if you can't make ends meet then some changes have to be acknowledged. Cutting cloth and all that. I have wine too (or g and t) but include it in my food/household bill. So if I don't need to spend the amount I put aside each week for food etc, I can afford a boozy treat.

Do you keep a record of what you spend? There are various packages but I find a standard simple spreadsheet fine. Or a notebook works as well. After a couple of weeks of recording every penny you'll be able to work out a budget (mine is £25 food, £25 petrol and so on)

Now I do this routinely I wish I'd done it when I was working full time, I would've been so rich now!!

petsitter2000

Ha Dirtycredit!! Budgeting is new to me so I'm really going off the past when I was working.
I agree, new clothes won't be needed and I will try and cut down on my food and drink bill. My internet package is for phone and tv. I have only just renewed it so will have to wait a year to renew again.
Downshifter, I will start to log down everything I spend. I never really needed to consider things before as my salary was quite good. Although I'm not a big spender I just think I waste money without thinking.
once my credit card and loan is paid off I should be in a better position.
Thanks for all the helpful replies so far.

andyfromotley

HI Petsitter and welcome. I retired two years ago and have had to cope with a very similar set of circumstances as like you i suspect my income dropped in half.

Wow - you have a full scale, fully fleged DEBT EMERGENCY!!!! You are currently in the red to the tune of £529 every month!!! Or nearly £6.5k per year. Yikes.

So, given that this is a DEBT EMERGENCY you are going to have to make some drastic changes.

The easiest way to resolve this is to get a job.Dont know how you feel about that but its about the only option in the short term i imagine. You do not have enough room to make cuts in your SOA that will make you solvent.

Other things to consider are
1. Is your mortgage on the lowest rate possible?
2. Is your CC debt on 0%?
3.You will need to consider another methid of vehicle ownership.

all of which will potentially reap huge savings.

But essentially your choices boil down to a) getting a job that brings in at least £529 per month. or b) Making huge cuts to your current expenditure such as
Food - £150pm
Drink - 0
Clothes - 0
Petrol - 40pm
Haircuts £0
Beauty Treatments -£0
Holiday - £0

Which will save you £442 pm still leaving you over £110pm short each month.

Some hard decisions and thinking for you.

EssexHebridean

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,416.67
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile phones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
TV licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53.50
Home phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cleaning products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Err...nothing at all?
Garden maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.33
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Council tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84.00
Overdraft cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Bank account fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524.00
Plumbing/Boiler cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage payment protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Food and household shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.67 Yes, just for you you can halve that easily - probably knock off some more too by savvy shopping
Drinks for home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.67 Halve it - but you're on that already I see. Also look to buy on special offers - 3 for £10 deals etc. Assuming you're not in Scotland?

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88.96
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.00
Car maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 I saqw your comment elsewhere about the car - but what about tyres, if a bulb blows, that sort of thing ?
Rail/Buses/Taxis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Debt Repayments

Credit card repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200.00
Hire purchase repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134.00
Personal loan repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car loan repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149.00

Savings & Investments

Pension payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Buying shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cash ISAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump sum saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Family

Pet food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pocket money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby-sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Playgroups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment You spend nothing at all on entertainment? No days out, trips to see family, portion of chips on the way home, cup of tea and a cake somewhere?

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family days out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cinema/Theatre trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big days out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (antivirus, etc) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complimentary therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.17
Beauty treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Healthcare cash plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private medical insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Work clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New children's clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00

Education & Courses

University tuition fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One-Offs

Funeral expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46.67
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Winter holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.33 Do you actually set this aside each month or is this an "ideal world" figure? If the latter it's skewing your budget...
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers and magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular charity donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Never? Nothing at all?


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,416.67


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,955.42

On the subject of your car - no, you USED to buy new every three years - it doesn't look like that will be able to continue now though does it. That of course means you do need to start budgeting for maintenance, too, I'm afraid...

Your figure under Petrol/Diesel - what is this for? I'm not suggesting you can cut it, but there is nothing to explain it in your entertainments budget, and I'm assuming it's not just going to the shops, at that amount. Assuming you're entitled to free travel on your local buses can you cut your car use by that means? My Dad uses his bus pass wherever he possibly can as he always says he doesn't see why he should pay for what he can get for nothing! :rotfl:

How much longer to go on the Car payment, Car loan and credit card payments? At the moment the books really don't balance, do they.

petsitter2000

Hi Andyfrommotley
yes my cc are now all on 0%
Yes my morgtgage is on the lowest interest rate possible.
I owned a car outright before and ended up paying a fortune in the end on repairs.

EssexHebridean
Cleaning products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Err...nothing at all?
I include such things as cleaning products, pet food etc in my grocery shop.
My monthly car payment includes, servicing for 3yrs, breakdown cover.
My figure on petrol is based on when I was working. I have literally just retired so don't know how much petrol I will use but clearly it wont be as much as when I was working. I am monitoring this and will adjust when I have been retired a few months.
Car payment is on going.
Loan is 3yrs.
Credit cards I will keep rolling over to 0% interest until its all Gone.

Regarding the summer holiday no I don't save for it. I'm just assuming thats how much it will cost to spend a week in my friends villa in Turkey. Villa free but flights and spending money would come to about £400.
My hobby is playing golf. I have just cancelled my membership as I can no longer afford it.
I will have to monitor going out, entertainement etc as it all used to revolve around playing golf. Thats why I have left it blank.

No the books do not balance. That is why I am asking for help on this website.
Thank you for all the suggestions so far.
I will certainly take them on board.

PS

andyfromotley

petsitter2000 wrote: »

Hi Andyfrommotley

No the books do not balance. That is why I am asking for help on this website.
Thank you for all the suggestions so far.
I will certainly take them on board.

PS


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Hi PS,

so given the suggestions what are your thoughts on making the books balance then?