Income boost

Pingu1

Now the new year has started I am becoming very anxious about my income. My mortgage interest will rise this summer from a two year fixed rate. I work as a Civil Servant in London, and have been for nearly 8 years. My salary is £25K and I am on a yearly 1% pay rise, which amounts to £10 extra per month. Basically I don't earn enough each month to cope with price rises. Is there anything I could do to earn extra? Ideally I need to find a new job, but that could take months, and I don't feel ready yet; internal promotion at work is impossible (tried that last year). I reckon I am about £100-200 short each month. I thought about letting out my parking space as I don't have a car, however I am a leaseholder and the freeholders has already said no (not sure how they would find out as they never visit the property?). I don't really want to get a second job as I would be constantly tired, and my performance might drop in my main job. I'm also not sure how it would work with income tax?

The only thing I can think to do is cut back on socialising and going out. I haven't had a holiday in 5 years as I can't afford one. I'm also on medication to cope with serious anxiety.

Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

droopsnoot

There are plenty of things you could do to earn extra money, though it depends on exactly what skills you have as to what they might be. First thing to do might be to sit down and work out exactly what comes in and what is going out, to see what you can economise on, reduce or generally improve.


If you were to take on a second job, income tax would just be totalled between the two, and probably dealt with as part of your tax code. I say "probably" because you might take a second job somewhere that doesn't deduct tax at source, so you'd have to do a self-assessment each year, but that's not particularly difficult. Sensible to consider the possibility it might affect your main job though.

buzzyzoe

You could try doing an SOA

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

There is a link at the end to post to MSE. Then people could advise where you could cut back.

I started couponing for my food shopping and it has dropped from £200 per month to around £70 per month, changed electricity suppliers, reduced my phone from contract to sim only and negotiated with Sky to get a better rate on my package.

These changes mean I am around £185 better off per month with no real change to my lifestyle so it can make more of a difference than you might think