Any Suggested Cutbacks

Darksparkle

Didn't fancy doing this before but I've now done all I can think of the cutback on on bills.

Mobiles are high - These are contracts, cant do anything about them now. OH and I are iPhone fans, before I got the new phone I looked into buying the handset outright but the contract was actually cheaper after taking into account free netflix for 12 months and a £5 per month trade in.

I haven't factored in presents, to be honest I have no idea what we spend on these. Between parents and stepparents there is 7, 6 siblings between us and 3 of their partners, and 3 children.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1825
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2535
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 4360

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 595
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 154
Electricity............................. 30
Gas..................................... 30
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 18.5
Mobile phone............................ 94
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 18
Internet Services....................... 10
Groceries etc. ......................... 400
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 36
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 24
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 7
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Car..................................... 260
Account Fees............................ 15
Gym..................................... 20
Union................................... 12
Total monthly expenses.................. 1850.5

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Barclaycard....................0.........0.........0
MBNA...........................6783......70........0
Family Loan....................6000......250.......0
Total unsecured debts..........12783.....320.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,360
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,850.5
Available for debt repayments........... 2,509.5
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 320
Amount left after debt repayments....... 2,189.5

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -12,783
Net Assets.............................. -12,783

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Dird

Car is on finance?
You have kids? £400/month food is a lot for 2 people
Are you actually saving over £2k/month? If so, not sure why you're needing to scrape more?

Only real saving besides food I can see is cancel TV subscription & switch your broadband to take advantage of new customer deal (instead of £28.50/month you could effectively pay below £10/month) but would need to switch every 12/18 months

Don't accept the offer of a free upgrade
Nobody cares whether you have 6s or 7 and there won't be any major new features any time soon, refusing the upgrade could cut £80/month off your bill

Darksparkle

Dird wrote: »

Car is on finance?
You have kids? £400/month food is a lot for 2 people
Are you actually saving over £2k/month? If so, not sure why you're needing to scrape more?

Only real saving besides food I can see is cancel TV subscription & switch your broadband to take advantage of new customer deal (instead of £28.50/month you could effectively pay below £10/month) but would need to switch every 12/18 months

Don't accept the offer of a free upgrade
Nobody cares whether you have 6s or 7 and there won't be any major new features any time soon, refusing the upgrade could cut £80/month off your bill

Car - Yes, I can't remember the details to be honest. I just know it's £260 per month. It's my OH car, I don't drive.

I don't NEED to cut bills, but if I can I will. I hope to have credit card paid off in next 3 months. After that, we're saving to buy our first home and getting married next year so every little helps.

Food may be high but that includes but I everything we need to for lunch etc. If not we'd both be about £5 per day at work canteen/local sandwich shop. Plus that's cleaning products too, not just food. As we're trying to save up too, we aren't going out much so that allows me a bottle of wine at the weekend.

As I said with mobiles, these are contracts and can't do anything about them now. Plus I care! I know some people don't but I use my phone, as does my OH, all the time. Plus my last phone battery was broke so needed replaced anyway.

Can't change sky subscription at present. I've never seen TV/Internet for less than £10 per month unless you go with freeview which I wouldn't want.

HappyMJ

Darksparkle wrote: »

Car - Yes, I can't remember the details to be honest. I just know it's £260 per month. It's my OH car, I don't drive.

I don't NEED to cut bills, but if I can I will. I hope to have credit card paid off in next 3 months. After that, we're saving to buy our first home and getting married next year so every little helps.

Food may be high but that includes but I everything we need to for lunch etc. If not we'd both be about £5 per day at work canteen/local sandwich shop. Plus that's cleaning products too, not just food. As we're trying to save up too, we aren't going out much so that allows me a bottle of wine at the weekend.

As I said with mobiles, these are contracts and can't do anything about them now. Plus I care! I know some people don't but I use my phone, as does my OH, all the time. Plus my last phone battery was broke so needed replaced anyway.

Can't change sky subscription at present. I've never seen TV/Internet for less than £10 per month unless you go with freeview which I wouldn't want.

I get 3 mobiles with unlimited calls between them and reasonable out of package allowances, land line with unlimited mobile and land line calls, unlimited high speed ADSL2+ internet (TalkTalk), unlimited movies on demand (Amazon Fire Stick with Kodi), unlimited catch up TV (I can wait 30 minutes to watch a TV program for free not requiring a TV License)...all for...£1.75 per month after cash back has been taken into account. I never knew I could ever get it so low and am really amazed with the price. It's required extensive negotiation to get it but that's what it costs.

You pay £152.50 per month for all of your telecommunications services and are happy so...so be it. It's only a £1,809 difference per year.

Dird

Darksparkle wrote: »

Food may be high but that includes but I everything we need to for lunch etc. If not we'd both be about £5 per day at work canteen/local sandwich shop. Plus that's cleaning products too, not just food. As we're trying to save up too, we aren't going out much so that allows me a bottle of wine at the weekend.

Even with lunch prepared that is high. I was expecting you to be eating at the canteen sometimes or something with that figure.

Darksparkle wrote: »

As I said with mobiles, these are contracts and can't do anything about them now. Plus I care! I know some people don't but I use my phone, as does my OH, all the time. Plus my last phone battery was broke so needed replaced anyway.

Everyone uses their phone and pretty much everyone has a smartphone. There's not much difference between 4 & 6s. My point is, now you're stuck in the contracts...towards the end of the contract they're going to try and make you get stuck again by offering you an iPhone 7 (or if you're towards the end of your contract now, a 6/6s)...if you want to save money then refuse and take out a sim-only with your current, perfectly functioning iPhone.

Darksparkle wrote: »

Can't change sky subscription at present. I've never seen TV/Internet for less than £10 per month unless you go with freeview which I wouldn't want.

Either you want to save money or you want luxuries~ in your SOA these are the only 3 things that could be cut down quite easily. Everything Sky offers is available through a combination of freeview & unlimited broadband.

You can see your own SOA; the only way you're realistically going to make more than a couple hundred/month extra savings is generating extra income...companies don't reward loyalty so your fixation on paid-for-TV will mean that cost will increase gradually each year. Switching your phones to sim-only when the time comes will more than cover it but isn't going to lead to big savings, although £80/month mobile savings means an extra £960/year...enough to largely cover the solicitor for your future house purchase

zolablue25

Darksparkle wrote: »

Car - Yes, I can't remember the details to be honest. I just know it's £260 per month. It's my OH car, I don't drive.

I don't NEED to cut bills, but if I can I will. I hope to have credit card paid off in next 3 months. After that, we're saving to buy our first home and getting married next year so every little helps.

Food may be high but that includes but I everything we need to for lunch etc. If not we'd both be about £5 per day at work canteen/local sandwich shop. Plus that's cleaning products too, not just food. As we're trying to save up too, we aren't going out much so that allows me a bottle of wine at the weekend.

As I said with mobiles, these are contracts and can't do anything about them now. Plus I care! I know some people don't but I use my phone, as does my OH, all the time. Plus my last phone battery was broke so needed replaced anyway.

Can't change sky subscription at present. I've never seen TV/Internet for less than £10 per month unless you go with freeview which I wouldn't want.

Seems like you've cut out all that you are prepared to cut out. Surprised you don't feel you can cut out Sky when you get Netflix with your mobile but, hey, if that's what you enjoy then that's what you enjoy. The same would go for your grocery bill - yes you could cut it but you want to have a certain lifestyle at the same time. I fear its one or the other. Some people will, whether out of necessity or not, cut spending to existence level, others will make reasonable savings without cutting their required standard of living too much.

You've already stated that your mobile bills are high but also stated that you don't really want to change that, even if you could- which you can't. You can't do without Sky and you don't want to cut your grocery bills. The car is on finance so you can't cut that so I think you are where you are and that's about as far as you can go.

Darksparkle

I get cashback of 3% on mobiles and sky.

To be honest I've never looked at TalkTalk. I dont know anyone that uses it so I only really checked BT (who I was previously with), Virgin (who I cant get in my area) and Sky (who offered the best deal at the time). The TalkTalk website says it would be £32 per month for landline and internet.

If I could get rid of the landline and keep the internet I would but I think you need both?

Dird

HappyMJ wrote: »

unlimited catch up TV (I can wait 30 minutes to watch a TV program for free not requiring a TV License)

Jealous if my mom moves out I can cancel the TV license too

Dird

Darksparkle wrote: »

I get cashback of 3% on mobiles and sky.
To be honest I've never looked at TalkTalk. I dont know anyone that uses it so I only really checked BT (who I was previously with), Virgin (who I cant get in my area) and Sky (who offered the best deal at the time). The TalkTalk website says it would be £32 per month for landline and internet.
If I could get rid of the landline and keep the internet I would but I think you need both?

The cashback means nothing when it's so high.
TalkTalk for 18 months = £17.70/month but TCB offers £111 cashback and you get a £50 voucher
Sky/TalkTalk both use BTs network. bandwidth quality will be the same
On top of this, you'd still pay £17.70/month so you get 3% cashback on that + the £111 cashback
If they announce a price increase in 6 months you can switch to someone else, keep the £111 and not pay an early exit fee.
Only virgin allow Internet without a landline but they charge more that with the landline to put people off

agrinnall

Why not post on the Debt Free Wannabe board where they are well versed in analysing SOAs?

Darksparkle

Dird wrote: »

Even with lunch prepared that is high. I was expecting you to be eating at the canteen sometimes or something with that figure.

Everyone uses their phone and pretty much everyone has a smartphone. There's not much difference between 4 & 6s. My point is, now you're stuck in the contracts...towards the end of the contract they're going to try and make you get stuck again by offering you an iPhone 7 (or if you're towards the end of your contract now, a 6/6s)...if you want to save money then refuse and take out a sim-only with your current, perfectly functioning iPhone.

Either you want to save money or you want luxuries~ in your SOA these are the only 3 things that could be cut down quite easily. Everything Sky offers is available through a combination of freeview & unlimited broadband.

You can see your own SOA; the only way you're realistically going to make more than a couple hundred/month extra savings is generating extra income...companies don't reward loyalty so your fixation on paid-for-TV will mean that cost will increase gradually each year. Switching your phones to sim-only when the time comes will more than cover it but isn't going to lead to big savings, although £80/month mobile savings means an extra £960/year...enough to largely cover the solicitor for your future house purchase

So how much do you think is an acceptable amount for 2 adults per week? Last week I spent £60. So that will do breakfast, lunch and dinner for 7 days plus some snacks. Eating home cooked meals, not £1 frozen pizza. Genuine question.

I already have the 6s. I had the iphone 5 and was perfectly happy with it, but as I said there was a problem with the battery and to get it repaired wasnt worth it price wise. If my phone had continued to work I would have been happy with sim only. Then once I got the new phone, the OH wanted one. I coudnt tell a man earning £50K a year that he cant get a new phone. He probably should have bought his out right as he didnt get any offers and contract is higher than mine but he done it without discussion.

Netflix has movies as well as TV. I dont have Sky movies or anything like that. It also has different TV shows from Sky. If they were both the same then yes I would get rid of one but they dont. Plus again, as Im not really going out much with trying to save money, I like my TV for something to do.

It is possible to both save money and have luxuries. In the last few months, I've reduced car insurance, contents insurance, cancelled cineworld cards, shopping in aldi rather than tesco etc.

Was just looking to see if there was any other ideas. Not looking to argue about whether or not I should have Sky/mobiles. Thats my choice and I am happy with it. If there are no other suggestions then thats fine.