SOA - please help!! I want to start today!

matchboxfull

I've noticed on your SOA that you have entered £7000 for your partner's take home pay. Is this a nice round £7k every month? Are there some odds there that you are missing or rounding up? Is his income variable from month to month? And, if so, is the £7k representative of his lowest or his average monthly income?

Forward_thinking

Pixie - thank you - really kind of you.

Thank you for the help - I really do appreciate it. Some questions asked:

Anna - our children are 12, 9, 6, 1.

I'm hesitant to say where we live but it is an hour from London and is expensive. The house we have is large (5 beds) and I agree we need to move somewhere smaller but husband says they check your credit cards too. I'm sure this was clarified by his accountant.

The £386 for child expenses refers to clubs and school dinners for two children.

Forward_thinking

matchboxfull - it varies from £6,700 to £7,000 so yes, I have rounded up.

anna_1977

Hi Forwardthinking - thanks for clarifying the ages of the children - you must have your hands full

I really hope you manage to get the costs down

Anna

Goldiegirl

Thanks to Pixie for putting the figures in an easier to read format


OP, your household income is high by most people's standards, but it looks as if you have still been living above your income - I think it's possible that there's an element of keeping up appearances going on here. People expect you to have a big house and big car, a big holiday and entertain lavishly, so you do all that, even though it's beyond your means


There comes a point where you have to think - enough - and ignore what everyone else thinks. In order to put this right, you'll need to make changes, which can be tough. But you can't go on like this




I found £2000 a month in fairly easy savings, which would free up the money you need to service your month repayments


£600 - halve the grocery expenditure - meal planning, cooking from scratch will help with this


£193 - Halve child related expenses - maybe the kids will have to stop some of their clubs


£300 - ditch the medical insurance - you can't afford this


£500 - ditch the holiday for a few years at least - you can't afford this


£200 - ditch the cleaner - you can't afford this


£225 - Halve the amount spend on presents and parties


Total savings £2018


This is before getting into things like cars and the rent, and other smaller things like haircuts.


You could make massive savings - clear your debts quickly, start saving for an emergency fund so that you don't have to rely on credit cards if something goes wrong, and then consider for the long term like house purchase, so you aren't always going to have to pay rent.

greensalad

Here's a car idea:

Put the whole family on a grocery budget freeze for a month. Half your grocery spend, now you've got £600 to put towards a secondhand car. Here's a Ford Galaxy for £595. Boom, £600 saved a month. You can put half the cash you're spending on the hire car towards the MOT/maintenance costs and half towards debt repayment.

House-wise, you should pass referencing as long as you're employed and have no CCJs. Referencing tends to be CCJs, outstanding court dates etc only - not credit scores.

Reduce from a 5 bed to a largeish 3 bed and bunk some of the kids together. Depending on gender that should work pretty well. Sharing a room with a brother/sister is one of those things I think a lot of people say they would never dream of, but as long as the room is large enough for them each to have their own areas I don't really think it impacts anyone that much. In fact I have wealthy friends who do just this and it's given them an even closer bond.

lee111s

All well and good but you don't seem to be commenting or agreeing on what the majority of people have mentioned as being very easily trimmed down. Sorry to sound harsh but really, how much do you want to get out of debt?


Now is the time to face the music.

asparagus1968

Hi,
do you actually want to go back to work? would this incur childcare costs etc?


you could easily make this budget work so you could stay at home.


OH would have to be on board of course.


immediate things to do:
*look to move, accountant is wrong
* cancel the cleaner
*cancel childcare if you are not working
*forget about the holiday for now
*change where you food shop?
*go through each and every direct debit and see if any discounts can be applied-ring round, use comparison sites
*open some savings accounts , look into envelope/ piggy banking accounting- get putting amounts in each account to cover bills, emergency fund, groceries etc
*have a sort out of clothes, you may find you don't NEED any for next couple of months
*go through your food stores-only shop for what you need, not what you fancy- bet you have lots of options for meal planning.
*make do with one car for a month, then look at getting one car which will do the job, stop hiring month on month
* believe you can do this, you have a good enough income, and plenty of ways to cutback so be confident!


keep reading this site, set a budget, just focus on one month at a time, it is doable

matchboxfull

Forward_thinking wrote: »

matchboxfull - it varies from £6,700 to £7,000 so yes, I have rounded up.

Going forward you will find it better if you can base your necessary outgoings on his lowest guaranteed wage. If not, then even when you think you've balanced the books you could be spending over three and a half thousand pounds a year more than you have coming in.

As others have said this requires a real rethink of the way you both spend. I think you can probably do this without moving house (although your fuel costs seem to be really high so I do wonder if you can find a house that's just as big/nice but better insulated?)

Forward_thinking

Point taken lee111. I do accept that. I am currently absorbing what everyone has said. Yes, I think we should get rid of the hire car if we can afford a cheap second one. Yes, we can drop the clubs - feel terribly guilty but would feel even worse if we ended up with no roof over our heads. Happy to go into a smaller house - 3 or hopefully 4. Happy to get rid of the cleaner. Happy to cut down on groceries - try the freeze suggested, cut down on the hair cuts.

The only things I can't get my head around is having no tv, no holiday (it's the only real time we get for bonding as husband works so hard. Also, we only have a few holidays left with the children being children and memories are a priority for me). The other thing I really don't want to lose is our medical insurance. Without going into detail, one of our children has a condition that really needs ongoing treatment and it has been a lifeline for us. We only have very basic so I could probably drop ours).

Sorry if I haven't commented much yet - am going to sit down tonight and spend some real time on this. I really do appreciate your help.