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

Forward_thinking

We use the 7 seater every day so that would really be the last thing I would want to change if I can possibly help it.

getmore4less

Forward_thinking wrote: »

He says if I'm earning soon it would be crazy as they are a negligible amount.

remind him that all these negligible amounts are taking you close to £2kpm over income and you need to earn at least £30k py to cover these negligible amounts.

matchboxfull

Forward_thinking wrote: »

Reading through my post - I'm not quite there yet am I??? Still keeping the cleaner, talking of a holiday in the sunshine..... Baby steps. We'll get there - it's just a shock to the system. We've had such a lovely life and now we are paying the price for it. No cleaner, no ironer, no medical insurance, no sunny holiday, no treats on a Saturday, no spotify, less clubs, uncomfortable car, no Merlin passes anymore (due to renew), no nice clothes, small house with bunk beds........we shouldn't have had these in the first place - but it's still hard. But do it we will!!!!!!!

You can afford these things (within reason), and you will again, you just have to take a bit of a break from spending and take stock of what's going on.

Your debt is a bit more than a third of your gross income, which isn't insurmountable at all. It seems to me, though, that it's not the debt itself that is problematic, but that your outgoings are consistently much larger than your income. Fix the outgoings and you'll be fine.

My OH has a high income (although not anywhere near as high as your OH). A lot of the reason we got into debt is because I thought that people who earned what he does should easily be able to afford all the things we bought. During our journey to debt freedom (achieved last year) I had to realise that his income was actually just the equivalent of two average-ish incomes. A real blessing, but not enough to make us 'wealthy', especially with a family to support. It took him some time to come round to this, too, but now he sees that if he's able to 'keep' me and the children he's as rich as he ever needs to be.

Your OH's income is very high, but with all the tax he pays he is 'only' bringing home the same as, say, a headmaster and a ward sister. With five children that couple would be comfortably off, have a couple of mid-range cars, one or two average holidays a year, and a reasonable house, but they wouldn't be splashing out on parties and rails and rails of clothes.

As you say, when you start earning some money perhaps you can afford some of those extra luxuries (in the true sense of the word) but for now, as everyone suggests, cut back your lifestyle to average and make sure that that bottom line doesn't turn red.

lee111s

You can definitely do the shopping budget. You'll be amazed at how much you can get at lidl/aldi for £150 a week!! My and my GF spend about £200-£250 a month max and we eat very, very well. I'm into weight training to eat considerably more meat and fish than the average person and meat/fish is probably the most expensive stuff to buy.


Buy all of your cleanings items from the likes of home bargains/B&M if you like to use branded stuff, they're often half the price of supermarkets No one needs to know where you buy your stuff from so if you're worried about what your social circle might think about this, then just don't. Don't care what they think.


Absolutely agree about spending "cash". You're far more aware of where it's gone. Try to resist food top ups, it'll encourage you to use more of the food you've bought for the week.




Do you cook meals from scratch or do you eat convenience food? You can get a whole lot more for your money if you make meals yourself, it's often a whole lot healthier too.


Personally, with the level of debt you have, I don't think £220 is a negligible amount of money to be spending on a cleaner. They may be nice people but you're in quite serious money trouble - they're not going to help you get out of it just because they're nice people.


Perhaps get rid of them until you're back on your feet and earning. They're costing you over £2500 a year. That's half of your holiday fund, something I'm sure you'd rather spend the money on.


If you get a car for £1000, even if it then cost you £300 a month in repairs (which you'd have to be THE most unlucky person in the world) then you'd still be saving £300 a month. I bought a 2002 VW golf diesel 3 years ago for £2000 purely to use for taking my dogs places. In those 3 years I've spend less than £500 on servicing, maintenance and MOT's. Modern cars are usually pretty good, especially if you stick to the decent manufacturers. Avoid anything French (Rental/Citroen). As above, how often do you actually need all 7 seats? It will probably be cheaper to run a second, smaller car and for the time you do need to take everyone somewhere, use two cars. It might sound counter intuitive but you're spending £7200 a year on something you don't really night right now.


You don't have to cut everything out of your life that you enjoy, it's about balance and reducing what you do spend to cheaper alternatives. Personally, I think holidays are essential. It gives you something to look forward to and I know, I'm a miserable get if I don't have at least 1 holiday per year. When you say no treats on a Saturday, what do you mean? You can do things like "home made pizza and a move night" The kids will LOVE it and you'll save a bunch of money in the process.


I think you should put off consideration of the house move now, too much too soon will most likely make you hate it and fall back into old habits.


EDIT - regarding the diary, I think it would be a great idea. You don't have to put anything specific to your life so it would be very difficult if not impossible for anyone to "find you". Even if they did, so what, you're doing this to benefit the most important thing in the world. You and your family.

MERFE

Forward_thinking wrote: »

Reading through my post - I'm not quite there yet am I??? Still keeping the cleaner, talking of a holiday in the sunshine..... Baby steps. We'll get there - it's just a shock to the system. We've had such a lovely life and now we are paying the price for it. No cleaner, no ironer, no medical insurance, no sunny holiday, no treats on a Saturday, no spotify, less clubs, uncomfortable car, no Merlin passes anymore (due to renew), no nice clothes, small house with bunk beds........we shouldn't have had these in the first place - but it's still hard. But do it we will!!!!!!!

I think you are thinking at the moment about losing too much. Could you cut back the cleaner, have the cheaper holiday. The reduction in groceries and if you can reduce the car costs should mean you don't lose so much else. There is so much room in your budget for things to cut back on, don't think you have to cut everything completely. Start a saving pot for merlin passes for next year and just have this year off them, its not a never again thing, it'd be nice to go to some different places this year. The beaches in this country are great and only cost petrol to get there and a little picnic.

getmore4less

Forward_thinking wrote: »

We use the 7 seater every day so that would really be the last thing I would want to change if I can possibly help it.

Zafira 7 seater 4 year personal lease < £200pm low up front payment.

£250pm will open up more option.

lee111s

Just an example of what's available


http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201511028361764?radius=50&onesearchad=used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew&maximum-age=up_to_9_years_old&sort=default&postcode=GU21%205EW&maximum-mileage=up_to_100000_miles&price-to=2000&search-target=usedcars&minimum-seats=7&price-from=1000&maximum-seats=7&page=1&logcode=p

Forward_thinking

Loving reading your helpful comments. Thank you!!! So much sense spoken - it just helps to see it written down. Thanks for the info re a lease car - that could work well although I'm actually tempted to get something outright. I'm so tired of having to rent things because we can't afford the initial costs - it drives me crazy spending £2300 monthly on rent because we can't afford to buy with our debts.

Lee111 - your comment about spending half of our usual holiday fund went on board with gusto. That puts a different perspective on it!

I said to hubby this morning two cleaners come in for 3 hours - one is lovely but is so slow. The other is great. If we got all our children to join in with a one hour cleaning session on a Sunday morning armed with a duster, hoover, mop between seven of us we could be done in under an hour. Ok - they won't be as good as adults but there's SEVEN of us. And it's a great life-style skill for them to learn (probably make them think twice before making the place messy as well).

Lee - you're quite right about the diary. I shouldn't be ashamed - I'm doing everything I can to get out of this situation. And one day I might even be sharing my experiences on how to get debt free.....could even point them to my diary if I documented it. Hide it for now though : ((

Brightspark87

Hi me again!

Ok you still want the cleaner and help with the ironing. How about halving the hours? You do half they do the other? that is another £100.

You husband has to understand that you are spending far too much every month. He is self employed - how would he feel if you he could reduce his hours but you still had the same money in the bank? This is how it could be when you stop over spending and pay off your debt. At the moment he earns £7k a month and you basically spend £9k of which most of the over spend is debt repayment.... Therefore once that is sorted he could earn say £5k a month.. would that make more sense to him and make him see its more worth while?

Forward_thinking

I'm not bothered about the cleaner - happy to do it ourselves. I do agree with you Brightspark - everything counts.

Lee111 - that's a 15 minute drive from us. Thank you!! Have rung them up and left a message although it's probably gone. Know hubby wants a galaxy but beggars can't be choosers. He says we can't afford another two grand - that we don't have it - I guess we would have to put it on the credit card. Vicious circle. Oh, off to buy a lottery ticket : ((