Debt is making me ill...........

Beautiful-Moose

I agree with others regarding shopping around for better car insurance as that seems extortionate.

I have looked around and for some reason our postcode seems to be the reason the cost goes up. I may add my mum to the car to bring the cost down but not sure if I am allowed to do that. She will never need to drive my car but as she is a good driver in terms of insurance criteria this may bring it down.

Can you not move to a cheaper rental as rent seems high and you mention that there's underground car parking so it can't be the cheapest. Doesn't have to be forever but if you can save £200 per month on rent then your debt will be paid off far more quickly.

I live in London. That sadly is the going rate for rent these days. We are Housing Association as well so the rent is cheap for the area we are in. If we move any further out then the money we save on rent would end up going on train travel as both me and my partner work in Central London. We could have moved back in with my parents to save money but they have just sold their house so that option is out. My OH's parents don't really have the room for us in their place either and are also currently looking to move so that option is out as well.

i think also that you need to check how much you spend on food as it seems ridiculously low. I don't understand how food can be less than half entertainment and about the same as mobile phone. If a lot of that "entertainment" is takeaway food and eating out then by adding £20 to the food expense ( equivalent to about 8 meals for 1 cooked at home) you could easily reduce the entertainment to £50 thus reducing outgoings by £55.

We shop in Lidl, it's amazing how much food you can get in there for £80 for two people! Some months we don't even need to spend that. I can be pretty creative with food and make up random dinners and eat bread or cereal more often than not for dinner these days as I go running after work so by the time I am showered and PJs on I don't want a big dinner so opt for lighter meals.

Mobile phone- get your phone unlocked and go SIM only.

I have made a start on this. I purchased a Memory Card with some Amazon vouchers I won a while back so my phone now has 64GB memory instead of 8MB. I plan to cancel my contract with Vodafone this weekend after my bill comes out and move to O2 where I will only be paying £14.50 a month. I do use a fair bit of data on my phone so this was the best deal I could find for my needs.

CapricornLass

Going back to the car running costs again, I can recommend totting up what you are likely to pay out on insurance, tax, MOT and tyres (cost a bomb and always seem to need all 4 replaced at once) for a year, dividing it by 12 and then putting that money away in a savings account somewhere. Ditto for glasses and dentist bills, if you have to pay out for this, for holidays, and for birthday and Christmas presents - I noticed there was nothing set aside for that in your SOA. I always include the costs of buying the turkey and the gammon in the present account as well, so I know these are covered.

It will take a year, but you will end up being in the situation where you can pay out immediately for these things without having to worry about what you will have to give up this month to pay for it. Even if you havent got all of it, the fact that you have got most of it means less of a shock to your finances!