Husband off sick and no sick pay. Ideas needed to survive it

chelseablue

The thing that jumped out at me was the grocery spend, I have the same sized family as you, 2 adults and a 2 year old and last month I spent £187 by shopping at Aldi.


That includes all food including packed lunches, nappies and washing powder

Persephone_Mulberry

HappyMJ wrote: »

You should with that amount of equity take a payment holiday on your mortgage which will free up £651 per month and balance the budget.

You could choose to just pay the interest of £346 per month which will stop the amount you owe from increasing.

Talk to your mortgage provider. They will help.

I don't know anything about that sort of thing - is that in any way a step towards risking our house? #anxious The reason we have such good equity is because we bought the house from my dad at a big discount (sort of an advanced inheritance I suppose) and the value has gone up since we bought it - if that makes a difference.

Persephone_Mulberry

chelseablue wrote: »

The thing that jumped out at me was the grocery spend, I have the same sized family as you, 2 adults and a 2 year old and last month I spent £187 by shopping at Aldi.


That includes all food including packed lunches, nappies and washing powder

Thanks for this! Can you please be kind and tell me how they are for things like gluten free? Or veggie? Or do I need to think about it differently and work out ways of just cooking food from scratch every day at the moment, so 'gluten free' isn't really an issue?


I suspect it is going to be a month or two (at least) of buying cheap and letting things like organic or recycled go look after itself :-\ Bar eggs or milk, I refuse to buy non organic eggs and milk, as I hope it will at least minimise the animal suffering :-\

Persephone_Mulberry

Thanks everyone for helping - I've just realised that this is actually going to be a huge deal at the end of the month because whilst he gets paid then (into the account that all of the bills come out of) I don't get paid until the 10th of every month.


So I need to get on top of this by Friday, so that most of my pay this month can go and sit in our bills account, waiting for the 1st of the month....




:-\ Argh, feeling the urge to run around panicking a bit :-(

k3lvc

Persephone_Mulberry wrote: »

I suspect it is going to be a month or two (at least) of buying cheap and letting things like organic or recycled go look after itself :-\ Bar eggs or milk, I refuse to buy non organic eggs and milk, as I hope it will at least minimise the animal suffering :-\

I understand the ethics of this but there may be times when these need to go out of the window to minimise your and your familys' suffering/hunger


In terms of the SOA the mortgage holiday is obviously a good option if your lender will allow (some won't) but the other big one in there is childcare. Is your husband in a position to take this on despite his depression (and obviously not spending masses of money on Daddy Daycare activities)

Persephone_Mulberry

k3lvc wrote: »

I understand the ethics of this but there may be times when these need to go out of the window to minimise your and your familys' suffering/hunger


In terms of the SOA the mortgage holiday is obviously a good option if your lender will allow (some won't) but the other big one in there is childcare. Is your husband in a position to take this on despite his depression (and obviously not spending masses of money on Daddy Daycare activities)

It's a good idea but unfortunately not - we're actually having to look at paying them to do extra days on occasion as he looks after her one day a week (part-time work) but at the moment there are days he potentially isn't going to be able to cope with it.


Also apparently it's quite important with children who are dealing with parents suffering depression to try and keep up their routine - and she would be horribly sad and confused if she stopped going to nursery for her two days a week.

Persephone_Mulberry

I am currently reading the Jack Monroe feed a family of 4 for less than £9 pw - am starting to think I might have to just stop doing veggie for a bit so we can just follow that and have Food...

missbiggles1

Persephone_Mulberry wrote: »

The second is the one with everything I can think to take off taken off. Realistically I don't think we can spend £0 on our daughter this month (she is busy growing out of everything) or £0 on entertainment as we will go completely mad... :-\ I've left £20 in birthday funds as it's my birthday this month and hubs will want to do Something for me - and I think making him super sad about not being able to buy me a present will not help with the depression!


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1088
Partners monthly income after tax....... 356
Benefits................................ 233
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1677
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 651
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 152
Electricity............................. 20
Gas..................................... 20
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 34.81
Telephone (land line)................... 15.99
Mobile phone............................ 60.37

Most of this can go.

TV Licence.............................. 12.13
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 12
Groceries etc. ......................... 320

Plenty of room for cutting there.

Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 80

If your husband isn't at work, won't this go down drastically?

Road tax................................ 17.93
Car Insurance........................... 19
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 300

Why do you need this with one of you at home?

Other child related expenses............ 50
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 16.19
Buildings insurance..................... 22.98
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 27.74
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 60
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1912.14

Assets
Cash.................................... 372
House value (Gross)..................... 300000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 400
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 300772

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 146241...(651)......2.84
Total secured & HP debts...... 146241....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Loan...........................9000......135.......5
Total unsecured debts..........9000......135.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,677
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,912.14
Available for debt repayments........... -235.14
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 135
Amount short for making debt repayments. -370.14
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 300,772
Total HP & Secured debt................. -146,241
Total Unsecured debt.................... -9,000
Net Assets.............................. 145,531
Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.


All I can really think is to start working out some seriously reduced food bills. Which is fun when I am veggie and he is coeliac! But probably doable, will just need some serious cooking commitment...


Any other ideas incredibly appreciated. I'm assuming we can't really claim for anything with it being just one month? Although I will certainly be updating our information with the child tax credit people...

Suggestions in bold and underlined.

Karonher

I'm veggie and find Aldi and Lidl are ideal. They have lots of offers on fruit and vegetables and while it may be a little boring for a few weeks, I am sure you could manage it without giving up.

There are not many stickered items but I have found Lidl do have them on bread.

Persephone_Mulberry

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Suggestions in bold and underlined.

Hi. Thanks for the suggestions! I'm not sure I can cut the mobile bills as we are both still in contract - any ideas re that?

Petrol - maybe, hopefully, but I'm going to see how that goes. Plus I work.
Childcare - it won't drop, because he is at home ill, not at home just having some time off. Also it would be really disruptive to our little girl, which I want to avoid.