How do you do it!?

dcouponzzzz

plus if you shop at waitrose for specific items, get their membership card and you can apply a permanent discount to 6 items of your choice from a pretty extensive list. This stacks with other offers, and you get a free hot drink when you visit

cms-help

Tonkaaaa wrote: »

Thank you CMS.

Benefits - Partner was made redundant a month before finding out she was pregnant so she had a part time job until her MA started and is currently getting maturnity allowance, she will be going back to work part once this has ended for at least the same money maybe slightly more.

Other income - A side venture.

Mortgage - The mortgage was taken over a 14 year term, house value when bought £126,000, loan value £113,400. The 4 year fixed term ends in November, hopefully I can switch to a slightly better rate over the remaining term because the LTV has increased since our renovations works (recently valued at £160,000 but I am guessing £150,000 to be conservative).

Mobile - OH has 11 months left on here O2 contract, agreed this is ridiculous. Any ideas on how I can get out of it or decrease payments?

Groceries - I need to address this and stick to meal plans, I will have a chat with the OH and address this later, also shopping at Waitrose or Sainsbury's isn't advantageous. Going to give Aldi a go.

Petrol - Is £150 unreasonable? Usually trips around the city and to family and friends.

Life insurance - £9 is ridiculously good, I may need to look into this.

Entertainment - I take it this is too high, we go out once a week to eat and have friends/family round once a week which ends up with some sort of take out meal and we tend to take the kids somewhere that costs money on the weekend instead of searching out free things to do lots of work to be done here.

Partners budget - I don't know, it's hers to do as she pleases however there is always the odd thing that gets added to the debit card. We need to sit down and sort all this out, hopefully it'll give us a reality check.

Thank you for your comments, I will take what you have said on board.

Will you start to incur childcare costs when your partner goes back to work? As you will need to factor this into any better paid job she might secure. You should also be claiming child benefit.

Your mortgage payments are way too high. We have a larger mortgage with 14 years left and pay considerably less each month.

Phone your network provider for the mobile and explain you can't afford the tariff.

Fuel for the car - am currently on a sabatical and I potter around locally with the 2 children. I might use a tank of fuel (around £60) every other month and I have a large 2.0 car.

I would ask if your SOA is accurate? Have you looked at bank statements for the last few months and worked out an average or just guessed at some of the categories.

Entertainment budget is very high. Think about it. If you ask your 10 year old if they remember when you took them to, for example, Legoland when they were 4 - do you think they'll remember it? I'm the first to admit we do a lot with our kids but we don't spend anything like that.

Food - yes, this is very high. My husband isn't in training for anything but he is armed forces so is very active and also eats meat every day. We shop at Tesco.

I see no issue with one or both of you having a budget. I just couldn't possibly fathom what it was spent on when your groceries and entertainment are already very high.

As other's have said, you don't have to drastically cut back. Even reducing your savings to £100 per month will balance the books and if you then trim the other categories you could also afford the things you currently put on credit cards without any issues. You just need to decide what's the most important to you. Is a twice weekly takeaway more important than a family holiday for example? We're not Debt Free Wannabees as our only debt is our mortgage but we still like to spend our money wisely.

EssexHebridean

OK - Comments in red/bold. Some have already been addresed but I'm saying them anyway - sometimes reiteration helps!

Tonkaaaa wrote: »

Thanks for the link to SOA, I have completed it to best my knowledge, however I need to explain a few things; which I have done below.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

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

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2218*Set to change slightly as I have a company commercial vehicle as of last week.
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0 Get her to look into Avon as a short term way of earning some extra money. If you put the effort in you can make a decent sum, the walking you do dropping books and delivering orders is great exercise too!
Benefits................................ 556
Other income............................ 350
Total monthly income.................... 3124

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1010
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 183.4000000000001
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 109
Electricity............................. 62 This for gas & electric on your size of house is grat - well done!
Gas..................................... 0*Combined with electricity (3 bed semi)
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 28
Telephone (land line)................... 25.81 *Includes broadband
Mobile phone............................ 47 *Just OH phone, I have a company mobile. Too much but you've acknowledged that - worth giving them a call, explain you can't afford it and ask nicely what they can do for you.
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 400*Sometimes more WAAAAY too much - reduce by £100 just as a starter. Also - a thought - is this actually feeding 2 adults and 2 kids or is the smallest little one still being fed by Mum? If that's the case then you need to attack it even more.
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 150*Just OH as I now have a company vehicle. So this is essentially just for "fun" rather than essential mileage? Too much - if there was no debt, and you could afford it, then great, but there is, and you can't. She HAS to cut this back.
Road tax................................ 35.43*2no. cars at the moment until mine is sold
Car Insurance........................... 80.31*2no. cars at the moment until mine is sold
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0*Usually use a credit card for this :eek: when you do your budget, allow £40 a month for car maintenance and start a savings account for it to transfer into each month. That will cover servicing and MOT and hopefully the tax too...
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0 Presumabkly this is going to change when your OH returns to work - have you thought about that?
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 28
Contents insurance...................... 0*Included above
Life assurance ......................... 39*Cancelled today runs out end of next month cheaper quote obtained, circa £20
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0*Usually use a credit card for this :eek: another one to think about setting aside a figure each month to be dipped into when needed...
Haircuts................................ 25*Guess This is just you, yes? OH pays from her personal money I take it? If so, far too much for a chap to be spending on his hair!
Entertainment........................... 400*I've included takeaways, non standard spends and extra visits to supermarkets So your food spend is actually, what, £550 to £600 a month rather than the £400 you're fooling yourself it is? Not good.
Holiday................................. 0*Usually use a credit card for this :eek: Staycations rock....just saying...
Emergency fund.......................... 300*Considering I started saving £300 a month since February I only have £300 in the savings account, this backs up that I am rubbish with money! Where is the £300? It's not showing under cash on your SOA?
Wetlands membership..................... 7 Do you use this? Is it worth what you're spending on it? Could you get better value from that £84 a year elsewhere?
Gym .................................... 42*OH £28 Mine £14 OH is going to be doing a lot more walking when you agree her petrol spend is dropping - or alternatively she could pay for this out of her personal money?
Partner's budget she never sticks to.... 200*As the title suggests OK - being brutal - she's not earning currently, which means she has to accept that she has to cut back. You just can't afford this, not if you want to get yourselves back on track.
Total monthly expenses.................. 3184.07


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 150000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 7000*Will be £2000 soon
Other assets............................ 5000 Apologies if I've missed it, but what is this?
Total Assets............................ 162000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 92000....(1010).....6 Take a look at Martin's mortgage/remortage guide - you may be one of those who can make such a saving on the interest rate it's worth getting stuck with an early repayment charge.
Secured Debt.................. 8200.....(183.4)....3.9
Total secured & HP debts...... 100200....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,124
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 3,184.07
Available for debt repayments........... -60.07
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 0
Amount short for making debt repayments. -60.07

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 162,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -100,200
Total Unsecured debt.................... -0
Net Assets.............................. 61,800


Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i]

As you can see I am rubbish with money and so is my partner, her favourite phrase is "It was only £20" what she fails to realise is hearing that 6 days a week isn't helping our situation! You BOTH need to be serious about dealing with this.

I must admit I do blame her for frivolous spending, however it is also my fault, I am just as bad unfortunately. Well acknowledged.

The car situation :eek: - I do have a car that I will be selling, however; there is quite a big issue and it is with the mechanic at the moment, now this could either cost me £750 or £2500, so depending on the diagnostics it will depend how much extra cash I have come the sale of the car.

Please, any help will be greatly appreciated, I'm pretty thick skinned so please be as critical as you like and I will try to answer any questions you may have.

Tonka

OK - the good news is that there is a lot you can do to sort this out. The first thing is to cut that entertainment budget down a LOT. STOP putting routine spends on credit cards - as an urgent priority you need a proper budget.

Shop with a list - if one or the other of you is more tempted to stray "off piste" when shopping then just the "better behaved" one goes. Might even be worth online shopping for a while as OH can wait in to accept deliveries at less popular - therefore cheaper - times. Note what you need for the week, buy it, then challenge yourselves not to go into the supermarket again until the next week.
Someone mentioned Eat Well for Loss - get onto iPlayer and watch the one with the family at the start of this series - 2 daughters, one of whom was a competitive swimmer so was needing masses of protein - they did wonders with their budget and showed them there was more to muscle-feeding than lean meat.
Take your "entertainment" money out in cash - £100 should do you - and yes, that's for the month NOT the week! Anything you want that's not in the budget comes from either your personal spending money, or that £100. If you reach the end of the month and there's enough left for a takeaway then good for you, you can have your chinese or whatever suits you.

mrsbee17

I must admit, even though we have no debt and we have savings, I'm still living "pay-cheque to pay-cheque"; my savings are categorized and I don't know how to not be in the cycle I am in.

Smodlet

Grumpelstiltskin wrote: »

£400 on Groceries and then takeaways on top of that.


You look like prime candidates for Eat Well For Less.


You must get your partner on board. She doesn't work? If so why is she spending so much on food?

Thank you, Grumpelstiltskin, I had not noticed there is a new series, just started watching it. Tonkaaaa, you could do worse than follow suit; not only can it be educational, it is also quite funny, imho. Recommend.