Need advise please

iolanthe07

lazer-zxr wrote: »

I'd love to do some educating of people on how to do a budget, and manage debts. Is there any demand for this, and where would you go to engage with this kind of work?

Citizens Advice and Christians Against Poverty spring to mind. You don't have to be a Christian to volunteer with CAP, but AFAIK you do have to undergo some training with both of these organisations.

chevalier

Hi Matesy, welcome to the boards. Well done on admitting you have a problem, that is half the battle right there.

I can understand if you are feeling pretty scared and anxious at the moment. But please don't think that we are attacking you. We might be a bit over eager, but it is because we are truely keen to help.

Yes this is a public forum, so anyone can read your posts. But unless your user name on here is your nick name in real life, then no one is going to know it is you. You don't know me from Adam:rotfl:!

Anyway, I will take it that you have gone away you and your OH to have a think and a panic about things. Try not to stay away though, we are here to support you.

In the meantime there are lots of things you can do offline, that can help bring some control. They will also give a small sense of achievement. If any of the below is teaching your granny to suck eggs, then please ignore.

1) Whenever you shop online, do you use a cash back site. It won't earn you 1000s but it might certainly earn you 100s over the course of a year. I am not totally up on the best of the bunch, but I found Topcashback, and Quidco always seemed to track ok and pay out ok too.

2) When did you last check your insurances? I.E car, contents, buildings, life, any other ones? If you have been with the same insurer for car, contents etc for a while, the chances are that they are not the cheapest. So you can use the cash back sites to got to insurers to get a quote and see. Or you can use moneysupermarket.com or gocompare and check out a whole raft of insurers that way.

3) Same with utilities, loyalty doesn't pay, so shop around. I include mobile contracts in this.

With utilities sometimes we have to think back a generation to get the best out of our housing. So have a look around, do you own or rent? With thr first you can do more, but even renting you can help be smarter. So if you hot water is boiling then turn it down to 60 degrees. Same with the thermostat, it used to be that if you lowered your thermostat by a degree, you saved about 70 pounds a year. I guess it would be more than this now!

I am not sure whether they are still doing the warmer homes grant thing, but it may be worth checking if you do qualify for anything that might make your heating more efficient.

4) Is one of your down falls (puts hand up this [STRIKE][/STRIKE]is[STRIKE][/STRIKE] was me) being a zombie shopper? I used to go round and put the same stuff in week in week out without much thought. And then one day I really looked in my cupboards and freezer and they were heaving. I think I felt that because the fridge was empty 'we had nothing to eat'. Which of course wasn't true. So meal planning and a list saved me literally a couple of thousand pounds the first year:o
. Another trick someone told me was to do your next shop as normal, but put the receipt up on the fridge. Each time you throw something out, highlight it. I was horrified that at one point I threw 20 pounds of food away that had gone off because of CBA (can't be ar*ed). And this was before I had children.

4) If you really can't face coming back on here, then you could still do the SOA for yourself, so that OH and you can go through it and work out where you can save. Or you can go on to Stepchanges website and do their Debt Remedy anonymously. It will recommend a course of action, which can be another point for discussion.

Good luck
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