Advice needed

ReadingTim

ryankelly1984 wrote: »

I literally have no luxuries....

ryankelly1984 wrote: »

Mobile Phone £100
Sat TV £50
Internet £50
Groceries £300
Clothing £20
Presents £20
Haircuts £5
Entertainment £40
Emergency Fund £50

Errrr...are you sure about the "no luxuries"?!?

sourcrates

Hi,

I'm thinking your almost a perfect candidate for a debt relief order (DRO).

If you can get your debts down to below £20,000.

Re-gig your budget so you have £50 or less after essential payments are made, you have few assets, and are not a homeowner, so it's a no brainer to me.

Why struggle when you can take advantage of legislation ?

DRO 's are woefully underused, you should seriously concider it once your debts are below 20k.

MEM62

My $0.02 worth.

Your combined gas & electric bill seems high. I was covering my annual costs with £100 per month in a two-bedroomed flat.

You are paying way too much for your mobile phone. Get a sim only deal - these can be had from around £15 per month.

£300 for groceries? You can feed one person well for half of that amount.

£50 Satellite TV. Consider cancelling it and going freeview.

£50 Emergency fund. Are you really saving this? If so how much do you have put by already?

There's £300-ish you can shave off your budget without trying too hard. As advised, contact Stepchange for proper advice.

iolanthe07

The thing that really struck me was the mobile phone at £100 a month. This seems utterly fantastic. Is it a typo? My mobile phone costs £8.50 a month (Tesco). I'd also look at switching gas/electric supplier. I pay £80 a month for dual fuel and my wife and I are pensioners so we're at home a lot, and my wife considers anything below 20 celsius as too cold. I agree with MEM62 about the satellite TV. If you want satellite TV, why not go to Freesat - dozens of channels that are free to air.

MrsTinks

iolanthe07 wrote: »

The thing that really struck me was the mobile phone at £100 a month. This seems utterly fantastic. Is it a typo? My mobile phone costs £8.50 a month (Tesco). I'd also look at switching gas/electric supplier. I pay £80 a month for dual fuel and my wife and I are pensioners so we're at home a lot, and my wife considers anything below 20 celsius as too cold. I agree with MEM62 about the satellite TV. If you want satellite TV, why not go to Freesat - dozens of channels that are free to air.

All depends on the contracts - forexample I have an iPhone and an iPad - with with 3G so contracts. However I accept these are luxuries! I do also have an additional Sim for my daughters iPad (which I am never getting rid off as it's unlimited data! EE can try all they like, I'm not "upgrading" HA!) - Granted it's not £100 per month but only because I get Friends and Family discount on the account.
However - absolutely luxuries!

OP a DRO might be the way forward, then again some of these are absolutely luxuries that it is possible to live without or reduce.

Ultimately the choice is yours!

*GasMonkey*

If you work 50 hours a week why are your gas and electric so high?

Why do you then need to spend £100 on tv and internet? When do you have time to use it?

I got rid of tv in July, only Netflix now and I don't miss anything and save so much!

Where do you shop? I spend £300 per month for 3 of us, breakfast, lunch and dinner and cleaning stuff.

Gas and Electric are £80 dual fuel

sourcrates

I'm not a fan of cutting things to the bone, but unless you have just guessedemated the figures for electric/gas/tv/broadband, you can easily cut each of those bills in half if you shop around.

£300 a month on food does not seem too unreasonable, I live in a small village with only a coop to shop at, unless I travel 20 miles to town, I can easily spend that myself.

People say shop at Aldi and liddle, but a lot of there food is bland and tasteless, or processed, meat is ok if your a carnivore though.