47k credit crunch (advice welcome)

Seanymph

If you are REALLY serious then post up your budget and take the hit over your outgoings - there are so many things that can be done - we have cancelled SKY and saved over £700 a year, to be honest freeview isn't that bad.

Your wife could earn money. There are things you can do from home, work weekends, offer childcare from yours (childminding) work online - contribute by doing surveys etc.

It won't feel like much money (I don't earn as much as my husband by any means), but it will contribute.

Let your wages go into an account, and then pay yourself a regular, set amount to another to live from. That way you will have a reliable income to budget from.

You can do this - but you can't if you don't commit to it.

iiMatjeii

Thankfully I work subcontracted for a large company that cover most of the major builders in the north east, so I work CIS which means my tax is taken from each wage, and I only have to worry about covering income tax on private work, which I don't tend to have much time for anyway as my "day job" keeps me busy enough.

We have also considered a few options for the other half going back to work, but they all made less sense than me just working harder/longer, which worked for a while to keep us ahead of the bills, but unfortunately just making payments isn't the right way to attack this task.

We have figured that in any job that would be sufficient wages to cover the costs of childcare then she would be making less than £200 per month in the best cases, which is soon chopped up by taxes and fuel. We also don't qualify for any support if she did work which makes it a little harder. We also looked at in house child minding, but it would cost us quite a bit to arrange the house for passing ofsted req. Also, the house is in pretty good nick because some of the debt we have was for an extension and refit pretty much throughout, we wouldn't want a bunch of grubby kids ruining it, keeping tabs on one is hard enough ha ha.

Cheers for the input though, and sorry to those offering advice if I seem like I am brick walling your ideas, it's not my intention. We have just discussed some of these topics to death and never figured anything better than me just stepping the game up.

iiMatjeii

I am currently working on the past 3 months statements to try and figure where we have been outright wasting money, and by far it is me snacking and buying Greggs for lunch etc. I am usually a gym bro, but fell off the wagon a while back, now I am addicted to sausage rolls lol. Expenditure list incoming.

Treadingonplaymobil

I was going to do as everyone else did and suggest your wife work, but I was going to suggest her seeing if there were any 'nanny with own child' opportunities she might investigate - some families will happily pay a slightly lower hourly rate and let the nanny bring their own child to work, especially if they only need a few hours a week. Might be worth her keeping an eye out on the usual job websites (childcare.co.uk etc) just in case something comes up.

iiMatjeii

Yes that is something we did discuss. She was working a 2 day job for a family with 3 kids before we had the little one, wasn't an amazing package but they did pay her maternity in full and gave her plenty of time off, before she left to "drop sprog" they had agreed that once the little one was 3 months old she could return and bring him along also, but her wages would be frozen at the current rate for 2 yrs. Was a fair deal and she agreed, the week she called to come back and they had changed their minds, and even written into her new contract that she had to clean also since she had downtime in the day. So we decided she was better off being a kept woman lol.

She does still keep her eye on those outlets just in case the perfect opportunity arises. But people are very controlling of personal nannies these days, and we won't compromise her integrity as a trained professional to get a job performing someone else's skill set while supposedly being responsible for her own work, ie; someone else's kids.

iiMatjeii

Just an update, managed to talk to the bank and confirm all DD are cancelled, and to arrange token payments to all creditors. Also printed and written all paperwork to send the creditors to identify our situation, and request frozen accounts and interest etc.

Had some other errands to tend to for work so didn't manage to completely re-jig the budget or dig out my previous statements form prior to this quarter. So that's tomorrow nights task. Back to work hard at it for the rest of the week so may not get on much. Once the budget is done I will let you all judge me ha ha.

Scott_Weiland_2

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/make-money-surveys

Get your wife to do these during free time during the day they can generate 100-150pm extra income easily