Help please. outgoings huge

phil_rich1983

I do wander how you can ascertain that i have not found any of the points raised as helpful. If you go back and read through the earlier posts, quite a few times i came back to reply and went to look at what was advised.

Selling the car made an immediate impact, yes its a pain but the kids use the school bus and we have arranged for a lift to the 1 club out of town. This evening we walked to guitar practice and arranged with the teacher that it would be every other week, but he would email through some sheets to use for the other week.

Yes the phones and coffee machine are in contracts.To get out they have to be paid up in full, that will not help the situation.

Yes, we have amended what is being budgeted for xmas and birthdays, but i did not feel the need to state that before as i was put replying to people who highlighted things which could be done now as an immediate impact.

We shop at Aldi already, with the exception of fruit which is really rubbish at our local store, so this comes from Morrisons. we meal plan each week, and the wife batch cooks from the 'eat well for less' book.

I will do a full soa but i need to build up some receipts to get a full true picture of where every last £ is going.

thanks

Pablosammy

Good idea to wait to do an SOA. Too many people get pressured into posting one at short notice, and it means nothing... it's just an idealistic view at best.

We get into debt because we've lost track of what we're spending. Do a comprehensive budget - there are great guides in the budgeting section of the board. Keep a spending diary and then compare the two. It was a real eye opener to me, and I realised where I was throwing away money (eating out and takeaways mostly!). What really changed the way I think about money was YNAB - it made me realise that the £2k or whatever in my bank account had an essential job to do, and wasn't 'spending money'. Lots of people manage to do the same thing in Excel, but something about YNAB resonated with me.

Ilona

OP, thank you for getting back to us. Will await your SOA, maybe we can help you further to achieve your goals.

Ilona

SuperPikachu

Jeez that link is depressing. Just did my SOA and I have about £70 a month left apparently! Fun times

Busy_Mee1

Great that you have already made an impact on your outgoings by getting rid of the car and cutting down on music lessons.

The other area that I think you could cut back on is food - you are currently spending £630 + £71 for school dinners.

I would immediately stop school dinners, which would give you another £71 back - you can provide packed lunches much cheaper.

I would also examine your food bill £630 per month seems an awful lot, even with 4 children. If you are shopping at @ldi that is quite a volume of food. I think you have already identified that you are spending a lot on expensive soft fruit, but are there other areas that you can cut back on ?

Do you buy a lot of meat ? - could you cut back by padding out things like chilli and curries with more veg and pulses. Could you have a couple of vegetarian meals a week ?

If you could post an average shop broken down into the categories that you are spending on, we could have a look and make some suggestions.

Things like frozen veg and canned fruit usually offer cheaper alternatives, along with kidney beans, chick pea, canned potatoes and lentils for padding out dishes.

I would also look at your portion control, left to their own devices my lot would finish a pan of curry or chilli in one sitting that could do for two meals, so I make sure I remove and freeze any excess before they start on it !

Other suggestions include providing home made soup and bread for a main meal , followed by an old fashioned pudding and custard to fill them up !

I think you should be able to easily get your grocery shopping down to £500 per month for the six of you.

Good Luck !

Jon_B_2

How involved is your wife during this process OP? You are busy bringing home the bacon and funding this lifestyle.

What I’m trying to say, are you ALL onboard with rectifying the situation? Why can’t your wife find something part time on national living wage stacking shelves. You can earn up to £11.5k tax free. Given the wage you are on, for every £1000 that your wife could earn in a month nett, you’d need to earn yourself close to £2,000 for the same nett figure.

Perryface

Hi
I would check what items/clothes/shoes you could sell.
Books and CDs/DVDs
Old mobile phones/tablets/video games
Clothes/shoes

My family agreed that we were only buying for the kids for Xmas and the adults were getting homemade gifts this year. If you or your wife is 'crafty' there are loads of ideas for gifts on Pinterest.

I have made personalised pebble art for my lot. I live near a beach so just bought box frames £6 each, card £1 and glue £1.

For each child I did the 'something you want (toy/jewellery), something you need (bubble bath/bath bombs), something to wear (pjs) and something to read (book)'. All 4 items came to less than £40.

Just some ideas that might help you this Christmas

phil_rich1983

Hi all,

Made some more inroads on the weekend, sorted through the garage and shed and got quite a few items up for sale. So that will bring in a bit of cash to go towards a £1k car. Have borrow my fathers car as he is retired so we are sorted in the mean time.

We have cut the school meals, even our eldest, the high schooler has agreed to a packed lunch.

Drumming lessons have been cut to every other week, so this saves £60 per month.

Eldest swimming child has been cut from his lessons, we needed to give 1 months notice so have done, he will be finished 2nd week of Dec. He is at the stage where he is learning different dive techniques and tumble turning into different strokes, so is ok to be stopped. £32.50 per month saved.

Wife is on board. She is the one who sorts the bank statements and id making spreadsheets for the soa, seeing what is spent where. Food is over the top, quite a lot spent on takeaways when we have been back over bank statements. Soon adds up. we also agreed to have less meat based meals. She already batch cooks the 3 mince meals from eatwellforless, plus meal plans the rest. We have just cut some meals down to a pasta bake or similarly cheap meal.

Sat the kids down and explained what we were doing and why. Told them we were spending over £1000 per week on everything. They thought that was huge, so they are on board.

Have been looking for options for wife to earn an income, not easy to justify anything that causes me to stop working to pick up kids etc, as I earn +4x the minimum wage, so if she was getting £8per hr and i have to stop to do a school/club run then its counter productive. Looking to see if there are any home based income streams. Even £10 a day if £3500 per year.

thanks all.

bertiewhite

phil_rich1983 wrote: »

Sat the kids down and explained what we were doing and why. Told them we were spending over £1000 per week on everything. They thought that was huge, so they are on board.

Blimey, big thumbs up for that one.

enthusiasticsaver

You seem to be taking all the advice on board and cutting back is a great start. Extra income is always useful so yes your wife working would help deal with the overspending quicker. Cut back takeaways to once a month treat which is what we did when money tight.