keeping account

consultant31

earwig wrote: »

hi thanks for your reply i dont do a spending dairy i will try though councill tax is over 12 months electric cant do nothing with allready turn things of when using them have energy saving lightbulbs kettle ect it has come down used to be 80 per month:eek:

What do you have which uses so much power? Do you have electric heating or cooking as I know these do use a lot?
My electricity bill has never been this high and there were 6 of us until the last couple of years. It's the things left on standby all the time which eats into your money.

Do you really need Sky?

Like the others say, do a spending diary - it'll amaze you how much you waste on unnecessary bits.

TOBRUK

Hi earwig, don't get down about it, I'm sure you are feeling a bit daunted with everone throwing things at you at the moment. You will get there and you have made a great start in putting down your SOA.

With the food £260 - does this cover all grocery shopping, although you say that you take another £260 for things like tobacco, milk and bread with etc's - I think you need to find what the etc's are?

I know this is time consuming but if you keep a spending diary to see where every penny goes, as far as grocery shopping goes do try and MEAL PLAN ahead. Say you work out meals for 1 week, note all ingredients needed and make a shopping list for groceries. You will be surprised at the reduced waste you will have. I actually make a list of things I need before going to the supermarket - I even go onto the supermarket website and price everything on the list before I go and I know what the total of my shopping is before leaving the house! Sad I know ha! I never buy ready meals etc cook everything from scratch. Keep my store cupboards full and just get the necessaries.

I have sky, and as a sky customer I signed up to their sky package of tv,phone,broadband, I do still pay BT rental but it works well for £26 a month.
I do hope this helps.

earwig

consultant31 wrote: »

What do you have which uses so much power? Do you have electric heating or cooking as I know these do use a lot?
My electricity bill has never been this high and there were 6 of us until the last couple of years. It's the things left on standby all the time which eats into your money.

Do you really need Sky?

Like the others say, do a spending diary - it'll amaze you how much you waste on unnecessary bits.

i have no idea i keep asking my electric supplers this i point out to them i live in a three bed house not a 10 bed castle i dont leave anything on standby but i will go and investgate futher and find what is eating up the electric my oven is electric fan one but the hob is gas heating is boiler so i think thats gas as it has to be serviced every year by one of those corgi men/women just had my summer bill in and it was 148:eek: :eek: for the quarter i have had the meter tested and it works fine so they say so i really dont know

sky plus i could never be with out it i love kerrang to much and you dont get that on freeview i dont drink never go out clubbing or pubbing not into lotions and potions or girly things like that so it my treat 5 pounds a week to help keep me sane lol

the spending diary will have a lool at doing that as i think i will find out just how bad at money managment i am :rolleyes:

Kevicho

Re the DMP listing of your SOA, are you paying a company to manage your plan?

if so then i urge you to switch to CCCs or Payplan, and use that 80 for paying off debts

cat4772

earwig wrote: »

thanks for working out the weekly money for me but when i add up 138 x 4 it leaves me 48 short of the rent as the rent is 600 what am i doing wrong here

Hi

To work out monthly from weekly you need to multiply things by slightly more than 4 (something like 4.33).

12 months X 4 = 48, but there are 52 weeks in a year.

I'll shut up becasue I'm confusing myself now.

Cat.x

Floss

cat4772 wrote: »

Hi

To work out monthly from weekly you need to multiply things by slightly more than 4 (something like 4.33).

12 months X 4 = 48, but there are 52 weeks in a year.

I'll shut up becasue I'm confusing myself now.

Cat.x

Just to confuse everyone...is the rent payable every 4 weeks?

If you have a really careful month, and get a bit of a buffer in the bank, then you should be able to have enough in to pay everything when it falls due, then you will be able to manage the cash flow more evenly.

It is more difficult to work it out when paid weekly. What I do is have a spreadsheet with 2 pages for each month - 1 for bills, the amount & their due date and the other for my bank balance. Then I input my pay each month (week in your case), subtract the total of the bills page and what is left is what I have left to spend or save each month. I then subtract or add anything that goes in or out of the account.

In_Search_Of_Me

Re the sky...just my experience. I hung on to my cable for dear life for over a year thinking I couldnt live without grays anatomy & americas next top model! I decided to cancel it about a month ago and honestly havent missed it at all Now I get tv (some extra free chanels from virgin), broadband & phne (unlimited eve & we) for £30. I dont miss the TV & the extra £30 def makes a difference...promise if you do it you'll feel a whole lot better! £260 a week on "misc" is an awful lot to go missing....you'll be amazed when you look at your spending diary!!

earwig

hi everyone thankyou for all your help lastnight i started to go through all our bankstatements i think i may of found the missing money sometimes in a month there are five paydays instead of the four i have accounted what we spent the extra money on i dont know but its deffently gone in the bank i think when i go to the cash point i see that there is x amount in there but i only need x for bills so the rest just got spent there seems to be a pattern to it though i have added up somof our spending in the past month and i have spent
320.00 in shopping centres randem stuff like games clothes for kids what they didnt need toys again what was not needed and other bits of junk
65.28 on ham yes ham :eek: from our local butchers ds loves it and eats 2/3 slices aday
36.12 on choc bars just for me and oh :eek:

39.60 on bread and rolls from the local bakers this is on top of me shoping money
132.00 on takeaways :eek: :eek: :eek:
after that i had to stop as i was so shocked and we claim we have no money yet we spent 550 on junk right need some help here on how to undo all of this

earwig

Floss wrote: »

Just to confuse everyone...is the rent payable every 4 weeks?

If you have a really careful month, and get a bit of a buffer in the bank, then you should be able to have enough in to pay everything when it falls due, then you will be able to manage the cash flow more evenly.

It is more difficult to work it out when paid weekly. What I do is have a spreadsheet with 2 pages for each month - 1 for bills, the amount & their due date and the other for my bank balance. Then I input my pay each month (week in your case), subtract the total of the bills page and what is left is what I have left to spend or save each month. I then subtract or add anything that goes in or out of the account.

the rent is paid on the 12th of every month

TOBRUK

earwig wrote: »

65.28 on ham yes ham :eek: from our local butchers ds loves it and eats 2/3 slices aday
36.12 on choc bars just for me and oh :eek:

39.60 on bread and rolls from the local bakers this is on top of me shoping money
132.00 on takeaways :eek: :eek: :eek:
after that i had to stop as i was so shocked and we claim we have no money yet we spent 550 on junk right need some help here on how to undo all of this

With the ham, I take it that it's cooked ham and sliced at the butchers? If so why don't you buy a piece of ham at the butcher's to boil as it will work out cheaper.

You are certainly paying out a lot for bread! Could you make your own or get some cheaper?

TAKEAWAYS! I think you should look upon takeaways as a treat/luxury and when you are on a tight budget it has to go. Certainly cut back as 132.00 for a month is very very high don't you think? I have had 3 takeaways this year

Do you cook? There are so many good tips and recipes on OS forum. When cooking you can make batches and freeze them - this is what I do. You will make a BIG saving - here is where meal planning is the way to go.

I also think that you have to try and change your spending habits by setting out one day a week for taking out money from the cash point - an allowance for the week and making it last - you will be surprised.

Hope this helps you.