Embarrassed & a little scared

LittleMissKitty

I really wish it was so easy! Believe me, I'm not a fan of unnecessary spending We rarely go for days out, perhaps twice a year. The 'entertainment' covers the extracurricular activities for the kids. The youngest doesn't do anything but each of the eldest 4 have one club each, once a week.

We have no landline so mobiles are a must. The eldest two have a mobile as they travel on three buses each way to school and I need to be able to contact them (and them me) if there is a problem with the transport (which there often is), both of their tariffs are capped at £10 a month, but the base cost is £7.50. Same with my husband's. My phone was used for business so, unfortunately, is on a higher tariff but I can't get out of it in the immediate future.

Internet is also a pain, we cannot get broadband where we live so we're massively limited. Satellite would cost £200+ a month. We use 2 4G routers and try to stick within the monthly allowance (£68) as much as possible but if the children have internet based homework we often need to top up at £20 a time.

Oil is for heating, gas for cooking and electricity for everything else. We live in Northern Ireland so we don't pay for water.

We need two cars as my husband works shifts and I need to get the children to school. My car is a 7seater (though it's only1.6ltr) but hubby has a tiny 1.2ltr. He thought about getting a motorbike to make things cheaper but the roads here are far too dangerous and the saving would be miniscule. We live 10 miles from school so walking/biking/public transport is not an option.

We cook from scratch, shop around, buy own brands and don't do sweets/biscuits/chocolate. Cutting down on groceries would be nearly impossible, though I promise I'm trying!

The clothing budget is, primarily, for school uniform and sundries. Keeping 5 kids in shoes for an entire school year can cost us well in excess of £200 and the secondary school PE kit alone is nearly £60

The £500 was accounted for when I did the budgetbrain SOA instead of the basic SOA, I think it was mostly the small things adding up, I massively underestimately our optical and dentistry bills in the SOA above.

Depressing we are spending £1700 on insuring the cars. We were involved in a huge pileup last January and because the claim is ongoing our premiums are insane. Our renewal (if I hadn't swapped) was £4800 for one car!!!

Golightly72

I could see small cutbacks you could make in your budget there, but on the whole it's not bad, and you do have a small surplus - you are not at the stage where you need to get rid of the tv for your 5 kids, or only give them a £5 present each at Christmas/Birthdays from now on. I do think your food and clothing budgets are very reasonable for a family of 7.

I would suggest a spending diary, then a more detailed budget for the extra £550, to see where it goes, and then sticking to the budget you have outlined.

If you could only spend half of the excess next month, you could have that high interest Creation account gone in one month, and then put any extra towards whichever credit card 0% offer runs out first, then the next, and finally overpay the loan if you are allowed to.

I do think you need to be putting a sum aside (minimum £50 a month) as an emergency fund, and your car maintenance looks low for 2 cars - maybe check what you actually spent last year divided by 12 for a more accurate figure? Hopefully in 12 months you will find your car insurance comes down a bit more, so that will give you some extra wiggle room.

LittleMissKitty

I think, realistically, the overspend, at least this year so far, has definitely been the car. It's been in and out of the garage constantly since January and has cost me a small fortune.

Previously it was all indulgences, we spent a fortune on eBay and I flew to New York for 3 days because I felt like it etc etc etc.

We also drink a fair bit. We brew our own mostly, but the last batch went horribly wrong so we spent a month or so buying alcohol and, even with own brand basics, I know how much that adds up.

I've pulled our overdraft back by a few hundred £'s since Christmas too (we were nearly £2k into the overdraft at the beginning of the year) so that's probably impacted it.

It's the eldest's birthday in a fortnight so I bought her presents (cheap riding clothes from eBay and a free upgrade for her mobile!) yesterday and will get her a card today then I'll start a spending diary and aim for 5/7 NSD's a week in April.

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions so far, they're ALL appreciated.

Potbellypig

You're going to really struggle to put a dent in that debt with 5 kids all in that age bracket. If you really want my honest opinion, there are a few things that you could cut back on, but don't let it effect your quality of life you have or can offer to your kids.

A proper budget planner would help you though. Maybe do one for say 3 months and see where you could cut back on. My guess is that it won't be much more than a £200 a month swing.

Most importantly, enjoy your kids growing up. You won't get that time back.

alan_d

I'd suggest trying to reduce the car insurance cost.
I insure 3 cars with Direct Line for around £850 for the year total. One of those is a 7-seater.
Admiral multi-car came in a little cheaper at the last renewal but it wasn't enough of a saving to move!

I have 3 kids in school. In my experience no school homework needs much data - an online maths quiz or whatever use a tiny amount of data.
Data is mostly consumed with streaming and downloads of music, video (youTube etc) and photos.

LittleMissKitty

Thanks all, I keep a constant eye on car insurance costs but, so far, I've not found anywhere cheaper than we are.

We have a total ban on youTube, music, streaming Amazon etc and have a 'family movie' every week or so where we'll stream something as a treat. Our second 4G router gives us free streaming of Netflix so hubby and I will watch that in the evening. Unfortunately a lot of the kids homework involves downloading pictures/videos etc to put into powerpoint presentations and the like. My eldest tries her best to do it in her lunchbreak at school but I have to admit I don't like her doing that when she should be having down time.


I'm also attempting to restart my business which requires a lot of online marketing so most of the internet usage is my fault and I'm trying to limit it.

Hubby is very much on board so I suppose we've now officially started.
I think I'll turn this into a diary and use it to keep note of spending!

smem18

Wow this is tough. My question is: could you get a job? Its tough with 5 kids from 5 - 13 but thought it was worth asking the question. I just employed a lady on a part time basis (3 days a week) at my place of work and she does 8:30 (comes straight from dropping her son at nursery) until 4 (goes and picks him up). We were perfectly happy to completely work around her schedule and her kids. So, even though admittedly uncommon, jobs do exist.

Are you absolutely sure you can't get a better deal on your internet? Even if it means its a bit slow. I know your pain - my FIL lives in an area with really bad internet and they pay a fortune for RUBBISH BT broadband that constantly drops out, so I understand if its not possible.

Do you make your meals from scratch? Money can be saved if you don't.

LittleMissKitty

I have been looking for a job recently but so far no luck. I'm more than happy to work but I'm trying to re-up my business in the mean time on the off-chance I can get a client or two (every little helps!)

We can't get broadband at all unfortunately, we're too far from the exchange. We had 10 different engineers out when we first moved trying all sorts of things and they eventually concluded it was just impossible! If push comes to shove I think we can drop the £44 a month router but we'd be left with practically no access at all (though we'd still have the Netflix streaming which, I admit, is something I'd struggle to get rid of as our terrestrial TV signal is SO flakey.) It would be doable but it really is a bit of a last resort as it's kinda our sole form of entertainment apart from PC games which cause no end of arguments because kids are awful :rotfl:.

We scratch make everything except the kids pizza once a week and everything is basics own brand stuff (apart from baked beans which, for some reason, I just can't buy the CHEAPEST tins of, so we get the Asda own brand 4 packs.)

smem18

Well it sounds like you are doing all the right things. I guess you need to keep on chipping away at those debts the best you can for now. Hopefully your business will kick off and if it doesn't, as the kids get older perhaps it will be easier for you to get a steady job. As far as I can see, that's going to be the key extra income you need to get those debts cleared.

enthusiasticsaver

Your car is obviously also a bit of a money pit so saving more each month is sensible. You do not appear to be doing that as you have no savings. You also have allocated nothing to holidays and as you went to New York you obviously take them. Having nothing for emergencies is not sensible. I can understand why the entertainment figure is so high with 5 children.

It sounds like you are doing the right things so ultimately the only way you will have more available to pay down the debt is by you going back to work as well. Your travel costs, car costs,entertainment, grocery costs and Internet is high but are explained by you living out in the sticks presumably and having 5 children. As you can't do anything about those you either need to locate the missing £500 and eliminate expenses where you can or get extra work or move closer to work and school so you are not spending £75 a week on fuel. As you have just moved I am guessing that is no good though but on reflection that is something you should have considered along with the lack of internet access. With the benefit of hindsight and all that.

I wish you well though and agree that creation is probably the first you should tackle. How much does your overdraft cost as those are usually fairly expensive? A spending diary is a must to find the £500 as I don't think that can all be going on dentists and opticians as the kids are oresumably free?