BIG drop in income help!!!

neverdespairgirl

toria27 wrote: »

me wage £300
Child benefit & tax credit £113.71
OH wage (if gets job) £1282.83
total £1696.54


life insurance £92.37 (will not be getting rid of)

Very best of luck to OH!

Your tax credits will go up with a big drop in income, have you checked https://www.entitledto.co.uk ?

The life insurance - very high indeed. I'm not suggesting getting rid, but do you know why it's that much per month?

OH and I have a joint life insurance policy for £32 a month, which is for a half million pound insurance. Could you shop around?

toria27

Hi all, I thought I would do an update of this thread as so many of you were kind enough to help and offer suggestions 7 months ago!!

It is amazing how much can happen in such a short space of time, Since I last posted we have got married (was already planned and paid for), OH started his new job - has just had a pay rise too!
I stated full time work in March and have already been promoted and had a £2,000 pay rise.
On the downsize I have also just had a miscarriage and finding things a it difficult at the moment as our neighbours have just had a baby.

As I have started full time work our tax credits have increased and are based on last years earnings so are high for now.

Incoming is now £3,154
Outgoings £2,374

leaving us £780 a month, we did get £1000 into debt during the 4 months before my job got going, but it is on a 0% credit card so not a problem as due in feb.(are paying it off slowly now)

The extra income left per month will be short lived as we remortgage soon and are expecting at least £100 extra per month, also in April tax credits will drop by £333 a month!! also our budget does not take into account holiays or emergencies at the moment but everything else is included.

Let me know if anyone wants to see my new SOA.

Thanks for all your support x

Keeping_Motivated

Hi I've just read your diary and I think your OH made a great choice to go for a job he enjoys and I think you were fantastic to support him. Sounds like although a little scarey you kept in control of everything and considering the massive drop there was very little 'damage'.

It might be good for you to put up your SOA as it may help you to continue with this thread so you can see the changes ahead more clearly?

KM x

toria27

Thanks, I think you are right I will post a new SOA tomorrow. It will help to keep things in check another thing i did not factor in was entertainment as we mainly use vouchers, tesco and nectar points and if OH get a lot of overtime, but we may start allowing a little extra for this as we havn't done for so long.
However, with the way the cost of living keeps rising it is scary to think how easily any extra income can quickly be swallowed up! We are keen to try and reduce our mortgage a bit also and before OH changed his job we managed to reduce the term by 1 year - saving us a lot in interest.

I am proud of the way I have controlled our spending with a lot of help from this site, and we remain stronger than ever as a family, although I am now not with my DD all the time (but to be honest we were both getting a bit bored of this) OH sees her a lot more and finished work at 4pm mon - thurs and 12.20 on a friday! She turns 3 in a few weeks and is a very happy independent little girl who loves going to the childminder.

Also along with my promotion work are allowing me to leave 30 mins earlier every day so I will now arrive home at 5pm instead of 5.45pm (less traffic so quicker) and considering my DD is in bed at 6.15pm this will make a huge difference to me.

neverdespairgirl

Congratulations on your marriage, and both your new jobs!

I'm so sorry to hear about your miscarriage, and it can't be easy with a newborn next door either.

What's your SOA at the moment?

toria27

Here is my new SOA

incoming

me wage £1060.63
Child benefit & tax credit £469.10
OH wage £1483.25
OH Overtime £100 (on average, he always does this)
total £3112.98

Plus get a bonus of around £1000 a year split quarterly, not including this though as it is profit dependent

outgoings

mortgage £1000 (4.59% fixed until sept 08 dont like to guesse what new payments will be)
water £44.29
council tax £117.14
car insurance £25 (we have 2 cars & yes need both)
car services & mot & breakdown £25.50
car tax £24.16
petrol £200
gas £40
electric £20
phone & internet (inc calls) £37
mobiles £20
tv £11.29
life insurance £34.38
prescriptions £8.54 (pre payment certificate)
dentist (just for basic checkups) £20.83 (maybe more?)
haircuts (cant do these myself,me & DD) £4
xmas &b'days £70 (have upped this from £43 while we can for a while)
clothes £50
food £200
DD savings £20
pension £43.33
home insurance £7.94 (through quidco, house & contents)
Childcare £416.66 (rest is going to be through funded place when 3 in couple of weeks)
Total £2440.06

leaving us with £672.92 per month bit less than previously said as have added a bit on for Christmas etc.

neverdespairgirl

What are you doing with the extra £600-odd a month?

toria27

We both only got a rise this month so will see that in Augusts wage. The childcare has only just dropped also due to DD turning 3. So for the time being we need £1000 to pay off our credit card then we are spending a couple of hundred on some much needed house reparis.

After that we are going to try and pay some extra off the mortgage - depends how much mortgage goes up by and gas electric food etc.

The extra amount may be short lived with the way the cost of living keeps rising.

toria27

Hi all, I havn't posted on here in a long time but found my old thread and found it very interesting reading about everything that happened 2 years ago and the struggles we had, also want to thank everyone for the support I had on here.

Anyway even more has happened since so thought I would update my thread about how we got through such a difficult time of my OH changing his job etc.

Well the main change has been I had a baby, I got pregnant the month after the miscarriage and he will be 1 in 6 weeks!!
money wise things have been going very well for us too, we have both had pay rises and big bonuses we picked a great mortgage deal at just the right time and are one of the lucky ones with a tracker so taking advantage of the low base rate at the moment.
We sold OH's car for just over £1000 (an old mini) and bought a bigger one on ebay for £350, we collect a huge amount of tesco points and use them for meals, days out gifts etc.

Anyway these are just a few things that have happened, its amazing when you look back at a thread like this how much your lives can change.

LittleMissKitty

Lovely to hear how everything's worked out for you and huge congratulations on your little man. Looks like it's onwards and upwards for you!

Kitty x