Sort out finances after wife lost her job.

Pollycat

durzoblint wrote: »

I get Dental as a benefit from work so i dont pay it.

Does it include your wife?

durzoblint wrote: »

The grocery bill for the last month was just £150 as we don't do a monthly shop but just pop in to top up on stuff we need. I will review it upwards though. I have definitely missed out the eating out bit which should be at least £200 a month. We don't drink.

Does that tally with your bills?
No more than an average (for example) of £200 per month spent in Sainsbury's or wherever?
No popping to the local shop for milk and coming home with £20 of stuff?

What about toiletries?
Is shampoo, deodorant, cleaning products all included in your grocery spend?

durzoblint wrote: »

There are holidays but they usually go out direct from my bonus once it gets paid.

No weekends away?
Does your bonus cover the total cost of holiday?
Flights, accommodation, travel to and from departure and arrival airport, car hire in resort, spends in resort. etc

I found it was the little things in cash that went out of my purse so surprising.
Window cleaner.
Birthday cards, wrapping paper.
Magazines.

Do you never have coffee out?

What do you do for lunch at work? Is that cost included in your SOA?

Your SOA needs to include all your wife's debt and repayments to be of any value.


ETA:
I see you've now included your wife's debts in your SOA. But you need interest rates for each debt to see which should be concentrated on.


Have you included this expense in your SOA?

durzoblint wrote: »

My credit card bills started piling up due to my lack of a disposable income at the end of the month.

I have funds in a stocks and shares ISA, P2P Loan and NS&I bonds which can cover my card debts, and i still pay some money into them monthly. I just don't know if its a good idea to do so.

My wife had an operation a month after losing her job and had to take a few weeks off to recover. since then she has been applying for jobs and attending interviews, nothing has clicked just yet.

Sea_Shell

It needs to be a true joint SOA taking into account both of your spends and debt.

That's the only way to get a true picture of the situation.

Whilst one of you is out of work the "my money/your money" system falls over otherwise.

durzoblint

Pollycat wrote: »

Does it include your wife?


Does that tally with your bills?
No more than an average (for example) of £200 per month spent in Sainsbury's or wherever?
No popping to the local shop for milk and coming home with £20 of stuff?

What about toiletries?
Is shampoo, deodorant, cleaning products all included in your grocery spend?


No weekends away?
Does your bonus cover the total cost of holiday?
Flights, accommodation, travel to and from departure and arrival airport, car hire in resort, spends in resort. etc

I found it was the little things in cash that went out of my purse so surprising.
Window cleaner.
Birthday cards, wrapping paper.
Magazines.

Do you never have coffee out?

What do you do for lunch at work? Is that cost included in your SOA?

Your SOA needs to include all your wife's debt and repayments to be of any value.

I've included my wife's outgoings also, but i'll also be checking her CC bill to see what i might have missed. I have updated the grocery bill.

We have a Holiday timeshare (included) which covers accomodation for most of our holidays and i tend to just pay for flights and the occasional weekend trips. I set aside part of my bonus to cover these. Its just the both of us and we dont go on extravagant holidays.

durzoblint

Pollycat wrote: »

Have you included this expense in your SOA?

At the moment i'm only saving money to NS&I funds. I have included the value of the stocks and shares though

TBagpuss

OK, looking at the SOA it still shows you having over £200 a month left over, so if you are still building up debt and going overdrawn ach month you will need to review in much more detail to work out where the money is going.

Then have a look at where you could make cuts.

For instance:

Currently you are spending £100 a month on clothes, £300 a month of entertainment and eating out, and £400 a month on travel. Those are all areas where you can look at cutting down.


Given how long your wife has been out of wok, it's probably also reasonable to sit down with her to discuss how her job search is going and whether she needs to start widening her net in terms of the types of job she is applying for, and whether she needs to look at applying for jobs which are lower paid or less interesting than her previous role.

If she was working previously, then she should surely be entitled to claim what was contributions based JSA (now 'new style JSA') which is based on her NI history and payable at £73 a week for up to 6 months.

durzoblint

TBagpuss wrote: »

OK, looking at the SOA it still shows you having over £200 a month left over, so if you are still building up debt and going overdrawn ach month you will need to review in much more detail to work out where the money is going.

Then have a look at where you could make cuts.

For instance:

Currently you are spending £100 a month on clothes, £300 a month of entertainment and eating out, and £400 a month on travel. Those are all areas where you can look at cutting down.


Given how long your wife has been out of wok, it's probably also reasonable to sit down with her to discuss how her job search is going and whether she needs to start widening her net in terms of the types of job she is applying for, and whether she needs to look at applying for jobs which are lower paid or less interesting than her previous role.

If she was working previously, then she should surely be entitled to claim what was contributions based JSA (now 'new style JSA') which is based on her NI history and payable at £73 a week for up to 6 months.

Thank you, the travel and entertainment are estimated. Its not usually that much and even when i travel for work its reimbursed. For entertainment i have approximated. we overspent over the christmas holidays but dont usually spend that much. i'm still going through my statements to see where the money is going

durzoblint

Another question. If i could free up £5000 where can i spend it to reduce my outgoings ? pay off Credit card bills ?

lindens

durzoblint wrote: »

Another question. If i could free up £5000 where can i spend it to reduce my outgoings ? pay off Credit card bills ?

check all the balances on all the credit cards and all the interest rates. Pay off the ones with the highest interest rates. that frees up the monthly payment to throw at another card. it's called snowballing

tiger_eyes

The 19% APR cards are obvious candidates for paying down fast.

TBagpuss

Yes, pay off the mos expensive debt firsts (i.e. those with the highest interest rates.)

However, as well as reducing debt you need to stop building it up - so clearing your barclaycard debt and reducing that of your wife would be the place to start,but that would need to be on the basis that you and she also stop putting new spending onto the credit cards - otherwise you may end up back in the same position in another few months.

Your comment about your wife still putting things on cards is concerning - you and she need to be on the same page about reducing spending, and that may need to be in conjunction with you ensuring that she does have some money each month so that there is less pressure for her to spend on cards?