Light bulb moment

macman

How can you be spending £840pa on mobiles if 2 are SIM only? Is the contract phone costing you around £60pm?
You are spending near on £2K pa for mobiles and TV: that is not what most of us would define as reasonable.
Contents insurance: £100K cover seems excessive?

Naomim

Hi,
Just a couple of thoughts on your SOA.  It looks like you haven't accounted for any takeways or eating out, do you ever take your child to McD's, cinema trips, day trips?  Coffee's whilst out or with friends? magazines? Kinde books?  Does your child have a birthday party every year? Some do and it's not cheap! No dental or prescription costs in a year? You say your nails & beauty are a vice but there's only £15 in the haircut section. I get my nails done once a month and it's about £25. Do you not get your hair cut or is £15 a month sufficient to cover that?

It may be best to go through at least 6 months worth of bank statements to see where your money really goes.  I know when I first did mine a lot went to Costa & Starbucks and Kindle! 

Good luck

Naomim

shoppingobsessed2020

Naomim said:

Hi,
Just a couple of thoughts on your SOA.  It looks like you haven't accounted for any takeways or eating out, do you ever take your child to McD's, cinema trips, day trips?  Coffee's whilst out or with friends? magazines? Kinde books?  Does your child have a birthday party every year? Some do and it's not cheap! No dental or prescription costs in a year? You say your nails & beauty are a vice but there's only £15 in the haircut section. I get my nails done once a month and it's about £25. Do you not get your hair cut or is £15 a month sufficient to cover that?

It may be best to go through at least 6 months worth of bank statements to see where your money really goes.  I know when I first did mine a lot went to Costa & Starbucks and Kindle! 

Good luck

Naomim

Thanks for the advice, birthday parties we cut back last year after them hitting £300 a party!  I said no more and we did a sleepover and takeaway instead for his birthday and plan is to do similar this year so not really bothered about that cost yet as will see where we are on a few months and if I’ve made enough of a dent I can budget that in.  He’s a December baby so there’s time to budget a sleepover and cinema or takeaway.

we live in the middle of nowhere so not many takeaways bar fish and chips, that will come out the food budget if we want that going forward.  Still early days and thankfully lockdown is making me take a good hard look at willy nily spending.

Yes we often grabbed a McDonald’s or a Costa when out after activities but no more!  I just need to be more organised and I do take snacks everywhere with me for me due to my food situation so it really isn’t that difficult for me to just make sure I’ve got something for monkey boy as well (in each car I have a grab bag with protein bars and protein shakes so I always have something in case I’m caught short, so realistically I just need to put some cereal bar type things in there and we have that instead of getting something from a shop)

yes I missed the opticians and the dentist!  Need to book that in and find budget, thankfully both dh and I had tests last autumn and our prescriptions hadn’t changed so no new glasses for us, but last time it was £500 for 3 pairs for me so must add that in (glasses, spare pair and prescription sunglasses

nails I can do my own as I have all the bits to do it so I’m not going to miss that cost really.  Same with haircuts, it’s 9 months since I last had one and I stick a box dye on it every 6/8 weeks as despite loving my nails and pampering I hate getting my hair done.  

i do buy kindle books, but have put myself on a self imposed ban as we have a lot of books and if I want a new book it can only be one of 3 authors who’s series I’m reading so a new release.  That will come out the new entertainment budget as they don’t release books very often and I refuse to buy them when it’s more than £5 a book.  One new kindle release is £11 so even before budgeting kicked in I wouldn’t buy it.  Dh isn’t a reader more of a gamer (who regularly trades in his old games and swaps for new so minimal cost and will come out entertainment budget) and monkey boy has books coming out of his ears as he’s just getting into books so has all my old Enid blyton and hardy boy books ready and waiting for him.

reslly must jig the budget for dental and optical though.  We are due to remortgage any day now so will wait till I have that figure and then update it all together,

Naomim

Glad to have helped.  In my humble opinion, don't completely cut out the McD's and coffees but just make it more of a treat.  We tend to do sleepover & takeaway or Cinema & meal for the kids birthdays now with a few friends.  

Kindle books were terrible expenditure for me. I was justifying it by only buying them when they were 99p but then would buy loads every month.  I re-discovered the library and charity shop books and have quite a lot to get through.  

I've only been budgeting since November but have included a day's out budget of £50 a month. This might seem a lot for someone trying to clear debt but as much as I try to find discount vouchers for places, one trip to the cinema can easily be £40 and it means I don't have to dip into my own personal spends which are budgeted for.   

It takes a few months to settle into what you need to budget for and how much you need in each pot and you should re-visit your SOA every couple of months to check it's still what you need.  I found Martin's Budget Planner on this site much more helpful at the beginning as there were so many more things to think about.  

BTW - I should have a pot for opticians as I think I do need new glasses this/next year.

Naomim

shoppingobsessed2020

We are ticketed out with day out passes thankfully and I’ve never realised till now when actually doing a budget just how lucky we are. Both sets of Grandparents have got on board with buying us an annual pass instead of Easter eggs and birthday presents and things ever since monkey boy was a toddler and have just changed the pass from local soft plays to more age appropriate passes as he’s got older so we have national trust, English heritage and a local independent museum that we go to most weekends and have done for the past 6/7years so I’m not concerned re a day out budget as we have free parking at all the above venues with our passes so it’s fuel to get there so can do a packed lunch  with a small treat from the entertainment budget  I really appreciate how lucky we are with these passes as it does cost a fortune for a day out.

we rarely go to the cinema as I’m notorious for falling asleep and pre budget begrudged paying the best part of £20-£30 to take a nap.  We have our own movie nights in the house and make popcorn so that will continue.  I actually can’t remember the last film we saw at the cinema.  I have a feeling it was detective pikachu which was a while ago.

i think our £50 entertainment budget will suffice and I’ll restrict the McDonald’s after football/swimming to once a month rather than most weeks.  It’s not great calorie wise and I still need to sort food for me when we get home so really it’s not a bad thing to cut right back on.   

Drawingaline

Omg I am just like you with books 😂 a new one in a series is on kindle, but at £8.99 I can wait!

I did cave and am paying for kindle unlimited while our town library is closed. I can get through up to 8 books a week, I couldn't cope with the withdrawal symptoms of not having access to books.

shoppingobsessed2020

@Drawingaline I dug out all my
old books from when I was a child/teenager so have been rereading my way through.  Working my way through Clive cusslers numa books at the moment.  Then I’ve got Tom Clancy, Andy macnab, all the sweet valley high books, babysitters club, goosebumps, Nancy drew, hardy boys and Enid blyton is no more kindle for me for a while.  

Drawingaline

I he pruned my books to only have a few authors on our shelves. Terry pratchet (which I re read in Oct when I was laid up with a dislocated shoulder) Lindsay Davis Falco series and an epic series of 35 books following the same family from the war of the roses to the 1930's. I often borrow books from my dad, may ask if I can borrow his cadfael series, been a good few years since I read those, and I am dropping shopping off on monday, he could leave them out for me maybe......

I am reading lots of thrillers on kindle. A newish genre for me. I may see what my daughter has on her shelves, she has taken to buying some YA fiction. (she is 16)

Drawingaline

And I tried reading Enid Blyton with my daughter when she was younger. We both hated it so much. I was heartbroken, all my fond memories were gone, but the famous five was just a bit too dated for us. Although Bimbo and Topsy my all time favourite book when I was about 5 was still lovely. 

monetxchange

Most local libraries do free ebooks, magazines and audiobooks for download. They don't work on Kindle, but you can read from your phone or tablet. All recent titles are on there, you can download instantly or reserve for when they're free. Mine works through Borrow Box, but check out what your local council does. Will save you a fortune as Kindle Unlimited is hard to get your money's worth from as the quality of books isn't the best (tends to be books they've got on promo and are pushing and are only 99p anyway so you'd have to read 7 a month to break even) and don't always have the top titles.