Not sure how I'm going to get through this!

Abbafan1972

Yes, we have thought about the car, but that's a difficult one as the finance hasn't been running for long (we both had job when it was taken out) and the one he replaced was a smaller and cheaper one.  I wasn't keen on the idea, but he insisted he wanted this particular car (changed from a Focus to a Mondeo).  Luckily the £19.42 covers the servicing and MOT, so we won't have to stump up that cash when it becomes due.

Hubby is worried about losing the house more than anything, as we will just be left with nothing, we have nowhere to go otherwise. 

He said that he will ring Sky tomorrow, it's in his name.  Not sure if we're still in contract with them, so don't know if we'll be able to reduce the package down.  The £25 for Broadland also includes the line rental for landline (which no-one even uses and it's not even plugged in).

Hubby went off to work in a mood about all this, which is not good.

I know that payment holidays are only a short term solution - in the long term I need to find a job!

sharpe106

You are taking the right steps and if you carry on I don't think your at the house losing stage if you do nothing you may. If you batter down the hatches and significantly reduce your spending you should be able to weather the storm. 
Think 90% of people have land lines that never get used, but without fibre you usually need it for broadband anyway. 
Might be worth doing your sums on the car, seeing what you would be left with if you did get rid of it. 

Abbafan1972

I have just cancelled Spotify premium, as that was an easy one.  We've got it until 8/7.  I know the teenagers will moan (we had a family plan).

Have looked at the Postcode Lottery - it seems you have to ring them up, so will do that later.  (I did subscribe online though).

BabyStepper

Good progress. Keep going. 

sharpe106

A lot of places make it easy to subscribe online but hard to cancel phone them as they know a lot of people who are only thinking about it won't bother and if you do then can they offer you an extension for a discount.  

Andyjflet

Hi hope you are OK and well done for posting. Try not to worry too much, but as others have said your four walls are priority;
Mortgage / Council Tax / Utilities and Food, then comes transport to get you to work to earn money. Then you need to slice through the rest and be ruthless.
Quite simply without you working then you cant afford the house, mortgage payment should be no more than 30% of your income and ideally around 25%, yours is around 58% which isnt going to be long before you get into difficulty.
Personally I'd look at downsizing and selling the house, halve your mortgage for a while until you are more stable. Either that or find another job paying £2000 a month to be secure.

Abbafan1972

Hi there,  thank you for your replies.  
As I said before, I have cancelled Spotify, been on the phone to postcode lottery and cancelled that before the next payment goes out.  I do have money that gets transferred to other accounts for savings etc, but what happens is I end up dipping into this anyway when funds become low.  The only one I've kept is £20 a month to the Nationwide, as that is a branch only access account, so no danger of dipping into this.

Been on the chat to O2 regarding my daughters mobile contract, the earliest I can come out of this contract is January.  I can't downgrade the tariff, as they told me that she's on the base tariff.  If I want to come out of the contract today it would cost me £223, so I guess I will have to wait.  They did tell me that I'm eligible for an upgrade and asked if I wanted to get transferred to that team, (not very helpful and the last thing I want is a new contract). 

@Andyjflet We have thought about moving, but to be honest we cannot downsize as our house is relatively small anyway.  3 bed terraced, no garage.  Even a flat would cost the same and most flats round here would be really grotty.  We are in the same house since Marriage, so it was just the 2 of us to start with.   We have toyed with selling up and renting but at our age we probably won't be able to get on the property ladder again (I am 48 and hubby is 53).

Will keep you all updated on my progress. 

elsien

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-style-jobseekers-allowance
As already said it's not means tested if you have enough NI contributions. There's a summary in here of how it might impact on UC. It's not a huge amount, used to be £73 pw week but is better than nothing if you can't get UC due to your household income.  As already suggested, running the figures through a benefits calculator would probably help clarify the options. 

Time2Go_25

What about the possibility of extending the term of the mortgage, I believe you said there were 8 years left so pushing that out would reduce the costs.

Abbafan1972

@pdel61 Extending may be our only possibility at the moment.  We have already gone past our original term as already been here for 25 years, so under normal circumstances, the mortgage would have been finished by now.  But over the years, things have got in the way, such as redundancy and other debts, forcing us to review it again.