Advice needed please!!

Smudge32

Hi

I've been on this board for a while and I thought I'd better get round to screaming for help and sticking my budget on here for people to "do a Martyn" on me!!

Here's what I earn: Basic is £1080 per month although with bonuses it goes between this and £1350. Usually about £1200ish.

Spending: My share of the bills (I pay most as wife is p/t) £850
Interest free debt to Mum £18
Stakeholder pension £45.13
Devon Air Ambulance Weekly Draw £4.33
Sainsburys credit card 0% until Jan 06 £45 (£1500 limit balance £1430)
Lloyds Tsb c/c 0% until Jan 06 £45 (£8000 credit limit balance £2218)
Petrol £120
Babysitting Fees £60
I paid my car insurance upfront in Jan with my Sainsburys c/c so £25 per month is included in the £45 above.
Aswell as this, I'm trying to squirrel away bits for stuff coming up.
Christmas/birthdays fund: £15 p/m
Tax Disc/Car maintenance fund: £15 p/m
Holiday for next year fund £20 p/m. This holiday will be the same as this year. Collect tokens in the local paper, get a caravan for £40 total. Rest is spending money.
Amount in holiday fund £0, presents fund: £60, Tax Disc fund £75.

That's me! Outgoings: £1237.46, incomings about the same maybe less.
My mortgage is stuck for 6 months, everything else down as far as I can get it. Don't go out, Don't smoke, don't drink (what do you do?!)

Any advice pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasseeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ms_london

What you need to do is breakdown your “Spending Category” – list all of the things that are included in this. It would be easier if you did a joint SOA, listing your total household income & total household outgoings.

Its fab that you are so organised into paying into tax disc, holiday & Christmas/birthday funds – its definitely the best way to do it, but as it is your outgoings exceed your incoming (based on the figures above), and unless we can see what the £850 is for, its hard to see if you can cut your outgoings in anyway. And with your debts on 0% at the moment, its hard to give you any advice as you seem to know what you are doing.

Whats your aim? To pay off your debt? Why have you visited MSE? Do you want to build up savings? What do you want to get out of this?

Ms_London

Smudge32

Hi Ms London

Thanks for your reply. Just for you, here's the breakdown of that £850.

BT £30.00 (Switched to 18866, this will reduce a lot next month!)
Mortgage £753.40 (Waiting until November for repayment charge to go down, then switching somewhere)
C Tax £112.00
Home Ins £23.00 (Renew date Jan 06)
Electricity 2nd £60.00 (B Gas, just switched to NPower using energyhelpline, should go down to £50) No Gas supply where I live.
Scot Equ £69.52 (Life insurance for family)
TV £10.49
Water £42.85

You may notice this adds up to more than £850! Basically, my wife is showing no interest in clearing debt and still continue to spend like mad, therefore I've said that she can do whatever and I'll clear my debt as much as possible. I pay £850 into bills account, she pays £250. £1.26 difference.
She gives me £240 per month for shopping.

ms_london

Smudge32 wrote:

BT £30.00 (Switched to 18866, this will reduce a lot next month!)
Mortgage £753.40 (Waiting until November for repayment charge to go down, then switching somewhere)
C Tax £112.00
Home Ins £23.00 (Renew date Jan 06)
Electricity 2nd £60.00 (B Gas, just switched to NPower using energyhelpline, should go down to £50) No Gas supply where I live.
Scot Equ £69.52 (Life insurance for family)
TV £10.49
Water £42.85

You may notice this adds up to more than £850! Basically, my wife is showing no interest in clearing debt and still continue to spend like mad, therefore I've said that she can do whatever and I'll clear my debt as much as possible. I pay £850 into bills account, she pays £250. £1.26 difference.
She gives me £240 per month for shopping.

You seem to know what you are doing & seem like you manage your money well.

I think you need to tell your wife to get her head out of the sand - you seem to be managing with money, but just about breaking even - with no excess money for savings, so if you carry on as you are then you will have to take caravan holidays for the rest of your life. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you need to turn things around, pay off the debt & then start to save money for you.

I can appreciate that your earn more, so you contribute more to the bills - but does your wife seem to have excess money? If she has more than you, then she should be contributing more to the bills. Does that make sense? Do you have any other credit available to you? Get rid of it if i were you!!!

Sorry i cannot give you any advise, but your finances seem to be in order (i.e nothing to cut back on), so unless your income is increased i am not sure how things can change, sorry!!

Ms_London

Smudge32

That's okay, thanks anyway!

Tried talking to my wife, but debt places a huge burden on marriage as I'm sure loads of people on here know and I'm not sure I can push her anymore. Don't want to lose everything.

Regarding the debt, I'll just have to keep plugging away and as each little debt goes, and I get more saved for regular stuff throughout the year, I'll be better off. Hopefully!

On a slightly different note, can anyone tell me where this debt free date website is?

robnye

£120 petrol per month...... do you need the car to get to work?

could you walk/cycle/bus

babysitting fees is that whilst you and your partner are at work?

what an evening job..... bar work.... especially with the summer upon us (somewhere )

can you sell anything on ebay/car boot.....

Smudge32

robnye wrote:

£120 petrol per month...... do you need the car to get to work?

could you walk/cycle/bus

babysitting fees is that whilst you and your partner are at work?

what an evening job..... bar work.... especially with the summer upon us (somewhere )

can you sell anything on ebay/car boot.....

Hi. I live in a rural village, 7 miles from work and only 1 bus a week!
Babysitting fees are for my mum-in-law. I work 5 days a week, wife works 3 or 4.
Got a couple of bits on ebay, doing a car boot on Sunday (if it doesn't rain!).
Can't do extra job as part of my fulltime employment needs me to be oncall every other evening and every other weekend.
Sorry! But thanks!!

ms_london

Smudge32 wrote:

On a slightly different note, can anyone tell me where this debt free date website is?

Is that to do with our signatures? If so, my DFD was calculated on my own. Just 5 more payments to go, whoooooooo!!!!

bleugh

unfortunatley here, you really need to talk to the wife.
i was in this situation,
living with missus for nearly 3 years and had enough of really scrimping and being skint while she worked maybe a couple of days a month, and did !!!!!! all round the house all day

I faced up to it and made an ultimatum, either she gets off her !!!!!! and gets a full time job / contributes to the bills or its over and she gets out.

I gave her a month. she's now working full time and I feel MUCH better knowing that i dont have to struggle to meet the bills next month

obviously as you're married, something like that becomes more difficult, but why not set up some of the bills in her name, if she's got her own bank account, move the direct debits there.
if you've got a joint bank account, make her have her own account.

you can't save money much more, but your wife can

robnye

to be honest.. you like you have reduced what you can.

you are restricted in whether you can earn any more money

so the obvious answer is your other half needs to wake up......

try using the MSE budget planner, then print it out and leave for wife to see along with a copy of the this thread...

good luck...

Smudge32

Gulp!!! :eek: