Need to start saving!!!!!!!! help

ruthb1

Hi,

has anyone got any ideas on how to help me!!

I am a mum of two boys ages 7 and 6 in a long term relationship of 15 years and both mydself and my partner both work.

my partner is a train driver who works shifts and i am a civil servant working 4 days a week.

we bring home approx each month £2300, we have a mortgage of £1300 and basically we always seem to run short of money each month, we dont have any savings and we dont have many debts, i have £ 500 on a credit card we dont have any other loans, we even got rid of sky, i have broadband ok i know its not a necessity but its my only luxury , we have no spare cash whatsoever, i am so fed up of borrowing money each month from family just to get us by. both me and my partner get so down by the whole situation we both work so hard and feel we have just got nothing. we need to start saving but basically just dont know where to start. i have my hand always in ,my pocket with the childrens school as they are always asking for money. we are not extravegent people we dont spend on ourselves we just exist from day to day and try and get by but we dont want to just get by anymore .


sorry for moaning

ruth

mary43

Don't apologise for moaning Ruth..........we all need to get it out the system sometimes.
You might find some help on cost cutting on the Old Style Money Saver forum a bit further down the page.
There's loads of tips for all sorts of things that might help you cut down any spending.
I'm new here myself and still finding out things as I go along.
Good luck

libra10

The people on the Debt Free Wannabe board are great at helping to cut costs.

If you do an SOA (statement of affairs) you will receive some great advice.

Good luck.

belfastgirl23

Second the DFW board suggestion - those guys really know their stuff and are very helpful. Try looking at a few SOA posts first to get the idea. They might also be helpful on how to up your income which I suspect is perhaps the source of the trouble really given your mortgage commitment. Also the other good thing about the DFW board is realising that you've caught your problem in very good time and it does act as a warning when you read about people just like you who have run into a bit of bad luck and how a lack of savings can make them very vulnerable to debt.

Just on a couple of small things - if you haven't done it already it's worth keeping a spending diary for a month or so to see where all your £ goes. Although your mortgage is clearly eating up a fair bit of it And if you identify that there is some slack in your budget it's worth putting the money into savings at the start of the month rather than the end. Also it might be worth thinking of joining the grocery challenge on the oldstyle board??

Good luck and well done for thinking about this before it becomes a real problem!

margaretclare

You need a proper budget to start with - see Martin's template on this site.

Margaret

thatgirlsam

if you have any spare time at all enter as many competitions as you can on the comp board... i have won a fair amount of usefull prizes, prizes i have sold on e-bay and luxuries i would never have been able to afford to buy... good luck x

ruthb1

where's the comp board if you dont mind me asking


ruth

whitewing

Are you entitled to Working Family Tax Credit? Could you remortgage?

(I'm not really a night owl so sorry if these are daft questions)

whitewing

ruthb1 wrote: »

where's the comp board if you dont mind me asking


ruth

Click on Forum just under your sign in and then scroll down until you find the competitions board.

I usually don't bother with that and just pick them up from New Posts (or Today's posts if I'm not signed in)

ruthb1

hi,
Are you entitled to Working Family Tax Credit? Could you remortgage?

(I'm not really a night owl so sorry if these are daft questions)

not entitled to working families tax vredit as we earn too much between us. dont really want to borrow any extra money as i have a high enough mortgage as it is.

thanks for your replies

greatly appreciated

ruth

duchy

There are lots of ways to cut your expenditure. I don't think any of us realised just how many ways there are. If you are comfortable doing so then post a SOA listing your outgoings each month and people will give you very specific and targetted help. If you aren't feeling quite that brave-yet ! Take a look at the other diaries and posts on DFW and you'll see loads of ideas. A couple of examples: Insurance-The cheapest home insurance for me was £224 -by going through the Quidco link I got £70 cashback reducing the cost to £154, food bills can always be cut-few of us menu plan without making the effort to do so and that can slash food bills-My own food bill tip is to shop on-line so I'm not tempted to impulse buy in store or buy things I'm not sure if I have or not so buy them anyway (and always find I DID have it when I got home ) There are always codes to be found for a discount on shopping on-line so I never effectively "pay" the delivery charge.
It's also worth checking out if you are paying the cheapest rate for utilities like gas and electric-and broadband. Often switching not only lowers your bills but will also bring a cashback (see Quidco again).
Hopefully some of these will help you out and encourage you to post your SOA so people can find ways to help you specific to your own needs.