Need fresh eyes on my budget!

honeybee1234

Hi all! I'm starting a brand new diary to break down my current situation and take a fresh look at things - what I was doing isn't working 😳

About me... I'm in my forties (late forties but we'll not dwell on that!) and live alone in a rented housing association house. I've had a very unstable period in the last six years which has involved a lot of life events - splitting up with my ex and getting divorced, moving house twice, and in the background there has been my mental health. I have a number of diagnoses which underpin my life and mean I don't work.

I have two teenagers who I have every other weekend, in the holidays and I do the general appointments and take care of a lot of things for them. Me and their dad have a relaxed care arrangement for them which works well for all as we get on well, the kiddos are free to come and stay here whenever they want, it's a really fortunate arrangement actually!

So, to my financials… 😭

• I have x4 credit cards, all with a balance near to being maxed out. This is from larger purchases on 0% that I haven't managed to pay off in the allotted time, so am starting to be charged interest
• I have another card which I just use for petrol and pay off in full each month. This is a relatively small amount as I don't go out much
• I receive Universal Credit and PIP
• I budget every month and on paper, my budget looks quite logical and reasonable, but what's happening is I inevitably spend more on general bits from my spends account, and have to take from the other pots

I'm not in a position of missing payments, but I am spinning my wheels and not getting balances down due to interest on x2 of the cards that has just started. My pots are depleted, my method of budgeting isn't working and I need to revise it but I can't see what else to do that will stick!

I also have two adult children, one is at university and struggling hugely financially due to a huge gap between their maintenance loan and their accommodation fees so I need to help them out so they can eat! This is always more than I anticipate and definitely is something I need to address in my budget. The other adult child is renting and working two jobs but has found it hard to get by due to zero hours contracts and has struggled so I've helped out there too.

I often feel swamped by needing to help out in this way even though I'm on benefits and trying to pay down my cards and it gets to me quite a lot. I'm effectively supporting four people on my benefits for one person and it's not working. I have a partner, and I've worked out I can't afford to move in together as things stand and this makes me feel quite sad.

Sooo there you go! Later I'll do my SOA and post it to illustrate all of the above gestures

Vitor

You’re clearly doing your best in a really tough situation, and this isn’t a budgeting failure. The key issue is that your income is being stretched to support several adults, which simply isn’t sustainable long term. Before tweaking pots again, it’s worth looking at boundaries around helping adult children and getting proper debt advice to stop interest escalating. Posting your SOA will really help others give practical, targeted suggestions

fatbelly

If your credit history is still ok, you may be able to balance transfer some or all of the credit card balance to 0%.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/balance-transfer-credit-cards/

If you can't do that then it's an indication of trouble brewing

elsien

Is the one at university also working in order to buy their own food?

MillQueen

Hello and good luck! Regarding feeding your grown up kid at university… the uni should have a well-being service who can signpost them to their financial support for students. Unis often have bursaries and hardship funds that can be applied for, or at the very least will be able to show them how to access local food banks. They will also have a job shop and a careers service that can support with getting part time work whilst studying.

Blackcats

hello and welcome to this supportive, knowledgeable and kind place. As @Vitor says you haven't failed with your current budgeting method you are tweaking it to try to get to the point where your monthly money doesn't run out before the end of the month. A place we all aspire to get to.

Perhaps at this point you need to put on your own life jacket so that in due course you can help out your adult children again. @MillQueen has some great tips in her post. A couple of batch cooked meals for them to enjoy at Uni/in their flat can still be hugely welcome but you can control how much you spend on ingredients.

interest on credit cards is painful so it's worth following the link @fatbelly posted to see if you can balance transfer.

A SOA will be helpful.

Well done on posting your story. There's lots of people here who will be cheering you on.

honeybee1234

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81875733#Comment_81875733

I'll post properly in a bit, I just wanted to cover this. DD had a job but unfortunately they let her go, they specified it wasn't her work, they just felt she didn't fit the role. She was gutted, she's worked solidly part-time since the age of 15 and it's getting her down not having a job. She's been looking and applying but is getting despondent as the majority of places don't respond.

She's got emails upon emails of applications she's sent, or confirmation emails, so I know she's absolutely applying. She had an interview the other day so fingers crossed this is the one!

Spendless

Uni student - is her maintainance loan based on her Dad's household income which Im guessing is higher than yours? If so would it be possible to switch it over to the lower household income since you have relaxed care?

My daughter's experience of asking Uni for help via bursaries was they said if she came from a lower income household then they'd be able to help, which I found a nonsense cos if that was the case, she'd have a higher maintainance loan. Trying the food banks is a shout though.

honeybee1234

[font=courier new][b]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet[/b][b]

Household Information[/b]

Number of adults in household........... 1

Number of children in household......... 2

Number of cars owned.................... 1[b]

Monthly Income Details[/b]

Monthly income after tax................ 0

Partners monthly income after tax....... 0

Benefits................................ 1780

Other income............................ 0[b]

Total monthly income.................... 1780[/b][b]

Monthly Expense Details[/b]

Mortgage................................ 0

Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0

Rent.................................... 499.1

Management charge (leasehold property).. 0

Council tax............................. 33

Electricity............................. 111

Gas..................................... 0

Oil..................................... 0

Water rates............................. 26.37

Telephone (land line)................... 0

Mobile phone............................ 24

TV Licence.............................. 0

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0

Internet Services....................... 20

Groceries etc. ......................... 260

Clothing................................ 0

Petrol/diesel........................... 30

Road tax................................ 0

Car Insurance........................... 46

Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0

Car parking............................. 5

Other travel............................ 0

Childcare/nursery....................... 0

Other child related expenses............ 20.2

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0

Buildings insurance..................... 0

Contents insurance...................... 8

Life assurance ......................... 0

Other insurance......................... 0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20

Haircuts................................ 0

Entertainment........................... 21.99

Holiday................................. 0

Emergency fund.......................... 100

Gym..................................... 32.99

Pocket money ........................... 60[b]

Total monthly expenses.................. 1317.65[/b]

[b]

Assets[/b]

Cash.................................... 2680

House value (Gross)..................... 0

Shares and bonds........................ 0

Car(s).................................. 4195

Other assets............................ 0[b]

Total Assets............................ 6875[/b]

[b]

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts[/b]

[b]Unsecured Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Virgin ........................1419.97...25........0

Nationwide.....................1429.53...29.26.....24.9

M&S............................1076.72...26.91.....0

Creation.......................1102.36...39.37.....0

Capital One ...................1185.38...52.99.....30.34[b]

Total unsecured debts..........6213.96...173.53....- [/b]

[b]

Monthly Budget Summary[/b]

Total monthly income.................... 1,780

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,317.65

Available for debt repayments........... 462.35

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 173.53[b]

Amount left after debt repayments....... 288.82[/b]

[b]Personal Balance Sheet Summary[/b]

Total assets (things you own)........... 6,875

Total HP & Secured debt................. -0

Total Unsecured debt.................... -6,213.96[b]

Net Assets.............................. 661.04[/b]

[i]Created using the SOA calculator at www.LemonFool.co.uk.

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i][/font]

honeybee1234

I've had a mare with copying this over, and can't comment on it without the formatting going crazy!

Notes:

• 2 teenagers who are here part-time, every other weekend, sometimes in the week, usually at least half of every school holiday
• Council tax is single person discount
• Internet is a Universal Credit price with BT
• Groceries often goes a bit over, by varying amounts
• Petrol varies but is quite minimal during quiet months. It usually is maybe double during school holidays
• Car insurance is insurance plus breakdown
• Child related expenses is child maintenance
• Presents is for birthdays. I used to save for Christmas within this but I've been disorganised and not been doing it
• Entertainment is family Spotify, DP uses this and sends me £5 for his share
• Pocket money is a combination of 15.00 each for the younger kids (30.00 total) then 30.00 for the gym for one of them. Dad pays for another of their sports so we balance it out this way)

Obvious things that are missing, eg car fund, Christmas etc are things I used to divide up from the surplus and put into pots before allocating the rest for miscellaneous spends. I need to reorganise myself with this because I have no car fund and I need tyres very soon.

Anything else? thinks

• I often pay for Ubers for one of the kiddos to go to their sports. I struggle to leave the house a lot of the time and their dad doesn't have a car. This happens roughly once a week at around £18 in total
• My university student child - I will send money or order things for them. This isn't regular and varies
• My eldest, I help out here and there. This also varies but is at least 40.00 a month atm, mainly for taxis home from their second job where they work into the night and have to go home at 4am on their own. This is something I feel is non-negotiable until I know they can afford to pay for this themselves.

elsien

How far away is kiddo sports? Bus or cycle or walk?

Is the job that finishes at 4 am worth doing if they can’t afford to pay their own transport from it?