Cancer, cash and carrying on

ohdearhowdidthathappen

I've been on this board for a while and it was invaluable while I was paying down debt and navigating finances while working and juggling 5 children. We followed the Dave Ramsey plan loosely to get us where we wanted and the last year or so we were trundling along comfortably. Unfortunately, a breast cancer diagnosis has put a dampener on things and I'm part way through 12 months of treatment.

This diary is to help me budget while I'm off sick - I work for the NHS, so I get 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay. I'm about 4 months into the full pay section, so I'll be basing the budget on the half pay. I'd like to avoid dipping into savings (if possible) as they took us a long time to build up.

I'll be posting an SOA shortly to show where we are at currently :-)

ohdearhowdidthathappen

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

Household Information[/b]
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 5
Number of cars owned.................... 1[b]

Monthly Income Details[/b]
Monthly income after tax................ 1643 (half pay)
Partners monthly income after tax....... 5346
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0[b]
Total monthly income.................... 6989[/b][b]

Monthly Expense Details[/b]
Mortgage................................ 2090
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 310
Electricity............................. 140
Gas..................................... 140
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 72
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 50 (5 SIMS)
TV Licence.............................. 15
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 30
Internet Services....................... 39
Groceries etc. ......................... 1250
Clothing................................ 200 (3 youngest children)
Petrol/diesel........................... 150
Road tax................................ 17
Car Insurance........................... 42
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 50
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 170 (swimming, pocket money and savings)

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 24
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 15
Buildings insurance..................... 30
Contents insurance...................... 30
Life assurance ......................... 33
Other insurance......................... 38
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 250
Haircuts................................ 50
Entertainment........................... 150
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Husband's personal spends............... 250 (clothes, going out etc)
My personal spends...................... 250[b] (clothes, going out etc)
Total monthly expenses.................. 5885[/b]
[b]

Assets[/b]
Cash.................................... 15000
House value (Gross)..................... 825000
Shares and bonds........................ 2000
Car(s).................................. 12000
Other assets............................ 0[b]
Total Assets............................ 854000[/b]
[b]

Secured & HP Debts[/b]
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 295000...(2090).....4[b]
Total secured & HP debts...... 295000....-.........- [/b]

[b]Unsecured Debts[/b]
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR[b]
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........- [/b]

[b]
Monthly Budget Summary[/b]
Total monthly income.................... 6,989
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 5,885
Available for debt repayments........... 1,104
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 0[b]
Amount left after debt repayments....... 1,104[/b]

[b]Personal Balance Sheet Summary[/b]
Total assets (things you own)........... 854,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -295,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -0[b]
Net Assets.............................. 559,000[/b]

[i]Created using the SOA calculator at www.LemonFool.co.uk.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i][/font]

ohdearhowdidthathappen

So my plan is to divide that £1100 a month spare to give us a weekly figure available. I'll then make a record of what we spend that money on to see where the budget needs tweaking.

I've put that there are 5 children in the house, 2 of them are actually adults and earn very good money in degree apprenticeships. They're doing 4 years each and we don't charge them rent for that period, on the understanding they save. We don't check that they do, but they both say they're saving between £1000-1500pm, I know my eldest now has about £60k saved as she's coming to the end of her rent free period and is looking to buy a flat soon.

We don't have big lump sums of cash to hand them, but I'm pleased we can offer them this time to save for themselves. They obviously pay all their own expenses - transport, clothes, phones etc

Our other 3 children are all at secondary school, so the child related expenses are for them.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Holidays - we have a UK break booked for the summer holidays, we have already paid for the accomodation and have a separate pot of £1000 saved as spending money. I' haven't included it in the SOA.

Usually we save monthly into a holiday fund, but I won't be doing this while I'm off work. Anything left over at the end of the month will go in a pot for this, but my husband gets a bonus every year in March and we'll use that for next year's holiday. I haven't included his bonus in the SOA as it's variable, but he usually gets around £5k-7k once the tax man has taken off his large chunk!

in_need_of_direction

have you checked if you’d be eligible for ESA when you go to half pay?

ohdearhowdidthathappen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82023829#Comment_82023829

I didn’t even know this was a thing! I assumed all benefits would be means tested! At a quick glance, I’ll definitely be eligible once I’ve gone past the 28 weeks SSP. Thank you for the suggestion :-)

ohdearhowdidthathappen

So this month we only have an average of £150pw. So far this is what has been spent that’s not in the budget:

Monday: £0

Tuesday: £0

Wednesday:

• £10 prescription- this was my fault for taking too long to send off my exemption form.
• £35 shorts for my daughter, we’ve already spent the £200 budgeted amount for clothes. She’s 17 and now has a part time job paying her £700pm so in future we’ll only be buying clothes she needs. Her expensive H0llister habit can come out of her wages 😁

Thursday: £5 fish food for son’s fish. This could probably fit in our normal grocery budget, but will list for now

I suspect a lot of our ‘spare’ money goes on the kids….

lucielle

Ah kids the gift that keeps on giving!😀

L

DancingInTheRain

How well off would we be financially without children, we'd be much poorer in other ways though!

That's a fantastic amount your oldest has got saved.

Great idea to look into ESA too, it all helps take a bit of pressure off.

joedenise

Personally I would have taken the prescription cost from the Medical budget. I assume you are on regular medication as you mention not sending off the form in time. Where do you budget the cost of that? I would have thought that was something which would come from Medical so perhaps budget a bit more per month to cover that cost.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks Lucielle, DITR and joedenise

Children are so expensive! I thought babies were, but teenagers are a whole new level. Worth it though and we could be firmer with our spending.

Yes, she saved at least £1k a month and then she has a LISA, so got £4k over the 4 years from that too. Added up nicely with interest, think she put some of it in S&S ISA and it performed well too.

My son is saving the £1k a month too, but he earns less and likes to run a car so he has to be more mindful to stick to it. He’s only 19 though, so he’s got a while to save.

You get free prescriptions while having cancer treatment, so I shouldn’t have to budget for them. The nurse gave me the form a couple of months ago and I didn’t post it. But now the immunotherapy has damaged my thyroid, so I’ll be on thyroxine for life ☹️ but apparently will always be free as cancer related illness 🤔