tight budget

melie3

hi all,
im on a very tight budget right now.
ive been managing to live on £50-£60 p/w shopping for 2 adults and 3 small children, and we are having to pay £300 a month to clear mortgage arrears until june.
every penny is accounted for and spent, but im just upset and concerned that i dont have anything in my budget to buy the kids new clothes/shoes etc. my child benefit was for exactly this, but currently my c/b and ctc is our shopping money. obviosly roof over head is more important, kids need to stop growing!
we are in a hole at the mo, not only with mortgage, which on plus side will be clear, 28k of debts, which will go back on DMP when mortgage sorted. planning an ebay sale and have lots of baby clothes and items to sell. just wondered if anyone else is like me.

aligerdie

hey!

i'm glad to see i'm not the only one. all of our money is going on our debts right now, and we've nearly finished paying off our rent arrears which was an extra £200 per month.
Things have been so hard lately, i've taken to rifling through the clearance bins in the charity shops to get some clothes for the kids. i'm a bit picky with what i get, but i've had some gorgeous things. i got a brand new umbro winter coat for the little one for 10p!
Its taken a long time to swallow my pride, i never thought i'd be doing this, but its pretty satisfying when you get a bargain!

How old are your kids?

It will get better soon, i've started doing a few things off the up your income board on here which has helped a bit, have you tried anything on there?

ms_london

So annoyed as I wrote a long post and then lost it. Grrrrrrrr!!

Sorry to hear about your struggles. The brief version of my post is that clothes & food (necessities!) for you and your kids must come first. The creditors can be paid second.

Could you please post a SOA, a list of your incomings, outgoings & debts (who they are with, balance & APR), maybe we can help some more.

Once you have worked out what you can afford after all of your necessities, rent, food etc etc - you should call all of your creditors, explain that you are having financial difficulties and propose an amount that you can afford to repay them. Say that if anything changes you will be in contact, but right now you need their help. Youll find of them most of them will be pretty good about it, the worst thing is not making payments or saying youll pay xyz a month and not doing it. You need them on your side!

You dont need me to point out that you dont want to risk losing your home with making the mortgage repayments - this is more important than credit card debt as your home is at stake. Not sure if the mortgage company can reduce the arrears you are paying slightly but they should be able to do something to help? But maybe they are not quite so forgiving, I dont know.

Take some time to get your thoughts & finances together and sit there by the phone with a cup of tea, and work your way through your list and make those calls. You will feel SOOOOO much better.

If I can be of any help in anyway please let me know.

Oh, and if you check out the Oldstyle money saving board, they are fab, as well as the freebie boards, and offer boards - the whole site is great!!

Good luck, you can do it, wishing you all the best. xx

beckseven

I'm living on a really tight budget at the moment as well-my outgoings are quite high-mortgage and nursery,petrol and utilities etc and also desparately need to clear my debts before they get out of control. I'm concentrating every penny on my debts at the moment so no spare cash for anything-it's hard but i know it will be worth it in the long run for my little boy. Kids dont need material things to have a good childhood-it's love and attention that create the good childhood memories. When I was a kid my mum and dad didn't have a lot of money for presents for me but i had a fantastic childhood and really appreciated the things I did get. Things will get better-have a massive ebay session and use the money you get from that to get some ebay bargains for your kids. I'm not sure how old your kids are but if you have little ones between 1-2-get their feet measured in Clarks and then look on ebay for shoes. I got my little boy some that are hardly worn-in shops for £32-for £3.50 cos at their age the wear isn't as great. Good luck!

monkey22_2

Hi,
We're on a tight budget too with too small boys (age 4 and 1).All their clothes are bargains from Tescos, Asda, Primark and charity shops or Ebay. People always comment about how smart they look and it always makes me laugh because I know their entire outfits only cost a few quid!;)
I'm also a bit creative with things like cutting down trousers to make shorts when the knees have worn etc.

My sister always buys her kids clothes from Next but they don't look any better than my kids and she spends a fortune.

chickenlady_3

And the boot sale season will be starting soon...

Once you get into buying bargains, you resent ever paying the full cost of anything! My mum hasn't bought any new clothes for years, and she always looks good. I am the same, but my children are teenagers, and they are much harder to please and very expensive to keep!

Sassamac

Hi Melie,
we're in a similar situation. we're now on a low income and cant make the figures add up. We also have two littluns.

We have mortgage arrears too. Do you know how much you're being charged to be in arrears? For us its £35 per month, which is a hell of a lot compared to the interest we're accruing on credit cards which have a similar amount of debt on them (2k).
So we have had a shuffle of credit cards and completely cleared one, which we are going to use (this week) to pay off the mortgage arrears. Even on the purchase rate of the card we shouldn't be accruing as much interest as the arrears fees. We're then hoping to do a LOB BT deal with another one of our credit cards to move it to cheaper debt, or else ask them to freeze the interest / take token payments.

The other option we were offered is to add the arrears onto the mortgage (this is something they offered us to avoid repossession etc.). Obviously this will cost a small fortune in the long run depending on how long you have left (we have over 23 years so didnt fancy this option, but very nearly had no choice). But if you are expecting your finances to improve in the next few years (when all the kids are in full time school for e.g.) then its not so bad.
Also we switched our mortgage to Interest Only which knocked over £200 per month off. Again its only worth doing if you think youre finances will improve in the next few years otherwise you'll never pay off the capital.

If you really cant make the numbers add up then go to the CAB for advice. They will act on your behalf and talk to your creditors and soprt out something that you can afford.

melie3

aligerdie wrote: »

hey!

i'm glad to see i'm not the only one. all of our money is going on our debts right now, and we've nearly finished paying off our rent arrears which was an extra £200 per month.
Things have been so hard lately, i've taken to rifling through the clearance bins in the charity shops to get some clothes for the kids. i'm a bit picky with what i get, but i've had some gorgeous things. i got a brand new umbro winter coat for the little one for 10p!
Its taken a long time to swallow my pride, i never thought i'd be doing this, but its pretty satisfying when you get a bargain!

How old are your kids?

It will get better soon, i've started doing a few things off the up your income board on here which has helped a bit, have you tried anything on there?

hi,
my kids are 9, 3 in april, and 9 month old. all girls. i dont buy too much for my 9 yr old, what with school no point shed loads of clothes, but she does need school shoes, and clarks aint cheap as she is size 4.5. im saving on my baby, as all babygrows and bodysuits and a few odd outfits have been passed down from middle child. my middle one i do tend to buy some for, but with the thought in mind that baby will wear it too. i thinks with the new summer lines in stores, makes you want them now, and i do tend to buy early to have sitting in wardrobes for months. just need to sell some stuff and it should be ok

ms_london

(((((((bump))))))))

pinkydinkydo

Hey there,

We're the same every penny is spent every month, could you save any money on the shopping? I can feed my lot (2 adults and 3 little ones 4,2 and 10 months) on £40 a week. i tend to shop at aldi the stuff is lovely really good quality my hubbys really fussy and he eats it. That would maybe save you a little eack week, then you could put it away for clothes or shoes or little treats.
I know what it's like for you as i'm living it every day, we'll all get there eventually!!!

lynzpower

I must recommend that you get yourself referred to the COnsumer Pulse.

Its a sitew that wants to know about your shopping habits. You put in what you buy, and you get points. its toiletries, clothes, books etc, medicines.

Each item you add into the site you get points, those points are transferred into gift vouchers, eg debenhams, john lewis, woolworths, B&Q ( kingfisher group) argos etc etc. Useful for putting aside for kids clothes, or towards Xmas presents.

If you can, find a Clarks Factory Shop. kids shoes are bogof in there, and they are also half price too. I bought some boots for 6.50 reduced from 40 the other day.

I do agree tho, the SOA will show you where exrtra can be found from.