Wanting to Stay out of Debt. Advice required.

YorkshireBoy

Hi Meanmachine, I'm assuming your post is in response to mine so let me elaborate a little on my "get rid" items...

meanmachine wrote:

Sometimes it's NOT good advice to tell people to "get rid" of this and "get rid of that!"

The (contract) phones, Sky, & broadband costs ARE "luxuries" when you're sailing close to the wind.

meanmachine wrote:

personally I live in an area of poor freeview reception, so that isn't an option. Also, if you cut down on going out, then you rely more on cheaper home entertainment.

What isn't an option? To watch "ordinary TV"? We managed OK before Sky came along didn't we?

I also live in an area of poor Freeview reception, and thus cannot receive Channel 5 either - I simply make do with BBC1/2, ITV1, & Channel 4 as I have always done. Home entertainment (over and above these 4 stations) is a "luxury" when you're sailing close to the wind.

meanmachine wrote:

Staying in more means you have greater use of broadband. ANd if you find a provider you like that's reliable and one that holds your email account, then "getting rid" isn't easy.

Why broadband? I have dial-up (one-off fee for free evening & weekend access) and it works fine for me. Coupled with BT together, I'm satisfied with the overall cost of internet access, reliability, speed, and calls.

meanmachine wrote:

This isn't about someone with huge debts, this is someone who has been careful. What's the point of living like a monk, and foregoing all pleasures in life?

Prevention is better than cure. The OP can see the danger signs of impending problems. By her own admission, her outgoings are larger than her incomings (although she'll be pleasantly surprised at the net pay figures I've given her). Far better to "trim" now than rack up a load of debt later - and we all know that debt "breeds" more debt.

meanmachine wrote:

Someone who has ratcheted up big debts, then yes, you should make sacrifices. But remember, you're a long time dead.

Agreed, but it's about striking the right balance though. We've gone through exactly what the OP is about to embark on. We've raised 3 kids through the 80's and early 90's (don't know if you're old enough to remember 16% APR's on endowment mortgages, or 13% APR in the early 90's?), firstly on one wage and then one one wage plus my wife's part-time job. Right now, with two adult children, another child still at school and 2 wages, life is great - but we put our current financial situation and lack of debt down to the fact that we "cut our cloth accordingly" when times were hard. And they were - VERY HARD.

Jillybean

Hi

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everybody who replied.

Mobile Phones - Still got nine and a half months left on contracts so can't cancel yet. Even when we were on pay and go our bills were still about the same as they are now.

Broadband - My husband uses it for work purposes. He has tried cheaper options like Tiscali but always had loads of problems with them.

Sky - We live in an area where we can't even get a good picture on ITV, Channel 4 and Five.

Luxuries - Broadband and Sky TV are our only luxuries. My husband has a classic car and he is even selling that to pay off the small amount that is left on our credit cards.

Child care - We have to put the baby into a nursery as my parents live about 1 hours drive away from us so it is just not practical for them to take the baby. My husbands mother is poorly at the moment so we can't ask her to help. We have no other family close enough to help.

Life Insurance - The two smaller amounts are life insurance that would be extra to the mortgage getting paid off. The bank recommended keeping this policy as it is quite cheap for our age (We are both 30 yrs old)

Heating cover - We have worked this out and over the 8 yrs that we had it it has paid for itself in repair costs. It also means that we get our gas central heating and fire serviced every year. There is also a known problem on our estate that due to cheap fitting of the pipes (plastic instead of copper) it will cause early pump failure so we really need to keep this contract.

We thought we would ask peoples advice in case we were missing something. We will look at mortgage rates if they come down this month but we will have to pay an penalty fee as we are still tied in for another year.

We changed to dual fuel with powergen about 6 weeks ago as it was cheaper - only to discover yesterday that they are putting their prices up!!!

Thanks Again for everybodies time and all your suggestions - we do appreciate it.

Regards

Jill

Turning_into_scrooge

nelly wrote:

tbh your just treading water at the moment so to speak,not putting anything away for emergencies not that your not well insured its the 1st time ive seen a cancer specific insurance. I personally would carry on working but thats me.

You do seem to have 2 life insurances

Illness / Life £100K £ 20.92

Life Insurance - Husband £25K £ 8.00
Life Insurance - Me £25K £ 5.15

Is one of these to do with mortgage protection by any chance? id so its needed but i do think you could get rid of the plumbing, change the mobile to a pay as you go and the heating breakdown which would give you quite a saving. My boiler recently broke down for the first time in 3 years it cost me £120 to fix, had i had the cover it would of cost me approx £700 - £900 i already had the money put to one side in case anything happened, emergency use. May i ask do you have a higher risk of cancer in your family, please don't feel you have to answer this question, i just wondered if there was a really strong reason for having this even though it is only a small amount. i have NTL, i don't go out so i class this as my going out money so i wouldn't say get a free view box even though they are very good. Child care is very expensive can you qualify for vouchers or help from the government? or maybe do you have any relatives that would be willing to help out?:)

ffs

It should be relatively easy to work out how many days work your can drop, surely you can tell by the amount of money you were saving each week before you went on maternity leave. I'm not saying you shouldn't consider how much money you can save through all the advice already given, but make those savings first, then reduce your hours further if you can afford to.

sophiedb

Just a random thought: obviously you'd like to stay off work for longer to look after your baby, but is there any extra work that you'd be able to do from home? Not pyramid selling or anything like that, but some universities farm out transcriptions that need typing up or your local adult ed bunch might be hiring tutors for something you know.. That's usually an evening thing.

Spendalot_2

Not sure what you do, but could you work evenings/ weekends around your partners work? Say you do 2 days and get 542, and pay 310 childcare, you are left with 232. If you working evenings/weekends you would only need to earn the 232.

I am not sure that your tax credit assumptions are correct. I would of thought that on your partners earnings which seem to be around £18k, you would be entitled to more child tax credit than the basic amount? Have you tried entering your details into the website to check this?

calleyw

Not sure if this is any help

Pay slip calculator

It might help you see how much you would be earning.

Have you thought about a evening or overnight job. I use to stack selves in a supermarket over night 10pm-7am. A lot of married woman with children did this. As it meant no childcare fees as a husband/partner could look after the childnre and if they only ran one car no transport problems.

It is hard work but they people where nice.

Yours

Calley

mummytofour

Hi,
Check out http://www.entitledto.co.uk/ you maybe able to get some help with teh cost of childcare?

HTH
Vxx

YorkshireBoy

calleyw wrote:

Not sure if this is any help

Pay slip calculator

It might help you see how much you would be earning.

Never new this existed! - thanks calleyw. I'm chuffed to bits though that my "spreadsheet" calculations in post#4 are within £1.50 of the pay slip checker's results.

calleyw

YorkshireBoy wrote:

Never new this existed! - thanks calleyw. I'm chuffed to bits though that my "spreadsheet" calculations in post#4 are within £1.50 of the pay slip checker's results.

Thank you Yorkshireboy. I am sure that I got that calculator link from this website in the first place.

Always handy to have just incase you want to change jobs and not sure you can afford to.

And also goes to prove you are a smarty pants when it comes to calulations and spreadsheets

Yours


Calley