Please help...cant take anymore

Scarlett.1974

Hi, just a quick one from me - your house insurance seems very high. As you're in rented (as we are) you only need contents insurance and I have mine from churchill for just £6 a month. Do check out www.quidco.com first to see if you can get any cashback

RoxieW

Outgoings per month

• Rent £650
• House insurance £28 This seems high - I pay £15 a month and next time i'll be going through quidco to get cashback
  
• Car insurance £34 get rid of the car
  
• Pet Insurance £35 very high! what pets do you have? Is this really necessary?
  
• BT line rentel £10
• BT internet £25 Too high - shop around
  
• Electric £30 Do you use gas as well? If you find a different provider to be cheaper, use quidco to switch for cashback
  
• Water £30 Again, quite high - look at your usage.
  
• Food Shopping £150
  
• Petrol £100 Very high if non of you are working. GET RID OF THE CAR!

• Tv licence £12
• Mobiles £80 Get rid definitely!
  
• Pet food £50 Very high - again, what pets do you have?
  
• school trips/events £10

Total = £1244

The things that really stand out to me are -

the pets are costing you almost £100 per month. Thats a heck of a lot. You need to cut this down. What pets do you have?

The car and the mobiles. It amazes me how so many people think they are essentials. So many of my friends put so much money into their cars and then wonder why they're skint. £100 per month petrol is alot as neither of you are working. Get rid of the car and you'll be saving around £174 per month. You'll also prob get some cash if you sell it. You can use the buses , do shopping online - its alot to pay out for the convenience of a car on the driveway.

Mobiles - neither of you are working so I assume you spend most of your time together , have your son with you so why do you need to spend so much on mobiles? get rid and get a cheap PAYG for emergancies. I put about £5 a month on mine and never use it to make call. You're also paying for a landline so thats £100 a month on phones.

Just getting rid of the car and mobiles would free up £254 a month.
Roughly looking at other amounts (sorry, dont know what pets you have) I'd say you should be able to trim a further £50 easily - freeing up £300.

So new total - £944
Leaves £500 to throw at debts with a little (£90) left over for haircuts/dentist/birthdays and christmases
At that rate you could be debt free in under a year - and thats not considering the bank charges that you may get back.
After that you'll have plenty of free cash to save for a good holiday next year, days out etc, things for the home, a little savings pot towards your own home...All the things you so greatly deserve.
Doesn't look hopeless at all, does it!! :j





Would like to budget for (as dont at the mo)

• Car Maintenance £20
• Car tax £20
• House maintenance £20
• Family Trips/days out £20
• Hoilday £50
• Anniversary/birthdays £20
• Michaels Pocket money £24
• Tony and I going out together once in a while £50
• Shopping non esentials £30
• Oil £10
• Wood £10
• dental £10
• glasses £10
• hairdresser £30
• Computer things £20
• clothes £50
• beauty £10
• health pills £10
• Meals out £30
• medical insurance ??
• books/mags/hobbies £10

Total £454

Debts

• HSBC Flexi loan £1000
• HSBC overdraft £1500
• Council tax £398
• Burtons (old store card) £330
• Powergen £250
• BT £310
• Natwest £309
• Allience and leicester overdraft £250

Total £4347_pale_

Income per month

• Incapcity benefit £567
• Child Benefit £73
• Child tax credit £160
• CSA £300
• Housing benefit £426

Total £1526

HSBC owe us £2500 before interest + charges they are adding monthly:mad:

Serendipity_phoenix

Hope I do this right as this is the 1st time i have used the quote button!

ceridwen wrote: »

Hi

First thoughts:

- you can get cheaper broadband than this I would have thought. First off - find out if you are in an area covered by cable. Secondly - check out on the main MSE website page re broadband providers.

Thanks for the suggestion's but.....
We are tied into bt internet until May and there isnt many other providers in the area Definitely no cable, my husband is a computer engineer, and our Internet drivers him bonkers! it is slow! and i mean slow!:mad:
he checks the speed all the time, and he is the one that sorts out the internet company as i dont have a clue!
All i do know is we are tied in, and it is the cheapest and best of a bad bunch.


- not sure why you are covering costs of house insurance and house maintenance (as the property is rented would have thought this is the landlords responsibility?). Obviously, you need insurance for your own possessions - but I would have thought that is as far as it goes (and - again - check out different insurance providers via MSE - as its astonishing the huge difference in charges between them).

house insurance and landlord....humm...:rolleyes: This brings me on to another problem we are having, I have explained that we dont have a bed, but i am going to post in the insurance section, so when i have i will put a link on here, but house maintainance i meant as in paint, wallpaper etc as i im sooo embarrassed by the state of where we are:o , it was built in 1890's but not been looked after/had anything done to it since 1970's....but if they offer us a long term lease, then at least i know we will not be in the situation we where in before.

- car? Is this a possible saving here - as in not having a car? Unless you live miles from anywhere and with an awful bus service - could you look to cut out the car expenses and free up a bit of money by selling the car?
Heehee! car! sorry but yes we do live in the middle of nowhere!
we are in deep dark cornwall, we do not have a bus service, no local shops, in fact there are only 5 houses in our village, we are surrounded by farms, we are a good 20 minute from civilization! :eek: most people have two cars out here as if you breakdown you are in trouble, the local town still closes for half days, only has one supermarket and nothing opens on a Sunday!!:(
- mobiles at £80 per month sounds high. As you have a landline phone - could you not swop to pay-as-you-go mobiles and keep their use for emergency purposes only. Some months ago (when my mobile gave up the ghost) I managed to buy a new one for £40 - which included £25 of calls. In other words the phone itself only cost me £15. This was with the network that was cheapest at the time (and probably still is?) - ie Virgin. I find that I only need to buy a £5 top-up for my phone about every 2-3 months, with being careful how much I use it.

The mobiles are for use instead of the home phone, the BT is just the line rental, that you have to have anyway, we have a mobile each, and one of us has the txts and one has lots of minutes so we dont need to pay for phone calls, I know it sounds a lot but we have found this a lot cheaper than bt calls and pay as you go, plus again where we live the phone lines go down in high winds.:rolleyes2
- food shopping: Come over and visit the Old Style Board (where many of the "regulars" achieve total miracles on their food-shopping bills). I'm sure you'll learn loads there.

(At a very rough estimate - I reckon you could save about £200 per month straight off - even if you are "locked into" your phone and/or Internet contracts at present and cant swop yet.)

Thanks for trying!
I hope i dont sound like i am not taking advice, but we really do live in the middle of nowhere, and cant afford to move into something better yet.

Serendipity_phoenix

TheAble wrote: »

First of all, to echo the posts of others, it's imperative you take professional advice as soon as possible. Citizens Advice and CCCS are the way to go - call them as soon as you can.

I think they will probably tell you to concentrate on getting your council tax paid first - somehow you must find the money to get this paid as the council don't tend to be too sympathetic. You may want to consider the BT debt after that - they may cut you off otherwise and your internet access could be essential to getting you back on track.

Your bank loans etc need to be address but I'm assuming they are unsecured so not right up there on the priority list - but see what CAB and CCCS say.

The areas you can cut down on are petrol (high considering no job), internet connection (look to switch if not tied in - use quidco.com for cashback), phone calls (again high - use Primus Tel and 18866 to get these way down), mobiles (maybe ditch altogether if contract is up - use PAYG), pet food (use cheapest you can get), pet insurance (may be a better deal available, again check quidco). Also double check you are on the best deal for electricity.

Petrol where we are is sooo exspensive, it is 105+ per liter
like i have said we are in the middle of nowhere, 20 minutes to get a pint of milk! so we try to group trips together, the other problem and why petrol is so much is that, i am involed in this court case with my son and he has to attendend supervised visitatation every other week, which is a 50 mile round trip, my solicitor is 100 mile round trip and the cafcass officer is another 100 mile round trip in the other direction, i also need to see my previous doctor in the area i used to live in as he is giving evidence in the court case, plus i look after my severly disabled mother, who is also where i used to live 230miles round trip (althought she is currently moving nearer) and no i cant claim anything benefit wise as then she loses her benefits and cant afford to live on her own,
Moving on to the items you'd like to budget for:
Although it's difficult, try to cut out all forms of luxuries and entertainment, at least for now. You'll enjoy them more when you've got your finances sorted out. Think about what free things you can do for entertainment. It's possible to get a free trial at LoveFilm DVD rental at the mo for instance, and get Quidco cashback. All non-essentials have to go. Your son gets a lot of pocket money for a six year old doesn't he? I used to get a quid when I was six, and it's not that long ago. Meals out have to go. Hairdresser could be reduced. If you have a lot of prescriptions you may wish to consider the pay monthly/ pay quarterly "certificates" the NHS do.
Please, please note this is NOT what we spend, that is why i put these are things i would like to budget for, at the moment and for the last two years my son has not had ANY pocket money, we have not been able to afford food at times, so he has gone without, which completly breaks my heart, he is going through and has been through enough

My husband and i have never had a date, we have never been out for a drink, meal, movies, never been on holiday, not even a honeymoon! or weekend break, so again these are things i would like to save for

please read before trying to help
everything you have said is things we dont have
hairdresser, i havent been to a hairdress in over a year, and god do i know it!

like i said in the title
these are things we dont have the money for/cant afford at the mo

we dont pay for scripts

phone and internet answered in other post.

Finally I would like to say good luck and keep going - you should be proud of yourself for having gotten this far.

but thanks for trying

Serendipity_phoenix

pets: we have a cat a dog two parrots and a goldfish....

the goldfish is the exspensive one!
the insurance on fred is rediculous!!! LOL

No, only joking!, we have the insurance as we could not afford a vets bill if one came up, and i do perfer the insurance that covers the condition for life, which does make i a little more each month but then if the worst does happen then at least i could get the best treatment for them.

I have rounded up the monthly pet food bill, as i dont spend that every month, but bulk buy the parrots food for example, or not every month do the dog/cat need flea/worm/vitamins, so it works out different each month

hope that makes sence!

ticklepenny_2

Freecycle.org - free beds =D alternatively speak to the salvation army =D They really helped me after I was homeless (never thought I would hear myself say that lol)

It may be worth checking to see if you qualify for a crisis loan or hardship funds at the Job centre, they also provide assesment for benefits to check you are claiming everything you are entitled to (including free prescriptions etc).
Lots of energy providers/Water suppliers have hardship funds that can reduce the cost of energy whilst you are in difficulty or provide you with a grant to help you out. Its a bit long winded with plenty of paperwork but always worth a try.If you dont ask you wont find out.

Sue-UU

The Abel does state "Moving on to the items you'd like to budget for:" so she/he does recognise that fact.

Sorry digitalsgirl, BUT you can afford all the food for all those animals yet at times you haven't been able to feed your Son?!!!!!! That seems terrible. Why buy 2 parrots when you can barely feed yourselves? They certainly aren't cheap to feed either. Another fact with them is that they won't do your health any good as they can so easily cause chest complaints. Please rethink them with your little lad's health at least.

The cat and dog could both have cheaper bags of food and the cheapest here is £7 for a good sized bag. Fish food is minimal and not worth including or joking about.

You say about it being 20 minutes to buy a pint of milk....but I'd hope you'd never be in that position. If you really do live that far from civilisation then do a proper shopping list so you never leave anything out and only need to shop once a week or even every other week is easily possible. Cut down on the use of that car and you could have your hair trimmed every couple of months (in the same trip as the shopping) or as you could afford it, far better than never and will make you feel better. If you're Mum is severely disabled why doesn't she have a carer to save you the petrol?

There are far cheaper BB ISPs around than BT, that's one of the dearest! Ours is £14 a month, we could never afford what you're paying so I should get your husband to check them out asap.

If you're both not working then why would you wish to spend £10 per month for the Dentist and why would you wish to spend £10 a month on glasses or £24 per month on Michael? The love you give him will do him fine. As for trips out, honeymoon etc: hopefully they'll come in the future IF you cut down NOW! My OH and I have never had a honeymoon either in over 30 years of marriage. Try to get your hubby to get his ailments sorted out so that he can get back to work, that would be a great benefit to you all and make him (and you all) feel so much better.

Re the mobiles: Why ever spend all that you do when landline calls would be far cheaper anyway? It would make far more sense to get rid of both and buy one cheap PAYG and share it.

We are all trying to help you, but you seem to be coming back with negatives so far, think on digitalsgirl as, if I'm correct, so far you don't seem to want to help yourselves or cut down much at all. I really so wish you all the best in life, but go through those finances again, along with the advice you've had above and see just how many saving you can make yourselves.

Sue

ceridwen

okay - on another tack: growing your own food. I'm not a gardener myself (no proper garden!) - but if you're that far in the wilds then I imagine you might have a reasonable-size garden. I believe some food-type seeds can go from seed stage to edible food stage in only about 8-12 weeks. Seeds could probably be obtained from Freecycle - and other gardening stuff as well.

Have a google for info on square foot gardening. Its a really intensive method of gardening for maximum food production from a small space.

to start you off:

www.squarefootgardening.com/

Also - have you got any type of barter scheme nearby. Or perhaps you could do a bit of informal bartering - say a couple of hours housework for a neighbour and you get some food from their garden.

Another thought - again - in that isolated an area it could be that there is plenty of wild food around (edible plants/etc). Nettles come to mind instantly (boiled and served as a vegetable) - yep I've done that.

TheAble

Your post about the home insurance doesn't really make sense - regardless of the bed and the state of the place, you don't need to pay buildings insurance. £25,000 of contents insurance should only cost around a fiver a month and if you go through Quidco you'll be able to recoup the bulk of that.

There's also no way that £80 a month on mobiles is going to come in cheaper than a home phone bill.

Car Maintenance, car tax, birthdays, non-essentials, wood, oil, helath pills - these are all in the "items I'd like to budget for" section which apparently you don't spend anything on. Are we to take it that, despite having a car, suffering from stress and needing to heat your home, you spend nothing on these items at all?

So forgive my confusion.

cantcope

Just read through this thread and it seems to me that everything is so expensive because of where you live. Your petrol is the same price as it is where i'm from and your rent is the equivalent of a flat here.
If you need to make long trips to see solicitor/doctor etc have you considered moving to a cheaper area a little nearer these places? you may end up with a nicer house, cheaper rent and not need to spend so much on petrol.
Try and do some online surveys to earn some extra vouchers etc. even if you cant use them in shops near you you could always sell them on ebay for rare treats.

if you and your husband are both unemployed surely you would get free dental treatment and prescriptions so not sure about them being in the budget for future bit as i dont think you need them.

How many calls do you need to make a month that come to £80?! you can pick up a mobile bundle with 5 hours of calls a month and loads of texts for a third of that. Why not scrap the mobiles, payg for emergencies and let people call you on your land line?

whatever you decide i wish you well. There is loads of great advice been given. You just have to decide to take it. Unfortunately magic wands dont exist and we have to cut out the things we think we desperately need sometimes, to actually find out we didnt need them afterall.
It can be done, it's tough sometimes but its so worth it
Good luck