My Money Just Seems to Disappear. Here's my SOA

Gemmzie

ginormousflares wrote: »

Hiya all, I have noticed that our disposable income seems to be frittering away but we don't seem to be living lavishsly or anything. I'm on a DMP and have been for almost 2 years and it is in my name and OH's income is not taken into account. I will be increasing this £100 in Apr. Grateful if you could all cast your expert eye over my SOA and make suggestions to how I could refine it. I find that I am unable to put money away for things such as servicing, car tax etc, because once I put it to one side we end up breaking into it to use. One thing to consider is that I get paid calendar monthly and OH gets paid weekly. Here it is:

Incomings You need to get all these figures the same, weekly, 4 weekly or monthly - I'd suggest monthly and take home figures.

My Wage 2080 (Net)
OHs Wage 154 (weekly) (616 4 weekly)
CTax Credits 42.83
Child Benefit 72.40

Total 2811.23

Outgoings

Rent 280 per month (No water charges and CTax is included)
Shopping 184
Fuel 80
House Insurance 10
Tv Licence 11.29
Child Trust Fund 20
Gas 34
Electricity 37
Sky (incl BB) 74.23 (I know but we dont do or have any other form of entertainment. Personally I would go madif I didnt have it) I understand but it seems really high still, could you lose movies or sports? Drop a BB tier?
DMP 774
Car Ins 35.84
Car Ins 2 31.13
Sky Repair 8.25 Bit of a waste, they are pretty cheap now to buy
OHs Loan 220
BT 35 For just calls? That's quite high
Mobile 35
Childcare 410
OHs Next 50
Contact Lenses 15.50

Total

Now this leaves us with £450 ish per month but it just seems to go. Car repairs etc. I think we need to look at rearranging timings of DDs and SOs and somehow split how we spend our money. What does everyone think??
GF

Save for car repairs etc. There's no point thinking you have £450 if it's not really all disposable. Then you can each take a spending allowance from the remainder.

Good luck

ginormousflares

Hey guys and gals thanks for the top advice there. I am gonna consolidate all that you have suggested and take it onboard and post some replies. Thanks GF

In_Search_Of_Me

Go on - just try it for a month and see if you can be free of the shackles of sky!

ginormousflares

Right, here I go.

Spending Diary Ive got a logon on that website and I used it for a few months, but I found inputting the amounts and keep all the receipts very very tedious. I know that doesnt sound very positive but it just used to do my nut in. Plus I would always struggle with categorising the spends. For example Baby Milk is that 'Shopping' or 'Baby' and as a result Ive got a million categories in the diary and its just a pot mess. Has anyone got any streamlining suggestions. Plus I spend so much time on the interenet and I get enough grief for that as it is without spending more time on here. I'm sooooo negative aint I.
2. Separate Accounts We have 2 accounts that we use. Mine for all the DDs bar 2 and OH has another. I have a Coop with a debit card facility but there is never anything on it. The majority of the DDs/SOs come out at roughly the same time and actually for once in my life I am almost comfortable with comes out and when. But I think that because OH gets paid weekly and I get paid monthly we could probably streamline and really look at the timing of all the payments to make it easier.
3. OH Working/Childcare OH works and all told if we use the childcare costs against her wage she brings in about £200 per month so its just about worth working. She has thought about other jobs but we think that with the extra childcare costs that would be involved it probably just isnt worth it. OH is gonna transfer £100 per week to one her savings account to take care of the Childcare and transfer it back as required hence removing the temptation to spend it. Also I have started the Childcare Voucher Scheme and am actually £70 better off for tax but I havent reflected that in my SOA but it still comes out in the wash of you know what I mean.
4. C Tax Credits I think this is the maximum amount we are entitled to. I think our combined income is close to 36K so I dont think there is any room for manoeuvere there.
5. Sky Definitely and always the prime candidate to take a hit. But we are gonna wait a little bit to see how it goes. I just lurve it so much and sadly I am such a couch potato and I love Sky Sports but do you know we don't really watch Movies and OH has admitted that but she is reluctant to give it up and says 'well you get rid of sports then' Humph. Also we have muli room which means we get the SKY+ subscription free (Please be gentle) the SKy repair plan is for that box because it is 10 years old now. Broadband. Sky BB is pretty grim and I pay £16 for it Wireless). Need to find a provider that will supply free box with cheaper tariff and go for them. Dont know if I can stick the dial up for the intervening period tho!!
6. Gas and Electricity Have just switched from Npower to EON through Quidco (£20) and saving there each month but have got to wait for the bills to see how much (I think about £10 per month) PLease dont tell me this is one of the companies Martin told us not to switch to because they havent put their prices up yet.
7. CTF Am gonna stop this one for now its the governement one becuase the little fella has another one which the family contributes to.
8. Mobile Phone. Have just switched to a contract because my PAYG was costing a fourtune and actually it works out cheaper and I know its weak but Im in a contract now. Bad I know.
9. Clothing/Entertainment. DOnt really budget for this we dont really go out. We get the occasional takeaway and thats about it. Ive got a few days in the Lakes coming up which I am really looking forward to.
10. Car Repairs/Car Tax. Again I will try to put some away as I do every month
11. DMP This is reviewed in Apr and I will increase my offer. Now here's quandry and I apologise if it sounds condescending in anyway but I dont mean it to. I currently pay £774 to Payplan, I want to increase this by £100 for several reasons:
1. I have a cost of living rise of 3.6% in April.
2. I stop paying for my sofa in May (didnt put that in the SOA but it is in my budget) £46 and I get an extra allowance of £120 in my pocket in April as well plus in Jul I get promoted and will receive approx £200 in my pocket for that. And because I will moving jobs and not moving the family I will get apprx £250 in my pocket for travelling which I know I wont spend all of on travelling. But I fear that if my offers increase too much the creditors may think 'hang on' he's not badly off at all, reincur the interest and I will be stumped to try and do any snowballing becuase my credit rating is so poor.

Well there's mi answers and thanks so much for all your help so far. GF

In_Search_Of_Me

Good luck! Hugs for you!

Bunnyinthelights

I think you know what needs to be done GF-
You'll sort it I'm sure.
Best of British x

tigtag02

GF ~ not sure that you have sky working best it can for you.

Im not gonna tell you to knock it on the head though because we have a high package too due to it being our only form of entertainment.

First thing, get rid of the insurance thing. (How is your box 10+ old? Sky+ isn't that old!) Anyhoo, if the box breaks I reckon you could pick one up off ebay that would work out better than the £9 a month your paying ~ hope that makes sense.

Also ~ we pay £65 a months for ALL channels in two rooms, sky+, maximum internet they offer and free evening & weekend phonecalls SO you should be able to cut it by £10 a month

Thats nearly £20 pcm I just saved you ~ where's me beer :p:p

tt
x

jackieb

Benthosboy wrote: »

(please excuse, Billy-no-mates on a hijack)

What a fabulously simple but brilliant idea.

Martyn.

(Billy-no-mates has now left the building )

I know! We got called in by our bank for a 'review'. They'd noticed how much we'd get charged every month for missed direct debits and they set this up for us instead. I'm surprised more people don't do it. I can even cancel any direct debits I don't need anymore, online.
We had to set up an overdraft at first because we had to transfer the first month's money when we'd already paid some direct debits that month. After the first month it corrected itself.


Good luck with everything, GF.

vickisocks

tigtag02 wrote: »

First thing, get rid of the insurance thing. (How is your box 10+ old? Sky+ isn't that old!) Anyhoo, if the box breaks I reckon you could pick one up off ebay that would work out better than the £9 a month your paying ~ hope that makes sense.

I have to agree with this - the £8.25 a month is wasted. Even a year ago i bought a 2nd hand Sky+ Box for £40 - i.e. 5 months worth of payments. No doubt they can be picked up cheaper now. Also for a bog standard box - there is always freecycle - i would imagine lots of people have older boxes around doing nothing after upgrades etc.

ginormousflares

Hey thanks peeps

Well I have stopped the CTF ofr £20 to the government account
Stopped the Sky Repair thingy

So already am almost £30 better off.
We will stop Sky movies once we have watched the movies we have sky plussed saving another £8 per month
Am changing Power suppliers saving maybe £8 per month
Plus we are going to buy Tesco's own nappied saving almost £5 per month

So I am already up to £50 month savings currently WOo ooo

Plus I need to change the front tyres on one of the cars and Costco do them for £148 all incl and Kwik Fit quoted me £220 bur could maybe do it for £200 so massive savings there. And am gonna switch the BB for a cheaper one as well

Thanks peeps

Hopefully I can make more now that you have all got me in the groove.

GF