SOA help please

2

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  • theoretica
    theoretica Posts: 12,292 Forumite
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    rainbow_wishes wrote: »

    Moving is not an option. My son is well settled with his childminder and is looked after by my parents one day a week and they are local. Moving would increase this childcare cost and remove our support network. I won’t move jobs until I’ve had another baby due to maternity rights.

    Fair enough on not moving, but something to think about for your OH as he jobhunts, a closer job and less commuting would partially offset a wage drop.

    What are your OH's conditions for parental leave like? Have you taken these into account?
    But a banker, engaged at enormous expense,
    Had the whole of their cash in his care.
    Lewis Carroll
  • cms-help
    cms-help Posts: 187 Forumite
    First Anniversary First Post Combo Breaker
    Your gas and electricity are a little on the high side but that would only save a few pounds. Still worth shopping around.

    Your phone and internet are high. We pay £19 a month for ours.

    Mobile phone is extortionate. We have 2 phones on contract, unlimited calls, unlimited minutes and one has unlimited data (my husband works away from home so his phone is his internet) and pay £40 a month.

    I don't mean to be rude but £550 on groceries is ridiculous. We are a family of 4 and spend £300 a month with Tesco (that includes all toiletries and cleaning stuff etc).

    Your insurances are very high. Are they required?

    What does your bank account £25 fee provide?

    Swimming lessons - is this for one child or both of them? We pay £23 a month for one child to have swimming lessons.

    When does your child start school and will you need wrap-around care for them when they do? My youngest gets 30 "free" hours at the moment; we pay £6 a day to cover food and entertainment (they have a Yoga teacher come in and musicians etc). However, when he starts school then the wrap around care shoots up to £16 a day for before and after school club.
  • rainbow_wishes
    rainbow_wishes Posts: 13 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    theoretica wrote: »
    Fair enough on not moving, but something to think about for your OH as he jobhunts, a closer job and less commuting would partially offset a wage drop.

    What are your OH's conditions for parental leave like? Have you taken these into account?


    What do you mean by his conditions for parental leave? In terms of paternity leave he is entitled to 2 weeks at statutory pay which would be the same time I am on full pay so not a concern. We would be eligible for shared parental leave but have decided that I will take my maternity as before as this suits our family better.


    I agree a closer job would help offset the wage drop and this would be the ideal outcome. The challenge is that we live in a rural market town so most jobs are 30-40 minutes drive away! A sacrifice for living in the countryside!
  • theoretica
    theoretica Posts: 12,292 Forumite
    First Post Name Dropper Photogenic First Anniversary
    rainbow_wishes wrote: »
    What do you mean by his conditions for parental leave? In terms of paternity leave he is entitled to 2 weeks at statutory pay which would be the same time I am on full pay so not a concern. We would be eligible for shared parental leave but have decided that I will take my maternity as before as this suits our family better.


    I agree a closer job would help offset the wage drop and this would be the ideal outcome. The challenge is that we live in a rural market town so most jobs are 30-40 minutes drive away! A sacrifice for living in the countryside!

    As you said you are planning on 9 months leave he could take 3 months shared parental leave either at the same time or afterwards. It is worth checking what his pay would be as if he could get any of it on full pay it would be worth taking advantage.
    But a banker, engaged at enormous expense,
    Had the whole of their cash in his care.
    Lewis Carroll
  • rainbow_wishes
    rainbow_wishes Posts: 13 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    cms-help wrote: »
    Your gas and electricity are a little on the high side but that would only save a few pounds. Still worth shopping around. We have just use the MSE Energy Club to change supplier (reduced from £99 to £82 so now need to focus on usage)

    Your phone and internet are high. We pay £19 a month for ours. We are in a rural town with limited options, used to have Sky with unreliable internet, now have BT which is more reliable but more expensive. I work from home a couple of times per month so need reliable Wi-Fi. I will look into Sky again to see if the service has improved locally as there is a deal with our TV package that would save us money

    Mobile phone is extortionate. We have 2 phones on contract, unlimited calls, unlimited minutes and one has unlimited data (my husband works away from home so his phone is his internet) and pay £40 a month. This cost really annoys me as I had bought an expensive iPhone outright so I had a £15 pm contract that I intended to keep long term but the iPhone broke and it was cheaper to replace it on a contract than to repair it. One contract is up for renewal in Feb 19 so I will switch to sim only option which should coincide with start of mat leave all being well

    I don't mean to be rude but £550 on groceries is ridiculous. We are a family of 4 and spend £300 a month with Tesco (that includes all toiletries and cleaning stuff etc). In a previous post on this thread I have said I identified the problem with 'extra shops' from local Coop and Tesco shops for pet food becoming £30-40 as I am not disciplined with a list. In April this was around £100 just in Coop or buying lunch when I've been unmotivated to make it. This is wasteful I know but I am just being honest with you all (and myself) as this is the biggest area we can make savings. DH and I are guilty of making a healthy meal plan and buying just what we need with no 'naughty' food with the best intentions but then the weekend comes and we want 'a treat' but only have expensive Coop in our town so we can easily spend more on just treats. It is an extortionate amount on treats I know! The stupid thing is when I have bought treats from Aldi so we have some in the house we eat them in the first few days so nothing left for the weekend

    Your insurances are very high. Are they required? I'd be interested in others' views on this. We have a policy for life & critical illness that is £89pm which covers our mortgage of £201k if one of us dies or gets critically ill. As we are so dependent on both incomes we have a further policy for my husband at £12.30 which gives equivalent to my death in service benefits from my employer. If he gets a job with better benefits we can cancel this policy. The other c£60pm is 'unemployment and sickness (not critical) cover'. I have been made redundant twice in 14 years of working and luckily found a job straight away both times and working in HR I am concerned about how easily this can happen to a family. My husband only receives SSP if off sick which would seriously impact our household if he was off more than 1 week as we don't have any emergency savings. I do think that my job makes me more pessimistic as I see people struggle when their sick pay runs out and I don't want to run the risk. In my job I only qualify for 2 months full pay and 2 months half pay sickness benefits and it isn't as rare as people think having 2 months off work! I have been thinking for a while that these two policies should probably go but I worry about 'just in case'

    What does your bank account £25 fee provide? AA cover which alone would be more than £25 per month for two cars. We also get worldwide travel insurance which has saved us last year when we went abroad. Also mobile phone insurance and home emergency cover so we don't need to add these to our home insurance

    Swimming lessons - is this for one child or both of them? We pay £23 a month for one child to have swimming lessons. It is one child, he is 3 and we go to Puddleducks pre-school classes that are £112 every 8 weeks. He has been with the same teacher since 9 weeks and is very good at swimming so I am happy to keep this as a luxury. When he is 4 he will be able to go 'leisure centre' lessons which I expect will be much cheaper

    When does your child start school and will you need wrap-around care for them when they do? My youngest gets 30 "free" hours at the moment; we pay £6 a day to cover food and entertainment (they have a Yoga teacher come in and musicians etc). However, when he starts school then the wrap around care shoots up to £16 a day for before and after school club.
    He starts school in 2019. We have just got our 30 hours funding but we are spreading it throughout the 48 weeks he goes to childminder so we have to pay a top up. It is £8.75 per day for all meals including dinner and I pay extra for trips but usually around £1-3 per trip so not a lot of money. Before school childminder charges £3 for the hour and then it will be 3 hours on 2-3 days per week for after school at £3.90 per hour so it will be £14.70 per day we use childminder plus £2.50 for dinner so not much different to your costs. My thinking is we have afforded a 10 hour day/3 days per week place with my son before April using childcare vouchers and topping up by £40 as and when needed so this would be the same for baby no.2. I think the wrap around care for my son when he starts school will be around £200 per month and this is the amount we put into the 'baby fund' at the moment so if we can make this savings amount more comfortable using the advice from you all then this will be fine
  • rainbow_wishes
    rainbow_wishes Posts: 13 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    theoretica wrote: »
    As you said you are planning on 9 months leave he could take 3 months shared parental leave either at the same time or afterwards. It is worth checking what his pay would be as if he could get any of it on full pay it would be worth taking advantage.


    Thanks for the suggestion. To get shared parental leave one parent has to return to work. Both of us would be on zero pay for the period 9-12 months after baby is born as I will have used the entitlement for statutory pay as SMP and to afford this we would need £3k more in savings on top of the £5-6k we need just to supplement my half pay and SMP. I would love one of us to be off all year but saving another £5k in 8 months feels unachievable. My employer pays enhanced maternity pay, his is statutory only so it is better for me to take the leave.
  • retepetsir
    retepetsir Posts: 1,236 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
    Your income is pretty good compared to your outgoings.

    Why not change the other income to the equivalent monthly, which is around £1954.69?

    The Great Declutter Challenge - £876 :)
  • cms-help
    cms-help Posts: 187 Forumite
    First Anniversary First Post Combo Breaker
    rainbow_wishes wrote: »
    He starts school in 2019. We have just got our 30 hours funding but we are spreading it throughout the 48 weeks he goes to childminder so we have to pay a top up. It is £8.75 per day for all meals including dinner and I pay extra for trips but usually around £1-3 per trip so not a lot of money. Before school childminder charges £3 for the hour and then it will be 3 hours on 2-3 days per week for after school at £3.90 per hour so it will be £14.70 per day we use childminder plus £2.50 for dinner so not much different to your costs. My thinking is we have afforded a 10 hour day/3 days per week place with my son before April using childcare vouchers and topping up by £40 as and when needed so this would be the same for baby no.2. I think the wrap around care for my son when he starts school will be around £200 per month and this is the amount we put into the 'baby fund' at the moment so if we can make this savings amount more comfortable using the advice from you all then this will be fine

    Re phone etc: we live in a rural area (village) and are with BT. We very rarely lose WIFI (perhaps if there is a storm in the area but that's about it).

    Have you considered supermarket deliveries if you struggle to stick to a list? I use it just for convenience and it costs less than a weekly drive to the supermarket with us being rural. Know what you mean about local shops being more expensive. 2 pints of milk from our local shop is more expensive than 4 pints from Tesco! I think your spend here is a "quick" fix if you change your mindset and then keep going.

    I guess with your insurances it all boils down to how risk adverse you are. If it makes you uncomfortable not having them then you'll have to spend your income accordingly so to speak. Some of your expensive costs do make it look like a considerable income isn't going very far.

    My child in swimming lessons is also 3 years old - that's why your lessons seem very expensive to me!

    I have to say the childcare costs would be a worry. You are currently putting £200 into savings every month (to cover maternity leave) which you would then re-attribute to childcare once back at work. So as at Sept 2019 then you will have 3 days a week for your eldest and 3 days a week for your youngest. Eldest would cost about £51.60 a week (3 days) in wraparound care, 38 weeks of the school year is £1960.80 or £163 a month. You then need to factor in more expensive childcare for the school holidays (unless you have help with this and don't need it). And then the full costs for the youngest. However, if you can reduce some of the other monthly bills then you would be in a better position.

    You also have zero in the "Entertainment" budget - is this accurate with a young child? We're not DFW and I know this is a big spend for us (cinema trips, lunches out, park, birthday parties etc).
  • rainbow_wishes
    rainbow_wishes Posts: 13 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    We have found BT really reliable but it’s arounf £37 per month for phone and internet and other providers are charging £18 so it is tempting to change but working from home needs to be possible at least once a fortnight

    You are right about grocery spend being a quick fix and I just need to be more disciplined with the trips to Tesco and coop and my OH needs to watch his spending at work. It all adds up so quickly. We used to have home delivery but it was about £100 per week. Aldi is £50-60, I even fed the family for £20 one week!!

    I find we don’t spend that much on entertainment. For example, this month we went to a farm park on BH Monday for £20 for all of us and took a picnic. Spent £4 on ice cream while there. I had been on a hen do and had budgeted spend left over so treated the family. This weekend our spend on entertainment was £1.09 on a box of ice creams to eat on a walk around the local park. This coming weekend will be park and swimming so no spend then the last weekend we will spend £10 meeting a friend for tea and cake, have swimming and a birthday party on BH Monday. The gift for the party is coming from the Christmas/birthday account which I have budgeted all friends and family for 12 months (this is why it’s £125 pm). It has a little left over for unexpected invites. I keep a look out for offers on gifts in the weeks leading up to party.

    The childcare costs are high everywhere but it’s not forever!!
  • redpete
    redpete Posts: 4,689 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    rainbow_wishes wrote: »
    This cost really annoys me as I had bought an expensive iPhone outright so I had a £15 pm contract that I intended to keep long term but the iPhone broke and it was cheaper to replace it on a contract than to repair it.
    It would really have been cheaper not to have gone for "an expensive iPhone".
    What does your bank account £25 fee provide? AA cover which alone would be more than £25 per month for two cars. We also get worldwide travel insurance which has saved us last year when we went abroad. Also mobile phone insurance and home emergency cover so we don't need to add these to our home insurance
    Check how much Autoaid cover is for the cars. As you have no amount in for holidays why do you need travel insurance? If you had cheaper phones would you need to insure them? If it wasn't "free" would you bother with home emergency cover?
    loose does not rhyme with choose but lose does and is the word you meant to write.
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