I am going to have to make drastic cut backs to my weekly shopping bill as dh has just told me we are 50k in debt, yes 50k! I have been spending around £120 a week on all my shopping, but them days are gone. Also, need to cut back on days out and clothes, PLEASE HELP!!!!!!

why has he only just told you how much debt you are in?

because i thought everything was hunky dorey, we had borrowed money for an extension 18 months ago and he has spent it on bills and other debts that he has run up and not told me about. So, when I kept nagging about getting the extension started he used to get really cross, then one day I said 'right, now you show me the statements with the extension money in'. Thats how I found out, when he was cornered!

p.s there are obviously other issues going on such as trust and respect for me as he has told me numerous lies, but at the moment I need to sort the money things out before we get repossessed or something.

Christ milkybarsrus! Bit of a shock then i take it.......hope you get some good money tips. Not sure i have any really as i am useless with money. I would ebay anything and everything you can find in the house, its amazing what people will buy! Menu plan aswell, that saves alot of money. Days out and stuff are gonna have to go on hold i should think, we don't have a great many days out, i save my tesco points then use them for days out, it is brilliant!
Use household stuff for cleaning, vinegar and lemon that sort of thing.....i am not good am i!!! Hope you get some better tips

Typical mumsnet replies!
But back to what you asked. Avoid going to the shops as much as possible. Do an on line delivery thingy or if you can be strict with your self its even better to use Aldi or Lidl. Really fierce money diet could be porridge for breakfast, jacket potatoes and pasta main meals. Before the school holidays stock up on multipacks of crisps and bread, refill waterbottles so you NEVER have to buy snacks out.

Looking at this fairly and squarely - £50,000 divided by 18. Let's call that overspending by £2,700 a month. This is your regular pattern.

As well as that spending pattern you now need to repay the debt as well.

Hmm. It's gonna take more than groceries. Have you thought about getting a(nother) job? Start ebaying?

Thanks for the replies. I will definately do on-line shopping and its lidls here I come! I am an impulse shopper when food spending, so not setting foot out the door unless armed with a shopping list. I have stacks of stuff I can sell on ebay or at boot fairs etc, so will try to organize myself for that. Dh is working very long hours now to try to keep up with the bills, but he leaves at 6.15am and not home til 8.30ish so not around for the kids, especially the youngest (2 yr old). I work part-time and am paying crippling nursery fees every month (£300)but its worth it cos I come out of it with £400 appx left for other bills. Next year I will get nursery vouchers which will help a lot. Going and getting another job on top of this is not an option as I can just about manage everything as it is. i.e, 2 school drops and a nursery drop, then rushing to work and doing the whole picking up thing. Can't even sell my body, cos its a size 16 and covered in stretch marks!

this website s very helpful

www.moneysavingexpert.com

Wow, I'd be livind if DP did that. But that's another matter.
In answer to the op, you can probasbly halve your spending by shopping around for the best deals. There are so many buy one get one frees and such. Shop at more than one supermarket and get the best deals in all of them.

livid

Milkybarus, you poor poor thing. I would agree with Quattro, it's more than groceries you need to go and speak to a debt counsellor about how to manage this.

In the meantime - we eat fish once a week, meat three times, and the rest of the time we have lentilly-type food. That helps a lot. Make packed luches, if you don't already. Get meat from a market it will be better quality and much cheaper. If you normally get organic, stop that for now. Don't buy nice-things-to-keep-in-the-fridge-to-snack-on, but make big helpings of family meals so people don't need it. Porridge for breakfast. Boiled eggs as a treat for supper. Simple rice-based dishes where you need less meat because you are cutting the bits up small. One other thing we do is that ONE night a week we have pizza, it's our treat and it stops DH ordering takeaway. And don't cater for fussy eaters, which pushes up the bills.

Clothes: try Freecycle. If you simply state your kids ages and ask if anyone has anything they're throwing out, many people are really glad of somewhere to put them. Otherwise, look out for jumble sales and car boot sales and stock up: charity shops can be good but it depends where you are.

Days out: for the time being, cancel anything that needs an entrance fee. Don't go to softplays either. Park, beach, friends' gardens....picnics. Local forests, if you're not in London. Think of different ways to do treats - have a camping night out in your garden, or a family film night at home.

But please don't think this is going to go away or be easily manageable, you do need to see a debt counsellor if only to make sure your husband never does this again.

and you need to make sure that DH is honest with you so that you can work together to sort this mess out. Just say to him 'look I am cross that you have kept this from me but the priority now is making sure that we don't starve and we keep a roof over our heads so I need complete honesty so that we can try to sort this out'

Best wishes. x

Wow, just about dissapeared! what sound advice! I think you must know me or something cos we've always got nice snacks and choices for the kids in the house! and always had a take away every week! The kids (and me if i'm honest) are going to find it really differant and difficult from now on as there is no spare cash. The 14yr old will have to get herself a little job or something for all her bits and bobs she wants. I am more than livid about the whole situation, and have weighed up all the pro's and cons of splitting up over this. But, we have been married for 22 years this year and have survived many rough patches and I want to get through this one (this is the worst by far)I look at him and want to rip his head off, but then he couldn't work, so whats the point? I have told him exactly how I feel and what he has put us through, as due to this large amount of debt we have to sell up and move to a differant area which is much cheaper, but of course, this means the kids have to go to differant schools etc and they are NOT happy about that. If it was a smaller amount I would think 'right, lets pull our belts in til its sorted' but this is long term (12 years) so when we went to see a debt counseller he said we are best to sell our only asset which is our house, and i can only but agree. But, boy it makes me SO ANGRY!

p.s.... by selling up we can pay off appx £30k of the debt, and afford to buy a house.

Oh, glad it wasn't useless. Glad to hear you've already been to a debt counsellor too.

It may not be the end of the world if your kids see you on a tight budget for a while. My parents had some tough times financially when i was small and now I am very grateful because I learned a lot from my mother about managing on a tight budget (we have just had to pull in our belts a lot because my DH's salary just dropped unexpectedly by 8 thousand pounds a year). You never know, the experience may make them careful not to repeat your DH's financial mistakes too, which can only be good.

Forgot to say earlier - one other thing that I find helpful is to put the Child Benefit in a separate account. It is quite a lot, and then it is there for treats or shoes or whatever the usual budget can't stretch to.

I wouldnt have thought this is the best time to sell a house though.. unless you are in a bit of a property hotspot ?

j.a.d. I am thinking of putting the child benefit away or even giving the oldest one hers each month and saying 'thats it girlie, you gotta buy whatever you want and need from that, clothes going out, make up, etc? and if thats not enough then get a paper round'. does that sound awful? it does to me? I will buy her new uniform and stuff for school as thats really expensive when starting at a new school.
k.w.3 kittens. You are so right, this is not the best time to sell what with the credit crunch and all, but its relative i suppose, so maybe where we end up will have to drop too? I hope so anyway.

It sounds more than fair, mbu. She's big girl. I worked in the holidays from twelve (rural area, employers prepared to bend the law ) and didn't get any money from my parents. I mean, she'd be getting, what, 18 quid a week?
That's enough to be going on with, if she wants more then it's teaching her fiscal responsibility to ensure she earns it.

Oh, I forgot to say. This advice might not work for your family but for ours it does.

Short-term, cut back EVERYTHING. Then, when you've reprioritised completely, work out one or two treats you would all like, and do that.
You can't cut back on everything indefinitely longterm without feeling drained and miserable. Not good for you or your marriage. Re-prioritise, but then find something that makes you and DH happy, and re-introduce that.

j.a.d. what I am learning from everyone is that we are a family and we can ALL help in some way or another. even if that means not getting what we want straight away, or always eating the things we fancy every day and helping ourselves to food and drinks without asking. Dh is finding the long hours at work really hard, but if and when we move that should ease off, but its teaching HIM too that his lack of responsability has brought this on himself and us. I know this sounds a very basic question, but, when you say 'EVERYTHING', what do you mean? mobiles, petrol, food, ????

It's not a basic question at all. But right now I've just picked the elder up from nursery and the house is noisy, so I can't think straight. Let me put my kids down for their sleep, and I'll come back and write properly in half an hour or so, when my head is clear.

OK, here I am. Um, I think the question is probably what are needs and what are wants, for your particular household.
Phones: Mid-mobile contract, there's not a lot you can do. But thinking long-term, surely DH and you both have telephone numbers where you can be reached at work? Is a mobile an extra, or do you/he need it, say, because he needs to be picked up at odd times or because you're not always available in your offices? Do your children need them for safety reasons or are they a social accessory? If they are moving schools it might be easier to get rid of them during the change, if that's what they are happy to do, rather than suddenly and obviously go without something that they have hitherto had (streetcred being quite important for most teenagers I know!)
Petrol: yes, we're all suffering I think. The only thing I can suggest is not using the car where it's possible but from what you say your life is so hectic you might find that trying to cut down on car use on top of everything else might be too much in the week, maybe just at weekends? Also, I don't know where you live but if you run two cars it would be worth considering whether it's completely necessary.
Food as I said before I do think there's a lot of give in your budget, and it's an area where it's easy to fritter. You can get very big packs of biscuits and crisps quite cheaply from the supermarkets if you buy the Value brands, so snacks don't need to disappear entirely. Is DH taking sandwiches? If he wants a hot meal, can you make an extra portion at night and give it to him for the next day to reheat at work? (I always felt guilty serving the same meal twice so often froze these so at least DH had a change).

I am sure you are right about the family pulling together, for what it is worth you sound amazingly calm and composed and I am very impressed at you sticking this one through with your DH, I am not sure I would have been so understanding!

Anything that you can present to your teenagers as "this is about adulthood and independence, not just cashflow" e.g. getting a job, using public transport more, will probably help to soften things for them. If necessary you can always lie and say you were planning to introduce these things anyway but that the process has been speeded up a bit.

Having said all that I do passionately believe that looking after yourself in all this is quite important. There is no point in cutting everything back to the point where you are unable to manage emotionally, or where your DH and you are snapping at each other about it all the time. Hence perhaps a quiet meal out together once a month, on the EarlyBird section of a restaurant or a carvery, you can have two meals for about £20. Or a monthly takeaway for all of you. Just something that puts a smile on people's faces, they may actually appreciate these things a lot more because they're not getting them every week.

That's all I can think of right now, I will post if anything else comes to mind.
HTH.

Oh, I know the other thing I was going to suggest.

Days out: a very cheap option is picnicking on the lawn of a cathedral!

£2.50