to ask you lot for practical help with moneysaving?

[doricpatter]

For various reasons we need to live way more frugally than we have been, or we'll have to sell the house. And it has to be successful frugality because if we fail, and we decide to sell later at a lower price, we don't have enough equity to be comfortable.

I used to be an avid MSEer and we already live quite simply but I need to ramp it up a gear now. I am OK on the theory - mealplanning, budgeting etc.

I just can't get my head round where to start practically applying this. For example, I can work out a fab budget but then sticking to it is impossibly hard/complex. I can shop according to frugal principles but end up with a load of stuff that doesn't constitute a meal.

Please can anyone help me?!

OP - you and your DP have to get on the same page. Otherwise you will try and shave the costs and he wont and being brutal you wont get where you need to.

Turning the heating right down and wearing an extra layer is no bad thing. I cannot believe when I go into some peoples houses in the middle of winter and they are dressed like it is summer. How much is that costing?

You definitely need to sit down with your DP and make him see the reality of the situation, it sounds like if you could cut his amazon & magazine habbit it would make a huge difference to your financial situation. In terms of selling it to him, does he have a birthday coming up that he could get a lower price subscription from someone as a present?

If he just doesn't realise what he's spending then suggeset that he keeps a spending diary, this really opened my eyes to how I was frittering money a few years ago.

You don't say that the reason for your problem is debts but if it is then when I was working my way out of debt I found it really useful to have a spreadsheet that showed by how much closer I was getting to paying the debt off by putting extra money towards it.

Don't heat the whole house all day: turn off all upstairs radiators and shut the doors, only heat the kitchen and front room.

Do you run a car? Ordinary cars with small engines use SO much less petrol and are far cheaper to maintain, tax and insure.

Something about computers. I know. It's probably all on their website anyway.

It will be on the internet somewhere, before it even reaches the magazine.

Great ideas, thanks all. Car kills us, huge ancient 2 litre job which costs us £300 a month in fuel so DP can get to work, but no alternatives and can't afford to replace it :(

If I can get him to see the light it will be easier. But what a job that will be.

You said that bills make up most of your outgoings - I assume you've used price comparison sites to check that all your utilities bills etc are the lowest they could be? Sorry if that seems very obvious but I never realised just what a price differential there was between suppliers until I did this a few months ago - saved us loads.

What makes you think that it will it be a job to get DP to see the light? Can he not see that the money he is spending on "luxuries" might be better used for something else?

£300 a month on fuel??! We don't have a car so don't know how excessive that is but sounds like a lot! Is there any way you could cut the number of journeys you do in the car? Or is it just used for DP's commute?

300 a month in fuel? .
Okay, how far does he drive, how many miles does it do, and how many seats does it need to have? I wonder if it'd be worth you getting a loan to get something that runs cheaper.

Maybe you could resell your DP's amazon purchases back on Amazon (once he's forgotten about read them, I mean).

sorry, I meant mpg not 'miles' in last query....

You could replace your car for a smaller, more economical model. Would not only cost less in fuel but less to insure and probably maintain. Many garages offer good trade-in deals - especially at the moment when business is slow - and there are some good value schemes where you can buy/lease cars for a particular period before trading on.

Start with your bank account/s. Have a good look and see where the money is going. Cut back on anyting that isn't necessary - hugh mobile phone tarifs, magazine subscriptions, switching the odd £10 here and £20 there. Call BT and see if you can move to a more cost-effective package. Turn your heating down a smidge - if you pay utilities by DD you often get a discount.

Make sure you know how much exactly you need each month to pay mortgage, insurance, tv license... whatever and how much you can realistically live on each week (shopping, lunches, travel, clothes, haircuts...etc). Don't go for complete austerity measures though - you do need the odd meal out ot cinema trip or you will snap and go on a splurge!

Have an e-bay day. See what you don't need or use and sell it!

Don't buy the 'little things' when you go to the shops - dvds, books, chocolate... Look at the food you buy - ready made stuff is more expensive (sometimes), but if you bought a whole chicken and veggies you couls make a few meals out of that.

Make it into a challenge - see how mean you can be! Look out for vouchers and codes.

We just traded in our 9 year-old car for a newer, hopefully more economical car and got more on the trade-in than it would have cost us to get it through its next MOT. They'd rather close a deal at the moment than have you walk away, so be ruthless, demand reductions in the face price and a decent trade-in deal. I agree that £300/month sounds a lot, assuming the commute isn't too long.

And the magazines. That's over £350 a year! On magazines. Yikes.

Do you have trvs on all your radiators so that you can heat each room as required? We had them fitted and I think it's saved us quite a lot. Check out any grants in your area for insulation and other energy-saving measures too.

The other thing might be to get one of those energy meter things that tells you how much all your appliances are using - leaving things on standby, and leaving chargers plugged in, for example, uses way more power than you might imagine.

For food, I recommend Rose Prince's The New English Kitchen, which goes into great detail about how to get the most from your food (eg how to get X number of meals from a chicken, and the cost per serving of this). It's very good.

Thank you thank you all!

Car we're stuck with for now - can't afford another, not taking out any credit until I'm finished ML and I know how much I bring home each month. Even if we buy a better car, it will be on borrowed money - this may be expensive on fuel but we've no repayments to make on it. If we could get one for £100/pcm and it saves us £150 on fuel then we'd be £50 better off, but until then, not happening!

Monday am DS will be in nursery so if DD sleeps I'll start comparing things.

Was all set to move to rented but the more I think about it the less I want to, I quite like my little house :(

But do have a look at relative savings on road tax and insurance for a smaller cheaper car. I daresay your car wouldn't fetch much, but why can't you replace it for something cheaper and smaller that also won't cost much? Your DH obviously does a lot of mileage so the car is also an open drain for money.

Can you take in a lodger? Maybe one of those weekday only ones? My Mu used to have a lodger, a regional salesman, who staye 2 nights a week. Up your income by doing babysitting in the eves, or taking on freelance book-keeping, or whatever skill you might have?

You and your DH do sound a bit flaky in the face of your crisis - shopping for stuff that doesn't make a meal, spending priorities askew - give yourselves an upbeat 'CanDo' pep talk together and take on the challenge together.

If you rented out your house would the income cover the mortgage? If you moved temporarily into a smaller rented? Selling and losing all your invenstment on the costs of buying in the first place (fees, stamp duty, mortgage interest paid so far) is a significant dis-investent.

I was thinking of buying the MSE book, is it any good?

£300 a month on petrol is not excessive if you live even semi-rural and have a commute to work. DH and i spend more on bloody petrol than on our mortgage as we both commute 45-60 mins each way. No jobs nearer to home so held to ransom by petrol costs.

demented - yes of course, but if you are forced by circumstance to drive a long way for work every day then petrol costs are proportionately more important in your budget, so worth looking at re fuel consumption. I have just changed cars and am horrified to find that my petrol costs have increased by 50% - but with v low milage, to me that means £20 a month extra. On high mileage, a 30% decrease could save the OP £100 per month - significant.

Don't meal plan, see if this works better for you. Instead when you do your weekly shop see whats on offer or reduced you might fancy beef but pork might be reduced or on sale for instance I wanted to do roast chicken for sunday but Tesco have Shoulder of pork for £3 a kg so I brought a KG of that also their finest sausages for 1.36 a lb. Then go later in the day say about 2pm and see what meats reduced and work a meal plan around that instead.

Thanks again for the tips.

We simply can't do anything about the car Blu - I have no cash to buy another, and I am absolutely not taking on any debt until our income can service it. That way lies disaster. If we sold it to buy another, we'd get around £850 max - it's just cost us nearly £400 in running repairs - just brakes, but we couldn't afford to do anything else. Plus, it's got snow tyres on it and we'd really need to put them onto a new car because we're not clear of bad weather for another 2-3 months here, so all more cost. I don't like the current set up but it's the lesser of two evils.

I'd thought about letting this house and renting nearer DP's work but rent there would cost much more than we're paying just now and we wouldn't get as much income from this - plus, we don't have enough equity for our lender to let us do this.

We have no room for a lodger - already 4 of us in a 2 up 2 down house.

I know it sounds flaky but we're really between a rock and a hard place. I'm talking to my employer about working split shifts so I can do some daytime childcare and work morning and night instead, which might help us make ends meet for now.

The tips have been marvellous, thank you all :)

The fact that you're looking at this at all is a really good sign, so well done.

I agree with the poster who said that moving into rented now would lose your investment in your home - don't take that step lightly as it's a nightmare to get back on the housing ladder. Renting is very expensive at the moment and unlikely to get any cheaper in the medium term.

My DH recently draft-proofed our entire house and it's made a huge difference to our energy bill. All it took was a bucket of draft-excluding tape wedged into leaky window edges. Brilliant.

Your DP sounds like a bit of a challenge though... Best of luck!

You don't sound flaky at all, you sound like you're trying really hard to get yourself out of a difficult phase (because as you say; it's a phase. When the DC are at school you can get more work and start building up your savings)

I don't think £300 is excessive on the car. DP and I spend at least that between us because we both have long commutes (in opposite directions!) Might be worth looking on the car share websites though to see if DP could also give a lift to someone else who could contribute to petrol. We're about to do that.

I also understand what you mean about getting DP onside. Mine earns more than me so thinks money saving ideas don't apply to him (don't worry MNers - i am educating him!!!). He frowns on Lidl and Aldi, complains that own brand products 'don't taste the same' (stangely, he doesn't do this when he hasn't seen the labels first ) and 'needs' every possible gadget. This isn't too much of a problem now, but I suspect it will be when PFB arrives in July.

Could you persuade him to set up the same deal on Amazon as you have on ebay? (If he wants to buy something he has to sell first!) and maybe have a gigantic clear out and then go to a car boot sale to sell it all? (We made about £200 doing this last year; just don't let yourself look at other stalls!!) If the magazines really are non-negotiable then is it cheaper to get a subscription for them? If alcohol is a large portion of your weekly shop then buy in bulk rather than picking up a bottle of wine or two when you need them. We found this saved us a fortune

Good luck.

Do you have a parking space which you could rent out, good idea if you live near a station or airport etc.

try this too
useful tool if you can stick to it
good luck :)