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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Aibu to ask how anyone has money left?

251 replies

sprinklecupcakes · 08/12/2021 22:01

How on earth does anyone have any money left at the end of the month. I have totalled up all the bills we need to pay and they total more than the income. I just don't understand?! How can you work full time and still be left with not enough 😭please give me tips on reducing costs and making money last. I have gone to bed crying I cannot live like this. I got paid today and once I pay everything tomorrow I will have £3..😭

OP posts:
Sunset999 · 09/12/2021 07:08

Also surely you can claim Universal Credit as his income is low?

Sunset999 · 09/12/2021 07:10

Can i add we get UC and I earn more than that, oh doesn't at the moment so it is definitely something you can get !

Jessie75 · 09/12/2021 07:16

@Bluntness100

You need to at least try to get jobs,

Do you not get benefits? I assume your partner is not much above min wage?

Also speak to bt and explain your financial circumstances are different and are now in difficulty.

The baby is 7 weeks isnt it ?
TatianaBis · 09/12/2021 07:19

BT: £102 (they said they cannot down grade this)
Phone: £75 and £65 (unsure if this can be down graded once already in contract?)

  • Broadband/phone should be £50p/m max. You can pay a penalty to end your contract early - it might be cheaper to do so.
  • Sell your iPhones and buy 2 Motorola G10 for £100 each. They’re good powerful smart phones dirt cheap.
  • Get Virgin SIM card only contracts 10GB @ £8 p/m.
Fallagain · 09/12/2021 07:26

One of the biggest issues is the £300 a month of debt.

Is there a reason your not claiming child benefit?

Unsure33 · 09/12/2021 07:30

With the contracts be firm as people have said . Say you want to terminate as you can’t afford them . If they say no ask for the email address or postal address of their complaint department. Don’t take no for an answer . Then head up your letter “ official complaint “

They should terminate your contract if there is hardship . Don’t give up .

WalkingOnSonshine · 09/12/2021 07:41

You’ve had some great advice on here so far about lowering outgoings.

We’ve switched to more veggie meals in the week (probably 50/50 meat & veggie) and our food bill has dropped. I probably now pay 50-60 pw in Sainsburys for 2 adults and a baby (who eats like a child!) so Aldi I could probably do that for 40-45 if I had one more convenient.

Speaking to BT and your phone contractor should be the priority. I pay 49.99 with Sky for broadband plus TV including Sky Sports, so definitely need to speak to them. Equally our phone bills are 20 each but then we’ve never wanted/needed a latest phone.

Maternity pay and Acas also a focus, but hold off on the job hunt until your little one is bigger.

EmpressSuiko · 09/12/2021 07:45

I would get in touch with BT again and your phone providers, I have a new iPhone and I’m paying less than you.
Be really firm with BT, Sky wanted to put our contract up to £77 and I refused, they managed to get it down to £45 for me. It is doable!
Lots of people have offered you great advice, ring child benefit if you’ve not heard from them yet and do you get child/working tax credits?

meh12 · 09/12/2021 07:47

You'll get UC/TC towards childcare on that salary if you look for work. And I'd try to break out of those phone contracts, DH and I are on very good salaries but wouldn't pay half of what you're paying, iPhones date very quickly, you don't need the newest one.

ivykaty44 · 09/12/2021 07:49

is th £1300 wish income including his wages?

you seem to be spending the most money on his debts and his petrol...

Itwasgoodwhileitlasted · 09/12/2021 07:50

OP there is a website called entitled to. If you put in all your financial details it will calculate any universal credit you may be entitled to. Do it straight away because if you are entitled, it can still take six weeks to come through. You will definitely get child benefit. Contact your mp and ask them to chase it because you are struggling. Good luck!

EmpressSuiko · 09/12/2021 07:51

Also if you can speak to debt advisers like Step change/pay plan. They can help lower your monthly payments/help you with your income/expenditure.
Years ago my husband was made redundant, just after our second child was born so I wasn’t working and as he was a surprise baby he was born soon after my first so I had no time to even get back to work.
I explained our situation and although it’s not great a lot of debt providers were happy to drastically lower how much I paid back a month although I did get blacklisted for it, my credit rating has improved slowly over the years and we’ve managed to clear a few of them as we became more financially stable.
My decision wasn’t taken lightly but at the time it was our only option to stay afloat

DrGoogleSaysSo · 09/12/2021 07:52

I would speak to a benefits advisor about maternity allowance and universal credit entitlements.

Littlejacksmummy · 09/12/2021 07:59

I know someone already mentioned maternity allowance, call up about this. I'm pretty sure your previous employer should have been paying you your smp, even though you were made redundant. You were still working for them during the qualifying week (15 weeks before baby's due date). I was made redundant when my baby was 4 months old. They kept paying me smp for the next 5 months. Call the benefits people about maternity allowance and they will confirm if they should. Either way, you should get one or the other. Good luck :)

Xenia · 09/12/2021 08:01

I didn't have sick babies but I did return to work full time when they were 2 or 3 weeks old. It was hard but the only way we could afford our bills. The full time child care for the first child took 50% of each of our net wages but it helped me build a career.

Here I would try to go to a professional debt adviser as the situation is quite complicated including any SMP (or maternity allowance) entitlements. At one point we both took some kind of second job at weekends which helped too (thinking of the time we had a mortgage interest rate of 11.85% here in 1992 as I was just reading that diary of mine - that was not an easy time with 3 small children.

stairgates · 09/12/2021 08:03

Congratulations on your baby, I bet he is beautiful :)

I dont know if its been asked up thread but what is the balance on the credit card? Are you paying interest on it.

Skyll · 09/12/2021 08:06

Definitely get your benefits claim in!! Ask if they can backdate it due to your baby being on the NICU. They probably won’t but it’s worth asking.

ifonly4 · 09/12/2021 08:13

Looking at your outgoings, I know we're all different, but phone bills (BT and mobiles) are extortionate compared to ours - we have two mobile phones for £16pm and phone and broadband are £30pm). It has to be worth speaking to suppliers, tell them you're struggling to pay bills and ask what they can do for you.

Also, your energy bill is much higher than ours (twice as much). Are you in a very old building with no insulation/single glazed windows? If so, if you do move, might be worth taking that into consideration in a new place. If not, can you have it on a lower temp, switch it off in the day?

thecatsthecats · 09/12/2021 08:23

In the future, when you're financially secure again, please think about how you define "afford".

Firstly, you can't NOT afford a savings buffer. So you service that every month.

Then, you change your definition of "afford" not to mean "I can manage the monthly payments" to "I can pay for this outright".

Unless it's a monthly service, or an essential like a mortgage, do NOT fall into the trap of thinking you can afford expensive trash like iPhones because you can afford the monthly amount. You have a seven week old baby and you are fretting about massive, massive phone and Internet bill.

And yes, what you can afford when you only pay for what you can buy outright is not as flash. I bought a reconditioned phone two years ago for the cost of two months of one phone of your current contract, plus a monthly Giff Gaff sim.

LakieLady · 09/12/2021 08:29

[quote GrandTheftWalrus]@AnneElliott it's UC now. I'll be applying for it once my mat pay ends.[/quote]
If that £1370 includes your mat pay, you may be entitled to UC now. Go on www.entitledto.co.uk, armed with payslips, and check. Start an application today!

You may also be eligible for a reduction in your council tax.

But like everyone else says, your phones/internet are breathtakingly high. I'd go back to them all, explain your circumstances and ask to be released early on grounds of hardship. If they say no, I'd cancel the DDs and let the bastards sue me. (It may be worth checking when the contracts end and if it's only a month or two, it may be better to just not renew when you're out of contract). Car insurance is high too.

Can you renegotiate the IVA now your circumstances have changed? To have over 10% of income going straight out on debts is a big chunk. Have you got any of your redundancy money left?A client of mine, with an IVA, once got a few grand and was able to get his creditors to accept a percentage of the debts and write the rest off.

Your gas and electric are high imo. I pay £80 a month (Octopus) for a 2-bed semi, and even WFH I'm still well in credit. There's a lot online about how to reduce energy costs and I'd check on USwitch to see if there's any way you can get a cheaper deal.

I really feel for you, OP, it's so hard when all the money's spoken for the minute you get it. But as things, eg car insurance, come up for renewal make sure you shop around for the best possible deal. And with the car, try it with you as main driver, if you're not already. Never accept the renewal quote from the existing insurer, you can almost always do better.

Whatiswrongwithmyknee · 09/12/2021 08:30

He is salary pay not hourly. I have just asked him to check it was correct. The figure he gave me for what he brings home is -150 IVA and minus -£70 phone. Knowing this now it isn't actually ad horrendous now.

That's good news. It sounds like with this change and the money you've found you're entitled to every week, you will have over £700 more a month than you thought. Hopefully that will feel much better and will buy enough time to get through to the end of the phone and BT contracts which, even with a phone and internet, you should be able to free up another £150 a month. It can be financially difficult when the kids are very little but I think when your baby is older you'll find you're more able to think about how to find some work which fits with your family needs. 7 weeks is still very young and if he's been in NICU too, your mind will still be all a whirr.

FleetwoodRaincoat · 09/12/2021 08:35

Check out the "earn £10 a day " thread in here. Doing online surveys and testing earns me about 50 a month, and I don't do much. It might help in the short term.

Wigglefish123 · 09/12/2021 08:37

These types of posts are unbelievable……it’s no one’s fault other than the Ops and her partners they obviously can’t manage their money (as shown by his IVA)….there are bank loans and credit cards,phone contracts they don’t need etc and then they wonder why they can’t pay them when they get pregnant…..don’t have a baby if you can’t afford it, make sure you have savings to cover a few months expenses just in case you lose your job…

It’s not that difficult as long as people can actually wait to buy things rather than get credit they can’t really afford……and the rest of us end up paying for it via tax credits etc 😡😡

XmasElf10 · 09/12/2021 08:38

The problem is the debts Iva, credit cards and bank loan is roughly the same as your rent. Ring a debt charity and sort that out and cut up any credit cards and don’t get anymore debt.

FrappuccinoLight · 09/12/2021 08:45

320 of ur outgoings is your partners’ debt. He should find a second evening job to cover this so that his wife and baby can eat. Yes he would be a little tired but this is a small short term price to pay for living above his means previously. Otherwise you get the part time evening job and he looks after baby.