To be struggling on 3k per month?

[Strictlyskint]

I am a single mum and really don’t know where I am going wrong. I am usually fine until there is a week to go until payday. Christmas is coming up and I am really stressing

Does the £70 for Sky include broadband I note you don’t list that?
Can you phone sky and explain you’re struggling, can they offer a cheaper deal?
What is the fee? Would paying it but having no monthly bill mean you were better off after a few months?

Try voxxi for your phone. It’s £10 a month for basically unlimited calls and data (I’ve not gone over date so far at any rate!)

Ring up and cancel your Sky, they will try and renegotiate you a lower rate. If not, do the full cancellation and wait for the cancellation team to ring you with an offer. It’s a slight gamble but if it doesn’t work out you would likely get a better deal as a new customer anyway.

I completely understand @Strictlyskint. I’m on more than you (£4300) but have a bigger mortgage (£1500) and childcare (£400) and I am really really struggling

where abouts are you if you don’t mind me asking?

So basically if I had a lower paid job, I could claim more in benefits. I only just manage to get child benefit it is crazy.

Difficult to say until you tell us whether you've checked your outgoings for the last 2 months and located that £700...

So there we go, you can’t manage your own money so it’s time to benefit bash. Why would having benefits make you better off when you’re issue is you are wasting money and you don’t even know what on?

Honestly as someone who earns the same I would not have sky, an expensive phone, or a pet. I'd say they are luxuries for people who are well off.

Having said that, you still have major disposable income after all those costs so you must be spending somewhere?!

A relatively affluent area in the North. I need to be here to be by my mum, keeping childcare low as she has my DC 2 days a week and when I am late back from work.

annoyingly if I had stayed living down south and bought a shared ownership property I’d be over £1100 a month better off as I’d get UC for nursery and the rental portion of the shared ownership. Make it make sense.

Just reminding people that her outgoings are not £1,500 - some of those items are weekly. It’s £2,266.

Cancelling Sky is a nightmare. Who has the box - does your ex? Whose name is it in? Has he a new contract?

You need to spend time arguing with them and expect them to fight dirty. Look at threads on here and on Reddit for tips. If your ex has a new Sky contract, so much the better. If it’s in his name, don’t mention your marriage. He lived here but moved out. Your contract is with him. This is his new address. If he has the box you need to return it. You are spending £840 / year you don’t need to. There’s your Christmas present budget right there.

Food-wise, some Mumsnetters do incredibly well with their food shop but I don’t think yours is that far out of whack if you have two children. Can you shop at Aldi / Lidl? That might save you some money per week.

How many phones is that £60 paying for? How old is your mobile? Have you in fact paid for your handset now and can move to a cheaper tariff?

People on not the same money will always tell you you should be loaded but they’ll have forgotten what things were like with kids and also will have different priorities to you. We once sat down with mil for her to help with our expenses as we were close to rock bottom (barely paying rent, had gone to charities for help etc). Up until that point she had been saying we were obviously buying extras and not thinking about them. When she saw the coat of our rent and childcare as nc how much we were paying in loans I could SEE her still trying to pick out what was going wrong until she finally said sometimes you just had to keep on keeping on.

A few weeks later she was back telling us if her and fil had had the money we had life would have been different!!

Also remember the answers here will be how to help you and will be made up of people managing on less. Sit down, notepad and paper and phone and see what you can do, but actually do it!!

On sky, make that a priority if you don’t use it!!

You need to keep a spending diary so you can see where your money is going. So list everything you spend on a day by day basis and you may pick up where you are being frivolous,
That said your water bill is shockingly high - are you paying off a debt? If you are not on a meter then get one - you could cut costs there. Are you travelling for work because £70 per week for fuel is a lot too? You could cut costs on food shopping by menu planning and then shop accordingly - however if packed lunches for school are included then it's probably not too bad.
Make the effort to send the Sky equipment back - that's just money down the drain if you don't even use it!

Have you not answered your own question? Try reel it in! That feel good factor of buying things is real but it's short lived.

The other thing I do every so often is fish around for better deals. Internet, utilities, phone contracts, car break down/and insurance when due. All those little sums can add up, plus it's personally pleasing to get everything a little cheaper :-)

Edited £60 for phone, ouch. I switched to rolling contract, tenner a month including 100% free calls & free texts and some data. I buy my own phone as in the long run it's a lot cheaper than signing up for 3 years.

It sounds like you just don't know where you're spending so you should probably go through your current account and look at what you're doing. I hate doing this, I hate counting pennies, but if you don't know where your money is going you need to find out.

Sky isn't worth the money you're paying for it imo but if it's something you like to have then it's fine to have it.

I somehow missed my council tax payment last month so this month I have to pay double.

I can't get my head round £150 a month for water, I know it has gone up loads but paid over 8 months that is £1,200. I have vague memories that water bills are based on the rateable value of a property so lost in the mists of time as to how they were originally calculated. Seems a huge amount of money, mine are £55 a month so yours are nearly triple what I pay yet your council tax is only £38 more. I live in a Band A house. As for managing money, I have all my direct debits come out on the same day so I am clear about what is left over after bills have been paid, I menu plan, make lists to (try!) and avoid impulse buys, always shop with a list, and check my spending daily on my banking app

Quite honestly it's very easy indeed to go overboard on spending. I earn £3,500 after tax and only have a £300 a month mortgage left.
Coffees, lunch from M&S, a new top etc etc can leave me short.
I put 1K in savings as soon as I get paid and make myself manage on what's left.
I have a spreadsheet - all outgoings and incomings and check my bank balance every single day, I don't buy any magazines or coffees or lunches out, I have to check my bank balance before I buy anything, I shop at Aldi or similar and compare prices.
When you are putting expenditures in a spreadsheet it's very easy indeed to see how much you are wasting.

So you should have more than £700 leftover for last months ???

That's not £1500 month bills, that's £2200 month so left with 800 plus child benefit. That's nearly £100 month spare. Where's it going?

If you post the equipment back to sky then they won’t charge you for it. They should be able to provide you with free postage.

It sounds to me like the real problem is that you don’t have time to sort your finances out and may need more skills with bills etc You could make an appointment with Citizens Advice to go over it all or maybe take a day of AL to just go through all your bank statements and change all your contracts.

It feels daunting but if you give it a go things will be easier in the long run if you have more cash for Xmas and food etc.

Also, look at applying for a savings account that pays good interest, apply and put even just £5 a month in. Building Societies are good like Coventry. www.sky.com/help/articles/return-or-recycle-sky-equipment

I’d look into water, that’s high, car insurance seems very high but varies, cat food seems high too. Obviously you need the fuel you need. Could potentially get utilities down too, my gas & electric is £120 for example

Your gas and electric are more than a typical user. So check you are on the best tariff possible and you will have to look as to how you are potentially using more than you need to. You also need to make sure that your energy supplier is getting regular readings and your bills are not estimated.

Your food bill is on the high side, as is water and your phone. The cat food seems on the pricy side as well. I have two dogs on specialist food and don’t spend much more than that a month on both of them.

You need to get sorted with Sky.

Basically you are spending a lot of money on things which should be costing less than they are, which is why you are feeling the squeeze when you should be feeling more comfortable than you are given your income.

It's £1900 - the £150 food is per week.

Call and cancel the contract. That's what you are paying, whether you plug it in or not.