Overspending please help

[SunConure]

To be losing £500 per month. I am overspending by about £500 every month and I need some help to get it under control.
£1100 mortgage + council tax + electric gas etc
£110 phones for me and dc (in contract! )
£500 food (I am addressing this - joined a larder!)
£360 medical bills
£280 cleaner
£200 utilities on holiday home (no mortgage)

£200 travel to work
£100 pet insurance (high b/c of past claim)
£100 dc pocket money and activities
£200 loan repayments
£100 car
£2-300 on general living

With phones, as everyone says, check when your contract(s) allow you to leave. I've always found it cheaper to buy a decent phone outright, and then buy a separate data package - lebara are particularly cheap and also means you get free roaming in Europe and India. This only works if you and your child are able to keep a phone going for several years and also if you have the cash available to pay the full price up front.

If you can get the holiday home rented out it will pay its way and possibly pay for your cleaner and medical bills. You may need a minimum letting period e.g. 3 or 5 days otherwise the additional cleaning costs can wipe out the profit. Ideally you want people staying at least a week at a time

How long have you been having therapy? If it's more than 6 months you should find out how much longer you're expected to attend.

I assumed the £50 for the DS covered clothes though.

My dd 17 gets similar and this covers clothes (maybe I’d get the odd present but not expected). She supplements with paid babysitting, and has done for a while - can your DS supplement his £50 with something similar if he likes expensive clothes?

Can you rent out your holiday home to make more income?

£360/ month for medical costs seems too high. Would a prescription prepayment certificate (PPC) help? Any other way to reduce?

£1200 a year for pet insurance is too much. I’m sorry but pets cannot live forever. Cancel the insurance.

£280 cleaner you can cut back and clean your own home.

£100 per month car payment seems very high. Can you sell the car, pay off the loan in full and buy something for £2K-£3K in cash.

£3,600 a year for “general living” is also high.

Get your basic expenses to £3,000/month and transfer any monthly income above £3,000 to a second bank account. Then if you want to have some "general living expenses" you need to actually transfer from savings. It's a mental barrier that gives you time to stop and think.

I think because I have been buying everything organic and from Waitrose but I am stopping this I am now going to the larder to get meat for dc (I don’t eat meat) and topping up from Tesco. I realise how crazy it’s got these last couple
of years with my job being so stressful I’ve been treating myself but that has to stop. I have given up David Lloyd as well

Let the kids earn their pocket money by cleaning the house, then ditch the cleaner.

I would look at food costs: aim for £250-£300 a month
Some ideas for cheaper meals
th is mum cooks on Facebook- she does 5 meals for £20/£25 (dinners)....(Some even from m&s).
Jack monroe
Taming twins
Ask ai to do you a meal plan- you can give it a budget and tell it the supermarket you use if you want....
Some things I have been doing- vegetable peeling soup, chickpea and spinach curry, bubble and squeak, jacket potato cheese and beans, nacho chilli ....
I would reduce your general spend budget by £50.... You are half way there without getting rid of your cleaner
Everyone is correct about phone contracts we changed to SIM only £10 contracts last time we renewed....
Again pet insurance is it needed?

You don’t need to go to restaurants, you don’t need to redecorate.
You probably don’t need clothes , although a growing kid does.
If you’re really serious you don’t NEED holidays.

What a lovely message. Thank you

You can’t get out of phone contracts till he they’ve finished.

My phone contract is £17 per month and I never get close to using all my data - WHY are you shelling out so much?

Having a holiday home is a massive luxury. You lost my sympathy with that.

Going through the redundancy process so have not lost the job yet but i need to get things under control as my next job is likely to be less well paid

OP, don’t do this, unless you’re absolutely desperate. Pet medical bills can be huge and easily wipe out any savings.

I would cut the cleaner and reduce the food bill until the loan is paid off

How do you travel to work, could you take a cheaper option eg bike to a nearer train station to cut cost? Work from home more?

Do you actually use the holiday home? Sounds like you can't afford flight etc. If not, can you just cut utilities off?!

I'm sorry that you're going through the redundancy process :( I went through the same last year and it sucks, there's no denying it and it takes a toll on your mental health.

But on the plus side you do have a lot of room to maneuver in your budget.

You'll be ok, in a couple of years when you're settled in a new job this will be just a little blip

You are all so amazing thank you. I think I just went a bit crazy when I got a good job.
im going to do the following asap

1. get rid of cleaner and do it myself
2. halve food costs
3. add the loan to the mortgage so it helps me over this difficult time
4. have the therapy fortnightly
5. keep the pet insurance as my dog is 9
6. try to rent the French house and if I can’t then sell it

I would phone the phone contract people. I wonder if there's a way to extend the contact so you pay it over a longer period. Explain that you are in debt and struggling to pay.

Definitely ditch the cleaner and your DS can earn pocket money/phone contract by doing help with cleaning.
And no more Waitrose - Lidl and Aldi. Make a meal plan for the week making sure nothing food will be wasted, and putting some budget meals in there.
obviously the holiday home is a big issue here but seems you’re trying to address that.

Cleaner needs to go - unnecessary

When your phone contract ends, get sim only. I pay £7 a month with Lebara

It was bought as an investment for my retirement really as I’m approaching that age. Never used it really as always too damn busy! Friends go there sometimes

Deffo cleaner, and rent the holiday home. Nhs waiting list but obvs don't stop until get your apt. And once your contracts have ended, get a sim only deal - it costs me a tenner a month rolling contract and I have unlimited free call&texts and quite a chunk of data. You do not need the latest phone on expensive contracts, you need a phone that does its job. Selling older phones on ebay can bring a bit back too.

Other than that.. just general cut backs on meals out etc. Take picnics, go for walks and swap a couple of cheap days for when you go out, but still go out too then life won't be too dull.

Good luck for the future OP, sorry about the job.

That all sounds good.
You might try asking your therapist to give you a concessionary rate for a while.
Your son can help with the cleaning.
Good luck.