I have massively fucked up our finances

[Skintorama]

I've just been scooting along with my eyes shut for ages. I bit the bullet and sat down with DH to go through stuff a couple of months back and we were 14k into the credit cards, and paying interest.

We have a 13k bank loan which we took out to clear the last lot of credit card debt, there are still three years on that.

I also have a car loan that was around 14k, I think that's down to 12.5k now, 4.5 years to go. I am looking into selling the car back to the garage next month and buying a cheaper, smaller car (needed a 7 seater for work but don't anymore).

We then took out a new 0% cc and shifted stuff around, so we're not paying any interest now, but having totted up all the balances today we are now £16k into the cards. I know some of that is fees, but it's also that we've managed to piss £800 away over our budget in the last two months, and we have paid the balance of our holiday (£700).

It's completely unsustainable. About 6k of the debt was court fees, and 5k was our kitchen overspend. The rest is just spending.

Help me. Please give me all your best advice and tips. I seem to just be failing miserably at this. We have over 4k a month coming in and I don't understand how we overspend every single month, it's nuts.

Giddy I you want to go out to the supermarket for a walk, just go to buy a newspaper and leave your purse at home so you're not tempted.

'If' not 'I'

Oh yes, if I'd have taken my purse with me to the park yesterday I would have DEFINITELY bought drinks, and probably icecreams. I had four children with me so that could have been £20 easily.

As it was, I took change for parking and that was it. And the kids were most put out at being given water and fruit

Skint I have a pack of six strawberry splits in my freezer which cost £1.30 from Waitrose so my DC's get an icecream when we get home

I managed to cut the food budget in half despite living in a market town where Sainsburys is the 'budget' supermarket (waitrose is the only other option).

Food deliveries from ASDA. Mostly smart price. The rest of the stuff we get from the market - fruit and veg every Thursday, once every six weeks I go to Chichester for the meat, buy in bulk and portion it up. It's good quality too, none of this watery chicken that I used to get with supermarket meat.

I'd love an aldi or lidl round here but I think the local snob contingent would have a coronary...

on the right puter now .... here's the link to the existing spreadsheets
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/1715581-Cost-of-credit-cards-and-mortgages-the-spreadsheets

Ooh Gobby I think we might be living in the same town..

Tv/internet £70
Phones £40

Assuming that phones means mobile phones, this is 110 quid a month that in the mid-90s people didn't know they needed.

I find that attitude helps me cut down on my spending quite well. Did I manage without it.

I inadvertently halved my shopping budget when we went on a health kick and quit fish, meat, booze and cakes. I was amazed at how much cheaper it is, I've gone from spending 120 pw to about 60.

Also shocking was how much less we spent when I was pregnant and so not drinking wine - the last few months the shopping bill has shot back up again

Morning all.

Yesterday DH went to the shop and I asked him to just take £5 and get bread, milk, a cucumber and maybe some cereal for the DC if he had enough. So that's all he got, with change to spare.

Result.

Today I am going to attempt spaghetti bolognaise with half the usual amount of mince (one pack instead of two), I have mushrooms, bacon, tomatoes and pasta to bulk it out, I might throw in some couscous for padding too and see if anyone notices...

Good point BadLad.

How many years do we need to go back to get to a time before Costa/Starbucks invaded the high street. I hardly ever go to these places because they are such a rip off, but I keep reading about people who go every day, sometimes more than once .

Even one £2 coffee during every workday could cost £40 pm just on coffee and some people could be spending more than that if they have bigger or fancier coffees or cakes etc.

You just need to have a budget and keep to it. I allocate all my salary into notional budgets, fuel, shopping, weekly pocket money, monthly fund for 'nice,thing such as meals out or new shoes, hols money saved over the year. And I keep to that budget.

Skint next time chuck in some canned lentils (rinsed) to bulk your mince out.

Anyone tried the piggybank method on MSE?
It's seems a bit mad to have 6+ accounts though....

Sounds like a good start skint. DH and I decided to go on a spending cut about a year ago and the way we did it was write down all the main areas of expenditure and look at how we could trim them ( didn't last as apparently the money was being saved to buy DH a sports car).

Some areas we found we could cut back with minimum effort and save loads - we like eating out, but restricted this to once a fortnight using special coupons, that saved loads. Others saved a bit, but took a lot of effort i.e. cutting shopping bill by going to Aldi/Lidl - reality was I had to do two supermarket shops and as I work it took too much time. Now I do Tesco Click and Collect and try to get most of what I need for the week - I find not going into the shop helps to focus my mind.

We looked at the list again and prioritised the stuff that saved a lot and/or was low effort for us.

You do need to keep in some treats, otherwise you will end up resenting it and overspending, so the idea of having a fun budget for the kids is good. They could be involved in picking what they do. I hate frittering away money so find that making sure that I always bring a bottle of water and snacks wherever we go saves a lot of money. I do like a coffee when we are out, so I either bring it with me - DH and I now have those insulated mugs, or go somewhere cheap rather than Starbucks.

Lots of good advice on this thread.

What you should do is buy a chorizo, add slivers if it to lentils chickpea stew etc to gi e meaty flavour. We don't nee chunks of meat really just the taste ImO also adding marmite or bobtail can sex up otherwise bland meal

We really struggle with food shopping bills too but that's because we have no cheap supermarkets. Rigorous menu planning is what has worked for us!

We have a shopping centre attached to an ikea so if we want a coffee/snack at that shopping centre we go in ikea and use our ikea family card. Week days the coffee is free and kids can have a hotdog or a doughnut really cheaply and it's got all the kiddie paraphenalia.

Its been so interesting reading this thread. I've just been thorough a bank statement and on one account have 'lost' £400+ this month with out what's we put on a credit card (Paid off in full each month). We should be saving more than we do and after this weekend, away with friends, I am taking food and drink for one night.its cut back time. No more popping into shops for a pint of milk that costs £18,back to menu planning skrimping and saving if I don't have my hours at work reduced by the tune of £5000 next year it will all be OK. Thanks for the advice offered, not good with a spread sheet but can do the original pen and paper trick.x

Am about to write and post to Googledocs a "mumsnet budgeting spreadsheet"
please add your input to the layout here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/1715581-Cost-of-credit-cards-and-mortgages-the-spreadsheets

OP

I bulk my bolognaise out with grated carrot added with the onions. 2 carrots will replace a fair bit of meat.

I'm going to chuck in two onions, two carrots and some celery for good measure. MIght throw in a handful of couscous at the end.

I've just done next week's shop online and got it down to £104 (it's usually £120-£160). I should be able to make it last two weeks, actually.

No wine, less meat. I already buy the essentials range. This is to feed five of us, seven on weekdays.

So the next two weeks look like this:

Today: spag bol
Friday: Paella (4 chicken breasts, bag of frozen prawns)
Sat: Sausage pasta (six sausages)
Sunday: Roast Lamb (have lamb in freezer already)
MOnday: Lamb Curry (from the leftovers)
Tuesday: Veg chilli
Weds: Fish fingers & oven chips
Thurs: Chicken w/mushrooms, mash
Fri: Pasta pesto w/peas
Sat: Paella again
Sun: roast chicken
Mon: Lamb curry (with diced lamb from freezer, we have this most weeks )
Tuesday: Fish and chips
Weds:Mac and cheese

Ta-daaa.

Two weeks on £100 shop plus what's in the cupboards/freezer.

Epic.

Actually I've just played around with that, added another tenner on and it now takes us up to our holiday, so two and a half weeks.

11/07-28/07

Thursday Spaghetti bolognese
Friday Fish and chips
Saturday Sausage pasta
Sunday Roast lamb

Monday Lamb curry
Tuesday Vegetable chilli
Wednesday Paella
Thursday Chicken w/mushrooms
Friday Pasta pesto
Saturday Paella
Sunday Roast Chicken

Monday Lamb curry
Tuesday Fish and chips
Wednesday Macaroni cheese
Thursday Spaghetti bolognese
Friday Veg chilli
Saturday Chinese pork and noodles
Sunday Roast chicken

Sorry, copied it straight over from excel and it didn't format well, but you get the idea.