I'm useless with money.

[OnlyGodKnowsWhy]

As the title states. Since last Christmas I've basically lived pay check to pay check, with a monthly payday loan of £200 that I pay £240 to clear then reborrow each month. Christmas this year is terrifying me.

Long story short, I have four children aged between 7 and 12. I've been a lone parent for 7 years though I have reconciled with DH (not kids dad) 2 months ago. He is currently job hunting.

I work as a manager of a shop, 4 week days, one day and weekends off. Monthly wage is roughly a grand. However we receive £300 of our wage half way through the month, the rest is given on pay day so £700.

Universal credit varies as my hours can vary slightly depending on holiday cover, staff sick etc, so I'd average it out at £900 monthly.

I also receive 61.00 child benefit weekly and £81 child maintenance weekly.

Summary monthly income:

Wage: 1000
UC: 900
CB: 244
CM: 324
Payday loan: 200
Total: 2668

Outgoings:

Rent: 360
Council tax: 75
Payday loan: 240
Mobile (three contracts) 66
Internet: 40
Debt: 50
School dinners: 160
Electric: 120
Gas: 20 a month (will increase to same as electric in winter due to gas heating, single glazing and highlands of Scotland!)
TV licence: 24
Spotify family: 14.99
Netflix: 7.99
Pet insurance: 25
Pocket money: 80
Ejuice/coils: 50
Xbox live: 5.99
Gardener: 40 (big gardens)
Window cleaner: 8.00
Food: I don't know. I'd say 450 a month?
Argos card: 100-150

Total: 1980.

I know this doesn't take into account haircuts, clothes, childcare when needed. Basically I don't really know my income and outgoings because it varies each month.

I need a budgeting for dummies guide, how to work out what's being spent where each month and any other advice. Please!

Or coffee or lunch. I think you know where it goes, you admit you are crap with money but don't seem to want to take advice.

If you can get nicotine patches on prescription and get a prepaid prescription certificate you could probably cut back your vaping.

Get rid of school lunches. Do packed lunches.

Get rid of Spotify. Get it for free with ads.

Get rid of Netflix

Tell your kids pokey money is cancelled till Xmas as you dont have the cash. If old enough they can babysit or do paper rounds or wash cars for people.

Halve the vape.

Cancel the gardener.

Cancel the window cleaner

Cancel Skye

Make economic meals till xmas

You're living beyond your means. Cut your cloth to suit. A lot of what you buy are luxury things that aren't essential

Tell the kids you're finances are tight and life will be very simple in the run up till xmas. Demonstrate how to remedy issues.

Start buying food on line and stick to a budget. Stop the monthly outing shop. There's probably unessessary extras you buy.

Take a flask of coffee to work or take a small cafetière and some real coffee and keep it in your drawer.

Your rent is only £360 a month??
Where do you live?

Get rid of Spotify. Download the radio player app to all phones. Free radio. Loads of stations.

Also get rid of netflix, gardener, window cleaner and Xbox live! You can't afford all this and to be decorating your house if you are having to borrow £240 per month in pay day loans!

I'm not making excuses? Of course I want help, I wouldn't have posted if I didn't? Generally when someone asks for help they do want it?

I will definitely start a spending diary, I'm happy to cut out the gardener and window cleaner. At the time I was a very busy lone parent, working and I had the kids full time too, they don't see their father currently. Now I have DH and hours are less at work than what they were. I don't drive but yes I could have bought a lawnmower from somewhere that does home delivery. So not excusing that!

I've never looked at cheaper electric, it's a key machine so I've just topped up when needed, I will look into that too,

Once upon a time I used to be fantastic at meal planning and got food bill down to £60-70 a week for the five of us, but mental health got in the way and it fell by the way side, I am better now though, so also no excuse!

Decorating, due to the kids dad assaulting my son and being charged (hence why they rarely see him now) social services were involved and I panicked that they would judge me on the condition of the house. Although they are no longer involved as they were completely happy with me, I still stress that the house isn't good condition and worry the kids friends will say things about it. That, is an excuse.

Loads of advice here and ultimately I know it all deep down, I guess I needed a good kick up the ass to get my shit together and stop being lazy. Thanks for the responses.

your not lazy. it's a giant leap forward. just call up and cancel stuff. that's not so hard start simple with lunches. the patch is a great idea.

Sorry still on phone, in answer to other questions:

I have freeview

School dinners, two of my children are SN and eat better with school dinners than packed lunch.

I can however, take coffee and packed lunch to work.

Mobile phone contracts, I have one and both my daughters have one. I do plan on switching to payg for them once the contracts are up.

The children all do chores, from walking the dog, brushing stairs, cleaning rooms, hoovering etc. I use an app called chore monster where they earn points when they complete chores and I approve it. They have to earn a certain amount of points to spend on their pocket money reward. Sometimes they make enough, sometimes they don't.

The ecig, I am willing to cut it down but not cut it out. I work in a vape shop. being a vaper is part and parcel. I am regularly testing customer devices, setting them up and so forth. There are some things I can do to make things cheaper.

Rent is 360 because I live in the highlands and I am a council tenant.

Spotify is free if you choose

You're choosing to be in debt. You can decode not to be

Is this for real or what?

I have no money but I have a gardener, buy coffee from cafes and never make lunch at home?

Really weird that

Big things - get advice on those debts and start saving. Job loss can happen to anyone and you will be screwed if it does. Payday loan will be an enormous interest rate.

I don't see contents insurance, water bill, pet food on your list.

Smaller things

• Spotify is free. Install an ad blocker, job done.

• no one will listen, but tatmas needs to cut right down. There is no reason for overspend on pointless shit when there are bills to pay and food to put on the table.

Netflix also goes! Plenty of movies on free view, buy a cheap DVD player and charity shop dvds or just do without.

You do have a pretty good income, OP (said gently.)

PAYG is often not notably cheaper. I used to be loyal to Apple but recently got a samsung galaxy that only costs me £5 a month and it is just as good.

I'm not sure what the issue is here, you have about £700 a month left after bills and food. My take home pay is about the same as your income, but my rent is £975 a month!

Okay, I never said I have NO money. I said I am bad with money and asked for help regarding that.

I do have four children to pay for and figures given in my OP are rough figures, because I actually don't know how much I spend.

Perhaps this was the wrong topic to post in, I was looking for help on how to manage money better.

So I've been given great advice about having an account I don't know the pin of, keeping a track of spending so I know exactly where money is going and also some extra great advice on things I hadn't considered for saving money, like amazon prime and getting rid of some non necessities, checking electricity suppliers and so forth.

Some people are better at managing money than others yes? I've been honest and said I'm rubbish at it and sometimes it seems overwhelming so I don't even know where to start.

I've been council for 2 years, before that I was private let since I left home, rent around 700 a month with kids. I suppose since I've been lucky enough to be in a council house, I stopped being as careful with money as I was back then.

Anyways, thank you for all the helpful advice, I am determined to get on top of how I manage finances.

Hey OP, you've actually made a great start by listing all those outgoings, you just need to start checking bank statements and credit card statements to find out the actual numbers you are spending each expense. It's not knowing your outgoings that is the single biggest obstacle to managing money.

It sucks that you're on a prepayment meter for electric as they don't give the best rates, but still definitely worth trying to switch that .

With the argos card, do you pay the balance off in full or have you got an outstanding balance on there that you are making payments against? Store cards really are the work of the devil - the interest rates are outrageous. If you aren't clearing the balance in full every month, you should work towards getting rid of this card.

Thanks tonic! Being bad with money, I've always been too scared to go to billed gas incase i get a massive bill, it seemed the safer option.

The argos card, I buy now, pay balance in full within 3 months, no minimum payment. I'm happy not to use it going forward of course, hopefully once I am managing finances better there wouldn't be a need for it anyways.

I use a spreadsheet to help me keep track of my money. Make a list of all your priority bills and how much these are each month. Then list all your other bills you pay by direct debit. Then everything else that you know you're going to have to pay for - so food, petrol, school dinners, etc.

Look at the list and work out where you can make savings - I realised I was paying for Kindle Unlimited, Spotify, Now TV, Netflix and Kindle Audio - ridiculous!

When I get paid I put the money for bills and dds into one account which I then don't touch so I know the money's there to cover them, and I move all the remaining money into a savings account.

I then look at any big expenditure I know I have that month - birthday present, kids shoes, etc, and put that money aside.

Then I allow myself a set amount each week to cover everything I need to pay for that week - food, petrol, social, etc.

Try keeping a record of everything you spend for a month (after bills and dds). It's quite frightening to see how much all the top up shops, coffees, etc adds up to!

Hmm there's a middle way with the energy bills, which would be to have a fixed monthly direct debit plan. That way you pay the same amount every month of the year - it's more than your usage in the summer but less than your usage in the winter.

They review your direct debit amount every now and again to check that over the year it will cover your usage. But it gives you a regular payment every month and no surprise massive bills. You would need to pass a credit check though, especially as your prepayment meter would need changing for a credit meter.

You mention your dc have sn. Have you claimed dla for them . You don't need an actual diagnosis, being on the asd pathway for example and having evidence of " symptoms" is all you need to claim.
You would then also receive extra premiums in UC.
Regarding the UC if your dh is supporting you financially his wages need to be included in the figures you give.

Sorry just read your dh is unemployed.

Write down all outgoings , write down all incomings. Make sure these are exact.

Write down everything you spend , even if it's a fiver in tesco or a few quid on ebay , it all mounts up and you need to know where your cash goes.
If something is a luxury then it has to go.

Your rent is low op so in theory you can live on what you have.

Regarding the decorating, you can't afford it so stop.

Pay off your debts and please stop using credit completely.

With your shopping costs you can probably bring them down if you try. Do your meal plan? If not then start as it'll save a fortune.

Good luck. You can do this.

OP I don't think you're lazy. I suspect you're a bit like me and your spending is a reaction to the abuse/trauma you experienced with your ex (and possibly the upset of you and DH separating temporarily?) it's a way of feeling in control of things however it very quickly leads to feeling out of control as the spending is over and above what the budget allows. I struggle with it too and keep having to rein myself back in. I check my bank account several times a day because I am paranoid that I've spent money and not remembered. I write budget after budget to try and remind myself what I have to spend but I never stick to them. It's hard to break bad habits. Shifting the money to an account I can't access from the shops helps. Also leaving my debit card at home when I leave the house. I've cancelled all the extras like Netflix etc and try only to spend on one day a week (Monday for me) If I forget something on that day then tough, I have to wait until next week. Sometimes it works, sometimes I crack and go into town for crisps