yet again a bugeting thread!

[Munz]

I posted one a bit ago to see if I could make it work being a SAHM - our first month without my money and we're failing miserablly, so am after any ideas of either shaving things down here or money saving tips - I know I should menu plan more, we're doing more food from scratch but her'es out budget.

DH money - 1150 (ish)
Tax cred - 95
C/B - 69
total income - 1314 P/M

outgoin we have

Debt repayments £350
car finance £120
Car ins £ 42
petrol £ 50
house ins £ 35
Washer ins £ 15
BT (tele/BB) £ 40
sky £ 35
TV licenece £ 12
Food £170
dog food £ 20

gas/eelc £ 70

total there is £959

so in theroy we should have £350 left over after bills - in truth we have 0 left so I have no idea where it's going to or anything.

i'm looking at going back to work which would provide me with approx £400 p/ after childcare and petrol etc, (obv credits would drop thou) DH is due a lump sum in march time which will pay off the car, some debts (those will come down to £280 so a combined saving of £180, ooh and the washer ins runs out so that's another £14 bringing us up to a fair old bit) but I have no idea where it's going to.

waht can I do? does anyone actually use the white board idea which they recommend on the spendoholics programme?

if I could find this £400 and get these few bills sorted out then I won't have to go back to work - which to be truthful is what i'm after but I don't see much other choice at the minute.

(I do do avon as well, this moth I earnt £80, but spent $40 paying for my started stuff and also some demo products as I was wanting to do avon partys on a night - failing that they'd be xmas pressies for the family )

oh yes - and we use aldo for loads of bits and pieces which helps - main shop is still texco or asda though

lol - ah he's a typical nothern boy, if it doesn't have a pie mash and 2 veg or meat and lashings of gravey it's not a good meal after a days work! weirdo! lol.

will look into cancelling the sky, i've jsut asked him to cancel the screen select which was bascially as many DVD's as u want just watch em and send em back for £14.99 p/,m so can't then say ok we'll do another one instead - don'tt hink he'll like that idea.

yes kitty - do u know the area at all?

off to do some ironing but please feel free to give me any ideas - esp cheap reciepes which will look filling for DH!/ younr no 1 must have in the kitchen cupboard.

I'm in Colehill, just by Wimborne so just down that tree lined road which has Badbury Rings off it. There is a market in Wimborne on a Friday, Saturday & Sunday with loads of cheap veg etc. You could combine a trip there to the Lidl not too far from it as well. A farm shop in Pamphill which has a butchers, not sure how cheap it is as DH is veggie and we don't eat meat. I will put my thinking hat on for you for more.

ooh cheers hon, is that market any good in wimborne - i've seen it advertised int eh flyer thingys, and did fancy going along for a mooch about - we have a market here on a saturday, teh veg seemed cheap enough but the woman behind the stall had a fag hanging out of her mouth so DH wouldn't let me buy from her - not that that particaully bothers me.

how do u find the lidls nappies and wipes? I wouldn't buy formual there unless it was the farley's he has, also how much cheaper is it than say tescos? I don't think DH will go for the washing powder but will prob have the rest of the stuff.

I hope I haven't missed something, but Screen Select wasn't listed among your original outgoings. This is the killer - things that you forget, they all add up. Re: Screen Select in particular, there are cheaper deals around, you probably don't watch enough DVDs (on top of Sky) to warrant an unlimited package - I certainly don't!

Echo the suggestion of having a spending diary for a month and list every single thing to see where it's going. You will be amazed.

General suggestions:

• it will be very hard to do this if your dh doesn't get on board, but it might be easier to do that if you have a spending diary / detailed figures to show him. He will have to compromise on food.
• your food amount is probably a guesstimate, it may be a lot higher than that?
• can you restructure your debt repayments, move to 0% cards etc.
• there's nothing for rent/mortgage, is that taken off from your dh's pay before you see it?

Don't make a decision to go back to work until you are absolutely certain of your figures. At least then if you have to, you will know it's because you genuinely have to.

Also check out Hot Deals for good deals, particularly on Tesco vouchers.

I didn't buy nappies and wipes in Lidl but used to get the Tescos ones sometimes which were fine. On one of the other threads people were saying the washing powder in Lidl is good, go through the archive and have a look at the old Lidl threads. The market is pretty good, it's big with large indoor bit. You do have to pay for parking if you go right up to it though. It's definitely worth a mooch. How old is your DS ?

Your DH doesn't seem very involved/helpful in your budgeting. Would he prefer you to go back to work?

boz - I don't think he's too fussed - he'd like the extra cash floating about, but he understands why I want to stay at home (and I think he prefers having a tidy house! )

tri - no we had SS until last month when I told DH it had to come off as they were taking it out ont eh 26th (my old payday) and obviosuly it was bouncing, apparently the company got took over and the subscription was cancelled but when I sent he old DVD's back, they sent us 2 to replace them so he has to ring them again.

on the whole DH is good, - in fact he's actually better at the money side than me and if I say tighten belts he does to the extream, ont eh other hand he also spend the money easily when we have a bit extra floating about - which is why i've preallocvated his lump sum we're due to the debt repayments immediatly to reduce those - something to me which makes snece as we won't pay intrest etc but he'd rather get soemthing new (he won't be btw)

kitt - DS is 8 months next monday, it's gone so fast, I'm reluctant to go abck to work as he's so young and changing so much, I honeslt believed we could make it work with me being home- we've dropped £300 p/m which doens't seem such a big deal tbh esp as the petrol has drastically reduced as have some other bills but we seem a lot worse off.

the shooping is a guestimate yes - well this month I spent £120 in asda.com on everything then £$40 for veg/meat, and then another £15 on extras in teascos so just over - althou come friday i'll prob have to go to tescoas again to get a bit more veg.

tri - yes the rent and coucil tax come out of DH's wages b4 we see it so we don't have to worry about any of that comin out.

as I say thou i've tried a cash book and it's not worked out - perhaps it's tiem to try the cash approach in the jar each week and take both our debit cards away will the sat morning when we get the cash out of the machine. in fairness to DH he doens't ask what I spend my money on(the little I have - normally about £30/£40 p/m and I don't ask him really - althou his all goes on fags normally (well baccy))

Hi, did you know that the first £100 per week of maternity pay is not counted as income towards your tax credit award?. As most people who are not on enhanced maternity pay only get a bit more than this it means that it can make a huge difference when they calculate your tax credits. It's all in the small print and so it wasn't until I filled in my annual declaration that it came to light. Hope this helps.

yes that was the problem, the first man included it, so when I rang to change it she reduced our income to £18K but then GH's raise put it to just over the 200 bracket - v annoying. I trust it's right - does it sound right to u guys (£20200 p/a estimate and we're having £95 p/m)

i'd ditch the sky and look at freeview
how old is your son? don't bother with followon milk ( if he's past a year I mean) milk is cheaper and just as good if he has a good diet

I used Lidls nappies. They're great and very cheap. As are their wipes. I buy cleaning stuff from them too, their washing liquid and conditioner, bin bags, etc.

Wimborne market is great (I'm on Broadstone, not far from Kittypickle) .

well I guess all I can do is try teh cash idea and the lidls and market to see how we go - if it doesn't workout then we'll have to stop the sky and down grade the BB or soemthing.

Hello Surfermum ! I rejoined SW after reading on the thread how thin you are looking these days. There's a new consultant up the road just started. Been rubbish though as it was my birthday so am starting properly on Thursday.

Oh good luck Kittypickle. Sparkler comes with me now to my group. It's a Thurs evening if you fancied joining us.

I would have got to target long before now if I didn't drink so much .

If this new woman turns out to be rubbish you will have two refugees ( me and my SW partner in crime from round the corner) if that is OK !

Sorry Munz for the hijack and good luck with the budgeting. Shout if you want to know where anything down this way is.

Munz - fair enough, again, you didn't include the tobacco in your monthly totals. It all adds up and explains where your surplus is going.

Why was the cash book a waste of money?

Did they take off the first £100 pw of your DHs paternity pay? (If he was paid paternity pay, you would have to check it was listed as such on his payslip at the time to be able to use it for tax credit purposes) That may sneak you under the threshold that has caused your tax credits to drop.

nole - he wasn't paid it, the army in that respect are fab, he had 2 weeks paertnity pay on full pay so mustn't grumble there.

tri - mainly cos we didn't do it - so from that point of view I know I won't do it again iycwim.

his baccy I guess is approx £30 p/m no more normally (well I don't allow it to be as there's not normally much left - the rest jusat goes on crap I think - the bagette rolls in the spar fro lunch, or extra food or something - am determined thou this coming month - will go back to shopping weekly I think as I do it monthly but half way thru I need to get xy and z for the boy, which b4 used to be a £5 trip for bew/milk but is not a £20 trip every 10 days or so for his yoghurt/fresh etc, soperhaps doing it weekly's the say to go?

SM/Kit - don't worry I don't mind!

What has worked for me is having a seperate bank account where I put money at the start of the month to cover food, plus a bit extra to cover DDs clothes/shoes, presents, etc. I then use this solely to buy those things. At the end of the month there is always some spare which adds up to pay for Christmas/school start/etc.

I withdraw £50 for the weeks spends (top up milk, lunches, etc) and stick to it. I also found menu planning helped a great deal in reducing the amount of food I wasted. I do a fortnightly online shop that buys the tins/cleaning/freezer stuff etc., and top up on veg/milk/meat locally. Also once you get a bit straighter, try to put an extra amount aside per month to pay for the house/car insurance in one go - spreading the payments adds a whopping amount to the total!!

We have to have sky, as my DH would die without sport (apparently) and we have BB that is seperate to our BT package. Could probably save some here, but at the mo. we have no problems and I have heard horror stories about other combined packages. Swapping elec/gas didn't appear to be very beneficial to us for the hassle, but may be worth looking at for you??

For me the key was keeping everything seperate, then it was easier to see where my spending downfalls were...