I have just added up all my direct debits and it comes to nearly 5k a month!

[LaurieFairyCake]

I cannot believe it's so high! No wonder my disposable income is so small. £4667 a month!

I've included all fixed costs that I can't do anything about (but NOT petrol and commuting costs which I also can't do much about, or food which is about £600 a month)

It wasn't as bad as this a few months ago but that bloody HMRC thing where they now make self employed people (who earn more than £1000 a year profit) pay on account - actually in ADVANCE of earnings has totally fucked me! Why the hell am I paying tax on money I've not even earned yet!

I'm looking through them and there's not much I can do anything about unless I want to not have my house insured or dogs insured.

From HMRC internal manuals ...

Payment processing: Direct Debit (DD): Budget Payment Plan (BPP)

A Budget Payment Plan (BPP) is an easier way for customers to pay their SA tax. Paying by BPP is voluntary and flexible and allows customers to make regular payments towards a future liability. A BPP customer can:

decide the regular weekly or monthly amount they want us to collect
choose to change their regular payment amount
take a break and suspend payment for a period of up to 6 months
cancel the BPP at anytime

But Lonny you must be making a payment on account aren't you in order to have a balancing payment?

This is the link. Paying monthly is optional but paying on account (on 31 Jan) isn't.

www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/self-assessment-legal-framework/salf303

Yes, sorry. I could have chosen not to pay monthly but I couldn't choose not to then pay the whole amount (INCLUDING payments for right now) this December

You have to pay on account so that you can eventually stop working. Otherwise you could end up in a position where you were having to work to pay off last years tax but then getting taxes on that and not being able to stop.

It’s makes sense. It is shit for the first year but then you catch up with yourself and it’s fine. If you have a year where you make more money than you think you’re going to make the next year you can apply for the tax on account to be changed.

I moved to a limited company and employed myself so had a lovely year where I got my tax on account back from my self assessment.

@Namechangeforthiscancershit yes but not for a year that hasn't happened yet, I've just made a payment on account for 18/19, ie the tax year that just finished this April, which I've invoiced and been paid for. I'm not paying anything on account for 19/20 (ie this year) until Jan 2020, when I will have been paid for three quarters of the tax year which runs to April 2020.

The 'tax year' is 18 months, really, which makes it super confusing (I always have to write it down) but I'm not paying tax on this tax year's income yet. I actually dug out my statement to check!

OP....I completely empathise.

Our outgoings are c. £9k per month at the moment. £4K of which is tax, putting aside £1500 'normal tax' a month which will be due in Jan 2020 and £2500 on a tax payment plan for 2018-2019 because I fucked up my sums and owed £20k more tax in January this year than I anticipated

I've just today been asked to consider a perm role where I am contracting by someone I love working for but I don't think I can afford the income cut to go permanent.

We are not covering our outgoings at the moment but everything that can be cut down has been - we are tied into everything else.

Why can’t you go to Aldi on a Saturday or Sunday?

I think there's plenty of scope to reduce here:

• You don't need Now TV & Netflix, I would choose one. Obviously it's not necessary to have either but we decided to keep Netflix since we have no money to go out!

• You should be able to easily reduce your shopping bill to £400. I'm veggie and have 4 cats and could definitely cut your bill down. Ocado is expensive so stick to Tesco.

• Put your energy bills through a price comparison site (we just saved £100 a month!)

• Put all insurances except pets through a price comparison site

• No discretionary spending until your loan is paid off (no new clothes/magazines/books/nothing!)

• Stop doggy day care and replace with a lunchtime walker

• Do you have to have a lot of prescriptions for your conditions? If so, do you have the NHS annual plan thing that gives you 12 months of prescriptions for £112ish? It works out cheaper if you have more than one per month.

Can your husband do the shopping then if he has the car? Any reason you need to do it?

Go through with a fine tooth comb and check it any payments are coming off that shouldn't! I claimed a few back and compensation for some of them too!

The 2nd payment on account is going towards next year's tax bill, in effect you are paying in advance. If you earn less then you will get refunded.

That doesn't surprise me at all. I used to work in a bank and I noticed that the more money coming in the more direct debits going out. People's expenses just grow to meet their salary. I don't mean that in any judgemental way at all! Just an observation. I'm averse to any regular indefinite debits from my account! I'd rather pay upfront. I know that is not always an option though.

Ahh the mumsnet race to the bottom
The average spend is £65 for a family of fours as my youngest three are only four and five £400 a month is normal, we eat well. Could easily do it for less if we wanted to scrimp.

Oh and @Yabbers maybe take a minute to look up economics of scale. Clearly it’s cheaper per head to cook for 8 than 4!

yes yabbers. He has disposable income as stated in original post. I would love to have anything left after rent and bills and not have to take left over food from an old peoples home to provide for my family.

I am in a situation I can't change (lawyers etc involved in trying to help me) he is merely overspending his disposable income

maybe you shouldn't be so pompus

OP do you just want a whinge?

You don’t seem to be paying any attention to the fact that a lot of your “essential outgoings” (dog, fancy vegan food) are actually lifestyle choices. As PP have said, buying vegan substitutes is always going to be more expensive than just buying a load of lentils & beans and cooking from scratch. There are definitely savings you can make immediately rather than waiting till the Aldi opens

It seems like you want to maintain the lifestyle you have with no cutbacks whatsoever, which is fine, but at least recognise it as a lifestyle choice rather than “oh woe is me, it’s all the fault of me being disabled and having to pay tax”. Especially as other PP have pointed out; the tax thing is a short term thing for this year so surely you can tighten your belts for a few months? Or even just accept you’ll go overdrawn as you’ll easily be able to pay it off next year when you have more spare cash?

@LaurieFairyCake do you actually need all your insurances? I find some people are massively over insured.

So my list of insurances is:

Pet
House
Car
Term Life with mortgage (for death)
Special sick pay one for the self employed person (for normal sickness)
Indemnity £10million for self employed person
Critical illness (for if I develop cancer/other illnesses meaning I can't work)
Travel (yearly policy)

And there's another I can't remember

They make everyone do it now (who earns over 1k profit)

I looked this up as it didn't sound right and it's not right, you pay in advance when your tax bill is more that £1000.

It might not make a difference to you but it's an important distinction for people reading the thread to know in case they are in the same position

Ok, so you’ve just said you are almost cost neutral if you can’t work.... what are the chances of both critical illness AND sick pay being needed?

Does your CIC cover your arthritis? - I doubt it
When does your sick pay kick in on this?

You MUST keep the life cover and the business/travel cover, but I’d be reflecting if the above two are both needed as they don’t appear to be doing a good job for you.

Also the level of CIC. Would it pay off your mortgage? Would it need to? Could you reduce it. If you get an illness you tend to recover in 3-4 years, or make the big claim - death. That’s not always the case, but it can be. You’ve got a long term condition and it’s not doing anything for you.

The pet cover I always question, but I’m rather horrible and would have a very sick pet put to sleep and self insure here - sorry, I realise that may be rather an unpalatable view.

Not sure. My critical illness covers only very serious illnesses - cancer/stroke/heart disease - only pays out £100k (not enough for mortgage)

The sick pay just replaces my monthly salary if I get flu/have an accident

Nothing covers arthritis (of course )

I'm not disabled in any way - but that's because I'm spending a lot on keeping fit with specific exercises, supplements, injections etc. It's only if I stopped doing that would I have problems

The critical illlness cover I took out nearly 20 years ago - it doesn't increase (payments wise) unlike life cover which has gone up the older I've got when I've bought the next house

So I was reluctant to cancel it - particularly now as I'm 50 and bang in the middle of age when my mum got cancer and my father had heart attack's

I shouldn't have taken it out but now I've got it I'd feel a right twat to cancel it and then get one of the illnesses

It's actually nearly 30 years I've been making payments

Just worked out I've spent £10,800 on it over 30 years

No holidays abroad for 18 years. Our holiday this year was Cornwall (cost £1000 for a cottage)

Do you need an annual travel policy, and is it super cheap to take into account that you only have domestic holidays?