Looking for budget ideas

[Summermightbegreat]

Name changed as it's personal info....

My income has been low for a while and it's recently gone up.

After rent, I have been living on around £700 per month for me and a young child and it will soon go up to £1200 per month, after rent.

Household bills come to around £200 per month.

I don't drive.

I'm a vegetarian so I don't spend on meat. I don't drink, do my nails, get my hair done etc.

I've just started paying for better help therapy at the £108 per month deal through their financial aid package.

I have credit card debts of around £2500 but these are currently on an interest free balance transfer card which expires in around 17 months. I pay £30 a month towards this debt atm. I'm hoping to transfer it again when the interest free period expires. My credit score is average.

I have around £400 in a savings account.

Now that my income is going up, I hopefully wouldn't need to use a credit card again.

I've applied for DLA for my child as they have some diagnosed SEN so far and also awaiting to be seen about ADHD and/or autism.

I feel incredibly lucky to have the amount I'll be getting soon, but am completely lost as to how to manage it properly and in a way that we can enjoy life. I've struggled my entire life due to one reason or another and never felt safe with the amount of income I had coming in and so having been in survival mode up until now, I'm not sure how to move forwards and make the most of my new situation. I'm aware that to some, I'm very privileged to have what I have, as I've just come out of struggling.

I live in council housing so not desperate to get onto the housing ladder right now. Maybe when my child is a teenager I can try and grow my finances more for this to happen.

Part of my income is UC so I can't have more than 6k in savings.

Budget ideas would be great.
I'd like to look at a variety of different options, ones which include driving and ones which don't.

Are you renting private or social?

why is your rent increasing at a high percentage?

have you been in contact with shelter concerning your rent increase?

are you bidding for social housing properties if you’re living in private rental?

No not my rent increase, my income increases soon. But I can see how I worded it might not have been entirely clear.

Depends on your goals. With an extra £500 in income per month, personally, I would be aiming to pay off the £2500 debt in 17 mths so upping the £30 to £150 pm.

With the £350 extra remaining income, I would be upping my pension contributions and also saving/investing to increase your current £400 savings to having enough to cover 3-6 mths' expenditure and to cover unforeseen emergency expenses.

Think of ways to increase your income further perhaps via gaining new skills/going for new job opportunities which may involve paid for training/more childcare. Learning to drive and saving for a car would definitely expand your job horizons. Good Luck!

Sorry got wrong end of stick after not reading properly- my mistake

I have 1,200 a month after rent. My monthly budget is as follows

£400 savings towards a car
£200 food toiletries, cleaning products and dog food. A food shop is roughly £60 every 2 weeks.
£86 gas and electric
£30 unlimited data including phone calls and texts.
£100 vet fees (didn’t have insurance and dog Has had pre existing issues so need to put money aside just incase)
£100 household (to replace appliances if they break)
£50 towards clothes and shoes
£6 towards opticians
£25 towards my own Christmas and birthday gifts, and gifts for others
£50 “pocket” money for myself
£50 savings

I cancelled Spotify and any subscriptions

I'd save couple of thousands first as an emergency fund.
Try to clear off the debt first I.e. pay around 200 a month or so.
Going forward, it's difficult to advise what to do as you can't exceed a certain threshold of your savings due to UC. Perhaps open a kids savings account and save in that instead?

£200 a month for bills ? Does that include utilities , council tax , water and tv licence ?

I don’t know if you’re responding to me. I don’t have to pay water or council tax because I’m classed as “severely mentally impaired” as I am autistic and can’t socialise etc. I don’t watch tv so I don’t pay that.

I'd start with Dave Ramsay's baby steps.

• Save £1000 as a starter emergency fund
• Then throw everything you have at clearing the debt
• Then save 3-6 months expenses as a full emergency fund

There are then other steps but these are always a great start and you can then fully assess your position after you complete step 3.

Whenever I have extra money coming in, I make a plan for every pound before I get it. Before I did this type of planning, I ended up fritting it away. The Budget Mom has some good YouTube videos on this, plus free templates to fill out on her website. I would recommend saving toward a £1k emergency fund. I would also recommend starting some sinking funds for known expenses…£x/month for Christmas, birthdays, school uniform, etc. Once these events roll around, they will be funded, and sinking funds really do take the pressure off.

Yeah. Just recalculated it and it's £210. I pay the same amount gas and electric all year round so that I don't end up in debt over the winter. I'm a bit ahead with the gas.

Thanks a lot. I think I will make this plan and create some little pots inside my banking, to make it all make sense and keep it organised.

Thank you everyone for your ideas. I think it's made it a lot more helpful for me. to figure out how to balance it all properly.