Need to save or make £300 pound this month, please help.

[pinkdolly]

Ok so this is after all the utility bills are paid. I worked out that all our bills and loan agreements come to £809 and there's nothing that we can get rid of.

Usually dh gets £1400, this month the navy have taken £300 off him so he is just getting paid £1100. Take off the bills and thats £300 add on the tax credits and thats £500. Oh yeah and then there is is child benefit which is £170 so the total is actually £670. For shopping, fuel and other expenditures.

It's sounds a lot written down, and i'm sure there are a lot of people who survive on less then that, but we never have any spare money at the end of the month so we have to try and save £300 pounds this month.

It's dd's birthday this month (we have 3 children), fathers day. Money goes on the toddler group that I run and the Youth group that dh runs.

Please can you help me with ideas on how to save £300 or make £300. I do have some things I can sell. But it wont be anywhere near that much.

Thanx for your help.

why have they taken the £300? can he not go to them and explain it will cause hardship and have it deducted gradually?

why have they taken the £300? can he not go to them and explain it will cause hardship and have it deducted gradually?

oops

Long story really. We got moved out of our married quarters due to very high safety risk. There were no other quarters available so they put us in private hiring. Obviously the rent went up. Although dh badgered them for months and months to take the correct money out (rent comes out automatically from his wage). They have only just sorted it (we've lived here since July 07. So we owe them a lot of back rent basically. Navy rules state that they can take 4 days pay off dh in one calender month untill the arrears are paid off. Dh get paid £80 per day before tax so that's what they've charged him.

We tried to dispute the fact that we should pay the back rent as it is their mistake but they wont have it. We also tried to dispute paying the extra rent at all considering the safety issues in the quarter were also their fault and we didn't want to move out in the first place. But they are very stubborn.

In reality I dont know exactly how much we owe so this could go on for a few months.

Bet it was a JPA cock up. Did you know that JPA stands for Just Pissing Around As in pissing around with wages, leave, allowances etc.
We are about £150/200 down this month as well

Makes sense really. I dont think we should be paying for their mistakes really. It's so annoying.

It was JPA and dh tried to sort it out so many times. They are useless

Cook from scratch with very cheap ingredients. Walk everywhere you can or lift share. Sell anything that you don't have a use for - DON'T sell things that will be expensive to replace or that you worked hard to save up for imo.

Don't eat or drink out AT ALL. Do cheap stuff at home rather than going out en famille at the weekends.

This is how I survive nearly every month - it's okay and means I live on way less than £600 with 3 children also.

Good Luck.

Plan your meals carefully. It makes a big difference if you only buy each week what you are actually going to use.

Presumably DH will understand if for fathers day he gets a home made gift and card

do a car boot sale
buy only the real basics shopping wise and use your stocks up
shop somewhere cheaper/buy value ranges
write all your expenditure down so that you think twice about spending
use your car as little as possible

another idea if you are really struggling is that you could possible negotiate a lower repayment rate with your creditors for a short period until your back rent is payed off.

HTH

Thanx divedself- I do feel abit like i'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. Especially when there are people like yourself who get by on a lot less. It's just trying to re-educate the way I live really.

To be honest we dont actually eat out a lot, maybe a few times a month. But will definately not do this month. I do try and shop economically but will have to look into how I can improve this also.

And if you find £100 in the pavement of a high street, KEEP IT!

no takeaways or too much wine either!

thanx schneebly- I dont drive myself and do tend to walk everywhere but dh drives and is always running his youth group about. I have told him that we will have to stop that for a bit.

Also carboot sale a good idea, I know I have things I can get rid of.

Listen, any cutting back is hard to do when you get used to a certain way of living. I understand.

When I was in the poo in France and had just chnage and no notes in my wallet for weeks we survived on generosity and real slumming it.

It's totally do-able and only you know how painful you are prepared to cope with in order to get through now. For example, we lived for a whole week on 3 tins of tomatoes, 3large marrows from an anonymous donor! and some rice. We bought a baguette each day as our one luxury item plus 20 euro lemonade.

I hope the situation sorts out quickly for you Money worries are rubbish.

Sorry this year Fathers day is out.

Not a proper festival anyway it's a card manufacturers invention!!

If you & Dh run your toddler groups/youth clubs why do they cost you? Get parents to foot the bills for anything you supply even if normally you buy them.

It's amazing what cheap meals you can nake that are delicious! Shop at Ali or Lidl for cheap but good food & special offers.

the marrows were vile by the way

Do recipes with beans/pulses and/or cheap meat and slow cook.

Buy filling ingredients so you feel less hungry after eating!

offer yourself as a market research respondent. www.focus4people.com/ and similar. Or mystery shopper - google will help

lol, expat, afraid that's not in my nature (wish it was tho)

My toddler group gets £10 per month funding from our church and I spend £6 a week on milk, biscuits and fruit. So try to save the £10 for other expenditures. Dh does get more moeny for youth group but it's all teh running about he does taking the kids home. Their parents really dont seem to want to pick them up, which i find really odd. Also feeding them when they come to our house costs.

Hi - it is me (who sold you the black pushchair!) I suppose borrowing some money whilst you adjust wouldn't help would it?

Money saving expert.com is great for all things reducing expenditure, checking you fuel deal, car insurance, contents insurance, phone package etc.

Could you ask/tell the youth that they need to bring stuff with them ie biscuits/snacks. Could you ask the church for some more money specifically to fund the costs of providing them with snacks/petrol costs???? Be real with the elders who would be involved and talk to them about the finances they should be accommodating.

Anything else you can sell??? Do babysitting?

The most obvious one of course - pray!

I have to pay a pound for each toddler group session i attend, you def should not be paying from your own pocket.

After bills, mortgage etc, we usually have 200 to do us the month.

Meal planning is the only way to do it.