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.

Have 4 car boot sales - should make at least £250 - ask everyone you know if they want to get rid of anything and let you car boot it!

Walk everywhere you can

Go to the park a lot

Do home baking

Charge £1 or £2 for the toddler group

Do a fund raiser for the youth group if you can't charge per attendance

Decide on a fixed amount each week for treats and agree as a family how to spend it!

sign up to some mystery shopper sites. I did it when on mat leave just to relieve the boredom but we had a load of family meals out/meals out for the two of us/free sandwiches and snacks, cinema trips and clothes. If you keep checking the sites on a regular basis there are some good jobs like disney store, B&Q, New Look. You have to buy something up to a certain value as part of the job and you get to keep it.

The best ones are the telephone jobs. You get paid for making a five minute phone call booking a hotel room etc. Its not masses (generally about £5-£10) but it mounts up if you can do a few.

Cargirl-Just had a quick check on that website, looks good and will read it in more detail later. thank you.

Dh and I have discussed ways in which we can cut costs in youth group and also I have a meeting in a couple of weeks regarding toddler group where an Elder will be present. So am thinking of doing a budgeting sheet to show him exactly how much is spent in toddler group.

Funny you mention about prayer, dh and I are just waiting for the girls to go to bed and then we fully intend to give it all up to God.

Louii- Thank you, i'm sure if you can do it then we also will be able to do it, just needs a bit of thought and practical planning.

Darth Vader - all good suggestions thank you. I just couldn't charge my parents for using the group. We live in a very deprived area where salaries aren't in line with cost of living and many of our parents are skint. They do, however, come armed with fruit each week. One suggestion sthat came to mind was to put a donation box on the counter so if the parents wanted to contribute they could. But i'd hate for them to feel pressured into it.

Mummyjaguar- that sounds like an excellent idea, might give that one a try. thank you

pinkdolly, forgive me if i'm being nosy, but why did your rent go up when you went into ssfa? Only reason I ask is that we have just spent a year in ssfa as no married quarters available, but we only paid the same rent as we would have done in MQ's.

I would never advise you to work for cash that might affect benefits or tax, obviously because doing that would be fraud, but if you can find a way of declaring it, then could you work from home or in the evenings:

eg:

• taking in kids, washing, ironing, dog walking
• doing clerical work remotely - if you can audiotype, transcription services might use you

-offer your talents if you're organised as a home organiser (I paid someone to do this last year when I was pregnant and about to move house) or do filing/sorting jobs in an office

• get evening bar/waiting job...
• get kids involved: paper rounds, car washing, odd jobs...?

threetinytots- Feel free to be nosey. Basically they gave us a rental ceiling, if we went above that we had to pay extra. The rental ceiling was supposed to be based on the size of your family and the cost of housing in the area. But it wasn't enough to get a house the size we needed. We struggled with them and eventually got them to up the ceiling a bit but still not nearly enough to cover the excess rent so we have had to fork out for it.

There were about 30 families moved of our patch and every single one of them have had to pay excess rent.

Also we were paying for a grade 2 house where we used to live and they told us that all ssfa is grade 1. So they charge us more for that anyway.

At our old house we were paying about £280 per month here it's abot £500

wilfsell- thanx for that.
Evening work is really out of the question as sometimes dh works shifts and it would be difficult to work around that.

But some of the other ideas might be workable, will be having a chat with dh shortly to see what he thinks.

aaahh. That's crap. For want of a better expression. Very unfair that they expect you to fork out extra rent when it is their fault and their appalling housing why you've had to move out in the first place. Typical bloody forces.

I ran a toddler group and charged £1 each week, if the kitty built up I would do a freebee week for everyone or buy in some nicer biscuits or replace a toy etc.

I also suggest putting your car "off the road" unless it is for emergencies. The other parents should understand.

Also make up a packed Lunch for you all on a Saturday and go to the river/park/seaside (whatever is closest to you). It will save you Money on other outings and deter you from the Shopping centres