Please can you help me with a financial makeover (warning- we are rich)

[ohIdoliketobebesidethe]

After all the threads on money recently I have finally pulled my head out the sand and gone through our finances. I have looked at everything we have spent in the last 12 months. The money has all gone. All £106,000.

When I return to work in Feb, our childcare costs will be increasing and also in Feb our mortgage discount period will be ending and we will have to pay an extra £4000 a year in interest.

I know this is a undignified thing to do in our culture- but as you don't know me-I'm going to tell you where all the money went.

Any advice about cutting down any of it will be gratefully received. (eg. our landline/broadband costs seem high seeing as we barely use the phone, has anyone got a cheaper deal?)

3000 living where we live
400 having a car
2750 childcare
520 supermarkets
66 house/baby stuff
250 holidays
310 work related expenses
175 cleaner
180 charity
120 computer stuff
50 books
160 council tax
40 water
75 electricity
35 phone/ broadband
162 life insurance
140 healthcare/dentist/opticians
45 mobiles
120 presents
100 eating out
100 clothes
120 travel
15 newpapers
20 kids outings.

Please don't be too offended at what we spend. And I genuinely would like advice about cutting down.

£ 40

And you can use child care vouchers from both parents employers to pay for a nanny
Which save £1000 per person a year, ie £2000 per annum
Big savings

And second shopping at Aldi/Lidi
Am food snob, and have slashed my food bills by half and have been astonished by the very reasonable quality of the food.great cheap nappies, toilet roll, dog food etc
Still need to do small top up shop in Waitrose/Sainsburys once in a while

Rather than Ebay no longer needed but still quality tiems (which takes time you don't have, and you can end up getting shockingly small amounts of dosh for them) -- give the lot to charity shops. AND cut the charity DD to Amnesty. Hence you still help charities, but in a way that makes sense given the time restraints, and doesn't really 'cost' you anything.

Cutting the budgets by half for eating out and present giving would give you 1100 quid a year -- you can still do some of it, just not as much.

If you have time to read newspapers, surely you have time to clean house? I don't have time to do either, lol.

items, not tiems....

not read it all, so forgive me if i'm repeating, or if it's not an option in your line of work, but how about a live in nanny/au pair - i'm assuming it will be less than what you pay per month - but then I don't know London prices so not sure??

Right. Thanks so much for all the replies.

Ecoli- I will look forward to a reduced bill when they start school but I can't say I look forward to not having my annual leave with Dh.

Millarkie - Thanks. This is why we hadn't gone for it before. Having come to terms with the idea of living with someone it does become more viable. We won't pay car insurance and there are lots of things to do for free near here and lots of similarly aged children in our block of flats to play with.

Crokky - We did give dh work shirts for his b day in sept. We have recently decided to quit giving adult presents. My xmas list includes a small saucepan! He's getting a camera for christmas (ours has a crack in the lens). We have ebayed a couple of big items. It always takes me an age to get round to it. I do wear clothes a lot before washing (I don't have many that fit me yet) but I should change the habits of dh and the kids, who wear most stuff for one day before washing.

Offsetting the mortgage won't make a huge difference as our account is often overdrawn. I am looking for deals at the moment. Best I've found is a tracker 1% over base.

We have been giving books to charity shops. Unfortunately textbooks date quite quickly but there are probably some I could sell if I got my finger out.

We're going to cancel the economist - not worth it and often left unread.

ToughDaddy - I completely agree about the value of nursery. This has been a hard decision over which I have shed tears. However, I think a nanny can do just as well by the baby and my eldest will keep up nursery 3 days a week. The middle one needs a lot of love and she may benefit in that respect from the nanny. I will then try to get her back into nursery in Sept when dd1 starts school.

I don't know why our supermarket bill is less than yours. We don't have to make any lunches, no allergies, not every meal has meat in, we don't buy many sweet treats and pud is usually fruit or yoghurt. Maybe your kids eat more than ours?

I agree with you about investing and I want to have something to invest in the next financial year.

Robinpud- Thanks so much for the tax advice. Seeing as we're about to claim stuff back we may as well go the whoe hog and try for newpapers and phones too.

Goodasgold - interest only would be £16000 a year. We're repaying it too though.

RuthT - I've never heard of primecustomer at amazon before. I've just looked it up and I think it would put too much temptation at our fingertips. We need to cut our amazon bill! I have found Aldi fairly near by and am going today. I agree about the false economy with broadband. We moved to BT after spending many painful hours on the phone to wanadoo. I had forgotten how bad it was and for £100 a year I'm not going back there.

Nannynick - You have spelt out to me all the reasons I had for not going down this route before. Now that we have decided on live in it does become a more viable option.

Blueshoes- We are planning on state primary (thank god). You're right about medium term planning. A nanny will solve all our school hol problems that we would be facing come sept. I will look into the life insurance thing. We prob have been talked into a bit too much by financial advisors.

DarrellRivers - we do use childcare vouchers. I am off to Aldi today. Are their own brand nappies / shampoo / cleaning products etc any good?

PeanutButter - I wouldn't do clothes on ebay. I find it hard enough motivating myself to sell a buggy that's taking up precious space for which we got £180. We have decided to try sponsoring people from our charity accounts instead of directly.

And for everyone who was asking - we get a saturday paper delivered and read it one lunch time at the weekend while our younger two sleep and our eldest watches a dvd has quiet time.

ToughDaddy - I didn't mean to imply that your children ate all the pies . One of mine doesn't eat at all yet and the other two don't eat much - they get stuffed full of food at nursery where they seem to think they should feed them something every 2 hours!

haven't read whole thread so may be repetition, if so sorry.

Virgin do a good bundle - for £50 pm we have phone, tv, broadband and 2 mobiles (with 300 texts 300 mins each) - it has saved loads from having everything with diff companies.

Have found Aldi nappies very good, and also hair, body wash products good
They do cheap cosmetics, (I couldn't give up my Laura Mercier foundation) but the eyeliner , face creams etc are fine
Bleach,washing up liquid and dishwasher stuff fine, but the blue cleaning fluid not so good as flash.
All cheaper
Savers is good for branded cheap cleaning stuffs.
I am medic as well and for some years also had my head stuck firmly in the sand
I never knew how much things cost when i went shopping
Now I do, and i shop at loads of different stores still, occasionally something is a good deal in WAitrose so I'll buy it there.
Nanny works out cheaper for 2 DCs childcare, and we loved our nanny, so much less stress than nursery pick up
And yes, we are oversold financial protection schemes, I added all ours up recently and cancelled most of them apart from life insurance, including my salary protection which I have had since I started working.
We still have a cleaner as it means I can work a few more hours earning more money per hour than the cleaner costs per hour.
Look at trying to bring more money into household pots as well as saving, reports etc
And we are trying to decrease our mortgage rather than investing as our medium term investment
You will be amazed at how much you can make your money work for you
Good luck

ohIdoliketobebesidethe- know what you mean. My eldest eats alot! Also we have to buy expensive allergy food such as Swedish Glace ice cream. Even so, we are doing a trial on the one shop per week.

I went to Aldi today. It is only 4.5 miles away but took me 25mins to get there midday on a Monday - so I dread to think how long on a Saturday.

I spent £61. I couldn't get lots of stuff so I've done an ocado to top it up.
The exact same shop on ocado costs £100
The exact same shop from ASDA costs £69.

Asda deliver. I'm going with them from now on.

ohIdoliketobebesidethe- agree; you have to value your time. I don't want to be a little bit richer but sadder when I am 70, having spent all my time working hard and looking for the last deal. No offence meant to anyone but i feel very time poor; more than money poor.

will try the local Lidl this weekend and report back, though

Have you considered joining a medical locum agency and doing the odd weekend every few months or some locum medical work during some annual leave? A weeks locuming will earn you a decent amount, but appreciate with young children it might not be great option, but if you are cutting back on holidays it can be done, eg you could get a locum in another city and they usually arrange accomodation, sometimes have family flats available too and the other family can have a holiday at a new uk destination

I mean your family can have a holiday, whilst you work, well a change is as good as a rest , they say

I have been to Lidl, and the prices are good. But it is not the sort of place you can do a one-stop shop because they carry lots of what they decide to carry, but then have glaring omissions that you have to top up elsewhere, as Idolike found.

What Lidl is great for is if you have to buy lots and lots of one type of thing you know they carry. For dd and ds' birthday party, I bought a load of speciality cured meats from them, which would cost a fortune elsewhere. Got bags of crinkle cut crisps etc. I believe their non-perishables are good as well.

Go to Lidl for bulkbuys but top up at one of the usual supermarkets - Asda ticks the box.

thanks blueshoes- TD will bulk up at Lidl

how lovely the op hasnt been slated. very sound advice from everyone. one of the most civilised threads for ages.

just wanted to say i think nanny is a great decision (it will save you time which is precious in two income family and if you get the right nanny it will be brilliant for the kids) BUT dont expect to save a vast amount.
have just been doing similar exercise on our outgoings and nannies have hidden costs. the bill for ours is £2200 ish a month for four days (one of them a shorter day) including tax and ni and employers ni, so if you need for five fulltime days it could quite easily get close to the £2750 you currently pay.
plus nannies need a kitty to cover daily expenses (bus and tube fares for going out with kids, entrance to things, bits and pieces they get for kids) which adds up, i reckon to about £60 a month. plus oneoffs like £100 for OFSTED registration (will need to be OFSTED registered if you are using childcare registration): i also paid £100 for a first aid refresher course for ours this year, plus birthday/christmas presents etc, insuring her on car.
if you use an agency to sort her payroll/tax/ni it saves hassle but costs £100-£200 a year depending on the service. also consider cost of recruiting (advertising, try and avoid going through an agency but if you do it's usually five weeks' wages as fee)
that said our nanny is worth weight in rubies - but it aint cheap.
doesn't your employer pension scheme offer you some kind of life cover that could save you paying separately for life insurance? both me and dh have life cover through our otherwise stingy employers.....

If you work for NHS you will get 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay if off sick.Presumably you have NHS pension?
We are both NHS workers and would never pay for private health insurance.What for??
Presumably you have a good range of contacts??
dh pays medical indemnity,GMC etc but claims back on tax bill.
Sorry,I would cut charity spend.
Join National trust for cheap days out.
We holiday 3 times a year,usually once abroad and twice Cornwall/Norfolk.

I have taken your advice about life cover and reduced it by £20 a month having taken into account our employers assurance policies.

I have tearfully cancelled the nursery who have been very generous about the notice period. It is proving very hard to find a nanny who will cost us less than £25,000. With the nursery fees for dd1 on top it is not turning into a great financial solution. It will hopefully be a lifestyle improvement as otherwise I really will kick myself for changing the arrangements we had.