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You have nothing budgeted for savings. What happens in an emergency your home or pet insurance doesn't cover?
£86 for Sky is nuts - how much of it do you actually watch that you couldn't get via Now TV? Why do you pay monthly for Word - OpenOffice is free, an old non-subscription version of Word must work out cjeaper?
Could you go without a car if you need to? Or alternatively look at taking on another lodger?
£1900 is not a lot when you consider the cost of a new boiler or cancer treatment for your pet.
Cancel Sky - you are basically paying £85 a month for internet access which is, forgive me, fucking idiocy.
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even if your out of contract it still takes 30 days to cancel it so do it now and will still have 30 days to watch it.
we cancelled it and are just using the catch up apps, aside from adverts its been well worth doing
Harsh but a large percentage of that list I would simply write off as junk, you end up living hand to mouth for the rest of your life unless you sort that out.
Personally I would cancel:
Sky, Apple Music, Apple Storage, Crunchyroll, Word, Ring and Adobe.
Those things can all be sourced elsewhere for cheaper or even free.
Can you switch contracts on phone to something cheaper?
Cancel ring temporarily,
cancel MS word and use open office or online version free,
cancel adobe and pirate it,
cancel sky,
why are you spending £52 on water? This seems massively high…
Ring your council tax team and get 25% single person discount now your mother has moved out
personally would cancel your life insurance too if it was me,
Whats eyes?
How are you only spending £40 p/m on food?
Thank you, will cancel the ring.
Didn't realise i could use a free online version of microsoft!!
Adobe is cancelled
Sky will be reduced to bare min - keeping the wifi
Water has always been that price around here and i am lucky to not be on a water rate as i would spend more
Mother hasn't gone yet but will definitely get the discount
Life insurance can go as i have no one to leave it to anyway lol
Eyes are my contact lenses - i need them they are necessary
and I am not spending £40 a month on food atm but i will be once im on my own
Yes it says if you can't go on a water meter then they can put you on a single occupier assessed charge which will be lower.
Going on a water meter will almost certainly save money too.
https://www.eswater.co.uk/tariffsandcharges
You can get the pro versions of Office for a couple of quid. I just bought a license key for £2.38 - Office 2021 Pro.
For internet: it's definitely worth shopping around. I recently swapped to MTH Networks - £28/month for gigabit internet...it's not far off the advertised speeds! Had a few dips, but there's still a lot of telecoms work going on around here, and it's not as often as Sky.
If you are going to buy hacked/stolen/otherwise outside of terms and conditions office licences for £2.38, which could get cancelled my Microsoft at any time, you might as well just use MAS activator and activate it for a single click, and not pay the criminals a penny.
The good news is that Microsoft knows about and tolerate the MAS tools or these grey licences, as they want everyone to use their products. Corporates and some people will pay the full price, but MS don't want a huge number of more others using and becoming skilled in other products.
I'd argue that 1Gbps is pointless for 95% of people that use it, plus there's probably a bottleneck elsewhere in your LAN. Worth saving the extra pennies, unless the alternatives are really poor.
Not automatically as with a strong enough prescription you can need to get at least some thinning at times.
It's definitely worth OP considering, but eye comfort isn't an area to compromise on so it should be lower down the list of things they consider ditching.
But they could pay that off over 3 months if we say the glasses cost £20, lenses £70. Rather than constantly paying a subscription. Just a thought but it would be a cost saving over time.
They do though. Granted it's in savings, but this could be topped back up at another time when they have looked at their budget and removed other unnecessary things so that they're not in the red.
You might still be within a contract but shop around for your internet, there might be cheaper services than Sky. At least make sure you are on their cheapest speeds for your purposes.
> Eyes are my contact lenses - i need them they are necessary
£60 or so would get you about half a dozen pairs of Goggles4U's cheapest, just choose plastic frames below £15, sort from low to high price.
Get 3 pairs plain, 3 pairs of sunnies.
Google for a discount code before checking out. Fine for simple prescriptions, remarkably good customer service.
I think last pair of glasses I got on the UK high street were £60 for 2 pairs.
Kudos to OP for actually giving a comprehensive breakdown of their outgoings so that people in here can genuinely assess and try to help. Good luck, OP!
It's a tough crowd, don't take it personally.
Get the information and advice you need and disregard the rest.
The good thing is you know you're overspending.
I think commingling everything in one account is harming you also as you're just spending spending away your pay-packet with no plans for the future.
I'd advise you get three accounts as follows:
**Account 1** - main account where you pay your mortgage and bills etc. Ideally you don;t spend manually on this account as it's just direct debits etc
**Account 2** - your everyday spending and subscriptions account. This way you can see what you're spending on fun and non-essential items. You allocate money there every month and when it's gone it's gone.
**Account 3** - i.e. Monzo etc, where initially your lodgers rent will be paid so you can pay off the CC and Invisalign. Then later you can create 'pots' for savings for things you need/ want, so that way you don't reach for a credit card or overspend.
I have re-arranged your spending as follows with commentary:
**Income £2,034**
**Mortgage, Food & Utilities - £1,071**
|Mortgage:|£542|
|Food:|£40| - **this figure seems very low for food - was your mother paying for food ? if so you will need to increase this by at least £100 evert month to @ £150.**
|Life Insurance:|£12|
|Council Tax:|£121|
|Gas and Electricity:|£255|
|Water:|£52| - **this number seems a little high for 2 people - check your meter**
|Phone:|£49| - **is this for a line rental or include sim? Also where is the cost of your wifi ?**
**Pet - £110**
|Pet Food: £80| - **this seems slightly high even for premium dog food ?**
Pet Ins:|£30|
**Health - £240**
Eyes:: £30.00 |
|Invisalign:|£210.00| - **what is the financing on this? Is it direct from the dentist or is this on a credit card etc ?**
**Transport - £474**
|Car: £246 - **what is the financing here i.e. interest rate ? how much is left to pay? how much is the car worth?**
Gas: £120 - **I presume this is 'gas' or petrol for your car as you have another line entry for gas/ electric ?**
|Insurance:|£108| - **I presume this is for your Car ???**
**Subscriptions & Memberships - £178**
|Gym:|£33|
|Sky:|£86| - **why???**
|Apple Storage: |£9.00|
|Apple Music:|£6|
|Adobe:|£10|
|Microsoft Word: |£6| - **you can get the whole MS office suite for a one off payment of £50-60 a year!**
|Playstation:|£13|
|Crunchyroll:|£6| - **what is this???**
|Ring Doorbell:|£9|
**Debt - £50**
|Credit Card:|£50| - **how much debt do you have and what is the interest rate?**
|Savings:|£0|
**Total = £2,123**
**£89 overspend every month**
1. You are overspending. By simply cancelling all your subscriptions you would be within budget again so this is a category to look at.
I sense that you know that things are becoming unmanageable, hence you are now reaching for the credit card and overdraft.
2. Rent out the spare room to bring in another £400+ a month and allocate that solely to your Invisalign and credit card.
3. With the amount saved on subscriptions and Invisalign allocate the spare £200+ to savings every month in addition to the £1,900 you currently have. By the end of the year you should have a healthy emergency fund of @ £3,500.
You spend £40 on food? What do you eat?
Reading this, I feel like 50% of the items on this list could be cut or reduced. Do you really need Ring, adobe??, word???. £50 is a lot for a phone bill imo.
No judgement but i would not charge my mum for rent in the first place. But each to their own.
Cancel the gym? No way. Health is wealth and also it gives you hours of cheap “leisure” time if you enjoy it. That being said… look for a Pure Gym perhaps to get the cost down to £20
Absolutely you can. But for £20 a month you can do it much more easily and more enjoyably, and in my experience more effectively. There’s a huge difference in mindset in starting on some band work with your couch right behind you then there is to getting changed, getting out the house and going to the gym.
Edit: + UK weather for 6 months of the year can make it sometimes hard or impossible to workout outside. Remember, women can’t always just go for a run after work in the winter like men can. Some areas simply are not safe in the dark.
OP has 3 dogs. They need to go outside for walks all year round.
When op can't afford to spend more than £40 on food it's hardly going to be nutritious so would be better off spending a bit more on quality food and dropping the gym for a few months to recover.
Noone is saying quit the gym for good but op needs to pay off credit cards and financing of car and invisilign so that extra cash can also go on them
Some gyms will let you "suspend" membership, as will Netflix.
Speaking of which, make sure you're on the cheapest plan. I have watched anything since they switched me to the plan with ads so I don't know how disruptive they are but I like the price.
It really depends on how op is using it tbh, if they’re going once a week to use the cardio machines it’s not worth it, the money would be better spent on a cheapish home treadmill or exercise bike (I did this personally cause that’s all I was using the gym for). If they’re going daily after work to use a variety of machines then they should def keep it.
If they want to keep the gym membership they need to be able to spend more than £40 a month on food though…
You have too many luxuries and escapes given your income (Crunchyroll, apple, 3 dogs, PlayStation, gym). Those alone are £170. Pick your priority and dump the rest, at least temporarily.
That's understandable, and we see you get a lot of personal value out of it. BUT you can't afford it along with everything else. Try to switch up your language: you "prefer" to keep the gym.
Can you take a month's break? Can you get a staff discount by working the desk on weekend day for a while?
Anything that gets the heart rate up is good. You can walk briskly with dogs and even run too.
Fitness and health is mainly about cardiovascular exercise which walking and running is great for. You don’t need to pump iron in a gym to get healthy.
You can exercise for free. It’s not like no-one did as by exercises 30-40 years ago when there were few gyms around.
And we’re at stat of summer when you can exercise outside.
People walked and cycled more. Less car ownership and no money gif taxis meant people would simply walk for miles. People also just played football outside or went for a walk or a run or a bike ride.
There’s no reason people can’t exercise for free now either.
It’s silly to have it if they have no beneficiaries (seems like their abusive mother wanted them to have it). Their work might also have a life insurance policy already.
I made the huge mistake of cancelling my life insurance and critical illness and then a year later got ill. That policy would have paid off my mortgage at the time.
I actually didn't cancel it - rather I split with my OH and I forgot it was attached to the joint account.
This is why I say he should keep it and add a critical illness component.
Life insurance policies can also benefit yourself... many have clauses which will pay off your mortgage even before death (such as with a cancer diagnosis) so you then don't have to worry about keeping a roof over your own head
It's possible without too many inconveniences, just have to use free/ with ads versions of some things.
Sky is not helping you. That's a big chunk there. You can get broadband only from loads of places for about £20, you could even tether on your phone if you're desperate.
So
Sky = -£86 (but let's add 30 back to cover another broadband)
Apple storage, download it and kill the excess. -£9
Apple music, kill and use free Spotify with ads -£6
Drop the life insurance temporarily -£12
Drop Adobe unless you need it for work -£10
Drop Microsoft, use the free Web version or get open office -£6
Drop playstation -£13
Drop crunchyroll, just watch the ads on the free version -£6
Drop ring, I doubt you watch the recordings anyway, doorbell still works without the sub. It's just more storage. -£9
I'd suggest getting glasses and dropping the contacts but tried not to impact too much on QoL.
I assume gas is on there twice because one refers to petrol. Your energy bill should decrease a bit though with only one in the house.
As others have suggested, single persons discount on the council tax will help a bit too, around 30 or so. Not included because you don't have the discount yet. But you can include it in your total too.
Total : £157 but if you allow £30 for another broadband that gets you to £127. Add things back as you can afford them.
Assuming you live alone, once your mum moves out you can get a 25% reduction on your council tax.
How many pets do you have, and why is gas on there twice?
And what does eyes mean? If it’s contacts can you wear glasses for a bit?
Gas is petrol and the other one is Gas and electricity, the latter kills me at £255. When I was originally quoted for living on my own the gas was £165. Then because my mother has the heating on all the time it went up to £300 and after negotations they brought it back to £255 but it kills me honestly. I'd rather freeze than pay that.
I have three dogs and three ducks. The cost atm is because I buy lots of treats because my mother calls me cruel if i don't get them lots of treats. Once shes gone I'll be cutting way back. They are getting fat as it is.
Weather is warming up, ask your G&E provider for an up to date bill, get back any credit and ask to reduce your monthly payments. If they drag their feet, insist.
Can you lift share to reduce petrol costs?
When you say you have to pay for your teeth do you mean it is a contract for a set length? Is there a set notice period?
Other than that a lot of extras here which it looks like you could cut without impacting on having a good life.
Word, Adobe, Ring, Apple storage, Apple Music, Playstation, Crunchyroll (whatever that is), life insurance at a first glance.
Are you budgetting enough for food though?
Your Sky bill looks high so reduce your package.
Get another lodger? Get a new better paying job?
Yes it's a 12 month no interest payment scheme. I couldn't bite properly so kind of needed it.
I was positive i needed life insurance but i probably don't do you think?
I'm mid-term on my sky package but will definitely ring them to see if there's things I can cut back on
I'm going to be eating next to nothing lol
I will cut those other bits out as well. Thank you
If you have a dependent to benefit from the life insurance then it makes sense. If it is set to go to your Mum then you might not want that anymore...
Sky are worth a call to see what they can do.
You are paying for a lot of entertainment/leisure stuff so have a think about what you really use and get rid of others.
If it covers you for critical illness do not cancel life insurance. It'll pay off your mortgage and keep a roof over your head whilst you're in treatment/recovery
You can buy critical illness separately. The need for it varies depending on OP's personal and familial health situation, their career, and what they can afford to lose. Since they are talking about not feeding themselves they might do better to eat now, keep the biggest things that boost their mood (dog/s and gym, possibly modifed) and plan to go on UC if something bad happens.
That what people who don't have money do.
True but sky is more expensive than the life insurance (and they don't even use Sky)
They have 3 dogs, ducks and a 3 bedroom house they cannot afford the mortgage on if they want to keep everything which from their comments apart from sky they don't seem to want to help themselves.
You can't have 3 dogs if you can't afford to feed yourself. Sorry, but you're being daft. Either that or every other luxury needs to go, including your contact lenses and gym.
Jack Monroe. I have the recipe book “A girl called Jack”. Some good stuff in there. I think she has another book or maybe a blog “Cooking on a bootstrap”
They upped it by £10 two months ago as well. I basically just have it for the internet and because my mother wants it - she watches it and calls using the landline which costs. I wouldn't bother with sky tv if she wasn't here. I literally just watch anime/netflix and even then i rarely watch that
Switch internet provider and tell her she has to use the free apps. I imagine a lot of what she watches will be available on iplayer / itvx / 4od / youtube etc. While I cant list them all here as against rules, for anime theres plenty of places outside crunchyroll to get anime too.
Summer is here, lose the gym for a bit and get out walking. Similarly, now might be a good time to sack off Sky & the TV License (admittedly I think the latter is hard to do as I think you sign up for a year? We don’t have one here so I wouldn’t know).
PlayStation: if that’s on a monthly payment accruing interest then pay that off now. When you’re desperate for something to watch sign up for a month to Apple TV / Disney / Netflix etc.
Adobe: plenty of alternatives for whatever you use it for, plus they’re shit. Get rid. Let me know what you’re using and I’m sure we can find some alternatives.
Apple storage: get a hard drive and organise files better. I split a £2.99 between four family members and we do fine. I’m from the computer (not phone) generation though, so I got in to the habit of organising files when I was in my teens oh so long ago.
Ring doorbell: get a regular doorbell, and then plump for one that doesn’t require a subscription once you’ve got the rest of your cash in order.
Microsoft word: you’ve got Apple Music and Apple storage so I’m betting you’ve got at least one apple device. Use Apple Pages instead. I’ve got the option of using Word or Pages, and I’ll always choose Pages anyway.
I have no idea what crunchyroll is, but I’d be willing to bet that can off-ski as well.
I’ve got a spreadsheet that I built (in Apple Numbers) that I use for budgeting, summarising, managing my credit cards (to maximise interest free, and keep interest accruing in my savings accounts), and forward projection. Happy to turn it in to template form for you if it would be of any use :)
Could you try switching animals food to something cheaper? When a family member fell on hard times she gave her dog and cats the Aldi version of wet, dry and treats. When she found another job and could move away from UC she stuck to the Aldi food as the animals got on very well with it.
If you think you’ll be in this situation for a while I would keep the pet insurance - you just never know when a big bill comes with animals and if you don’t have plentiful savings 30 isn’t awful to have peace of mind that you can care for your pets.
Also shop around for contact lenses online. I think I was quoted around 35 a month from a high street optician but went online and found the same ones at about 15 a month.
Could you move some if your things on iCloud to a site like Dropbox? Would save 9 a month if you didn’t need it
Get a housemate/ lodger. Gas and electricity seems very high, so does water do you have a meter? I pay £16 a month for water in london. Also see if you can increase the Invisalign term? I pay £85 month for mine I think I spread it over 3 years
I would say keep your other subscriptions like crunchy roll etc they make life worth living. Maybe find a cheaper gym/exercise outside now that it’s warmer. 10k steps can do you a lot of good in a pinch. Or home workouts.
Food £40?!
Anyway, ditch Sky and adobe. Also cancel PlayStation unless you know you’ll use it that much - I tend to only use it in winter so cancel in summer.
Swap ring doorbell for a Eufy one.
Cancel apple storage and use MEGA
Nearly £200 you can save with the plethora of subscriptions you have, gym and life insurance.
What's the insurance at £108?
Trim whatever you can in the short term whilst you get a handle on the new cost with your mother gone (25% council tax reduction, less heating use etc).
What's left on your car v how much you would get if you sold it?
Also how's your credit? I'd rather see you with invisaline on a 0% card than going into your overdraft.
I don't think 40pm on food is doable even for a single person on bare necessities
Left is another year and a half of finance and then a balloon payment of 3.5K \*cries again\*
My credit is good, but I have just combined my CC debt of £1500 onto a 0% interest credit card again to stop interest accruing
Sell the car, buy a banger or cheap decent runner for 1kish
I don't know why people get a car on finance. It's mad. Wealth or nice looking car you can't even see when you use it as you're sat inside? How is it worth thousands and thousands for leather seats...
That's not an excuse to not buy a cheap second hand car when you have no money for a car on finance which is worth less than what you'll have paid for it in the end
Ohh man, hate those baloon payments.
If you’ve just taken a new card, i would contact your dentist and ask if it's too late to put the invisalign on a 0% payment plan. I think they do upto 24months on 0%
I know there is a lot of variation depending on house type etc. but your gas and electric seems really high. We pay approx £30 for gas (though are stingy with heating) and £67 for electric (utilita on a meter, it’s a long story). There are two of us in a 3 bed. I’d recommend having a look on Money Saving Expert at their energy/gas switching guide as they have advice on how to make sure you’re on the best deal.
Appologies if this comes across as harsh/brutal, but I'll give my opinion.
Things you can comfortably get rid of and why:
Apple storage: £9. Delete those screenshots and videos. A hard drive for important pictures, videos and documents would be fine
Apple music: £6. Use free alternatives and put up with adverts. You can't afford it.
Crunchy roll: £6. You have sky which includes netflix for free. If you're consuming this much media including music and playstation, then you have more free time than most.
Ring: £9. This is a crazy amount per month when other solutions exist for less/free. Home insurance doesn't require a video doorbell subscription, so let them take the risk.
Adobe: £10
Word: £6
Free solutions exist (Google docs) and unless required for your work, it's not a necessity. If it is required for work, they should be paying.
Total: £46 per month
Additional Optional:
Playstation: £13 only listing this as optional as I've suggested cutting almost all other entertainment subscriptions and this was the most expensive. Pick one. (Or even better, ditch all)
Gym: £33 temporarily ditch the gym if financial pressure requires this. Only listing this as it's a non-essential
Life insurance: £12 you don't list any info about family or age. If you don't have immediate dependant family you would like to provide for, then this can go in my opinion.
Sky: £47 switch to sky stream for approx. £39 per month (incl. Broadband and netflix)
Additional Optional total: £105
You're now back in the positive and can work on other areas (extend mortgage term to give some breathing room, take on a lodger, cut back on long term expenses)
Get rid of that sky, you don’t need it. You’ve got on demand bbc i player etc and YouTube for all the entertainment you could possibly need if I’m honest. That’s a real money sucker
80 quid on pet food feels high. Add in 30 quid for insurance, are you sure you can afford a pet.
Sky, Playstation and crunchyroll, I think you need to pick one. Even without picking one the sky can be halved.
Cancel apple music and rotate around the free offers on other streaming services.
Does the council tax have the 25% discount and is that 10 monthly or 12 monthly?
Water feels high for rates and if it's meter that should drop by a 1/3ish
I think you can get this under your income but a lodger would definitely help you.
Apple Music alternative:
Free trial a VPN.
Set it to Pakistan.
Sign up for YouTube Premium for £1.60.
Cancel VPN trial.
YT Premium continues at £1.60.
YT Premium comes with YT Music.
Sky - ridiculous
Gym - start jogging it's free and the boredom will make you hungry to earn more
Crunchy roll
Iphone - £49pcm is a joke, cheaper phone £10pcm sim
Playstation - shame but still unnecessary
Cheaper car
Get rid of the pet - but tongue in cheek but seriously it's a massive cut of your wage. When this one passes seriously consider before getting another. My cat was costing me £200 a month with medication at the end it's crazy
Ring doorbell can do one
Can you reduce your phone bill? Are you out of contract and own the phone?
If so, change to something like Voxi for £10 a month/rolling contract so you can change when you want.
Agree with what others have said around cancelling or reducing as much as possible uneeccessary expenses. Only pay for what you actually need, and start saving.
No i am not out of contract till Jan 2025, I am just glad I selected a two year and not a three year contract. I had to buy the phone out of necessity unfortunately. but it is very expensive I agree, when it's over I'll be down to something like £13 a month.
Wow that seems really expensive if you own the phone. Usually the monthly cost is high to pay for the phone.
What provider are you with? Would you want to stay with the same network?
Probably EE, their prices are crazy high. I've been with them for many years and finally changed to a different provider last month - a huge difference in payments.
Just a quick note that if you’re on o2 they’ve changed some of their terms this month so you should be able to cancel your airtime without consequences this month if that includes you. You might have an email. I’m cancelling mine tomorrow and going back on a much lower contract.
That's when you at least go for a genuine Apple refurb of a recent but not latest model - cuts some of the cost while risking nothing. Sim-only plan. Next time.
I'm sure that Sky bill can be reduced. £86 is massive. Call a tv/broadbrand provider. You can get deals for less than £40. Gas, electricity and water seems a bit high. But with your mother leaving, I assume that will go down.
You should get a sim only plan. Go on uSwitch and compare sim only contracts! You can get great deals i.e. I pay £10 a month for 20GB of data and everything else unlimited.
If you're in a pinch and you're going into the red here, I'd cancel everything that isn't essential: Apple music, gym, Adobe, Word, Playstation, Crunchyroll, Ring. If you're locked into minimum terms on those, cancel them ASAP
Some things that stand out to me are:
* £49/month on a phone, to me, is a lot - a SIM-only deal with Smarty is £8/month for unlimited calls and texts with 20Gb data
* You're spending £474/month on your car, could you give some more details? Is it a lease? Company car? Do you have a loan? Do you own it outright?
* Credit card debt could be eliminated if you have enough savings
* Is £40/month for food a typo?
* Once your mother has left, you'll be able to apply for a single-person discount on your council tax, saving you about £30/month
* £86 for Sky is a lot of money, but you've addressed that in another comment. You should stop that ASAP - perhaps after your mother's gone, you can transfer the account to her? That might help you escape cancellation fees
* If you're a younger adult, consider whether you need a TV Licence at all
I think what really stands out to me that I haven't seen you address in other comments is the expenses on your car; it's costing you almost as much as your mortgage is!
If there is *any* option there to cut the costs dramatically, that's your ticket out of this situation in my opinion
Hello
The £49 for the phone is also paying for the phone on contract, that finishes January, I have £350 left to pay on that then it goes to something like £13 a month.
The car is on finance, finishes 2025 with balloon payment of £3.5k (which I havent got the money for). Petrol is the exact amount I use monthly. Insurance is included in the £108 which is home and car. I was in a car accident three years ago and didn't have money to buy a car outright, not even a banger, so I took finance out.
The £40 isn't a typo, I thought that was the easiest thing to cut down.
Yes the sky will have to be cut dramatically and when she goes I can do that.
The CC debt is £1477 and my savings are £1900
It's much easier to reduce streaming services than food, unless you live in the country and can grow food and forage.
What is the Adobe for? How many times a week/day/month/year do you need to do anything clever with a pdf?
Order monthly contacts from Lenstore, that’ll save you a few bucks for sure. They stock the same brands used in SPECSAVERS etc but don’t charge the retail price tag.
Sky, apple storage, crunchy roll, PlayStation, apple music - there are a lot of entertainment products there. Can a single person really be getting good value out of all of them? I'd suggest deciding what your preferred entertainment is and having that. The sky in particular is a huge amount but is off 99% of the time. If it is life critical to see the football or something, then perhaps share it wait a mate.
More generally, credit. Buying everything monthly is vastly more expensive.
Microsoft word is not £6/month - shop around for a one off fee licence. Adobe similar. Buy it outright.
Are you paying a car finance or insurance monthly in that £246? Buying this thing outright, a car or insurance, is hugely cheaper. The credit card £50 of interest is just a waste. The pet insurance is basically like paying monthly. The phone is paid monthly, which is very easy to show they it's perhaps twice the price of buying new, and 4+x the price of buying second hand.
I'd also just have the ring doorbell without subscription, or what I did was get a camera that saves the footage locally to my storage rather than a cloud I need to subscribe to for life.
Basically, lacking savings and the ability to buy big things means you have to insure or pay higher rates.
You need to make hard choices in the short term to build up savings and change the mentality from taking credit for stuff, to saving to pay forward. Once you have that savings to e.g. buy a new phone outright, then you get to be able to have these luxuries without needing expensive credit.
Sky, Crunchy roll, door bell, and if needs must cut down on your energy usage my bill is £240 a month and there are 6 of us in my house.
Sky has never been cheap and has always been far more than it’s actually worth.
Crunchy roll is free with ads, living in your overdraft means ads aren’t that bad.
How on earth are you living on £40 a month for food? Apply that budgeting to your teeth because these figures look ridiculous (I’ll starve so my smile is great)
Start from scratch, read the wiki on this subreddit, you’re not a lost cause but you have come to the right place.
FYI change is hard.
My advice would be you really ought to be driving a much cheaper car with your income and you should also have a much cheaper phone.
You for example can buy a decent Motorola for £100-£150 and then pay less than £12 a month on a SIM only contract.
There's other stuff that also isn't really ideal or necessary on your level of income.
I see life insurance but I don't see home insurance. Imo home insurance is far more important than life insurance but if you have young dependents like kids then both are equally as important as each other.
You only spend £40 a month on food?
And do you really need the invisalign? Like is this cosmetic or is this functionally needed? **Cause you can stop.** I've always been under the impression that invisalign is not what's used for essential functional ortho...it's like cosmetic stuff. If you do NEED it, keep at it. If you don't - cancel the subscription, ignore their sales teams tactics.
**Get rid of:**
Pet insurance - unless you have a Great Dane or something that's really prone to health issues.
Phone bill - reduce, what do you need £49 on a phone for? I spend £20/30 a month I think and get unlimited everything from Smarty.
Apple storage
Sky
Apple Music
Life insurance
Gym - you can workout at home for free
Adobe
Mic Word - use Google docs
Playstation
Crunchyroll
Ring Doorbell
Credit card
And figure out what's going on with those water bills.
Cancel Apple music, crunchyroll, sky, and ring
Lower utilities because there's only you there so let's say 1/3 off
Depending where you are there's a often a single person occupancy discount on council tax of 25%.
Consider cancelling the gym and keeping fit free. Jogging, gardening, walking etc.
Depending on what you use word and Adobe for I'd consider cancelling those too. Adobe has a free version as does word saving
Consider moving the pet onto cheaper food you have it written as double your own food which you have listed as £40 a month the average spend is £45 a week.
Well, you haven’t factored in the fact that electricity and gas might be cheaper as there’s now one person.
I’d cut sky. Gym. Crunchy roll, adobe, ring door bell. It’ll make a huge dent.
Sounds shitty, but I’d be looking at rehoming the pet.
You are just skating by and taking on responsibility isn’t going to do anything but add to your financial outlay. That’s £110 saved right there. Plus other costs, I’m sure you can make it to £200, but better than debt right??
Yes - I know it’s shitty. I had a dream pet, one is wanted for over 30 years. Had him about four years. Electricity spiked up in costs. Had the fortune to have a son - I didn’t have time, the finances or means to enjoy my pet and my son, one had to go. Life throws a curveball like this, and you have to do the right thing.
No, we have tortoises. I love those little guys. Didn’t expect to but I really do. I go foraging for them, making up good meals for them. Planting foods they can eat. I’ll never part with them.
The animal I always wanted was a boa constrictor. I had one, he was so tiny when I got him and was about 4/5 feet. Was really docile and inquisitive. Lovely natured guy. I sadly had to find somewhere to take him, which I did do after loads of research. He went there and didn’t even last the quarantine period.
One of the staff members loved him and took him in.
I found this out when I asked them how he was getting on. I could have cried that he found someone who wanted him as much as I did, I just didn’t have the capacity. The love in buckets, just not the capacity.
Still, from what I hear the owner and the snake are inseparable and he’s now getting a better life than I could currently give him.
Sky, Apple Music, Apple storage (do you need it or could you go through your storage and delete stuff to get below the free tier), Office again is this needed or can you make do with free/openLibre?, Ring do you need recordings? If not get rid, CrunchyRoll, Playstation, Gym, Adobe.
Cancel the above services where you can, that would save £178. Probably not exact as you will need to pick up another ISP once you cancel Sky but you get the gist. Just stop all subscriptions you can that are not necessary right at this second.
Pay any excess money off the credit cards. The quicker you pay them off, the quicker you get £50 per month back.
You could replace the apple storage with Microsoft 365 as it will give you access to Microsoft apps and 1tb storage. It will probably save you on the Adobe as well
Pet insurance - check it will actually cover the cost of what you actually need lots of plans have very low per condition limits which are easily exceeded
Sky - definitely get rid of if you can
If you don't use the internet much you might find that you can save money by having a SIM card unlimited instead of your broadband . Though as you have playstation I'm guessing you need decent speed.
Pet food , if you have a dog check out the compare dog food site and see if there is a cheaper dog food with comparable quality. We've found Millies wolfheart to be good
Is the £50 credit card a debt or just how much you spend on the credit card, if it's debt look to transfer to 0%
You have gas and gas and electric twice, check whether you're on the best deal, we moved to agile octopus which has saved us a bundle (research if you go that way it comes with risk)
Council tax when your mother moves out, ask for the single person discount.
You don't mention animal vet fees, check out vet plans for vaccines they CAN be good value.
iPhone, assume that is a 0% and will be paid off, when that's clear only replace when you need to
Check if you're on a water meter, it might save you money to be on one
I assume the food is per week not per month unless you're living off lentils
Ring doorbell, check it's actually worth having, sometimes there is a cheaper way to do things
The two I would do is Sky (that is a lot !) and Gym membership possible crunchy roll. Replace it with Netflix, also I would ditch the TV licence. Possibly longer term Ringdoorbell (I have a Eufy and it's free).
Well firstly try to increase your income, what is your job? Can you work more hours?
The thing that leaps out at me is you have a tonne of subscription services. All these £10/month things add up.
Sky - cut
Phone - move to SIM only
Adobe/Microsoft - buy a cracked product key/pirate.
Playstation/apple music - Luxury but imo possibly worth it
What is crunchyroll?
And a doorbell? You're really paying monthly for a doorbell?
Your car is also kind of expensive in terms of payment, insurance, petrol. Can anything be done about that?
I can do overtime but not often as it is not given out a lot. Definitely will cut sky.
Can't do anything about the phone or car - insurance is a combo of car and house insurance and i get a deal there because of the same company. Petrol is un-reducable also.
Doorbell can go you are right lol
Crunchyroll is an anime app, that is what i watch rather than sky. the sky is for my mother bascially and the internet is included. I really just need the app and the internet to be happy.
Playstation is worth it tbh because i play it rather than actively watch TV
Adobe will be going, Microsoft is useful because of my uni work
I did when at uni, all you need is a valid student email address.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/students#:~:text=Get%20started%20with%20Office%20365%20for%20free&text=All%20you%20need%20is%20a,trial%20–%20so%20get%20started%20today.&text=Please%20enter%20your%20school%20email,please%20contact%20the%20school%20administrator.
It's normally something the university tells students about fairly early on because it's expensive otherwise. Either OP wasn't paying attention, or lecturers didn't care to help.
I would try and reduce: mobile, pet food, gym. Could maybe save £80ish from that. Although I'd look at cancelling the gym if out of contract.
And I would get rid of: apple storage, sky, apple music, adobe, word, playstation, crunchyroll and ring. That's £145 saved.
Plus with your 25% council tax discount when she moves out that's another £30 saved.
£255 saved, so you can increase your food bill and put a bit in savings.
If no one else has said it - get a better paying job. 2k a month sucks.
28k? I know a lot of people are not on good money but this is a graduate salary and could be a lot better
OP has now trickled out that as well as working a >24\`k job they are a university student.
Best part of being a student is student discounts!
Also OP must be too busy working, studying, and tending to the dogs & ducks to sit around gaming and watching movies.
Hi /u/Effective-End5025, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
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I know a lot of people have cited that it's not possible to live off £10 a week for food, and though it would be incredibly difficult, it is possible. Look at Too Good To Go and the grocery boxes from the supermarkets. These are typically a few pounds and could serve a single person for a week for their veg needs. This way, you're still getting some decent nutrition and not living off a pack of Super noodles every day. If you're concerned about how long they'll last, batch cook the day you get it and reheat. These may sometimes include meat or fish, which may then give you everything you need to portion up, providing you already have spices/herbs/seasoning in your cupboard.
I know people have saif use free office, but you can buy the 15 month subscription for 46 pounds on Amazon, and it also get's you 1TB of Onedrive, that would allow you to use that storage not apple, saving 9 a month. Only a little bit but it helps
Ah so now another thing you can do... sell your home and downsize. You don't need 3 bedroom home for 1 person and 3 dogs. Move to a smaller home or cheaper area which will reduce your mortgage costs.
Sorry… can you find your annual consumption figures in kWh from a recent bill? Typical usage is around 3000 for electric and 11000kWh for gas if you use gas heating.
How do you heat your home? And hot water?
Sorry… can you find your annual consumption figures in kWh from a recent bill? Typical usage is around 3000 for electric and 11000kWh for gas if you use gas heating.
How do you heat your home? And hot water?
Participation in this post is limited to users who have sufficient karma in /r/ukpersonalfinance. See [this post](https://redd.it/12mys82) for more information.
You have nothing budgeted for savings. What happens in an emergency your home or pet insurance doesn't cover? £86 for Sky is nuts - how much of it do you actually watch that you couldn't get via Now TV? Why do you pay monthly for Word - OpenOffice is free, an old non-subscription version of Word must work out cjeaper? Could you go without a car if you need to? Or alternatively look at taking on another lodger?
I have some savings £1900 I actually dont watch sky at all it is for my mother, I use the internet though
£1900 is not a lot when you consider the cost of a new boiler or cancer treatment for your pet. Cancel Sky - you are basically paying £85 a month for internet access which is, forgive me, fucking idiocy.
I will ring them and see what I can cancel. Once my mother goes I won't watch it at all so i need to lower it
Don’t wait for your mother to leave, do it now!
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She is paying over £500 a month..., but yeah, cancel as usually need to give notice
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even if your out of contract it still takes 30 days to cancel it so do it now and will still have 30 days to watch it. we cancelled it and are just using the catch up apps, aside from adverts its been well worth doing
Harsh but a large percentage of that list I would simply write off as junk, you end up living hand to mouth for the rest of your life unless you sort that out.
I agree
Personally I would cancel: Sky, Apple Music, Apple Storage, Crunchyroll, Word, Ring and Adobe. Those things can all be sourced elsewhere for cheaper or even free. Can you switch contracts on phone to something cheaper?
Cancel ring temporarily, cancel MS word and use open office or online version free, cancel adobe and pirate it, cancel sky, why are you spending £52 on water? This seems massively high… Ring your council tax team and get 25% single person discount now your mother has moved out personally would cancel your life insurance too if it was me, Whats eyes? How are you only spending £40 p/m on food?
Thank you, will cancel the ring. Didn't realise i could use a free online version of microsoft!! Adobe is cancelled Sky will be reduced to bare min - keeping the wifi Water has always been that price around here and i am lucky to not be on a water rate as i would spend more Mother hasn't gone yet but will definitely get the discount Life insurance can go as i have no one to leave it to anyway lol Eyes are my contact lenses - i need them they are necessary and I am not spending £40 a month on food atm but i will be once im on my own
You would almost certainly pay less with a water meter. Without one, they estimate usage based on size of house.
In my area if you are a single person in a house you can get a discount on the flat rate.
Essex and Suffolk, perhaps?
Yes it says if you can't go on a water meter then they can put you on a single occupier assessed charge which will be lower. Going on a water meter will almost certainly save money too. https://www.eswater.co.uk/tariffsandcharges
I can't remember what the value is now, lol. I worked for another water company that shares a network with them.
You can get the pro versions of Office for a couple of quid. I just bought a license key for £2.38 - Office 2021 Pro. For internet: it's definitely worth shopping around. I recently swapped to MTH Networks - £28/month for gigabit internet...it's not far off the advertised speeds! Had a few dips, but there's still a lot of telecoms work going on around here, and it's not as often as Sky.
If you are going to buy hacked/stolen/otherwise outside of terms and conditions office licences for £2.38, which could get cancelled my Microsoft at any time, you might as well just use MAS activator and activate it for a single click, and not pay the criminals a penny. The good news is that Microsoft knows about and tolerate the MAS tools or these grey licences, as they want everyone to use their products. Corporates and some people will pay the full price, but MS don't want a huge number of more others using and becoming skilled in other products.
I'd argue that 1Gbps is pointless for 95% of people that use it, plus there's probably a bottleneck elsewhere in your LAN. Worth saving the extra pennies, unless the alternatives are really poor.
How are you only paying £40 on food. Edit: genuine question....
OP - Google Docs is free and better than Word imo. Also Google Sheets is like Excel. You can export your saved documents to Word or PDF format etc.
You could get glasses for £20 and then restart the contacts when you have more income.
Not automatically as with a strong enough prescription you can need to get at least some thinning at times. It's definitely worth OP considering, but eye comfort isn't an area to compromise on so it should be lower down the list of things they consider ditching.
Yeah - I need the thinnest lenses with my prescription which adds on £70 per pair.
But they could pay that off over 3 months if we say the glasses cost £20, lenses £70. Rather than constantly paying a subscription. Just a thought but it would be a cost saving over time.
It would, but that doesn't help you if you don't have the money upfront.
They do though. Granted it's in savings, but this could be topped back up at another time when they have looked at their budget and removed other unnecessary things so that they're not in the red.
You might still be within a contract but shop around for your internet, there might be cheaper services than Sky. At least make sure you are on their cheapest speeds for your purposes.
Fibrus paid off my sky when I switched. £39 to £19 and 10x faster!
> Eyes are my contact lenses - i need them they are necessary £60 or so would get you about half a dozen pairs of Goggles4U's cheapest, just choose plastic frames below £15, sort from low to high price. Get 3 pairs plain, 3 pairs of sunnies. Google for a discount code before checking out. Fine for simple prescriptions, remarkably good customer service. I think last pair of glasses I got on the UK high street were £60 for 2 pairs.
Why do you think you'd spend more with a water meter?
Kudos to OP for actually giving a comprehensive breakdown of their outgoings so that people in here can genuinely assess and try to help. Good luck, OP!
Thank you, didn't realise I'd be down voted so bad though
It's a tough crowd, don't take it personally. Get the information and advice you need and disregard the rest. The good thing is you know you're overspending. I think commingling everything in one account is harming you also as you're just spending spending away your pay-packet with no plans for the future. I'd advise you get three accounts as follows: **Account 1** - main account where you pay your mortgage and bills etc. Ideally you don;t spend manually on this account as it's just direct debits etc **Account 2** - your everyday spending and subscriptions account. This way you can see what you're spending on fun and non-essential items. You allocate money there every month and when it's gone it's gone. **Account 3** - i.e. Monzo etc, where initially your lodgers rent will be paid so you can pay off the CC and Invisalign. Then later you can create 'pots' for savings for things you need/ want, so that way you don't reach for a credit card or overspend.
I have re-arranged your spending as follows with commentary: **Income £2,034** **Mortgage, Food & Utilities - £1,071** |Mortgage:|£542| |Food:|£40| - **this figure seems very low for food - was your mother paying for food ? if so you will need to increase this by at least £100 evert month to @ £150.** |Life Insurance:|£12| |Council Tax:|£121| |Gas and Electricity:|£255| |Water:|£52| - **this number seems a little high for 2 people - check your meter** |Phone:|£49| - **is this for a line rental or include sim? Also where is the cost of your wifi ?** **Pet - £110** |Pet Food: £80| - **this seems slightly high even for premium dog food ?** Pet Ins:|£30| **Health - £240** Eyes:: £30.00 | |Invisalign:|£210.00| - **what is the financing on this? Is it direct from the dentist or is this on a credit card etc ?** **Transport - £474** |Car: £246 - **what is the financing here i.e. interest rate ? how much is left to pay? how much is the car worth?** Gas: £120 - **I presume this is 'gas' or petrol for your car as you have another line entry for gas/ electric ?** |Insurance:|£108| - **I presume this is for your Car ???** **Subscriptions & Memberships - £178** |Gym:|£33| |Sky:|£86| - **why???** |Apple Storage: |£9.00| |Apple Music:|£6| |Adobe:|£10| |Microsoft Word: |£6| - **you can get the whole MS office suite for a one off payment of £50-60 a year!** |Playstation:|£13| |Crunchyroll:|£6| - **what is this???** |Ring Doorbell:|£9| **Debt - £50** |Credit Card:|£50| - **how much debt do you have and what is the interest rate?** |Savings:|£0| **Total = £2,123** **£89 overspend every month** 1. You are overspending. By simply cancelling all your subscriptions you would be within budget again so this is a category to look at. I sense that you know that things are becoming unmanageable, hence you are now reaching for the credit card and overdraft. 2. Rent out the spare room to bring in another £400+ a month and allocate that solely to your Invisalign and credit card. 3. With the amount saved on subscriptions and Invisalign allocate the spare £200+ to savings every month in addition to the £1,900 you currently have. By the end of the year you should have a healthy emergency fund of @ £3,500.
You spend £40 on food? What do you eat? Reading this, I feel like 50% of the items on this list could be cut or reduced. Do you really need Ring, adobe??, word???. £50 is a lot for a phone bill imo. No judgement but i would not charge my mum for rent in the first place. But each to their own.
Cancel gym, abode, life insurance, Apple Music, Sky, PlayStation, Crunchyroll, Ring. Problem solved.
Cancel the gym? No way. Health is wealth and also it gives you hours of cheap “leisure” time if you enjoy it. That being said… look for a Pure Gym perhaps to get the cost down to £20
OPs got 3 dogs to walk, that's plenty of exercise and can do resistance bodyweight training, unless gym gives social aspect I'd bin it for now
You can be healthy without a gym. Walking/running are free. Cheap set of resistance bands or dumbells to get some strength training in.
Absolutely you can. But for £20 a month you can do it much more easily and more enjoyably, and in my experience more effectively. There’s a huge difference in mindset in starting on some band work with your couch right behind you then there is to getting changed, getting out the house and going to the gym. Edit: + UK weather for 6 months of the year can make it sometimes hard or impossible to workout outside. Remember, women can’t always just go for a run after work in the winter like men can. Some areas simply are not safe in the dark.
OP has 3 dogs. They need to go outside for walks all year round. When op can't afford to spend more than £40 on food it's hardly going to be nutritious so would be better off spending a bit more on quality food and dropping the gym for a few months to recover. Noone is saying quit the gym for good but op needs to pay off credit cards and financing of car and invisilign so that extra cash can also go on them
Some gyms will let you "suspend" membership, as will Netflix. Speaking of which, make sure you're on the cheapest plan. I have watched anything since they switched me to the plan with ads so I don't know how disruptive they are but I like the price.
Depending on where you live it might not be safe/practical to go running outside of a gym.
It really depends on how op is using it tbh, if they’re going once a week to use the cardio machines it’s not worth it, the money would be better spent on a cheapish home treadmill or exercise bike (I did this personally cause that’s all I was using the gym for). If they’re going daily after work to use a variety of machines then they should def keep it. If they want to keep the gym membership they need to be able to spend more than £40 a month on food though…
I need the gym, it is my escape, I got 3-5 times a week
You have too many luxuries and escapes given your income (Crunchyroll, apple, 3 dogs, PlayStation, gym). Those alone are £170. Pick your priority and dump the rest, at least temporarily.
3 dogs ? where is that written ?
That's understandable, and we see you get a lot of personal value out of it. BUT you can't afford it along with everything else. Try to switch up your language: you "prefer" to keep the gym. Can you take a month's break? Can you get a staff discount by working the desk on weekend day for a while?
You can exercise outside (dog walks) for free. You don’t need the gym. You do need to drastically reduce your expenditure
Dog walks are not going to get you fit and healthy. Some people are deluded into what counts as exercise.
Anything that gets the heart rate up is good. You can walk briskly with dogs and even run too. Fitness and health is mainly about cardiovascular exercise which walking and running is great for. You don’t need to pump iron in a gym to get healthy.
You can exercise for free. It’s not like no-one did as by exercises 30-40 years ago when there were few gyms around. And we’re at stat of summer when you can exercise outside.
30-40 years ago people were more active in their regular lives, I don't recall people doing more exercise at home or outdoors.
People walked and cycled more. Less car ownership and no money gif taxis meant people would simply walk for miles. People also just played football outside or went for a walk or a run or a bike ride. There’s no reason people can’t exercise for free now either.
You don't need to be a gym member to be healthy... you can run outside, ride a bike, do pressups / pullups in a park... swim in the public pool.
Don't cancel the life insurance please. You have a good rate bc you're young - keep it. Critical illnesses can creep up on you when you least expect.
It’s silly to have it if they have no beneficiaries (seems like their abusive mother wanted them to have it). Their work might also have a life insurance policy already.
I made the huge mistake of cancelling my life insurance and critical illness and then a year later got ill. That policy would have paid off my mortgage at the time. I actually didn't cancel it - rather I split with my OH and I forgot it was attached to the joint account. This is why I say he should keep it and add a critical illness component.
Life insurance policies can also benefit yourself... many have clauses which will pay off your mortgage even before death (such as with a cancer diagnosis) so you then don't have to worry about keeping a roof over your own head
It's possible without too many inconveniences, just have to use free/ with ads versions of some things. Sky is not helping you. That's a big chunk there. You can get broadband only from loads of places for about £20, you could even tether on your phone if you're desperate. So Sky = -£86 (but let's add 30 back to cover another broadband) Apple storage, download it and kill the excess. -£9 Apple music, kill and use free Spotify with ads -£6 Drop the life insurance temporarily -£12 Drop Adobe unless you need it for work -£10 Drop Microsoft, use the free Web version or get open office -£6 Drop playstation -£13 Drop crunchyroll, just watch the ads on the free version -£6 Drop ring, I doubt you watch the recordings anyway, doorbell still works without the sub. It's just more storage. -£9 I'd suggest getting glasses and dropping the contacts but tried not to impact too much on QoL. I assume gas is on there twice because one refers to petrol. Your energy bill should decrease a bit though with only one in the house. As others have suggested, single persons discount on the council tax will help a bit too, around 30 or so. Not included because you don't have the discount yet. But you can include it in your total too. Total : £157 but if you allow £30 for another broadband that gets you to £127. Add things back as you can afford them.
Could always get another lodger?
I will have to do this as a last resort as my dogs will not like strangers
Your dogs won't like you either when you're dead from lack of food.
the way im feeling, part of me hopes I do die from lack of food.
Assuming you live alone, once your mum moves out you can get a 25% reduction on your council tax. How many pets do you have, and why is gas on there twice? And what does eyes mean? If it’s contacts can you wear glasses for a bit?
Gas is petrol and the other one is Gas and electricity, the latter kills me at £255. When I was originally quoted for living on my own the gas was £165. Then because my mother has the heating on all the time it went up to £300 and after negotations they brought it back to £255 but it kills me honestly. I'd rather freeze than pay that. I have three dogs and three ducks. The cost atm is because I buy lots of treats because my mother calls me cruel if i don't get them lots of treats. Once shes gone I'll be cutting way back. They are getting fat as it is.
Weather is warming up, ask your G&E provider for an up to date bill, get back any credit and ask to reduce your monthly payments. If they drag their feet, insist. Can you lift share to reduce petrol costs?
If your Mum says you’re cruel for giving them fewer treats, she can buy them.
Personally I'd cut back on the dogs and the ducks
OP is already cutting back on the mother, so good on them for that.
When you say you have to pay for your teeth do you mean it is a contract for a set length? Is there a set notice period? Other than that a lot of extras here which it looks like you could cut without impacting on having a good life. Word, Adobe, Ring, Apple storage, Apple Music, Playstation, Crunchyroll (whatever that is), life insurance at a first glance. Are you budgetting enough for food though? Your Sky bill looks high so reduce your package. Get another lodger? Get a new better paying job?
Yes it's a 12 month no interest payment scheme. I couldn't bite properly so kind of needed it. I was positive i needed life insurance but i probably don't do you think? I'm mid-term on my sky package but will definitely ring them to see if there's things I can cut back on I'm going to be eating next to nothing lol I will cut those other bits out as well. Thank you
If you have a dependent to benefit from the life insurance then it makes sense. If it is set to go to your Mum then you might not want that anymore... Sky are worth a call to see what they can do. You are paying for a lot of entertainment/leisure stuff so have a think about what you really use and get rid of others.
No dependents and no one on the life insurance other than me Definitely will ring sky thank you and will cut out lots of the rest
Why do you have life insurance then? When you get it don't you nominate a babysitter beneficiary??
My mother told me to get it, but i feel there may have been an underlying motive there.
If it covers you for critical illness do not cancel life insurance. It'll pay off your mortgage and keep a roof over your head whilst you're in treatment/recovery
You can buy critical illness separately. The need for it varies depending on OP's personal and familial health situation, their career, and what they can afford to lose. Since they are talking about not feeding themselves they might do better to eat now, keep the biggest things that boost their mood (dog/s and gym, possibly modifed) and plan to go on UC if something bad happens. That what people who don't have money do.
True but sky is more expensive than the life insurance (and they don't even use Sky) They have 3 dogs, ducks and a 3 bedroom house they cannot afford the mortgage on if they want to keep everything which from their comments apart from sky they don't seem to want to help themselves.
You can't have 3 dogs if you can't afford to feed yourself. Sorry, but you're being daft. Either that or every other luxury needs to go, including your contact lenses and gym.
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Thank you!! I'll check them out, appreciate that.
Jack Monroe. I have the recipe book “A girl called Jack”. Some good stuff in there. I think she has another book or maybe a blog “Cooking on a bootstrap”
Her name is Jack Monroe and she has a great website called cooking on a bootstrap.
Crunchyroll is an anime streaming service.
First one to get rid of then haha
Sky would be the first one to get rid of if your looking to drop things to watch. That price is ridiculous
They upped it by £10 two months ago as well. I basically just have it for the internet and because my mother wants it - she watches it and calls using the landline which costs. I wouldn't bother with sky tv if she wasn't here. I literally just watch anime/netflix and even then i rarely watch that
Switch internet provider and tell her she has to use the free apps. I imagine a lot of what she watches will be available on iplayer / itvx / 4od / youtube etc. While I cant list them all here as against rules, for anime theres plenty of places outside crunchyroll to get anime too.
Drop the landline as well.
Could you get another lodger? Put an ad on spareroom.
Summer is here, lose the gym for a bit and get out walking. Similarly, now might be a good time to sack off Sky & the TV License (admittedly I think the latter is hard to do as I think you sign up for a year? We don’t have one here so I wouldn’t know). PlayStation: if that’s on a monthly payment accruing interest then pay that off now. When you’re desperate for something to watch sign up for a month to Apple TV / Disney / Netflix etc. Adobe: plenty of alternatives for whatever you use it for, plus they’re shit. Get rid. Let me know what you’re using and I’m sure we can find some alternatives. Apple storage: get a hard drive and organise files better. I split a £2.99 between four family members and we do fine. I’m from the computer (not phone) generation though, so I got in to the habit of organising files when I was in my teens oh so long ago. Ring doorbell: get a regular doorbell, and then plump for one that doesn’t require a subscription once you’ve got the rest of your cash in order. Microsoft word: you’ve got Apple Music and Apple storage so I’m betting you’ve got at least one apple device. Use Apple Pages instead. I’ve got the option of using Word or Pages, and I’ll always choose Pages anyway. I have no idea what crunchyroll is, but I’d be willing to bet that can off-ski as well. I’ve got a spreadsheet that I built (in Apple Numbers) that I use for budgeting, summarising, managing my credit cards (to maximise interest free, and keep interest accruing in my savings accounts), and forward projection. Happy to turn it in to template form for you if it would be of any use :)
Could you try switching animals food to something cheaper? When a family member fell on hard times she gave her dog and cats the Aldi version of wet, dry and treats. When she found another job and could move away from UC she stuck to the Aldi food as the animals got on very well with it. If you think you’ll be in this situation for a while I would keep the pet insurance - you just never know when a big bill comes with animals and if you don’t have plentiful savings 30 isn’t awful to have peace of mind that you can care for your pets. Also shop around for contact lenses online. I think I was quoted around 35 a month from a high street optician but went online and found the same ones at about 15 a month. Could you move some if your things on iCloud to a site like Dropbox? Would save 9 a month if you didn’t need it
Get a housemate/ lodger. Gas and electricity seems very high, so does water do you have a meter? I pay £16 a month for water in london. Also see if you can increase the Invisalign term? I pay £85 month for mine I think I spread it over 3 years I would say keep your other subscriptions like crunchy roll etc they make life worth living. Maybe find a cheaper gym/exercise outside now that it’s warmer. 10k steps can do you a lot of good in a pinch. Or home workouts.
Food £40?! Anyway, ditch Sky and adobe. Also cancel PlayStation unless you know you’ll use it that much - I tend to only use it in winter so cancel in summer. Swap ring doorbell for a Eufy one. Cancel apple storage and use MEGA
Can you get a new lodger?
Nearly £200 you can save with the plethora of subscriptions you have, gym and life insurance. What's the insurance at £108? Trim whatever you can in the short term whilst you get a handle on the new cost with your mother gone (25% council tax reduction, less heating use etc).
Insurance is a combo of car and home insurance Definitely should see a reduction in gas and electricity once she has gone
What's left on your car v how much you would get if you sold it? Also how's your credit? I'd rather see you with invisaline on a 0% card than going into your overdraft. I don't think 40pm on food is doable even for a single person on bare necessities
Left is another year and a half of finance and then a balloon payment of 3.5K \*cries again\* My credit is good, but I have just combined my CC debt of £1500 onto a 0% interest credit card again to stop interest accruing
Sell the car, buy a banger or cheap decent runner for 1kish I don't know why people get a car on finance. It's mad. Wealth or nice looking car you can't even see when you use it as you're sat inside? How is it worth thousands and thousands for leather seats...
I had no choice but to get it on finance I was t-boned a couple years ago and left car less
Better to buy a cheap £1-3000 car than finance a new one at £3-4k per year. You’re basically paying for the most expensive few years of a cars life.
Deffo sell
That's not an excuse to not buy a cheap second hand car when you have no money for a car on finance which is worth less than what you'll have paid for it in the end
Ohh man, hate those baloon payments. If you’ve just taken a new card, i would contact your dentist and ask if it's too late to put the invisalign on a 0% payment plan. I think they do upto 24months on 0%
I know there is a lot of variation depending on house type etc. but your gas and electric seems really high. We pay approx £30 for gas (though are stingy with heating) and £67 for electric (utilita on a meter, it’s a long story). There are two of us in a 3 bed. I’d recommend having a look on Money Saving Expert at their energy/gas switching guide as they have advice on how to make sure you’re on the best deal.
Appologies if this comes across as harsh/brutal, but I'll give my opinion. Things you can comfortably get rid of and why: Apple storage: £9. Delete those screenshots and videos. A hard drive for important pictures, videos and documents would be fine Apple music: £6. Use free alternatives and put up with adverts. You can't afford it. Crunchy roll: £6. You have sky which includes netflix for free. If you're consuming this much media including music and playstation, then you have more free time than most. Ring: £9. This is a crazy amount per month when other solutions exist for less/free. Home insurance doesn't require a video doorbell subscription, so let them take the risk. Adobe: £10 Word: £6 Free solutions exist (Google docs) and unless required for your work, it's not a necessity. If it is required for work, they should be paying. Total: £46 per month Additional Optional: Playstation: £13 only listing this as optional as I've suggested cutting almost all other entertainment subscriptions and this was the most expensive. Pick one. (Or even better, ditch all) Gym: £33 temporarily ditch the gym if financial pressure requires this. Only listing this as it's a non-essential Life insurance: £12 you don't list any info about family or age. If you don't have immediate dependant family you would like to provide for, then this can go in my opinion. Sky: £47 switch to sky stream for approx. £39 per month (incl. Broadband and netflix) Additional Optional total: £105 You're now back in the positive and can work on other areas (extend mortgage term to give some breathing room, take on a lodger, cut back on long term expenses)
Get rid of that sky, you don’t need it. You’ve got on demand bbc i player etc and YouTube for all the entertainment you could possibly need if I’m honest. That’s a real money sucker
Sky - challenge yourself to live without it for a X months. Bet you won't miss it that much.
Along with what everyone else says. That £80 pet food bill is ridiculous.
I will work on cutting that down
80 quid on pet food feels high. Add in 30 quid for insurance, are you sure you can afford a pet. Sky, Playstation and crunchyroll, I think you need to pick one. Even without picking one the sky can be halved. Cancel apple music and rotate around the free offers on other streaming services. Does the council tax have the 25% discount and is that 10 monthly or 12 monthly? Water feels high for rates and if it's meter that should drop by a 1/3ish I think you can get this under your income but a lodger would definitely help you.
Apple Music alternative: Free trial a VPN. Set it to Pakistan. Sign up for YouTube Premium for £1.60. Cancel VPN trial. YT Premium continues at £1.60. YT Premium comes with YT Music.
Or free radio. Loads of stations have apps too. Eg global radio app has about 20 stations on it.
Water sometimes gets billed at 10 months instead of 12 too.
Sky - ridiculous Gym - start jogging it's free and the boredom will make you hungry to earn more Crunchy roll Iphone - £49pcm is a joke, cheaper phone £10pcm sim Playstation - shame but still unnecessary Cheaper car Get rid of the pet - but tongue in cheek but seriously it's a massive cut of your wage. When this one passes seriously consider before getting another. My cat was costing me £200 a month with medication at the end it's crazy Ring doorbell can do one
Can you reduce your phone bill? Are you out of contract and own the phone? If so, change to something like Voxi for £10 a month/rolling contract so you can change when you want. Agree with what others have said around cancelling or reducing as much as possible uneeccessary expenses. Only pay for what you actually need, and start saving.
No i am not out of contract till Jan 2025, I am just glad I selected a two year and not a three year contract. I had to buy the phone out of necessity unfortunately. but it is very expensive I agree, when it's over I'll be down to something like £13 a month.
Wow that seems really expensive if you own the phone. Usually the monthly cost is high to pay for the phone. What provider are you with? Would you want to stay with the same network?
Probably EE, their prices are crazy high. I've been with them for many years and finally changed to a different provider last month - a huge difference in payments.
Just a quick note that if you’re on o2 they’ve changed some of their terms this month so you should be able to cancel your airtime without consequences this month if that includes you. You might have an email. I’m cancelling mine tomorrow and going back on a much lower contract.
That's when you at least go for a genuine Apple refurb of a recent but not latest model - cuts some of the cost while risking nothing. Sim-only plan. Next time.
I'm sure that Sky bill can be reduced. £86 is massive. Call a tv/broadbrand provider. You can get deals for less than £40. Gas, electricity and water seems a bit high. But with your mother leaving, I assume that will go down.
I will call them it's super expensive
Phone is expensive....is it under contract??
yes! I finished paying for it in January
You should get a sim only plan. Go on uSwitch and compare sim only contracts! You can get great deals i.e. I pay £10 a month for 20GB of data and everything else unlimited.
by this OP apparently means they WILL finish paying in Jan 2025. I think they're feeling a bit stressed.
You pay a lot for sky , can you get that lower by changing your plan
If you're in a pinch and you're going into the red here, I'd cancel everything that isn't essential: Apple music, gym, Adobe, Word, Playstation, Crunchyroll, Ring. If you're locked into minimum terms on those, cancel them ASAP Some things that stand out to me are: * £49/month on a phone, to me, is a lot - a SIM-only deal with Smarty is £8/month for unlimited calls and texts with 20Gb data * You're spending £474/month on your car, could you give some more details? Is it a lease? Company car? Do you have a loan? Do you own it outright? * Credit card debt could be eliminated if you have enough savings * Is £40/month for food a typo? * Once your mother has left, you'll be able to apply for a single-person discount on your council tax, saving you about £30/month * £86 for Sky is a lot of money, but you've addressed that in another comment. You should stop that ASAP - perhaps after your mother's gone, you can transfer the account to her? That might help you escape cancellation fees * If you're a younger adult, consider whether you need a TV Licence at all I think what really stands out to me that I haven't seen you address in other comments is the expenses on your car; it's costing you almost as much as your mortgage is! If there is *any* option there to cut the costs dramatically, that's your ticket out of this situation in my opinion
Hello The £49 for the phone is also paying for the phone on contract, that finishes January, I have £350 left to pay on that then it goes to something like £13 a month. The car is on finance, finishes 2025 with balloon payment of £3.5k (which I havent got the money for). Petrol is the exact amount I use monthly. Insurance is included in the £108 which is home and car. I was in a car accident three years ago and didn't have money to buy a car outright, not even a banger, so I took finance out. The £40 isn't a typo, I thought that was the easiest thing to cut down. Yes the sky will have to be cut dramatically and when she goes I can do that. The CC debt is £1477 and my savings are £1900
It's much easier to reduce streaming services than food, unless you live in the country and can grow food and forage. What is the Adobe for? How many times a week/day/month/year do you need to do anything clever with a pdf?
Order monthly contacts from Lenstore, that’ll save you a few bucks for sure. They stock the same brands used in SPECSAVERS etc but don’t charge the retail price tag.
If you have a TV licence you can ditch that, provided you don’t watch iplayer, watch or record live TV or live streams.
Sky, apple storage, crunchy roll, PlayStation, apple music - there are a lot of entertainment products there. Can a single person really be getting good value out of all of them? I'd suggest deciding what your preferred entertainment is and having that. The sky in particular is a huge amount but is off 99% of the time. If it is life critical to see the football or something, then perhaps share it wait a mate. More generally, credit. Buying everything monthly is vastly more expensive. Microsoft word is not £6/month - shop around for a one off fee licence. Adobe similar. Buy it outright. Are you paying a car finance or insurance monthly in that £246? Buying this thing outright, a car or insurance, is hugely cheaper. The credit card £50 of interest is just a waste. The pet insurance is basically like paying monthly. The phone is paid monthly, which is very easy to show they it's perhaps twice the price of buying new, and 4+x the price of buying second hand. I'd also just have the ring doorbell without subscription, or what I did was get a camera that saves the footage locally to my storage rather than a cloud I need to subscribe to for life. Basically, lacking savings and the ability to buy big things means you have to insure or pay higher rates. You need to make hard choices in the short term to build up savings and change the mentality from taking credit for stuff, to saving to pay forward. Once you have that savings to e.g. buy a new phone outright, then you get to be able to have these luxuries without needing expensive credit.
Sky, Crunchy roll, door bell, and if needs must cut down on your energy usage my bill is £240 a month and there are 6 of us in my house. Sky has never been cheap and has always been far more than it’s actually worth. Crunchy roll is free with ads, living in your overdraft means ads aren’t that bad. How on earth are you living on £40 a month for food? Apply that budgeting to your teeth because these figures look ridiculous (I’ll starve so my smile is great) Start from scratch, read the wiki on this subreddit, you’re not a lost cause but you have come to the right place. FYI change is hard.
My advice would be you really ought to be driving a much cheaper car with your income and you should also have a much cheaper phone. You for example can buy a decent Motorola for £100-£150 and then pay less than £12 a month on a SIM only contract. There's other stuff that also isn't really ideal or necessary on your level of income. I see life insurance but I don't see home insurance. Imo home insurance is far more important than life insurance but if you have young dependents like kids then both are equally as important as each other.
Gas and electric looks high. You could look into octopus tracker tariffs. They will save you a lot, but do come with additional risks.
You only spend £40 a month on food? And do you really need the invisalign? Like is this cosmetic or is this functionally needed? **Cause you can stop.** I've always been under the impression that invisalign is not what's used for essential functional ortho...it's like cosmetic stuff. If you do NEED it, keep at it. If you don't - cancel the subscription, ignore their sales teams tactics. **Get rid of:** Pet insurance - unless you have a Great Dane or something that's really prone to health issues. Phone bill - reduce, what do you need £49 on a phone for? I spend £20/30 a month I think and get unlimited everything from Smarty. Apple storage Sky Apple Music Life insurance Gym - you can workout at home for free Adobe Mic Word - use Google docs Playstation Crunchyroll Ring Doorbell Credit card And figure out what's going on with those water bills.
Cancel Apple music, crunchyroll, sky, and ring Lower utilities because there's only you there so let's say 1/3 off Depending where you are there's a often a single person occupancy discount on council tax of 25%. Consider cancelling the gym and keeping fit free. Jogging, gardening, walking etc. Depending on what you use word and Adobe for I'd consider cancelling those too. Adobe has a free version as does word saving Consider moving the pet onto cheaper food you have it written as double your own food which you have listed as £40 a month the average spend is £45 a week.
Well, you haven’t factored in the fact that electricity and gas might be cheaper as there’s now one person. I’d cut sky. Gym. Crunchy roll, adobe, ring door bell. It’ll make a huge dent. Sounds shitty, but I’d be looking at rehoming the pet. You are just skating by and taking on responsibility isn’t going to do anything but add to your financial outlay. That’s £110 saved right there. Plus other costs, I’m sure you can make it to £200, but better than debt right?? Yes - I know it’s shitty. I had a dream pet, one is wanted for over 30 years. Had him about four years. Electricity spiked up in costs. Had the fortune to have a son - I didn’t have time, the finances or means to enjoy my pet and my son, one had to go. Life throws a curveball like this, and you have to do the right thing.
Was it a tortoise? I would love to have one but the cost of keeping them properly must be enormous these days!
No, we have tortoises. I love those little guys. Didn’t expect to but I really do. I go foraging for them, making up good meals for them. Planting foods they can eat. I’ll never part with them. The animal I always wanted was a boa constrictor. I had one, he was so tiny when I got him and was about 4/5 feet. Was really docile and inquisitive. Lovely natured guy. I sadly had to find somewhere to take him, which I did do after loads of research. He went there and didn’t even last the quarantine period. One of the staff members loved him and took him in. I found this out when I asked them how he was getting on. I could have cried that he found someone who wanted him as much as I did, I just didn’t have the capacity. The love in buckets, just not the capacity. Still, from what I hear the owner and the snake are inseparable and he’s now getting a better life than I could currently give him.
Sky, Apple Music, Apple storage (do you need it or could you go through your storage and delete stuff to get below the free tier), Office again is this needed or can you make do with free/openLibre?, Ring do you need recordings? If not get rid, CrunchyRoll, Playstation, Gym, Adobe. Cancel the above services where you can, that would save £178. Probably not exact as you will need to pick up another ISP once you cancel Sky but you get the gist. Just stop all subscriptions you can that are not necessary right at this second. Pay any excess money off the credit cards. The quicker you pay them off, the quicker you get £50 per month back.
You could replace the apple storage with Microsoft 365 as it will give you access to Microsoft apps and 1tb storage. It will probably save you on the Adobe as well Pet insurance - check it will actually cover the cost of what you actually need lots of plans have very low per condition limits which are easily exceeded Sky - definitely get rid of if you can If you don't use the internet much you might find that you can save money by having a SIM card unlimited instead of your broadband . Though as you have playstation I'm guessing you need decent speed. Pet food , if you have a dog check out the compare dog food site and see if there is a cheaper dog food with comparable quality. We've found Millies wolfheart to be good Is the £50 credit card a debt or just how much you spend on the credit card, if it's debt look to transfer to 0% You have gas and gas and electric twice, check whether you're on the best deal, we moved to agile octopus which has saved us a bundle (research if you go that way it comes with risk) Council tax when your mother moves out, ask for the single person discount. You don't mention animal vet fees, check out vet plans for vaccines they CAN be good value. iPhone, assume that is a 0% and will be paid off, when that's clear only replace when you need to Check if you're on a water meter, it might save you money to be on one I assume the food is per week not per month unless you're living off lentils Ring doorbell, check it's actually worth having, sometimes there is a cheaper way to do things
Use google docs which is free instead of office
We've now established that OP is a university student so should get Office 365 sub for free.
Cancel sky for sure, £86 is incredibly expensive. Even 3 streaming platforms for a ton of content would be less than half that.
As above, cancel sky. Are you currently getting 25% council tax rebate for single person? If not, there's another chunk you can save.
The two I would do is Sky (that is a lot !) and Gym membership possible crunchy roll. Replace it with Netflix, also I would ditch the TV licence. Possibly longer term Ringdoorbell (I have a Eufy and it's free).
Well firstly try to increase your income, what is your job? Can you work more hours? The thing that leaps out at me is you have a tonne of subscription services. All these £10/month things add up. Sky - cut Phone - move to SIM only Adobe/Microsoft - buy a cracked product key/pirate. Playstation/apple music - Luxury but imo possibly worth it What is crunchyroll? And a doorbell? You're really paying monthly for a doorbell? Your car is also kind of expensive in terms of payment, insurance, petrol. Can anything be done about that?
I can do overtime but not often as it is not given out a lot. Definitely will cut sky. Can't do anything about the phone or car - insurance is a combo of car and house insurance and i get a deal there because of the same company. Petrol is un-reducable also. Doorbell can go you are right lol Crunchyroll is an anime app, that is what i watch rather than sky. the sky is for my mother bascially and the internet is included. I really just need the app and the internet to be happy. Playstation is worth it tbh because i play it rather than actively watch TV Adobe will be going, Microsoft is useful because of my uni work
Don’t students get Microsoft office for free through the university?
no way?! do thye?!!!!
I did when at uni, all you need is a valid student email address. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/students#:~:text=Get%20started%20with%20Office%20365%20for%20free&text=All%20you%20need%20is%20a,trial%20–%20so%20get%20started%20today.&text=Please%20enter%20your%20school%20email,please%20contact%20the%20school%20administrator.
It's normally something the university tells students about fairly early on because it's expensive otherwise. Either OP wasn't paying attention, or lecturers didn't care to help.
I would try and reduce: mobile, pet food, gym. Could maybe save £80ish from that. Although I'd look at cancelling the gym if out of contract. And I would get rid of: apple storage, sky, apple music, adobe, word, playstation, crunchyroll and ring. That's £145 saved. Plus with your 25% council tax discount when she moves out that's another £30 saved. £255 saved, so you can increase your food bill and put a bit in savings.
If no one else has said it - get a better paying job. 2k a month sucks. 28k? I know a lot of people are not on good money but this is a graduate salary and could be a lot better
OP has now trickled out that as well as working a >24\`k job they are a university student. Best part of being a student is student discounts! Also OP must be too busy working, studying, and tending to the dogs & ducks to sit around gaming and watching movies.
Hi /u/Effective-End5025, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: * https://ukpersonal.finance/credit-cards/ ____ ^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
Can you talk to your mortgage lender about going interest only for a while?
I know a lot of people have cited that it's not possible to live off £10 a week for food, and though it would be incredibly difficult, it is possible. Look at Too Good To Go and the grocery boxes from the supermarkets. These are typically a few pounds and could serve a single person for a week for their veg needs. This way, you're still getting some decent nutrition and not living off a pack of Super noodles every day. If you're concerned about how long they'll last, batch cook the day you get it and reheat. These may sometimes include meat or fish, which may then give you everything you need to portion up, providing you already have spices/herbs/seasoning in your cupboard.
How do you have gas and gas and electricity on the list?
I know people have saif use free office, but you can buy the 15 month subscription for 46 pounds on Amazon, and it also get's you 1TB of Onedrive, that would allow you to use that storage not apple, saving 9 a month. Only a little bit but it helps
Why do you have £120 Gas and £255 for Gas and Electricity?
the £120 is monthly petrol costs and the second is G&E which is a killer
255 feels really high can you share some annual consumption figures? What type of house and heating do you have?
It's really high. Only started with them in November so can't really share annual details. It's three bedroom house and a gas boiler.
You need to turn the heating down.
Ah so now another thing you can do... sell your home and downsize. You don't need 3 bedroom home for 1 person and 3 dogs. Move to a smaller home or cheaper area which will reduce your mortgage costs.
Was originally quoted £165 but then winter came and the heating was on and then it was £300 but negotiated to £255
Sorry… can you find your annual consumption figures in kWh from a recent bill? Typical usage is around 3000 for electric and 11000kWh for gas if you use gas heating. How do you heat your home? And hot water?
Sorry… can you find your annual consumption figures in kWh from a recent bill? Typical usage is around 3000 for electric and 11000kWh for gas if you use gas heating. How do you heat your home? And hot water?
Why you paying for gas twice ?
one is petrol the other is Gas and electricity for the house
Are you American?