What have you/will you be economising on?
Hi Ladies,
We're currently looking at our monthly outgoings to reduce as many as possible so we can take longer on maternity leave and actually survive the massive drop in salary!
So I wondered if anyone else is doing the same or has had any particular success with any bills etc?
The big one which we can't change is the mortgage and sadly maternity pay doesn't recognise that this huge outgoing will still be as big despite having a baby to look after so its mainly down to reducing our sky package and finding better insurance and utilities deals I think.
xx
We're currently looking at our monthly outgoings to reduce as many as possible so we can take longer on maternity leave and actually survive the massive drop in salary!
So I wondered if anyone else is doing the same or has had any particular success with any bills etc?
The big one which we can't change is the mortgage and sadly maternity pay doesn't recognise that this huge outgoing will still be as big despite having a baby to look after so its mainly down to reducing our sky package and finding better insurance and utilities deals I think.
xx
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Replies
we've cancelled our love film subscription as we just weren't really getting our moneys worth. we joined milkandmore.co.uk and got ??10 free shopping.
i kept everything from DS and have gone through all the clothes and am trying to sell a binbag full of boys clothes from premature to 0-3months. when we had DS we got a lot of toys etc from ebay/carboots - just make sure you have plenty of flash in! gave everything a good clean and put what we could through the washer and they all came up as good as new.
we do our grocery shopping online so then we don't get tempted! once a month i go to goole (our nearest big town) with my neighbour and we go round places like netto/lidl/poundstretcher and get stocked up with bargains.
we only have one car as we can manage with just one. Hubby is a mechanic as is his brother and dad so if anything goes wrong then i know one of them will be able to fix it!
have you joined all the baby clubs? you get a bunch of vouchers etc through the post on a regular basis.
Was going to visit family in NZ when little one arived but cancelled that now I've looked at our future budget! Need to change virgin package as we pay too much and just got a letter saying our contents insurance has gone up another ??9 a month so need to find a better deal.
Sadly it seems there's not a lot I can do with other outgoings. I think dropping a salary is going to be a massive shock to us to be honest.
We saved some money on home insurance with AXA which was good and I think I can cut down our life insurance as looking at the critical illness I think its a waste of time having. At the moment its more important to have the cash handy.
Dreading looking at the electric and gas though as I think they're all about to increase regardless.
We do online shopping too as it really does save us and keeps us to a strict budget which is great plus the deliveries will be fab when it takes me 2 hours to get me and my little boy ready!
The other main thing we are doing is selling one of the cars. It will make things a bit more of a fiddle when I am back to work and I will lose the freedom I have all the time but I think with some good planning we'll be fine.
In all honesty I can plan to get through the mat leave part as its temporary but trying to fix a budget around me going back to work when so much will be spent on childcare is going to ve a real challenge. I'm torn between wanting to work more so we don't stress versus working less to be with him but struggling.
I wish we lived in Scandinavia where its not uncommon to get 9 months full salary for mat leave!
On the plus side we found out that my husband will get full pay over his paternity leave as they are a small company and have done it for a few blokes so have to be consistent. There's my silver lining.
The problem for us is that I earn more than DH so we are losing more than 50% of the income each month but sadly can't cut the mortgage etc by this amount! Wish we could!
Completely agree TulipRose - we can manage my year off if we cut back on the things we do/have now (which are luxuries to be honest not essential). However, when it comes to going back to work I'm not sure how we'll manage as nursery fees are crazy and I don't think I like the idea of being full time and leaving my little man :?
This would leave you paying more interest on the loan amount as payments are deferred and then the monthly repayment would likely go up a little to re-coup the lost re-payments once you return to paying but wow! Its actually great to think this could be a fall back option.
Some mortgage lenders don't do this however and some only do it if you have overpaid at some point in the past.
xx
My house insurance is up for renewal so I will shop around for that.
I fixed my gas and electricity for 12mths the other day, glad I did as british gas have put it all up anyway. Makes me mad but glad I don't live in a cold house
My mobile contract I can't change but oh has a cheap nokia and then steals my iPhone all the time ( but he doesn't want one hmmmm )
Mortgage is on svr which tbh I will leave until the interest rates show signs of increasing as we put the difference away in isas.
The only thing I struggle to cut down on is food bills, but hey we need to eat
I am also stockpiling baby items like we are expecting a nuclear war luckily we have a garage xx
We've started having a strict food budget of ??50 a week, as we were spending far too much on stuff then wasting it - turns out now we're trying to spend less we don't even need ??50 every week.
Got the cheapest insurances i can find.
Considering giving up hubby's car, just to save on tax, insurance etc, but won't get much money for it, and we have 2 dogs which won't fit in my car if they need taking anywhere - vets, kennels etc.
Have the full sky package, broadband phone etc, so only use landline at evenings and weekends, but not giving it up as it's cheaper for hubby to watch footy at home on sky than go to the pub! Also i think the movies will come in handy when i'm up in the night with baby.
Not sure what else i can save on!
xxx