# Monthly Expenses at an all time high. Advice sought.



## morpheus (14 Aug 2007)

Hi all,

well im almost 8 months into home ownership.

I have a joint mortgage, my partner and i are 31 and 24 respectively, we have no kids, this is our first home.

my outgoings this month absolutely blazed me due to physio required once a week for last 6 weeks and car tax and a car service all hitting me at once plus a stag and a weekend away camping (which the storm force winds and rain meant 3 of us staying in a 2 bed room in a hotel as we couldnt get even a hostel).

In general i get by, i never seem to be able to save though and really want to but seem to procrastinate too much.

I will lay my financials on the line and see if you can suggest anything:

Income:
€2665 pm

Outgoings:
Direct Debits:
Car €158 (of a €7000 loan taken out in feb)
Car Insurance €70
Mortgage €1100
Health Insurance €60
Loan repayment to parents €100 (of 2600 euro loan)

Mobile Phone (o2 monthly €54 and maybe 1 text bundle at €7.50)

Credit Card (currently at €1007) am trying to clear it so will pay 1 - 200 per month on it.

Total disposable income left: about €1000 euro

The Mortgage money going into our joint account covers EBS,ESB,BordGais,Irish Life and Sky Tv and we have a little saving up each month on top of it.


Weekly Disposable Income: €200
Weekly expenditure
Food and households - €40 (my half)
Petrol - €60 on petrol per week, i drive to work but they dont want to know about subsidising anything. 

I pay probably €10 per week on lunch (i bring my own in, so thats cost of bread, ham etc, crisps, odd pack of gum) was up to €25 when not bringing it in.

rest is just used for myself but if you take the odd bottle of wine and dvd, cinema visit, maybe a night out on the beer. basically i scrape by and cant seem to save.

My plan is to switch to public transport. get the tax saver monthly tickets from next month on, means earlier up and ealier home but will cost me €98 per month to travel. so hopefully will save another €100 or so...

any advice though is appreciated.


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## seriams (14 Aug 2007)

You could try stretching the repayments on your car loan. It will mean you pay more in the long term, but less on a montlhy basis. Your Insurance sounds high too. I'm same age and female and I'm €48/mth. 
It sounds lame but I have recently drawn up an annual budget taking into consideration birthdays, hairdresser, car maintenance etc and i have now spread it out over the year, therefore managing to save too. Best of luck.


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## Morgause (14 Aug 2007)

I suppose I would be asking myself if I really needed the bill pay phone and the Sky TV.  I have a pay as you go phone, and make use of the phone in work as well as my own landline (which is a bundle that has free calls).  I only top up the mobile every two or three months.

Some things like car insurance may be cheaper if paid by the year as a lump sum instead of by monthy direct debit.  Check with your insurer.

You have a lot of direct debits - are these costing you money or do you have free banking?

The annual budget suggestion is a very good one aswell.  It means that if you do have holidays and motor tax etc all at once, you can be prepared for it and save up in advance.


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## moondance (14 Aug 2007)

Is your mortgage 1100 each or 550 each per month? If it's 1100 each that sounds very high - maybe look at extending the term of the loan and reducing these monthly repayments for a while until you get yourself sorted. This will of course increase the interest you pay in the long term but at least it will give you a breather now.


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## bobk (14 Aug 2007)

Why did you get a car loan a couple of months after buying a house????
It might have helped if you worked out the cost of things before you borrowed so much and not after.


Anyway...
cut back on your phone bill.
I pay less then half that per month
check out www.callcosts.ie to find the best deal

ask your parents to see if they will grant you a rest period from their loan for a few months and put that money into paying off the credit card asap.

Tesco are doing a fixed rate loan at a seemingly competitive rate at the moment. If you're adamant that you want to keep the car, see if you can get a better rate on your loan.
if you do this, make sure there are no early redemption penalties on your other loan otherwise it may not be worthwhile.

Bob


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## annR (14 Aug 2007)

Does the health insurance you are paying not cover your physio costs?



> My plan is to switch to public transport. get the tax saver monthly tickets from next month on, means earlier up and ealier home but will cost me €98 per month to travel. so hopefully will save another €100 or so...


 
How will that save another E100 (sorry not clear to me) and will you still be keeping the car? At the moment the car is costing you E288 pm and only E60 of that is petrol.

Based on your own sums, there is 100Euro a month over for yourself. E25 a week - not much. I guess you could look at your casual spending and prioritise i.e. have DVDs or cinema trips but not both?


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## morpheus (14 Aug 2007)

> Is your mortgage 1100 each or 550 each per month?


I pay 1100 into it, my partner earns half the money i do so i pay proportionately more than her.



> I suppose I would be asking myself if I really needed the bill pay phone and the Sky TV.


We dont have a land line at home. Sky tv is only used during the winter for sports, were both soccer mad and have friends round to watch etc.



> Why did you get a car loan a couple of months after buying a house????


I needed it for work AND Im heavily involved in coaching football and playing football and live a bit away from family so i needed it. the old car was knackered.



> Does the health insurance you are paying not cover your physio costs?


It covers a certain number of them only and i will get it back but only at the end of the year, i was trying to indicate how i cant even cover something as simple as a couple of physios out of my monthly disposable income / non existent savings.



> How will that save another E100 (sorry not clear to me) and will you still be keeping the car? At the moment the car is costing you E288 pm and only E60 of that is petrol.


 
My WEEKLY petrol costs are 60 euro about 40 of that is work related, 20 for personal use, thats 160 per month. so if i can use public transport at 100 per month (my math was off) I should be able to save up to 60 per month on petrol.

I will still need the car outside of work.


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## Morgause (14 Aug 2007)

It's a toughie morpheus.  How about shopping - do ye decide what dinners you need for the week, write a list of what you will need before you do the shopping and stick rigidly to it?  Also shopping just once a week instead of little bits every day means you tend to spend less overall.


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## niceoneted (14 Aug 2007)

use energy saving bulbs, turn off all appliances/lights when not in use, Turn the thermostat down on the gas by 1 degree, wear an extra layer or get some nice fleece blankets for when your on the couch in front of the telly. 
Your doing great with the lunches fair play. The suggestion re looking at annual expenditure is good and work out what you need to put away monthly/weekly - depending on how you get paid - is a good one. I did this years ago including hair cuts, birthday, Christmas, wedding presents, tax, service on car etc. The first year doing this was a struggle as I was like you paying ins by direct debit but also trying to save to pay it in one payment for the following year. Shop around better for car ins next year. Cooking from scratch rather than buying processed/prepared food is cheaper. Look at how you can use leftovers better. 
Once you get into the swing of it and can get one step ahead things will be alot easier. Are you on a fixed rate mortgage because if not you will have to take into consideration further interest rises and be prepared for them.
I gave up the sky sports for a while. It's a bit of a sacrifice but there is still plenty of sport on other channels and highlights. 

Good luck with it all. Be proud you have a house and the sense to tackle this issue.


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## nelly (14 Aug 2007)

find Aldi and Lidl and shop there for basics at least once a month. we noticed we got more for our money and then we head to Tesco for some branded stuff instead of all branded stuff.


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## ClubMan (14 Aug 2007)

Don't forget to claim _MED1 _tax relief on any qualifying medical expenses arising this year. Make sure that you are claiming all credits/allowances to which you are entitled (see the _Taxation _forum key posts). Could you save anythinig by finding cheaper mortgage protection life assurance and/or home insurance that offers the required level of cover?


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## Brendan Burgess (14 Aug 2007)

Hi Morpheus 

People suffer a huge bout of financial indigestion immediately after buying their first home. You have to make sacrifices. With rising salaries, the burden will become easier if interest rates don't rise much more. 

I would not be attempting to save at this stage. If you have a normal repayment mortgage and if you are paying off your car loan, then you are actually saving some money. 

If you don't smoke, then you review whether paying for health insurance is good value or not. Young healthy non smokers pay the same as older, sick smokers. This is discussed elsewhere on Askaboutmoney and you can review the arguments there. Sorry I can't find the thread just now.

Is there any scope for renting out a room in your house? I know it's not ideal, but if you do it for the first year or so, it will help you get over the indigestion.


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## brodiebabe (14 Aug 2007)

Would you consider taking in students to earn more cash?


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## ClubMan (14 Aug 2007)

Brendan said:


> I would not be attempting to save at this stage.


In my opinion this is a little misleading. I presume that Brendan means that you should not be attempting to save/invest but I would still encourage you to look around for where savings can be reasonable made such as some of the earlier suggestions. What you then do with the money available through cost cutting is up to you.


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## Trish2006 (15 Aug 2007)

What kind of car do you drive?  Your insurance is pretty high for a 31 yo.  I know I'm female but I just turned 31 and my fully comp ins for myself and dh on a 99 1.4 astra is €270 pa.  Maybe you could downgrade your car?  I know it seems like you'd be going backwards if you undo lots of your small pleasures in life, you don';t come across as a big spender at all so in theory you should be able to get by, but maybe just for a year or two you'll have to sacrifice some of the non essentials.


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## aircobra19 (15 Aug 2007)

Glass houses and all that. I'm not the best at budgeting myself, and about to start a similar exercise. I don't think theres anyway around working out all expenses on a monthly basis.  Keep all your cash reciepts and do the same with them. Then its a case of comparing all the expenses and deciding which ones you want to keep and which ones you are happy to stop. 

The car seems expensive to run, both in insurance, fuel and the car loan. You could change the car to one thats cheaper to run and insure. Mobile bill seems high, do you really need to use it that much? Ditto the Sky TV. Why do you have to have it for your friends. Why no go to a pub and watch the matches?

My weakness is magazines and books. I have to resist and hit the library more.


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## PGD1 (15 Aug 2007)

the easiest way to get more money is your car. I have long ago stopped spending money on cars. My last cars have been:

14 years old. Cost me €700. Ran for 2 years with no issues
21 years old. Cost me €1800 and sold after 1 year for 1200 with no issues
16 years odl. Cost me €750. Ran for 2 years. Cost me €400 in maintenance. Sold for €700. Bought it back for €300 and running now for 6 months with no issues.

We live in a materialistic society and ny car over 6-7 years old is unwanted, and yet there are plenty of well maintained ones. Sell you car and pay off 3-4k of your loan. Spend about 2k on a car and have 1k set aside for emergency repairs. This will leave you with a pool of 3-4k that you can perhaps drip feed into your account over 2-3 years giving you some extra monthly income.


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## ClubMan (15 Aug 2007)

_PGD1 _- have you ever calculated the total annual cost of ownership for each car including tax, insurance, fuel, services etc.?


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## morpheus (15 Aug 2007)

currently my 
car insurance (hibernian), 
house insurance (irish Life), 
life assurance(irish life) 
and health insurance (Quinn) are being paid by direct debits, so i would save money on the interest there.

is it possible to switch any of these mid repayments? I doubt it, will probably have to wait until november and march respectively (when we started all of these repayments).



> What kind of car do you drive?


I drive a 04 almera 1.5 and insurance is fully comp. no points, clean licence.


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## ClubMan (15 Aug 2007)

morpheus said:


> currently my
> car insurance (hibernian),
> house insurance (irish Life),
> life assurance(irish life)


Have you shopped around for the best deal meeting your cover requirements on these?


> and health insurance (Quinn) are being paid by direct debits, so i would save money on the interest there.


What do you mean by this?


> is it possible to switch any of these mid repayments?


It should be as far as I know. You don't necessarily have to wait until they come up for renewal.


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## morpheus (15 Aug 2007)

i meant that each of those payments for different inssurace etc is paid monthly, and i think that some of them charge a small interest fee for that facility so i would save money by paying each of them once annually


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## ClubMan (15 Aug 2007)

Yes - paying annually is usually more cost effective. However even if you pay annually you should (as far as I know) be able to switch to another provider mid year if you find a more competitive premium offering a similar level of cover.


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## Luckycharm (15 Aug 2007)

Does your Partner have a car as well? As others have said Cars are so expensive to run. We have 1 car between us an 8yr old one and I have a Scooter to get in and out of work about 10 miles both ways. I have 2 kids so she uses the car most of the time - I use it when need it. 
They are very cheap to run I spend about €6 on petrol a week, tax €37, insurance cheap and you can get a second hand one for around a grand. Plus if you live in Dublin saves me 7hrs of my life a week stuck in traffic  
Don't worry there are cool ones if you were embarrassed or you could a motorbike.


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## PGD1 (15 Aug 2007)

ClubMan said:


> _PGD1 _- have you ever calculated the total annual cost of ownership for each car including tax, insurance, fuel, services etc.?


 
Yes, in fact I'm probably a bit anal when it comes to that. For the purposes of this example we can assume that road tax, insurance and petrol costs are going to be more or less the same not matter what car he/she would downgrade to, so my point is that you can easily run cars that cost hardly anything to buy.


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## z109 (15 Aug 2007)

I would second the planning for meals and the Lidl/Aldi thing, for example, Lidl ham is good, and if you have it for sunday dinner, you can probably get a couple of days sandwiches out of it.

I found insure.ie quite good for car insurance quotes.

If you are planning on starting a family in the next year, then I wouldn't get rid of the health insurance, otherwise you lose the qualifying period for maternity benefits.

On the annual budgeting thing, set up a spreadsheet and start logging all expenditure and categorise it - down to the last cent! Make sure you always get receipts so you can do it accurately (especially important if you are paying cash for something). It will be tough for a year until you have a years worth of data behind you and you can see things like: spent x on clothes, y on haircuts etc. 

HTH. Best of luck.


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## aircobra19 (15 Aug 2007)

Only problem with old cars is they can end up costing more to maintain. Though parts may be cheaper, and reliability may be an issue. Running cost will depend on how good an old car you can find. If you are on a tight budget older cars can be big money savers. As they don't really depreciate after a certain point.


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## Madangan (15 Aug 2007)

Sorry to hear that things are so tight!

Have you considered moving credit card balance to a company such as Halifax who offer 6 months interest free on balance transfer and purchases...it only puts off the payments but may give you a bit of breathing space. You have to be disciplined and use the interest free period wisely ..i.e not simply allow debt to build up and be worse off in 6 months.

Also there is a wide difference in interest rates on credit cards is yours the vheapest..if not shop around and change..

Unfortunately though you have had a bad month most months tend to throw up something unexpected..be it a medical bill or a wedding present.. if you can at all try to set up a rainy day fund so that there is something to fall back on.


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## stresshead (15 Aug 2007)

I'm in a similar situation, 14 months into the mortgage and things just don't seem to be getting any easier. I have an old car, cheap insurance, no wild social life or expensive shoe habits... but still at the end of every month every penny is gone, often with a couple of hundred quid on the credit card (which I always pay off on payday).

To be honest all the weddings are killing me! I'm at that age... 5 so far this year! Anyway, good to see all the advice here!


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## seriams (16 Aug 2007)

Stresshead, take the credit card out of your wallet and leave it at home.(Use it only to book tickets etc.) I was doing same for last 6 months and each payday I was paying up to €400. It was crippling me. At last my next pay cheque is all mine!!


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## bb12 (22 Aug 2007)

you could also look into upgrading your job! is there anything out there with a better salary that you're currently earning?


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## so-crates (23 Aug 2007)

This might be something you are already doing but I found it useful in reigning in expenditure I wasn't even aware of. I found after taking on a mortgage my budget seemed to disappear out the window and I seemed to be spending a great deal more each month than I had prior to the mortgage. Before taking it on, I had gauged how much I was happy to afford and had accounted for the bills etc or thought I had. After a few months though it seemed to be much more expensive than I had anticipated and after another few months of worrying about why I wasn't doing as well as I had thought I would I started watching my bank account more closely. Checking balances and latest transactions twice a day (morning and evening) on both my bank account and my credit card has made me much more conscious of where the money was going. Previously I would have had a ballpark in my head and it would have been pretty okay but after buying a place it seemed to skew badly. I found that I was spending cash on both cards in fairly intense bursts (a lot of shopping at one go) and not totalling things properly, or forgetting whether it was on the credit card or the laser. Literally watching myself was enough to stop me over-spending.


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