# bad money manager?



## brenglee (18 Jul 2014)

Hi 
I was advised to post here. 
After my mortgage is paid, I have 300e per week left, I was thinking about this and wonder why I can't manage. 
My house is in positive equity of about 120k. 
I owe about 4k on a loan and I am currently in arrears with this. 
I also have a credit card that I have closed but still owe 1.8k on this and its in arrears too.
I have no car repayments and drive an 05 car.
I only have to shop for 2 people and a couple of pets. 
I have the usual utility bills and petrol, tax and insurance. Life insurance as well. 
How can I budget better and am I wrong to think I should be able to manage my money and have my bills up to date. 
I am always playing catch up with my bills and never have any spare money.
Id appreciate any advise.


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## Brendan Burgess (18 Jul 2014)

You need to go to MABS who will help you with budgeting.


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## wbbs (18 Jul 2014)

Spending diary, that's the first thing MABS will tell you anyway.  Start now, either use an actual notebook and write down everything you spend or there are apps that can do it but I find a simple notebook as handy as anything.

Keep all your receipts, it's real easy these days as you get a receipt even for a bar of chocolate, keep them all and write them up every day if possible.   You need to identify first where your money is going then you see if there are changes that can be made. 

If you use a lot of cash take only one set amount per week out of ATM, don't keep going for little bits regularly.  If you use a debit card or similar you can get spending details from your bank account as well.


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## Branz (18 Jul 2014)

As well as talking the above advice, you might look at adding the CC debt and the loan debt to your mortgage if u have 120k equity and the LTV ratio is not shot.

You may not be able to afford the new payments but look at it anyway.

The CC debt is prolly 30% compound so...

When keeping score of spend you all need to be brutally honest about it.

When I was slowly going bust in the UK in the 70's I could tell you what I spent on each vegetable... so you need to split out the spend: no point in accounting for a  Lidl hit for 150 as food and having 100 buried on the non food items such as car kits etc.

As a pet owner I know you can spend loadsa on them so you need to look at substituting  " the 2.5 kg bag of Royal Canine for the older dog with Personality Issues" with something else Maybe a 25 kg bag of brown rice from Musgraves


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## brenglee (18 Jul 2014)

what does 30% compound mean ?
don't think my cats like brown rice!!


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## wbbs (18 Jul 2014)

I buy my cat food in bulk from UK, buy enough for nearly year at a time, costs about 80 euro delivered.


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## Branz (19 Jul 2014)

brenglee said:


> what does 30% compound mean ?
> don't think my cats like brown rice!!



Look at the last statement on the CC, the interest rate is normally about 28% pa or more.
If it were 33% then they are adding on a third of the capital in interest each year: so if u make no payments on the 1800 it will be at least 2400 in a years time.

the other point about budgeting is that all the big payments like insurance tax LPT elec gas water etc all need to be brought back to either a weekly or monthly amount, to match how ever you are paid.
So if weekly, say your car tax is 520 pa so 10 euro a week needs to be set a side.
Equally if u are monthly and your house ins is 480, then 40 a month
and a bi monthly esb bill of 100 is 50 a month or 11.30 a week


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## Kimmagegirl (19 Jul 2014)

€300 per week should be plenty to live on. Adding up my own utility bills, food, petrol, insurances, cat taxes, UPC and T.V. licences etc I would have money left over for a good holiday.  Neither of us smoke and would be light drinkers. Then again we are conscious of value and look for it where we can without being obsessive about it.


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## brenglee (21 Jul 2014)

definitely interested in the cat food from uk....whats the website and is it good food? would it not be liable for vat coming in ?


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## mark1 (22 Jul 2014)

I would suggest you set yourself up on my bills.ie for your utilities and credit card and pay towards both on a weekly basis. If you do you will find it very easy to keep up to date with everything. I paid off a large credit card bill over the past few years by paying slightly more  approximately one third than the minimum payment each month on a weekly basis,even if you make 3 payments towards it and miss one week you will never incur late fees etc. I do the same for utilities and generally have the bill paid or a minimal balance by the time it arrives.hope it helps.


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## Gerry Canning (22 Jul 2014)

wbbs said:


> I buy my cat food in bulk from UK, buy enough for nearly year at a time, costs about 80 euro delivered.


Brenglee; 
Ask any Vet and they will assure you that other than fancy packaging the Whiskas/Royal Canin food is of no better nutritional quality than Mr Cheaper cat/dog food. Vets will say that pet-food suppliers now follow pet -food protocols.
Maybe you buy Mr Cheaper, so this saves you nothing!


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## RichInSpirit (22 Jul 2014)

*Insolvency Service Ireland PDF*

I'm a rather bad money manager too. Lately I was trying to make a payment proposal to a creditor. I downloaded a PDF from the Insolvency Service Ireland website. 
They have Guidelines for reasonable living expenses of 1029.03 for a single person before rent mortgage. 
It could be a useful place to start looking at your costs.


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## Bronte (22 Jul 2014)

Gerry Canning said:


> Ask any Vet and they will assure you that other than fancy packaging the Whiskas/Royal Canin food is of no better nutritional quality than Mr Cheaper cat/dog food.


 
Our cat won't eat the cheaper versions !

Wbbs where in the UK are you sourcing a years supply for 80€ ?


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## RichInSpirit (22 Jul 2014)

*Insolvency Service Ireland PDF*

The PDF is very long winded but there are useful tables etc. in it after 29 or 30 pages. 
I started a note book last year which I had intended to transfer the contents to a spread sheet but  I let it slip after a few months. 
You need to be writing it up daily or it can become unwieldy which happened to me.


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## Gerry Canning (22 Jul 2014)

Bronte said:


> Our cat won't eat the cheaper versions !
> 
> Wbbs where in the UK are you sourcing a years supply for 80€ ?


 ...........

Bronte (hunger is a good sauce) !.

Your cat needs some training !.


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## rob oyle (22 Jul 2014)

Bronte said:


> Our cat won't eat the cheaper versions !
> 
> Wbbs where in the UK are you sourcing a years supply for 80€ ?


 

My girlfriend gets her cat food from: http://www.benevo.com/

It costs £123* for 30kg of food every 4/5 months or so (she has 4 cats), that works out at about €100 a head per annum.


* delivery fees to Ireland are high so she uses Parcelmotel for deliveries and has it sent to their Antrim address... I'm not sure Parcelmotel is a runner for everyone.


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## RichInSpirit (22 Jul 2014)

Another thing I do from time to time when I've got a lump of money in my account and bills to pay and the urge to buy stuff is a mini budget in a note book of available funds minus bills and stuff I want to buy. Sometimes it's a bit scary to see how little is left before I even start spending but I don't get the shock in the middle of my spending spree.


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## wbbs (23 Jul 2014)

Ok, small error on cat food, it's 80 stg not euro for 20kg.  I order from Zooplus.co.uk not the Irish site.  I share an order with friend who orders dog food to get free delivery.  Small indoor car so 20kg lasts me practically a year with the odd small treat of pouch of wet food.


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