Do you . . . .

Budget every month and if so how?

I have to budget ... I use Microsoft Money an old version and I swear by this ... its kind of like a spreadsheet .. I enter all our outgoings and incomings and it sort of tallies itself and tells me exactly how much money we are down to ... every few days or so I use our receipts and our online bank account to cross reference takeway the receipts ... it keeps our heads above water ... its FAB

nope too scary!!xx

oo sounds like I should hand all my financial dealing to you miss trippy you soo have yer head screwed on.

No I dont however I fully intend on getting some sort of plan written up for the end of Nov, Im determined not to spend another year scraping by and buying pure crappy stuff

julieliz wrote:

nope too scary!!xx

!

Chezzie wrote:

oo sounds like I should hand all my financial dealing to you miss trippy you soo have yer head screwed on.

No I dont however I fully intend on getting some sort of plan written up for the end of Nov, Im determined not to spend another year scraping by and buying pure crappy stuff

Mate you should have seen me about 5 years ago when I was with my ex ... had shit loadsa debt ... now I am with Russ we dont have any credit cards/over drafts loans or nothing .. and I dont have to keep lookin over my shoulder

Sometimes we take our bank account right down to about 40p BUT its ours ... I have learnt to budget like I do now cos I never wanna go back to the debt ... money is tight as I dont work ... I will when bob at school as we carnt afford child care and its really hard not to just sign up for a credit card especially at this time of year .. Russ does loadsa overtime so we manage somehow! x

i have loadsa debt but i manage all the payments fine so thats just how its gonna be for a while.xx

I have a list of our outgoings and incomings on a spreadsheet then calculate it to see if i will have any money spare

I have given a nick name to Umer - l call him my accountant. Before l met him my credit history was sooo bad. I had a credit card, was into m Over Draft. When l would go to withdraw money from the cashpoint l would be too to look at remaining balance {no kidding}. Thankfully he has sorted m crdit history out now so its excellant at the moment.
Umer calculates how much we have coming in, his salary plus mine, our out goings and if there is any left over we put it away as a saving for any emergency.

soo organised!!!!!!

i know wot comes in - and more goes out - !!!xxx

aww bless ya ... we sometimes have more going out then in but we just pay something double the next ... especially at this time of the year

its only gonna get worse once my maternity pay starts cos only got 8 weeks on full pay then it goes to half pay and we have no savings to

I know we struggle back in Jan 2006 when I went on maternity it was a huge drop .. some how we pulled through and I still aint working I just make sure every penny counts and budget like mad chick xx

i am trying to buy as muchstuff now as i can, like nappies and household stuff cos i think that myt ??? i have to go back to work as our bills alone are more than matts wage

Have you contacted child tax credits and also now that only one wage is coming in you may be entitled to WORKING tax credit as well ... your child tax credits will DEFO go up chick cos your income is now only your maternity I would SOOOOOOOOOOO check this out? xx I would stock up on as much as I could as well .. its what I did!

LilMissTrippy wrote:

Have you contacted child tax credits and also now that only one wage is coming in you may be entitled to WORKING tax credit as well ... your child tax credits will DEFO go up chick cos your income is now only your maternity I would SOOOOOOOOOOO check this out? xx I would stock up on as much as I could as well .. its what I did!

even if i gave up work totally we would only be entitled to an extra £100 a YEAR!!!! cos of matts wage

i will keep stocking up.

Your Joking ... he must be on a lot then ... x

My maternity was 90% of my contract for the first 6 weeks, and thne after that it was only statutory maternity pay which was only £430..how shite is that?
I panicked an all thinking how will we manage but we did. I got in contact with Inland Revenue and my tax credit was really helpful as l was on maternity. You should definitely check this out, it will surprise you and come in handy. I returned back to work when Daniyah was 4 and a half months as a) l was getting soo bored being in the house, and b) need extra money. Plus am also receiving tax credit but now its not as high as it was before what with me working but it all makes a difference and of course child benefit. We dont touch that, we deposit the child benefit into Daniyah's Child Trust Fund Account each month.

LilMissTrippy wrote:

Your Joking ... he must be on a lot then ... x

not really???? i mean he ain't on a bad wage but his wage means we only ever get the family element of the tax credits - although i will get the new bit which will !!!!

My maternity was 90% of my contract for the first 6 weeks, and thne after that it was only statutory maternity pay which was only £430..how shite is that?
I panicked an all thinking how will we manage but we did. I got in contact with Inland Revenue and my tax credit was really helpful as l was on maternity. You should definitely check this out, it will surprise you and come in handy. I returned back to work when Daniyah was 4 and a half months as a) l was getting soo bored being in the house, and b) need extra money. Plus am also receiving tax credit but now its not as high as it was before what with me working but it all makes a difference and of course child benefit. We dont touch that, we deposit the child benefit into Daniyah's Child Trust Fund Account each month.


i get a bit extra mat pay from my company but not much!!!!! i checked all the tax credits out when tom and emily were born - we have always just had the same.
i wish i could not use the child allowance but not a chance - need it all!!

i am for my health in preg grant at the min to finish buying stuff.xx

I would all the same get in contact with the Inland Revenue people, explain your whol circumstances to them and see what happens.
I really hope they can you guys out. Let me know how you get on with them x

yes i do