On the brink of losing it all
Discussion
Groat said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li0qPwn4U8Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li0qPwn4U8Y
(Ry Cooder does a better version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li0qPwn4U8Y
(Ry Cooder does a better version)
Michaelbailey said:
washingitagain said:
I did wonder how you can go to a restaurant (presumably a couple) and spend £12 all in. Tap water?
Cheapest "meal out" ive ever had is at a place called Bun & Bones in stockport. £16 all in for a burger and chips each or maybe we shared chips and a diet coke each. Hardly a meal out but £12 I cant really think how its possible. Unless it was like a takeaway with table and they all shared a pizza. On a slight side note I saw a programme called living on benefits or something (Rich kid spends a week with someone who is poor). The man with 2/3 kids, no mother present, said he had to live on £35 a week for food. Im sorry but that simply isn't possible. I worked it out at 10p a meal each . How the f
k do you live on 10p a meal. (Breakfast, lunch and dinner). I get the breakfast one. That's cheap cereal. After that its ham on bread for lunch (at a push) then for dinner? he bought a pizza and I was thinking fking hold on son. That's £2 each, your 2000% over budget there pal. And on a slightly more serious note ive lived right on the poverty line and its no fun especially considering I was 17/18 at the time living with my girlfriend. As soon as I started to make some half decent money I fed myself properly and without having to stress about scrimping every penny.
Just to add to the sum of examples on here, we spend on average £80 a week on groceries, including cleaning products, laundry detergent (how expensive is that s
t if you buy branded, wow) and stuff like that, toiletries etc. Family of 4, 2 adults and 2 teenagers. Very little waste, no-one goes hungry. That includes work lunches for me (5 a week), but children eat at school for no extra charge (it's included in the school fees - whole other story there I suppose). Mrs buys lunch out on 3 work days per week, works from home other days, but only a couple of quid a day when buying at shops. We eat very well, proper fresh cooked meal every night, full roast on Sundays. Pretty much everything is own brand products. This is from a mainstream supermarket, we used to shop at Lidl but have switched to home delivery to save us some time at weekends - time is valuable to us.Ditching the big brands is a massive key to saving on money, and it rarely means a reduction in quality.
Meerkat meals makes eating out rather cheap and enjoyable. I'd highly recommend buying a cheap insurance just to get the use of it. Saved hundreds on movies and meals. Pizza express probably cost the £12 for both having big pizzas then off to the movies that then cost £2.50 a ticket haha. Pizza and the cinema for under £15 for 2. Cant beat it.
Even better is we split it so cost me £7.50. Good times.
Even better is we split it so cost me £7.50. Good times.
Michaelbailey said:
On a slight side note I saw a programme called living on benefits or something (Rich kid spends a week with someone who is poor). The man with 2/3 kids, no mother present, said he had to live on £35 a week for food. Im sorry but that simply isn't possible. I worked it out at 10p a meal each . How the fk do you live on 10p a meal. (Breakfast, lunch and dinner). I get the breakfast one. That's cheap cereal. After that its ham on bread for lunch (at a push) then for dinner? he bought a pizza and I was thinking fking hold on son. That's £2 each, your 2000% over budget there pal.
Because it's not 10p a meal each. Say 1 adult and 2 kids, so 3 mouths to feed. 63 meals per week = 55.6p per person per meal. k do you live on 10p a meal. (Breakfast, lunch and dinner). I get the breakfast one. That's cheap cereal. After that its ham on bread for lunch (at a push) then for dinner? he bought a pizza and I was thinking fking hold on son. That's £2 each, your 2000% over budget there pal. However, children will probably receive free school meals, so that's 10 lunches out of the equation.
Breakfast - Aldi Weetabix is about £1 for 36, so 1.5 packs a week, 2 max, plus milk. Say £4 for breakfasts.
Dad lunch - beans and egg on toast. 50p per day, so £2.50 for a 5 day week.
From the £35 that leaves £28.50 for weekly dinners and weekend food. Meat (mince, chicken), potatoes, pasta, veg (fresh or frozen), bread, pizzas, fish fingers, fruit, plus drinks.
Don't get me wrong, it's a horrible position to be in, but as has been alluded to elsewhere on here there's nothing like budgeting, menus or financials taught in schools.
Michaelbailey said:
On a slight side note I saw a programme called living on benefits or something (Rich kid spends a week with someone who is poor). The man with 2/3 kids, no mother present, said he had to live on £35 a week for food. Im sorry but that simply isn't possible.
I posted this earlier in the thread - feed a family of 4 for £20/wk: https://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/food/how-to-feed-a-fa...soxboy said:
Don't get me wrong, it's a horrible position to be in, but as has been alluded to elsewhere on here there's nothing like budgeting, menus or financials taught in schools.
Actually, that's not quite true. My wife is a teacher, part of which is what is now known as 'food tech'. This has all the emphasis on the tech part (i.e. how food cooks, enzymes, proteins, glutens etc) rather than the costs, however as part of the teaching they are also making their own versions of junk-food, primarily in order to be much healthier. This also has the consideration of saving costs.I get to try the ones Mrs SB has made, so far there have been pizzas and pasties. This week's one was burgers - handful of mince, chopped onion and seasoning. Cost must be around 50p for a decent sized burger. We had it with home made wedges, bit of salad and a roll. I reckon the cost will have been less than £5 for 4 of us for a pretty big portion.
Ive got myself in a muddle now. I put a week in writing but in my head I was saying a month. And I do remember it was a bloke and 3 kids so the 4 of them.
I think that was the claim that he had to feed the 4 of them for £35 a month. Unless I misheard. I can get £35 a week. I feel I must have just misheard an I have little chance of finding the clip again.
My maths were £35/4 people 8.75. 8.75/3 meals. £2.92. £2.92/30 days = 10p a meal. I will do my best to find it and report back. Either way I spend that on my lunches nowadays by myself a week sometimes (too lazy to make my own lunches). Alarming to think really.
I think that was the claim that he had to feed the 4 of them for £35 a month. Unless I misheard. I can get £35 a week. I feel I must have just misheard an I have little chance of finding the clip again.
My maths were £35/4 people 8.75. 8.75/3 meals. £2.92. £2.92/30 days = 10p a meal. I will do my best to find it and report back. Either way I spend that on my lunches nowadays by myself a week sometimes (too lazy to make my own lunches). Alarming to think really.
I'm still working on getting hold of my wife's supermarket receipts but she suspects what I'm up to so they've disappeared and she's gone into vague mode.
I did however just pay the M&S credit card bill and I noticed she did two shops there in consecutive weeks - remarkably consistent at £139 and £141. And that's likely to be almost 100% food as I don't think she'd buy cleaning stuff there.
I did however just pay the M&S credit card bill and I noticed she did two shops there in consecutive weeks - remarkably consistent at £139 and £141. And that's likely to be almost 100% food as I don't think she'd buy cleaning stuff there.
Saw this recipe today in the papers, apart from chicken and Aubergine the rest are cupboard ingredients, looks really tasty.
£3 for chicken thigh, x2 Aubergines rather than just one -£1.40, chickpeas 50p, mint 75p, and than rice. Apparently serves 8 but call it 4, so £1.40 per portion excluding rice, which we buy in 10kg bags so cannot be more than 10p per portion.
Doesn't look hard to cook, and will sort out 2 days food for just over £5.
£3 for chicken thigh, x2 Aubergines rather than just one -£1.40, chickpeas 50p, mint 75p, and than rice. Apparently serves 8 but call it 4, so £1.40 per portion excluding rice, which we buy in 10kg bags so cannot be more than 10p per portion.
Doesn't look hard to cook, and will sort out 2 days food for just over £5.
Not sure we have any okra lying around the cupboard 
Now she might be a bit of a radical warrior, & the food a bit veggie/vegan....but https://cookingonabootstrap.com has some decent low-cost recipes....
Actually.....we are *mostly* veggie now, with our post-grad veggie son doing much of the cooking.....& you can rustle up some really decent tasting meals with vegs/spices/herbs, I am discovering!
Now she might be a bit of a radical warrior, & the food a bit veggie/vegan....but https://cookingonabootstrap.com has some decent low-cost recipes....
Actually.....we are *mostly* veggie now, with our post-grad veggie son doing much of the cooking.....& you can rustle up some really decent tasting meals with vegs/spices/herbs, I am discovering!
mikeiow said:
Not sure we have any okra lying around the cupboard
We always have some frozen ones, my wife loves them.....Just made the dish, its almost like a thai curry without the coconut milk. There's enough for 2 dinners + one day lunch, have fresh mint from our garden which adds some extra flavour. Need to put our daughter to bed before woofing it down, total cost of ingredients from Sainsbury's was about a fiver
.
JulianPH said:
Right! Given the bizarre demands of last night and the fact most people seem to have worked out it was me, with several having referenced me by name or other easy identifiers, there seems little point in me continuing to remain quite about this.
Whilst I wanted to do this anonymously and for it to remain that way, I guess my initial posts and questions have made my identity a bit too obvious. Also, some of you know that my daughter is also disabled (Cerebral Palsy, but fortunately mild), so could see that I could relate here.
Firstly, I have never met or spoken with pibby before Tuesday.
As DonkeyApple said, I asked some pretty detailed questions here and then over the phone on Tuesday to establish the full picture. Anyone who knows I am in investment management would equally know I don't make financial decisions lightly.
Pibby is a genuinely decent bloke. He found himself in the position he was in not through living a lifestyle he could not afford, but through having to take on debt when his business collapsed in order to see him and his family through until he found an alternative position.
As is always the way with debt, this compounded and resulted in him getting further into the red each month.
I was, quite frankly, worried about him (and his family) having kept this inside for so long and I recognised he had made the first positive step to acceptance and realising he needed to open up by posting here.
I don't see what I did as being a gift, I see it as being an investment in him and his family's future.
So a very good investment, with far higher returns than any ISA could give.
Whilst I appreciate all of the comments when I was still just about anonymous, I really don't need a never ending stream of them! This is not why I did this.
The focus here should be solely on pibby and how this plays forward with him. I am happy to provide ongoing financial planning and cashflow modelling with him so that he can completely turn his situation round now.
So, please let's focus on that!
Whilst I wanted to do this anonymously and for it to remain that way, I guess my initial posts and questions have made my identity a bit too obvious. Also, some of you know that my daughter is also disabled (Cerebral Palsy, but fortunately mild), so could see that I could relate here.
Firstly, I have never met or spoken with pibby before Tuesday.
As DonkeyApple said, I asked some pretty detailed questions here and then over the phone on Tuesday to establish the full picture. Anyone who knows I am in investment management would equally know I don't make financial decisions lightly.
Pibby is a genuinely decent bloke. He found himself in the position he was in not through living a lifestyle he could not afford, but through having to take on debt when his business collapsed in order to see him and his family through until he found an alternative position.
As is always the way with debt, this compounded and resulted in him getting further into the red each month.
I was, quite frankly, worried about him (and his family) having kept this inside for so long and I recognised he had made the first positive step to acceptance and realising he needed to open up by posting here.
I don't see what I did as being a gift, I see it as being an investment in him and his family's future.
So a very good investment, with far higher returns than any ISA could give.
Whilst I appreciate all of the comments when I was still just about anonymous, I really don't need a never ending stream of them! This is not why I did this.
The focus here should be solely on pibby and how this plays forward with him. I am happy to provide ongoing financial planning and cashflow modelling with him so that he can completely turn his situation round now.
So, please let's focus on that!
samdale said:
JulianPH said:
I am happy to provide ongoing financial planning and cashflow modelling with him so that he can completely turn his situation round now.
Much like dragons den, I'm sure this will be much more valuable than the initial investment.We can all offer advice on how we'd save a few quid here and there (which is genuinely useful).
However, having someone such as yourself available to really help steer things and set him on a good track with proper financial planning will be priceless.
In short, teach a man to fish
To my shock I somehow missed this thread. Having read through it in depth I honestly clocked it was Julian from the “get go“.
I’ve known him for over 25 years and am godfather to his wonderful daughter . We are practically “brothers from another mother".
He has done this type of thing on countless occasions that I’ve actually lost track of exactly how many times over the years. He has certainly helped my family out over the years and continues to do so in partly sponsoring my daughter for her Art course at Uni .He recognised a raw talent that can genuinely succeed so wanted to help with nothing in return.
Without a doubt he would’ve been desperate to remain anonymous but given they way he is and the things he does for others it would've been inevitable for his identity to be eventually revealed.
Sounds like a bit of a love letter I know but just felt compelled to say something given how rarely if ever I say anything.
In a session of random clicking trying to avoid the for sale section I came across this thread.
A lesson to be had for everyone in here, to discover the fantastic gesture half way though was incredible.
Good luck for the future Pibby, to the anonymous (cough) PH'er - what a simply incredible gesture. I'm still deliberating my own financial situation.....................
A lesson to be had for everyone in here, to discover the fantastic gesture half way though was incredible.
Good luck for the future Pibby, to the anonymous (cough) PH'er - what a simply incredible gesture. I'm still deliberating my own financial situation.....................
trowelhead said:
Hi Pibby,
Hope you are well and having a good start to the year,
This thread has been of fantastic use to alot of us, who have taken bits and applied them to our own lives
Any update on how things are going?
Hi mate, Hope you are well and having a good start to the year,
This thread has been of fantastic use to alot of us, who have taken bits and applied them to our own lives
Any update on how things are going?
I'm good thanks.
So yeh all is good so far.
It's weird because I'm still struggling to save any money yet I have fewer outgoings now. I think it's because I'm not at the stage where I'm simply just not spending more than I earn.
Family are all good, wife is now asking me if she can buy things even if it's a couple of quid which is annoying haha.
My plan is just to try and see this through this year and try to nip away at the debts and hopefully have atleast one loan paid off by the end of this year.
Hope everyone else is having a good start to the year?
What a great thread, glad OP has had a helping hand - money stress can be the worst especially if you’re the sole earner. I’m sure money worries contribute to the biggest killer of adult men, it’s good to talk about them.
I can certainly attest to food budgets being very fluid. As a student I lived on about £7 a week (pasta......), as a Londoner a standard bought lunch is around £7 a day these days - and can easily be 10-15 if you aren’t cost conscious.
I’ve had sainsburys, waitrose and lidl as my local shop at different times and merely using lidl to its full extent (its a limited range of products which is why they manage to charge less) can drastically reduce food bill. Sunday frozen meal prep for one or two dinner options for the week can make things very cheap - I over-feed me and the wife for probably £1 a day via veggie chillies, curry, pasta/spagbol etc, super easy to do (in fact I pride myself on inventing healthy tasty recipes that are as minimal cooking as possible to minimise time spent doing boring meal prep...).
historically I’ve been on the other end of the scale too - where ‘money no object’ food shopping can get quite out of control. Doing a shop in waitrose recently I filled my basket and hit £100 with very little to show for it (I went in to treat myself for a Friday meal for 2, came out with not many items and depressingly not enough food to stretch for more than 1 meal). Dutchy organic steaks apparently are £13 a pop - Who knew. Very much reminded myself of living in a shared house and spending £50-100 a week not counting meals/drinks out.
OP it’s be interesting to see a summary of your changes made and perhaps any tools you found helpful? Presume you have solid google sheet for budgeting now, And is there some plan to hit ‘debt freedom’ by a date?
I’d be confident that if debt reduction tactics are maintained beyond that freedom date you’d start to see some of the signs of being wealthy instead. The wealthiest people I know tend to be pretty frugal, if not very organised with their personal finances.
I can certainly attest to food budgets being very fluid. As a student I lived on about £7 a week (pasta......), as a Londoner a standard bought lunch is around £7 a day these days - and can easily be 10-15 if you aren’t cost conscious.
I’ve had sainsburys, waitrose and lidl as my local shop at different times and merely using lidl to its full extent (its a limited range of products which is why they manage to charge less) can drastically reduce food bill. Sunday frozen meal prep for one or two dinner options for the week can make things very cheap - I over-feed me and the wife for probably £1 a day via veggie chillies, curry, pasta/spagbol etc, super easy to do (in fact I pride myself on inventing healthy tasty recipes that are as minimal cooking as possible to minimise time spent doing boring meal prep...).
historically I’ve been on the other end of the scale too - where ‘money no object’ food shopping can get quite out of control. Doing a shop in waitrose recently I filled my basket and hit £100 with very little to show for it (I went in to treat myself for a Friday meal for 2, came out with not many items and depressingly not enough food to stretch for more than 1 meal). Dutchy organic steaks apparently are £13 a pop - Who knew. Very much reminded myself of living in a shared house and spending £50-100 a week not counting meals/drinks out.
OP it’s be interesting to see a summary of your changes made and perhaps any tools you found helpful? Presume you have solid google sheet for budgeting now, And is there some plan to hit ‘debt freedom’ by a date?
I’d be confident that if debt reduction tactics are maintained beyond that freedom date you’d start to see some of the signs of being wealthy instead. The wealthiest people I know tend to be pretty frugal, if not very organised with their personal finances.
I use a Google spreadsheet that I made as it worked out better than any of the templates I tried.
Regarding the loans, I'm aiming to have the lower one paid off this year and the other is looking likely to be the end of next year unless I can manage to use the other loan payments to go into paying that off.
I'll be honest, food shopping is a real struggle for me, I'm still spending anywhere from £60-90/week (includes everything for the house too).
I haven't bought lunch from a shop at all this year and have been making premade lunch every Sunday night which is working out to around £1 a meal.
My council tax in april/may will drop from £314 to (I think) £220.
My wife is amazing as always and will literally ask if it's OK to buy this, buy that so she understands it all (I don't like her doing this by the way, it's just her way of trying to make sure she isn't spending money we don't have)
As I mentioned this morning, I'm not really seeing any ability to put any money away at the moment but it will come.
I still want to sell the house as it winds me up knowing that £1500 is coming out of my account every month just to pay that but even a 3 bed semi would be £1300/month so guess I just have to stick with it.
The job I'm currently in is not a nice environment for various reasons and I'd love to be able to go at it alone but without some start up capital that can't happen so for now I'm just plodding along at work doing what I need to do but hopefully one day I'll be able to set up my own company doing the same thing and if all goes well, I can pay everything off a bit quicker.
Ummm I think I've covered most things?
Once again, thanks to everyone who posted on here to help, I still go through the thread every now and then and it's pretty amazing how cool Internet weirdos can be.
Regarding the loans, I'm aiming to have the lower one paid off this year and the other is looking likely to be the end of next year unless I can manage to use the other loan payments to go into paying that off.
I'll be honest, food shopping is a real struggle for me, I'm still spending anywhere from £60-90/week (includes everything for the house too).
I haven't bought lunch from a shop at all this year and have been making premade lunch every Sunday night which is working out to around £1 a meal.
My council tax in april/may will drop from £314 to (I think) £220.
My wife is amazing as always and will literally ask if it's OK to buy this, buy that so she understands it all (I don't like her doing this by the way, it's just her way of trying to make sure she isn't spending money we don't have)
As I mentioned this morning, I'm not really seeing any ability to put any money away at the moment but it will come.
I still want to sell the house as it winds me up knowing that £1500 is coming out of my account every month just to pay that but even a 3 bed semi would be £1300/month so guess I just have to stick with it.
The job I'm currently in is not a nice environment for various reasons and I'd love to be able to go at it alone but without some start up capital that can't happen so for now I'm just plodding along at work doing what I need to do but hopefully one day I'll be able to set up my own company doing the same thing and if all goes well, I can pay everything off a bit quicker.
Ummm I think I've covered most things?
Once again, thanks to everyone who posted on here to help, I still go through the thread every now and then and it's pretty amazing how cool Internet weirdos can be.
pibby said:
It's weird because I'm still struggling to save any money yet I have fewer outgoings now. I think it's because I'm not at the stage where I'm simply just not spending more than I earn.
It is quite amazing how quickly £4-5K a month pay cheque can disappear these days. Even though we budget like crazy (though with some very unnecessary spends) my monthly pay is all gone by pay day. If my wife wasn't earning an equal amount we would really struggle. Hopefully once the debt is clear you will be in a much stronger position!
Keeping going.
I'm sure a fair few threads are closed on here to stop a simple 'lol' or 'well done' 3/6/12 months down the line, but being locked away in my spare room attempting to get work done during this lock down, the legendary threads on PH are one of the things keeping me entertained.
This one in particular, made me raise a smile as the story developed and the initial despair and anguish slowly turned into positivity and then what appeared to be outright delight.
Stories like this are great for giving perspective and refocusing the mind and efforts.
Of late, we've been slipping into the ready meal territory and a few extravagant purchases despite our monthly income utilised to around 95% (of which probably 30% is debt not including mortgage). I've taken a look on the driveway and in the bank and concluded the debt attached to the car (lovely Golf GTD) doesn't justify itself and after the gates open will be swiftly cleared away and replaced with something along the lines of a 10+ year old Mini Cooper S at around 20% of the price, clearing that debt in its entirety and releasing a fair few hundred £ each month, which in turn will accelerate clearing the remaining debt at a faster rate.
Seems there is a great network on here for people offering honest, open and constructive help, sprinkled with a diamond here and there (last weeks read was the '3 week swimming pool' thread, which took me around 10% of 3 weeks to read through itself!
This one in particular, made me raise a smile as the story developed and the initial despair and anguish slowly turned into positivity and then what appeared to be outright delight.
Stories like this are great for giving perspective and refocusing the mind and efforts.
Of late, we've been slipping into the ready meal territory and a few extravagant purchases despite our monthly income utilised to around 95% (of which probably 30% is debt not including mortgage). I've taken a look on the driveway and in the bank and concluded the debt attached to the car (lovely Golf GTD) doesn't justify itself and after the gates open will be swiftly cleared away and replaced with something along the lines of a 10+ year old Mini Cooper S at around 20% of the price, clearing that debt in its entirety and releasing a fair few hundred £ each month, which in turn will accelerate clearing the remaining debt at a faster rate.
Seems there is a great network on here for people offering honest, open and constructive help, sprinkled with a diamond here and there (last weeks read was the '3 week swimming pool' thread, which took me around 10% of 3 weeks to read through itself!
Floydey said:
I've taken a look on the driveway and in the bank and concluded the debt attached to the car (lovely Golf GTD) doesn't justify itself and after the gates open will be swiftly cleared away and replaced with something along the lines of a 10+ year old Mini Cooper S at around 20% of the price, clearing that debt in its entirety and releasing a fair few hundred £ each month, which in turn will accelerate clearing the remaining debt at a faster rate.
Good plan but something like a Mini Cooper S isn't a cheap runner. I had a 2003 Cooper S JCW good car to drive but loads of issues. It was so bad that 2 separate owners that had it after me saw my number on an invoice and rang me up to talk about it's problems, 2 years and 6 years later. The later Turbo engine has it's issues also. Gassing Station | Finance | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff