Unfortunately
many families across the UK have money problems and sadly live a hand to mouth
existence. A recent report by the
Children’s Society and debt charity StepChange, featured on the Wilson Field blog, highlighted the financial pressure families across the UK have to deal
with.
According
to the worrying report one in five UK families are struggling with financial
issues and over one million families are suffering from ‘problem debt’, where
they are at behind with at least one bill or credit payment. Sadly the report also highlighted the fact
that many families are taking out loans and debt for basic living costs such as
food and heating. Matthew Reed, Chief
Executive of the Children’s Society, said “Families are increasingly
relying on debt as a way to make ends meet – but we’re in danger of ignoring
the impact this is having on children now and in the future.” The report also looked at the impact financial
pressure and debt has on children, with many children from families with money
problems suffering from anxiety and being bullied at school.
As Wilson
Field realise how easy it can be to fall into debt especially for people
already struggling financially, Wilson Field want to raise awareness of
financial issues and the strategies to manage financial problems. Wilson Field, who offer personal debt advice
to help you get your finances organised, have teamed up with a number of family
bloggers, including myself, on their #SpendingDiary campaign.
For the
Wilson Field #SpendingDiary campaign I will be keeping a spending diary to
record our family finances with a little help from this useful financial pack from
Wilson Field, consisting of The Wealth Chef by Ann Wilson, a Budget Book and a Shopping List/Meal Planner notepad.

Even
though I already keep track of our finances I must admit I do tend to focus on
the big spending, the bills and regular outgoing, forgetting the little bits of
money that quickly add up that we spend here and there without thinking about
it or calculating it into our financial budget.
Thanks to the #SpendingDiary campaign I will now no longer be
overlooking the pocket-change spending as I will be using the Budget Book to keep an
eye on our day-to-day spending.

I will
also be attempting to manage our spending and hopefully cut back a little and
save some money on our food bill by using the handy shopping list pad. Hopefully by utilising a meal planner I will
lower our food bill as I will only be buying what is listed on the planner rather
than grabbing whatever I fancy when shopping, which often means my shopping bill mounts up.

Also I will
be reading The Wealth Chef and hopefully be picking up a few useful tips that I
can utilise to cut back on our spending and manage our money better so that we
live a comfortable life, without the dark shadows of debt and financial issues
burdening us.

Hopefully
over the course of a month as I keep our #SpendingDiary I will learn to manage
our finances a little better. Hopefully
by using a few simple methods to manage our money I will be able to keep on top
of our finances which in turn will hopefully mean our money stretches further
allowing us to get the most out of our limited budget and live a little better,
hopefully save a little money and move further away from the sheer drop to debt
that we have been teetering on for months.
You can
keep track of my progress on Twitter using the hashtag #SpendingDiary where you
will also see how all the other bloggers in the campaign are getting on. I will be reporting back at the end of the
#SpendingDiary campaign to let you know how we got on, whether that be good or
bad…..but hopefully, fingers crossed it will be good news and we will be able
to say we are managing our finances well.
* Wilson
Field kindly sent us the products to utilise during the #SpendingDiary campaign
*
No comments:
Post a Comment