How to save money

Also if you don’t need it lose it. Subscriptions, sky, expensive contracts for phones. Ditch it all.

Can you post your budget Op?
Easier for posters to suggest where you can cut back

I say this time and time again. The only way to get yourself out of debt is to work more hours. An evening job working behind a bar, care work, cleaning.

when we were young and struggling, DH came home and I went to work full time on top of my part time day hours. If your children are little they won’t remember you not being there after bed.

Okay so have you written down every penny of income?

And every penny of expenditure in the last month or so? So you can see where you're spending?

You need to take a print out of a month or twos bank statements, highlight the NEEDS. Eg. Mortgage, bills, childcare.

Then you go through and highlight the WANTS eg. The daily lunch or weekly takeaway.

Then you need to look at things you might not realise - like top up shops at the supermarket adding £50 here or there or unused subscriptions. If there's any subscriptions you can cancel, try to call up your tv provider or internet provider to leave - they might offer a discount or it might need to be cancelled to be a saving.

Then you need to look at things you can economise - is your supermarket shopping super high? Can you swap things out, find cheaper items, find cheaper fuel that sort of thing. Are you able to sell anything you've got? Like unused toys / clothes / home bits? A quick cash influx could be helpful.

It's easy to look at the top and bottom numbers in your bank account and not realise how much is being eaten up by the little transactions!

Your husband should also not be buying lunch every day. Both of you should work as a team. If you don't have enough money, he needs to share with you.

As a tip - do you have a desk/locker to store things? I keep belvita biscuits/rice cakes/nice tea in mine which stops me getting a cappuccino and a croissant.

If the money is in savings - which you can move back in seconds - it stops you from over spending.

It sounds like your main problem is not having a food budget and sticking to a weekly shop. Do that and meal plans. Once the snacks are gone for the week they’re gone.

Have you had a sit down chat with your DH and looked at money together?

Is he also spending more than he earns? Or is he building savings whilst you use inheritance?

One area where you can definitely save a bit is to look at all of the direct debits coming out of both your accounts. Can you get a cheaper deal on internet? Or electricity? Are there any direct debits you're paying where you are no longer using the service?

It might also be worth considering whether there is any way you could work when DH is home? That way there would be no childcare costs so there is more "profit" from working.

@Beezknees , this poster isn't yet able to save, what she needs to do is spend less than she has coming in every month

OP, this means ruthless budgeting.
This is the amount we need for bills, mortgage, food, petrol. Don't forget to save a sum for shoes, clothes and Christmas and birthdays. And other annual bills like insurance. So we need £yyyyy

We will have £x left over for fun this month. This means we can only spend £x. This might be £5, or£20, or some lucky months even more

Don't get into debt over a meal deal every day and a takeaway once a week.

I've saved about £100 a month since I stopped buying lunch out on office days.

I've also cut back on paid days out and have got better at using vouchers/finding free events.

Do you have a specific goal? We do (moving costs/legal fees) so that makes it easier to focus the mind and say "nope I don't need this cute knick knack/new top" and put it back.

Is it you personally who is spending too much, or does your DH have money left? All of those expenses should be joint expenses, not you pay for this, I'll pay for that. Or if you must do it that way, he could do with taking some stuff from you to pay for.

Look at what your eldest is eating - filling up on bread/toast is cheaper than many other things. We’ve had words with our teen boys thinking they can have a fourth meal of cooked chicken etc.

Lunch everyday is a huge amount of money, £5 a day x 5 = £25, x4 weeks =£100.
Buy bread and sliced meat and a bag of apples, no more than £5 a week

I couldn't afford to save when DS was younger. If you can't, you can't.

You could shop around and see if you could get cheaper broadband/energy deals.

I had to wait until the childcare years were over until I could save anything.

Move money straight into your savings but leave yourself a set amount for bills and then give yourself a limit for day to day spending.

Have no spend days.

Allocate a budget for everything after regular bills and stick to it - so a takeaway budget, holiday budget, clothes budget etc. I bet you’ll find you’re spending way more than you think on some things.