To be struggling on 3k per month?

your parents shouldn’t have this idea of your finances unless you’re asking them for help and you’re getting it.
I earn v similar but get £600 child maintenance , do you? Until recently child maintenance was less than half of nursery fees, now nursery is subsidized I try to save £500 a month. The money pits for me are babysitters and ordering deliveroo (often for groceries when I can’t go out for them) and buying things like juice for £2.50 and coffe for myself for £4 when out and about wit my child. Things like dying my hair and Botox 3x a year are v expensive too. I would cancel sky and change to Netflix etc if I were you that’s a big saving. Also check your phone bill might be due to be decreased! With two kids there’s a chance you might be eligible for a little bit on universal credit which can meal you access other things like days out v cheaply

You need to work out where the other £1500 is going.

On that income you should manage but its not a huge income, you can't afford to spend willy nilly.

I find this is important too. If you have absolutely no money for a bit of frivolous spending you end up giving up proper budgetting. We have a 'no accountability or explanation required' budget that gets spent on anything we fancy without having to justify it. It doesn't even have to be very big. Just there.

OP you've got to stop with the 'I don’t think I am very good with money and quite frivolous'. You must have a decent job that clear 3k so I'd assume you're bright enough to handle input ££ not exceeding output ££.

I filed in this budget planner and I was shocked how much I wasn't taking account of. It's a good place to start.

But life is expensive and you've got to tailor your life to what you can afford now, not what you want & not what you used to be able to afford 5 years ago.

Why is your car insurance so expensive? What do you drive & what's your weekly mileage?

Phone - even if you're on it constantly, there's a better contracts than that surely. Are you also paying for a phone or whatever in that?

Also, get a water meter fitted.

Have you shopped around for the best tariffs for your electricity?
Do you pack food when you go out, or do you buy food out?
Clothes, drinks, coffee, days out?
Do you drive a lot? Parking?
Phone bill seems high, and could you swap Sky with Netflix?

You are not unreasonable. The cost of living is ridiculous and my husband and I get a good amount between us (not saying how much due to haters)

Why do your parents have any input, are you asking them for money? Mine would not have a clue what I have left at the end of a month.

Agree with all of the above.

Lots of great advice.

Maybe to make it easier.

Look back at your last 2 months bank statements. This is key.

Cos like people are saying there is £700 unaccounted for.

Work out where that £700 is going.

Probs use a spreadsheet with your expenses for the last 2 months.

But that £7000 that's isn't accounted for is key. And ypu need to work out if those spends can be cut or not.

I have the same problem OP, living adds up. I'm looking forward to when I can take the kids off the books, and then I will be well off. Only another 11 years to go.

That’s approx 2500/month, 500 left a month isn’t loads but depends on the size of your household.

I’ve always found that separating out that money and letting myself have it weekly makes it easier to control. Even now in my 40s I’d just smash through that really quickly. Different accounts or pots for different things are really helpful to me.

Hey @Strictlyskinti would say that’s quite a lot on food pw for three ppl unless the dc are teens.

Phones is a lot too. How many phones is that? I pay less than that pm for five phones, inc one with unlimited data. Lots of good SIM only deals.

Car insurance seems high so I’d shop around at least. Maybe you do tho ofc.

Petrol is also high (more than me! And I drive 1000 miles pm just to get to work and back) but I guess that is your commute.

£70 for Sky seems a lot too, would another stream be cheaper?

As others say, there’s still a good deal left. Where’s it going? Try logging it for a fortnight.

£3k take home is a good salary but if you are on your own it’s not vast riches so ignore parental jibes

Same situation, im touching 3k a month and its silly, i feel i should be fine. I have spent the past yr reducing outgoings etc and here i am a month out from christmas again. I don't understand what im doing wrong each month i sit down go through everything, plan the month etc and boom no money

How are you defining frivolous though. A nice haircut is not the same as eating expensive take outs each night and a coffee on a long commute isn't the same as going for lunch at an expensive wine bar everyday. None of those are essential expenditure but they can be seen differently.

What about using Netflix instead of sky. And maybe cooking some meals that you could eat over a week?

My husband earns £3.3k a month after tax and our mortgage was £750 but we overpaid most months. We paid it off in January. We have two teenagers (nearly 15 and one who's just turned 18 but still in FT education, doing his A-Levels), I don't work. We've taken the kids to nearly 60 countries and 20 US states, had a two storey extension and paid off the mortgage. 5 weeks in Asia is usually cheaper than 2 weeks in Spain, Greece or Turkey in the 6 week holidays. Even going to places like Japan and South Korea.

We don't have pets, or Sky, and have scrimped on things, but we've had a good life on that wage. You really need to see where your money is really going.

I need to do it too because we we told ourselves that we would crack on saving now that the mortgage is paid off and we barely have. We've blown a lot of money on takeaways. We've saved less than what we would have spent on mortgage payments. Mindless spending is so easily done 😬

Sky not sly!

I don't think you are overspending. £150 per week is about right for food and toiletries.

I’d definitely shop around for some of that - gas and electric, phone, Sky and water all look higher than they should be and you may be able to switch provider or find a cheaper deal. Or get on a water meter, potentially (but do some research). Car insurance looks quite high - is it a valuable car? Does it include breakdown cover?

Personally, I don’t think you would have loads left. You haven’t accounted for kids’ clothes/shoes, school lunches if they have them, kids’ clubs, any wraparound care you need, car breakdown cover/service/MOT, haircuts, setting aside money each month for home maintenance, for birthdays and Christmas, or holidays….. That is a good salary but as the lone adult earner it won’t go far. So ignore your parents.

Do you receive maintenance? Child benefit?

In your position, I’d be setting up a standing order to save a fixed amount each month, possibly in more than one account to allow for different pots. Maybe one for birthdays and Christmas, and a separate one for car and home maintenance. Do it so it goes out on the first of the month and try not to touch it. If you get to the end of the month, there’s never anything left to save! I’d work out what you would like to spend or be able to spend on these things, divide it by 12, and have that as a short term savings goal. Even a small amount will really help.

Yes that is huge.

For us it's around 500 a year.
4 people

There isn't really anything you could cut here apart from Sly. £70 is quite a lot. However, it may be something that's important to you as a family. Could you get rid of the phone line and just have a mobile?

You’ve answered your own question. Stop being frivolous.

So maybe your parents have a point. How are you going to address it? There's no point in just throwing your hands up saying I'm not good with money and I'm frivolous. As a parent I would be frustrated watching you.

That is banking app not baking app. But maybe a baking app can help too😂

I think putting some time aside (easier said than done but think of this as time for your better future), and get stuck into dave ramsey (ignore the USA churchy elements where they creep in if you can), and Rebel finance school (watch 1.5x time speed on youtube and start at the beginning and work through). Both of these are free and both have good uk based facebook support groups too.

In the meantime martin lewis has some great budget docs for free download - I don't see anything in your budget for things like cat vets fees/treatments, haircuts, clothes, kids clubs, home repairs to name just a few.

Having a bank account like monzo where I can allocate each month to 'pots' really helped me sort my money out too.

You can also (if you're feeling brave) paste your last 3 bank statements into chapgpt and ask it to catagorise your spending - that'll help with your 'where is it going' question.

Don't take notice of parents making you feel bad. You haven't got car maintenance or servicing or even tax, children clubs or clothes, vet or insurance, day out, take aways, coffees, presents, and other plenty of things. You need to look at everything. Any loans or cards?
The good news is you have enough income and low enough housing costs to sort this out by just getting organised and setting budgets. There's plenty of help out there to do this, even your baking app will help.
Bin the guilt and external critism and work to find some peace of mind by sticking to budgets.

I was having a similar issue. Where was my money going.
I downloaded an excel of my last years spending from my bank.
Then I went though it line by line catagorising everything. Food, going out. Clothes. Toiletries. Days out. Travel. Petrol
Then did a pivot of what I was spending.
I was way over spending on food and days out.
I thought i was spending 500 on food. Turns out it was over 1000 eacb month with trips to the local shop and sweets etc.
You need to analyse your spending line by line and work it out.
I also added up all the tiny uneccessary monthly payments bits, natural history museum membership of 6 quid a month, spotify £10, sleep app £7 - these added up to over 250 a month.
I have since cancelled everything and put stricter budgets in place. Also started lookimg for bargains and bulk buys, like bulk buying tinned tomatoes on amazon and going to lidl rather than the easy sainos express shop at the end of the road.@
Its the little tiny bits that add up the 6 quid here and there for a coffee or a subscription, you think its only 6 quid so ignore it. But 6 x 20 is 120 quid gone on little tiny 6 quids.
Ive started parking further away from the shopping centre too as realised parking was about 50 a month which I could save by walking 5 minutes.
In all since doing all of this I have saved about 1000 a month on unnecessary spending. Which was all my disposable income that I was wondering where in earth it was going.