Overspending please help

Someone has inserted a second child into this thread and posters are just going along with it.

OP has only one - a son.

Your budget is not detailed enough at all @SunConure. Needs more of a breakdown.
do you have a car?
house insurance?
life insurance?
haircuts?
subscriptons?
gifts?

Hi. I understand what you mean about having a cleaner and it reducing your stress, as I when I let mine go, i cried!!!! 😆 But I just couldn't justify it any more. Bin the pet insurance, and put the £100 a month into a savings account. You could pay all.those premiums and never need it. It's a con. Go through your direct debits and standing orders and be ruthless. .you need to sort the phone. Giffgaff..£8/month, no brainer

🤣🤣 Oh yes a person facing job loss should first think about the livelihood of their cleaner

Is there not a charity you could access therapy through if not on the NHS? £360 is ALOT, but MH is important.

I think even with the cleaner £280 is a lot - how often/how many hours is she cleaning. Again id sack her rather than generate debt BUT if it helped my MH I might see if I could use her less or shop around for a better rate.

Selling or renting the holiday home sounds a good idea too. As does adding the loan to your mortgage.. it may be worth speaking to a financial adviser

For two people and a pet this is very high. In short, medical costs aside I'd suggest you are still living as though you are still in a highly paid job full time.

£50 a month pocket money and another £50 is not extortionate for a teenage boy. Is it worth having a conversation about cutting the cleaners hours and sharing some of the savings if he/she is difficult to motivate?

If you are seeing a therapist - cut back by 50%. It doesn't have to be forever, just until the house in France is rented.

If the internet is to be believed, everyone in the USA wants to emigrate right now and they can visit for up to 90 days on a holiday visa. Rent it out and be careful to set the rent appropriately if they will expect a local mgmt company to sort any maintenance issues. I generalise but they don't seem terribly low maintenance in their expectations and you don't want to make it more stressful. What is interesting is that if American's leave the Schengen area [which UK is not part of] for 90 days, then can go back for another 90 before having to leave fully. So if you found the right candidates, you could rent France out until school hols and spend the summer in France and swap over. If you haven't heard the term digital nomad, look it up.

£500 on food is high for two people especially if eating out too. Is that a lot of Deliveroo? If it is, then I'd do some calculations and if you are spending £200 on pizzas every month for a teenage boy and visiting friends then I'd load the freezer up with nice ones instead. You'll still save a fortune and they'll only have to wait 20 mins. Bonus, you teach a teenager to be a bit more useful.

Look at how much food is being wasted if a lot of that is fresh food. Plan your meals or shop on the day only. A bag of salad here and there in the bin doesn't feel like much but clean out your fridge today and work out how much you'd bin by the end of the week if you don't eat it all by supermarket day.

Is your freezer loaded? Start an economy drive and work through it. Mission full defrost commence :) You want nothing but ice and vodka in there by July [except pizzas obviously] so you can swan off to France for a nice holiday and continued recovery.

I don't think you should reduce your therapy until the redundancy/job search/settling into new job are over. If your mental health takes a dive, everything else you do will be very hard to manage and you're about to go through a stressful patch.

I would also try and hang onto that holiday home, if the thought of a beautiful place to retire makes daily life feel more worthwhile. It sounds like you do not currently have much opportunity to use it. You could rent it as a holiday let, but each tenancy carries damage risk and cleaning costs. Have you considered long term renting to someone who actually lives in the area

I don’t think community larders are (or should be) intended for people who own a holiday home and spend £280 a month on a cleaner.

Cook mostly vegetarian/vegan food. Get a decent modern cookbook like one of Anna Jones's. That will make a huge difference to your food bill. Also, no to Waitrose. Only buy what you know you will eat, I bet you are wasting loads.

I'd cut out the cleaner, but if you don't want to do that then you need to cut all the treats, concerts, meals out whatever. Your child doesn't need new clothes all the time, that can be cut too

Apologies - I thought it was £500 a week!

I disagree about not selling the holiday home at a “loss”. If theres no mortgage on it you are getting the market value - and markets change. People get hung up on what they paid for a property not what it is worth now. Let’s say you paid £200k but now it’s only worth £150k. That means you get 150k that you currently dont have access to and protect that money or spend as you need to. A home sat empty, incurring upkeep costs isn’t the investment you might think it is.

For just two people??

Phones, medical bills, cleaner and holiday home can be cut. Thing is, you have a cleaner to reduce stress and therapy to do a similar thing, but surely going over budget by £500 is far more stressful? I could really do with therapy or a weekly massage but not spending the money is the better option currently.

I don't actually think £500 for food is that much. That's about the amount I spend, and it just pays for basic, healthy food without any expensive bits and bobs.

The good news is, you have so many unnecessary things that you can cut out that you should end up with some spare money to spend on nice things.

Ignore everyone who is saying drop the cleaner if they help support your mh.

I am sure you can make savings on phones and food.

And agree that French holiday homes can take six months to a year or more to sell. But you could start the process? ´

Can you car share to work? Make any extra income with a side hustle? Have a lodger? Pt job at weekends or evenings?

To be fair, I don’t think she wants sympathy. The OP has come back and thanked everyone for being brutal so not like she’s whining “oh poor me” or batting away suggestions

Champagne lifestyle on dinner lady wages. You need to cut your cloth obviously.

I agree - and the work it took to get out of my phone contact that I had before!

Im never having one again

Contrary to what others are saying - are you sure that you've actually captured all your costs?

Even without a mortgage, I'm very surprised your French house costs you so little - ours costs around 3x this a month (and also no mortgage). What about taxes?

I think you need to sit down properly with a spreadsheet and work out your real costs. There is little point trying to budget if you don't know your true spending.

You can’t be serious? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I have no sympathy at all for you.

Op I'm going to be blunt. You don't mention saving or pension in your outgoings. But do mention decorating the house, restaurants and generally living a typical middle class lifestyle. You need to get the mindset in place now that you can't do it.

You need to reset and be pretty brutal...can you cancel the phones I mean £55 each. I'm on a SIM only deal for less than £7 a month.

Food. Bugger Tesco, try Lidl and or Aldi....look at money saving expert for tips on this
Don't eat out...if you must spoons
The cleaner goes
Don't redecorate or spend on anything new for the house, make do and mend

Act as if you're on the dole, having never had a good job. Your list of what you spend is good, now set up a spreadsheet and everything you spend, every cup of coffee you write down as you spend it and you will see how much you can do without

Can you reduce the cleaner rather than bin off altogether?
When are the phone contracts up? Because sim only contracts are a fraction of the amount you are paying. (Mine is Lebara and is £6 a month)
Meal plan, huge savings to be made on your supermarket shopping.
Also although not on your list taking a packed lunch not buying from the school canteen for Ds, and you if you tend to buy lunch when out and taking a coffee in a thermal cup rather than buying whilst out is a fairly easy win that can add up to significant amounts of money.
Agree try and get some kind of income from the holiday home if selling it isn't an option.
Go through your spending with a fine tooth comb, it's boring and takes ages, but really shines a light on the almost daily small purchases from Amazon, or the meal deal from Tesco or the 13th streaming service that you seem to have signed up to. (Or whatever frivolous things your family spends/wastes money on)

I don’t have lots of spare money so I don’t go to restaurants often, my house is decorated and will stay as is and I clean it myself, I rarely buy clothes unless they need replacing and haven’t had a holiday since 2019.

Cut your coat according to your cloth.

£500 a month for isnt very much for a family
I'd keep the cleaner,they need the money.
Could you let your holiday home? That would bring in a great income.