A grand a month- reasonable?

[NellieBee]

Hi MNers,

We've made a plan with our finances which, for the next 2 years, will leave us with exactly £1,000 a month leftover. (This is after following all advice on here to get utilities cheapest they can be, etc).

Can we cope on this? I know families manage on less but I am feeling quite anxious about it.

We are a family of 4.

It will need to cover:

-All food
-School lunches
-Petrol (this is about 2-300 a month)
-Clothes
-Birthdays
-Christmas
-Pets (guinea pigs and cats)
-After school clubs
-Any extras

All advice appreciated, thank you.

If you can get rid of the variables then it will be easier to think about practicalities. Budget the max amount for petrol, does the child on packed lunch take the same everyday? How much does that cost a week when items are not on offer. Put a limit on spending per birthday.

We do it, well, we do £250 per week to include food/petrol/incidental weekly spending like out for drinks, bits for the kids, make up, etc.

But we also do a big toiletry/washing powder etc shop at the start of the month so we don't have too many highly priced items coming out of the weekly food shop and we take money out for birthdays, swimming lessons etc at the start of the month too.

It's doable, but tight, if you could make it around £1200 I think it would be easier.

I do very much doubt this family needs TWO cars!grin

Your reading comprehension is shit if you think that.

I do very much doubt this family needs TWO cars

Well quite. They're just being lazy and indulgent, nothing at all about working in completely the opposite direction, school drop offs, one of them making multiple trips about during the working day, both of them having company cars that they are unlikely to be able to give up cheaply or easily and this being a relatively short term plan would justify them having, horror or horrors, more than ONE car at all does it .

What planet are people on? Where is this public transport that can practically be used to facilitate what is a perfectly normal lifestyle for many people. There may be large urban areas where it would be possible to do day to day work/school/errands on public transport and it may even be quicker/cheaper/easier, but it's far from the norm in many places.

I don’t think it would be doable for us. Can you extend your debt free plan to 36 months? I would be worried about the cycle of having things be very tight for 26 months to the point big emergencies had to go on a credit card, incurring more debt... is give myself more breathing space by having a longer plan.

Good work for creating a plan

Claire they travel two different ways to work, dropping kids off on the way and one of them needs the car during the day for work purposes.

two cars might be necessary, but I doubt it, it is unlikely to be. After all, most families wouldn't even have the option of affording two, would they? and it might be that this family can't realistically either.

I know a lot of people who assure me they can't do without their cars, when what they mean is they are accustomed to the luxury of it, and don't want to spend the time walking, when they very easily could.

The OP has not said how far away her child's school is, or her own school, or whether there is a bus service

The OP might not want to do without her car, that's her choice. But realistically, she probably could.

Are either of your cars worth much? Would it be worth selling one, putting the cash in instant access savings and getting a small eco car on PCP? The extra savings would give you a safety net over the next 2 years and, despite the monthly pcp payment, you would have lower running and maintenance costs for that car.

Agree with a PP - I work in a school and lots of teachers do extra tuition. Could you do this a couple of times a week OP?

Realistically she probably could do without her car?

On what information are you basing that?

I think it's very tight and how are you going to cope when you have to pay out an expected bill (car being fixed etc). I don't think you've got enough flexibility. if you start going into debt, you won't have enough to pay it off.

It's definitely doable. We manage on about £1400 a month including rent & bills, we don't have a car though & we're a family of 3. If possible, try to:

Reduce debt, especially credit cards etc. Prioritise paying iff the highest interest rate things first. If necessary, look for zero interest rate deals & switch balances over if you can't clear debts in time. Don't use store cards.
Meal plan & batch cook. Freeze in individual & family sized portions, label everything with a date & what it is. I use freezer bags which I place inside a plastic food box, fill it & freeze. Pull the bag out & voila - regular shaped bricks of frozen food & you've not had to buy 3000 plastic boxes which permanently live in the freezer.
Eat less meat. Eggs are cheaper, pulses are cheaper still if you cook them youself.
I use Pinterest to collect ideas for easy & cheap meals, money saving tips etc.
Good sites to look at:
www.moneysavingexpert.com
www.thriftylesley.com
cookingonabootstrap.com/category/blog/

There's also facebook groups - feed youself for £1 a day, etc.
Look for free things to do locally - family fun days, events, national museums, etc

If you live in / near the countryside - a weekend walk at this time of year could result in a bounty of blackberries. Take a couple of large freezer bags, bramble jam is easy to make (I strain the seeds out with a plastic jam seive before adding other fruit as i find it just too seedy, personally). Cheap jam.

The OP might not want to do without her car, that's her choice. But realistically, she probably could. But she's said she can't Banana, so there's no reason to disbelieve her.

I live in a small village without any public transport save for 1 bus once a week on a Saturday morning. My job is not walking distance away, there's no way I could manage without my car unless I want to start cycling down the A1. Which I really don't.

Look at what your spending on.

Eg. School lunches. How much are they, do your children need them? How much does a decent sensible packed cost and is that cheaper than a school meal.

How much is your food bill? Are you getting quick easy to cook foods, snacks for on the go as your lifestyle are busy? Can you meal plan? Batch cook?

We have 2 whiteboards on our fridge. One is for the meals for the week and one if for shopping list.
For example I may buy something like mice and it makes enough for 2 meals. So next week when spag Bol is on the menu I've already got the Bolognese and don't need to buy those ingredients. Same for bags of veg/chips etc. Is it worth investing in a slow cooker and preparing before you go out of if kids are at clubs or someone works late it isn't costing more to come in and eat a meal.

The petrol is eating into a huge amount of your allowance and this will affect things. Any chance you can arrange all the ferrying about to cut down on journeys? Eg car share/ alternate lifts with others at club etc.

Well to be fair, I can walk to work nealy as fast as it takes on the bus, but it's a 17 mile round trip, over two very big hills.

I also travel country wide with an estate car full of equipment. I could easily pack it all in a massive suitcase and go on the train, but typically a 2-3 hour jouney would take about 5 hours instead. But I'm just being lazy aren't I.

Perhaps in the London bubble where families spend all their money on housing and DCs travel for free on excellent public transport it will be rare to find a family with two cars, but in most of the country, it's an absolute necessicity, if you want to get anything done at all except wait around for buses that might not come for an hour or two.

Both the OP and her DH have work provided cars. SO they can't sell them but aren't at the mercy of repair bills, or tax, insurance or MOTs.

It can be a cost effective way of running a reliable car. I'd say the only way to do it cheaper is to drive a very cheap car and hope you are lucky with repair costs, but start having to replace anything expensive, and the company car with its fixed cost and good reliability starts to look like a winner. You are also protected from annoying your employer by not being able to work due to car trouble.

This has been my budget for the last 4 years, before that it was £700 a month and yes, its do-able. It does comes with sacrifices though. We have had very lean Christmasses which was fine until DS1 was a bit older and one year he did look a bit disappointed which was heartbreaking.

At the end of the day though it is only for two years. My best advice is meal plan and buy all clothes in the sale. Me and DH also made a pact not to buy each other gifts too which made a difference.

Sorry, missed the bit about the cars being company cars . That's good.

Yes you can.

I manage on £700 a month and that includes 2 Ocado shops a month.

(But no petrol)

Thanks everyone.

I've explained about our cars a few times now so I'm not going to repeat myself or justify it, but in a nutshell: the cars and petrol costs are not going to change.

DC hate school dinners so would be happy to switch to packed lunches but they're not much cheaper with the stuff they like!

We've been meal planning and switched to Aldi a few weeks ago and it's making a big difference.

We definitely could extend the plan, i.e to 36 months instead of 24 and have more money a month, but I was hoping to essentially be skint for as short as time as possible then debt free.

On what information are you basing that?

on the knowledge that most people who say they can't do without their cars actually can, ( most, not all)

lots of people who think they need cars, then lose them, actually find they do fine without. Some adjustments have to be made, sure, but a car is not a right, nor is it something you can realistically depend on always having.

living on a tighter budget, medical reasons, legal reasons, accidents, theft, etc all can lead to loss of a car

You can rely on a car every day of your life, and lose the right to drive for medical reasons within 24 hours, with no warning, or find its been stolen or damaged, or you lose your licence for a traffic infringement...

all these things happen, and people have to cope! and they generally do.

its just a lifestyle choice in many cases. Although people SEE it as vital, if they lose it they often find they can manage.

and the right to own private cars belong to a bigone age, now, it will be significantly less common in the future. There will be adjustments!

It’s definitely doable but it will be a challenge. Set aside £50 a month for Christmas and birthdays (we also used to hoard all our club card vouchers for a big Christmas shop - if you buy all your petrol from Tesco the points will soon add up). Keep the petrol money in a separate account and what ever you have left after that is your monthly budget. Set aside £10 a week for treats and then spend according to what you have left.

All the usual advice applies too, batch cook from scratch, make sandwiches and coffee at home, use Lidl’s and Morrison’s not Ocado etc.

We used

For example I may buy something like mice and it makes enough for 2 meals.

I am never coming to yours for dinner @youarenotkiddingme

@extinctspecies, is that for two adults and two children? If so, any tips on meals etc? I'm spending more than I'd like to and suspect our food shop is a big culprit.

I've explained about our cars a few times now so I'm not going to repeat myself or justify it, but in a nutshell: the cars and petrol costs are not going to change.

see, its a personal choice, OP knows she can manage without, but doesn't want to.

That's up to her, but obviously it is a source of savings if she chose to manage without