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.

It's either the car police or the wine police on here these days.

Most of us who live rurally can not use public transport because it has been cut drastically. We do not all live on or work on a bus route. Everyone over 17 needs to drive a car in my family or go nowhere till they leave home.

I'm sure it can be done - and would probably be fun for a while - but the novelty would wear off for me pretty quickly. I do admire you for it though. I think I'd need some reward money or a box with cheap treat ideas written on - fakeaways (being rural we very rarely have takeaways), themed night with a movie (again, cinema is at least 10 miles away so we don't spend on that), pretend camping in the sitting room with the tent up to inject a bit of cheap fun.

When the era of private car ownership ends, people will no longer be living the sort of lives that require private car ownership. But the unfortunate fact is that there are people who are now, and they will need to make considerable adjustments. Meanwhile, OP is concerned with the next couple of years, ie not with the time when private car ownership is likely to end, and given that you have no idea where she lives and no idea what is on offer locally, your assumptions are of no use. FWIW I'm a non driver, and would rather shit in my hands and clap than be in a position where driving was an essential part of life.

OP I completely understand the desire to get debt free as soon as possible but do you get that without a bit of savings, it's possible you'll take even longer? What would happen if eg youn eeded a new washing machine?

My god! Family of 5 here ... would bloody kill for that much a month left over!

We have a company car so it just costs us petrol. For DH to get public transport to work would cost 2 x more and take 3 x as long. So no, we don’t need a car in the sense that we could technically do without, but we’d be time and cash poorer.

Oh and DH is required by his company to have a car (hence them providing it) so he’s also need to find a new job.

Agree with what someone said about Christmas can be as cheap or expensive as you want - same with birthdays, clothes and even food to some extent. I get all my clothes 2nd hand / TK Max and get frequent compliments on my outfits. All my kids clothes were 2nd hand until DS1 got into his teens. Buy things likes shoes in sales and keep till they fit. Re food; I buy almost all my meat / fish from the discount shelf in the supermarket and just stick in in the freezer until I want it. I don't agree that managing like this is 'miserable' at all, I don't feel hard-up, I feel very comfortable. Which I am compared with most people in the world. It's all relative and depends on your mindset.

We're in the South East. In the sixth form dd1's travel was £7.20 a day return - and that's a while ago, she's 24 now. Plus the 1.5mile walk to the bus stop down a dangerous road with no footpath, no lighting and no phone signal, the fact there are only 2 buses home 2 hours apart. The times fit in with schools, not work. No weekend buses, taxi to nearest town £25 each way. Yep, think I'll stick to my car.

Claire where roughly do you live? As in, town, city or rural?

I live rurally. My children do a 15 mile trip each way to school. On a school bus they leave the house at 7.35am and that gets them to school at 9.05. They do the same to come home. That is IT for buses where I live.

I could not do my job if I didnt' have my car - I would have to get a taxi that costs £20 home every evening. There is no bus and no one else from work goes my way (I have asked and explored the possibility of a car share). It's too far to cycle, I have physical disablities and it's on rural unlit roads.

If I didn't have my car I'd have to move (? where to who would pay the cost of that and what about my kids at school etc and the value of family support) and I'd have to make my ex their primary carer as I could not meet their needs.

I'd be interested to know where Clairetree1 lives and whether she has a life outside the home.

Your view that you know better than the OP whether she needs a car is just weird and you obviously have zero concept of what life is like for those who don't live in cities with good public transport.

Sure, maybe I could do without a car but I wouldn't then be able to have a job to support my DC and they would literally be stuck in the house after school, we have a part time bus service - 1 bus per hour, 1 route, no amenities other than a pub within walking distance, no bus service to the doctor's surgery - you have no idea of life outside your bubble.

I think your budget is doable OP, I'd cut the birthdays and Christmas for 2 years, explain to your DC, don't buy presents for any adults or family

I have a car, and I drink wine. It's totally doable OP.

I'd spend much more on wine if I had to walk two under 10 year old kids, 40 mins each way to school every day.

eBay is your friend come Christmas/birthdays. And getting stuff throughout the year and storing, rather than last minute. My kids are small so it is easier to manage their expectations. Might be more difficult with older kids. But then older kids can handle the knowledge that the family is making choices about what they have in the short term, for long term benefit. It's a bloody great life lesson.

With the packed lunches for the kids you said ‘it won’t be much cheaper with the kind of stuff they like’. That made me think 2 things:

• it will be cheaper though and on this new budget every penny counts. So that 50p less a meal will soon add up and every month you are under £1k you pay that debt off quicker/have more for Xmas.
• lunch isn’t a treat. They should be expecting their ideal lunch everyday. They should have things they hate but a bog standard lunch is fine (every day lunch isn’t a special occasion). Sandwich, (reusable bottle of) water, piece of fruit (satsuma, banana or apple) and then let them specify 1 other thing.

Another thing I found to help was a website called top cash back, make online purchases through it and even the 2% cash back etc add up to enough for a reasonable gift like an Xbox game etc for a family member. Also if your buying that much petrol a month, try and use somewhere like Sainsbury's where you gain points and receive vouchers for doing so, again the points can go towards a gift at Xmas or birthday, your points would add up well with how much you spend.

• should’t be expecting...

Sigh. I must preview... shouldn’t have things they hate...

Clair other than repeating 'no-one needs a car' ad Infinitum you're not really adding anything are you.... maybe bow out of this one?

OP - doable yes. Can I also suggest you look into matched betting as a way of earning some extra money? Not for everyone and you need to know what you're doing, but there's money to be made and you can do it when it suits.

It’s surprising how much you can make selling stuff on Facebook selling, using topcash back and using your Tesco/nectar points. I don’t shop at either but the point soon add up on petrol.

If you shop on ebay, add your nectar card. We only use Sainsburys occasionally, but do get quite a lot of Nectar points from ebay purchases. I then save the points for the Christmas double up and last year exchanged them for 3 bottles of TTD Prosecco.

We're trying to do this as well with the same budget but it's not going well so far. Credit cards are actually higher than when we started. Want a buddy??

Could be rather tight. Even with no work related driving we pay £200 a month for car fuel.

I had a six month contract with an 80 mile commute and found setting the cruise control to 50mph and driving like a nun I would average 56mpg over the week, whilst hammering along at 80mph where possible and trying to make quicker progress would average 44mpg over the week.

Even if your employer don't pay mileage hmrc can be quite good at allowing driving between sites to be offset against your tax bill.

We are a family of 3, we easily survive on £1000 a month for everything after all bills. By doing this we’ve paid our mortgage off in 4 years rather than 25.

I spend £240 on fuel for our car, we live in a village. There is a bus to the nearest small market town. There is literally no way I could get to work 40mins away via a motorway. I don’t live near a station and my work isn’t near a station or bus route. I find those that think people can manage without cars don’t live in a rural village and have no idea what public transport is like outside of a large city. DH has a works vehicle because he works all over the Country.

@titchy Clairetree1 recently had a thread going on about how no one needs a car. She refused to listen to reason on that so don't expect it here.

I don't know whether OP can manage on £1000 as there's only 2 of us. One thing I would say though is don't cut the budget by too much. I tried cutting it down as far as I could and ended up in a worse situation. Personally I'd cut down but extend the debt free target and have more money each month.

It could be a bit tight but is likely doable most months I'd imagine.

It's a bit different from a situation where a poster has x income that's just not covering all their needs, then cutting 50p here and a £1 there makes sense. In your case (and forgive me if I've misunderstood) you've given yourselves a timeline for clearing debt rather than had this imposed on you?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really good idea but if you have an option to allow yourselves a little more time then you could still stick to your £1000 budget but also save a small amount each month for emergencies or unforeseen costs, rather than put these on a credit card which undoes a lot of your good work.

Nellie has anyone suggested yet that you get a bike with a trailer on the back for the DCs?

For the holidays could you offer a cat sitting service? My friend offers one and she charges £12 per home visit to include administering medication, feeding, litter changes and cuddles! She typically stays about 30-45 mins depending on number of cats and needs required. The summer holidays is her busiest time and she's been booked up all summer. She'll go on her summer holidays in September.

£300 a month for fuel is not unrealistic if you have a rural commute into a city, and/or a peripatetic job.