Living on 1k a month advice please

[Debtgalore]

Hi MNers, long term poster but name changed as embarrassed.

Due to corona we've had a massive drop in income. We're still very lucky that we have £1,000 a month to live on (but that's significantly less than we're used to). Can we have any advice on how to make it stretch? There's two of us, two 10 year olds and a dog. It'll need to cover all food, petrol for 2 cars (we commute in opposite directions) and everything else.

Using the MSE boards we've made a budget for all our bills, switched energy suppliers, cancelled Sky, etc etc. The thousand is what's left over.

We sometimes shop at Aldi but will do this as our main shop now.

All help appreciated, I'm worried it won't go as far as we need.

Thank you,

That's £250 a week. I think you'll find you can probably struggle through with that amount to spend.

What are your outgoings? Rent/mortgage?

Seriously?

How much do you need for the things that are fixed price and can't be reduced e.g. petrol for commuting? Aldi will help, meal planning definitely will help. Going for 'free' days out (taking picnic somewhere local, going to the park etc, movie night at home instead of cinema etc) will also help. Don't go on holiday. It's nothing to be embarrassed about.

Is it 1k left over for just food, dog food, toileyries and essentials and petrol or are there any bills.

So £1000 for food petrol and leisure only?
How much is non negotiable petrol?

Why isn't petrol for your commute part of the budget? It's presumably a fairly fixed amount each week, and it's not something that you can really alter

£1000 after bills?
You will be fine.

I think you're going to have money left over tbh

Omg, do you mean £1k per month after bills???

Unless you have astronomical commuting costs, what does it need to cover than can't be managed?

This thread reminds me of when Kanye West tweeted that his wife was now a billionaire..... During a world wide pandemic where people have lost everything.

Everyone who opens this thread is assuming from the title a total Household income of £12k. You are really well off op. It won’t be hard.

I'd also like to know, if you had a massive income before (which you must have had if you're talking about massive drop) why you don't have any money saved?

Seriously? Is that after all bills?

Lol

I’m assuming that £1000 is the total income. She said ‘and everything else.’

MN is a horrible place sometimes.

OP, do you meal plan? I do that loads because I like being frugal! So a roast chicken on Sunday will also make a chicken pie, which splits into six portions for the price of pastry, milk, flour, onions and stock.

That sort of thing.

I knew there'd be responses like these HOWEVER I also know there have to be people living on higher incomes that use Mumsnet too.

PLEASE, if you have nothing useful or kind to say, move on.

How permanent is the drop? Could you take a payment holiday on any bills if it’s Covid related and temporary?

Look at local Facebook selling sites to kit the kids our second hand for next term, okay, you might still have to do shoes, see if you have any club card/nectar vouchers you could use to make the summer more exciting for the kids.
Try to go meat free for a few meals a week if you don’t already, this brings the cost down.

Do try to save something, stuff like car repairs/packed up washing machine will bite you on the ass otherwise.

How much do you spend on petrol.

I really don't know what to say? You need to make sure you have food, petrol etc and just do cheaper leisure stuff.

I would split the money four ways to cover each week, then allocate a certain amount to food, household necessities like loo roll, then see what’s left for hair cuts and school uniforms.

It may not be what you are used to, but by splitting up spending like this you will be able to clearly see what is spent where.

Please clarify what this £1k needs to cover. Rent/mortgage? utilities? etc

We don't buy many new clothes, books, games etc- get them all from the charity shop. Takes a bit of searching at times but the more you use charity shops you get better at finding the things for you. That saves us a lot. We just buy underwear or if we need something specific new.

Skip meat. Meat is expensive and if you are watching money have vegetarian meals at least twice a week.

Discover your local markets, cheaper than Tesco and the likes. Shop at various times until you find when your supermarket has the best reductions, ours is great at about 6pm on a Saturday.

If your dogs are not too fussy, get huge sacks of pet food, carrots are nice treats for dogs too.

A grand a month is a generous amount for food, petrol and other essentials. If you find you do need something expensive, try looking on EBay, they do still have the occasional bargain these days.

£1000 left over ?

No problem op, it's more than I have in the first place. You'll manage.

250 a week is manageable but no fun.
Do this include money for Christmas, emergencies or is that budgeted for elsewhere?
If you have to budget for Christmas, birthdays, haircuts, travel, dentist , prescriptions then it is not a lot of money.