How do you afford life? budgeting advice please

[HopelesslyHopeful87]

Just want to start by saying this is by no means a pity party, scrounging for money kind of thing. I'm not here begging. I just want a rant about being skint all the time and some advice on how to budget and manage your income and outgoings. It just feels like I'm always scrimping and scraping and then October comes round, the reality of Xmas hits me and I panic massively about how we're going to afford it.

DP works full time and we're topped up with some UC. I'm a SAHM. We have 7 kids between us. He has 3 from previous relationship, I have 3 from previous and we have one together therefore we have a lot of birthdays across the year and Xmas is expensive every year. Our DS together is only 7 weeks old. The past 2 years have been hard. On paper, we probably couldn't have afforded a baby together but in 2020 (when we could afford it) we lost our daughter at 19weeks of pregnancy and we so desperately wanted a baby. The emotions and the grief took over the practical financial side. So here we are.

We start each year with good intentions and start saving. Then something will break or need replacing and we have to dip into the savings and before we know it we have nothing left for the Xmas pot. This year was the car. It was too expensive and not worth repairing so we had to replace.

I just don't know how we're going to manage this year. We seem to have nothing left at the end of every month at the moment. UC is being cut back this month as the covid top up ends. The gas and electricity has gone up. Everything seems more expensive. We already shop frugally in lidl or aldi. Kids have cheap primark or supermarket clothes/uniform. We've already moved from a 2 car family to one. DP bikes to work to save fuel.

Can I ask how you all budget and manage your money? We're going wrong somewhere and I need to get a handle on our spending. Our money comes in at different points across the month which makes it harder to manage. DP wages are gone within a week of payday on household bills and the UC/CB goes on food shopping, a few more bills and fuel for the month.

I need an accountant 😭

My DH is so frugal and spends very little money at all. It causes alot of friction between us because he is so money savvy - he bought a flat at 19 then a 3 bed house and we now have a 4 bed house and no mortgage and this is thanks to how hard he saved but he never spends money on anything enjoyable and never has he gets so much happiness from making his money work for him!!. He spends nothing on anything exciting though so no meals out, drinks out, days out, new clothes etc. He has never had any debt or a credit card.

When he met me he took on my debt and started budgeting for me but now it is all too much and I refuse to live like this. I like being able to enjoy myself. His answer to being money savvy is use money to buy essentials like food, bills, car tax etc but not buying anything that you don't need. He sold his car recently for an injection of cash as we were running low and he now cycles everywhere when I need the car. It must be so hard with a big family to afford everything you need to survive but life is also for living. He manages everything with a spreadsheet and he records every penny so he can see exactly what he spends and what surplus he has and whenever there is a surplus which isn't often he puts into a separate account for christmas. If he can't afford something he doesn't have it and has be known to make me and the children go without. He gets very annoyed at the cost of ex cirricular lessons (ie swimming lessons and gymnastics for the kids in his opinion these are unnecessary). I now work to pay for these. Another thing he does which saves us a fortune but which I would not have the time and inclination for is at about 830pm he goes on his bike to about 10 supermarkets and buys all the reduced food that is going out of date. His mantra is that you have to put the effort in to save the money.

Sounds like financial abuse to me @donutqueen11

Haven’t read the thread yet, but I will. Just wanted to say, @HopelesslyHopeful87 I don’t think you’re going wrong anywhere, I think this is just how life is for many of us. Outside of a windfall, or a massive increase in earnings, you’re just going to struggle because everything costs so much in comparison to what wages are.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe politicians aren’t the point of this thread.
It’s not difficult to see why the OP would have been better off as a single parent with 3 kids. That’s one earner, spread among 4 people + income from ex.
Now it’s one earner , spread across 3 full time people plus the additional 3 kids on each side!
It’s simple mathematics.

TractorAndHeadphones why are you policing what posters can post about? My view is very much that politics is at the heart of it and if we have a system whereby a single mother is better off living without a partner how is that not relevant?

I don't think anybody is in doubt of the simple arithmetic needed either.

As Martin money expert would say, you need to focus on bringing more in not cutting more out, because in your situation budgeting's not going to do it.

I would think about the longer term, can you get skills and training that will increase your earning capacity?

Also try and work on your low mood and anxiety. I know you have a referral in which is great. There are loads of great (free!) app and books (from library) what will help! I think this is the biggest thing you can do for your future.

My debit card has cash back and round up where every purchase is rounded up and the extra scooped into my savings account. I also shop at boots all year and use the points at xmas. Little bits add up.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe

TractorAndHeadphones why are you policing what posters can post about? My view is very much that politics is at the heart of it and if we have a system whereby a single mother is better off living without a partner how is that not relevant?

I don't think anybody is in doubt of the simple arithmetic needed either.

Your question - ‘why isn’t anybody complaining about politicians defrauding people’? My answer - ‘because that’s not the point of the thread’. How is it policing to answer your question? Which has nothing to do with benefits but more of ‘they’re doing something wrong, why not pick on that instead???!

Also it doesn’t make sense to argue that the system is broken because a single mother is better off without a partner. The implication is that the partner is always a net benefit in terms of income and so the single mother should be the same or better off. That’s not always true.

Anyway I’ll refrain from saying anymore as that’s not the point of the thread but I reiterate - the OP has already been very responsible in terms of budget etc. The fact is you can only do so much budgeting if you have a large family - at some point you need to make more.

I'm confused as to why you went on to have 4 children if your DH already had 3. Surely you realised your quality of life would be affected?

That's why a lot of people have just one child, or none.

If the op’s partner is going to move out, and he would have to completely separate financially, how would that help the op with her PND and no time to take on any other work?

Doing anything else is skirting close to benefit fraud surely?

Sounds like financial abuse to me @donutqueen11

^^ agreed, that's not normal x

@ACPC

My debit card has cash back and round up where every purchase is rounded up and the extra scooped into my savings account. I also shop at boots all year and use the points at xmas. Little bits add up.

But even after points, boots is expensive compared with supermarkets, bargain shops etc and round up schemes are just gimmicks. If you had any spare money it would just build up in your current account.

It doesn't magic money out of thin air, so doesn't solve the OPs problem.

@bubblebath62636

I'm confused as to why you went on to have 4 children if your DH already had 3. Surely you realised your quality of life would be affected?

That's why a lot of people have just one child, or none.

I didn't go on to have 4 kids. I had my 3 other kids at the same time he had his 3 kids. We were both in previous relationships. We have a child each from previous relationships that are the same ages. I didn't go on to have 4 kids with him when I knew he had 3.

Just accept it's going to be hard until you can work again op. I don't know why people are giving you a hard time for having 4 dc, it's done now I say this as someone who stopped at 2 for finance reasons so I get the point but the sneery responses are ridiculous.

Why can’t you go back to work? Apologies if I missed it but you say you worked before so surely you’re on maternity leave?

It doesn't magic money out of thin air, so doesn't solve the OPs problem
Not trying to solve her problems She asked a question and I answered it.

I completely agree I hate it when people are sneery.

Just the same though seven children and one working parent - even two working parents - is going to be difficult.

The reading comprehension on here is terrible.

He has three children.

She has three children

They have one joint child who is seven weeks old.

She does not work.

I won't be asking my dp to move out. I'm not committing benefit fraud and I don't want to live apart from him. I fully aware of how it's possible to defraud the system because I know people that are already doing it. We could still be together and he could stay here at the house every night of the week but we are only deemed as "living together" if there's black and white proof of him contributing to the bills. So technically I could claim I'm single, get full UC, he can carry on earning his wage and give me cash on the side with no proof of his financial support. And then I'd probably be £800 a month better off.

But I'm not even contemplating it.

That information is purely for the people that don't know or understand why I said the system is crap.

The system is crap because so many people get away with this. I can't and won't do it.

Can your DP get a second job at weekends?

Why can’t you go back to work? Take a short maternity leave? You say you worked before?

@Bigeggsinapackoften

Why can’t you go back to work? Apologies if I missed it but you say you worked before so surely you’re on maternity leave?

7 week old baby, diagnosis of post natal depression.

Return to work not feasible.

I don’t think anyone was suggesting you would, @HopelesslyHopeful87, but it was the advice someone gave to you.

But I don’t think the system is crap. Lone parents claim as lone parents, parents in couples don’t.

@rrhuth name change fail?

Fair enough, TractorsAndHeadphones and yes, I did ask that question, sorry. It was more rhetorical I suppose.

There's no easy solution for the OP, we make our choices and it's just going to be really tough for a long while.