How much money do you need a month to pay all bills and feed 2 people?

[Earlydancing]

I was reading an article about a woman who earned £40,000 and had take home pay of £2,300pm. Her mortgage was £800 which left her £1,500pm for all her bills, energy, insurance, car, utilities, etc, plus food for her and her 13yo son. She said she couldn't afford to feed him.

I live alone, run a car, insurances etc, but don't have to feed or clothe a child. So I'm a bit out of touch with family life. I'm not interested in discussing this woman really, she just provides an illustration for my question. If she's struggling, then it doesn't really matter what I think, she's still struggling.

So I was wondering, how much does it cost you per month on average to keep your house going and look after your family? I live in a 3 bed semi in NW England. My mortgage is paid off. I wouldn't think my monthly bills, including food, come to more than £800, maybe less? But I do think I am a bit wasteful which this has made me think about.

People in poverty tend to cross their fingers and pray that car repairs or house repairs aren't needed (they also mostly are unable to buy and so they rent, meaning house repairs aren't their problem and often they don't own a car either, because they can't afford these unexpected repairs).

The other things on your list are luxuries not necessities. If you're poor you don't have some or all of those things. You definitely don't have them then complain about not being able to afford food.

You're right it's not unreasonable to expect to be able to have those things (regardless of what job you do), but we don't live in an ideal world and the fact is if you don't have the money you can't have those things. You budget for the absolute bare necessities and you have the other things if there's any money left over.

We don't know if this particular woman mentioned in the OP has debt so my comment isn't aimed at her... IMO a lot of why people end up in debt in the first place is because they consider various nice-to-have things to be essentials when they really aren't. Instead of doing without, they put it on a credit card. Then one day their life situation changes, they've less money coming in or the cost of living rises and they find themselves up a creek without a paddle, with debt taking a huge chunk of their income and meaning they can't afford to live.

This woman in OP needs to do what every other person struggling has to do. Tackle any debt firstly to make the payments affordable, even if that means it takes 20yrs to pay it off. Secondly stop putting things on credit cards/store cards/overdraft and not take out any more loans for purchasing things. Then look at the money left over and decide how to spend it, decide what ordinary things some others have (but which she can't afford) she is going to do without and make her expenditure for into her income. If you sit down and do it once and find you're still left with a minus figure at the end, then you go through the budget again and decide what else you'll need to cut out to make it fit so the balance at the end is zero and not a minus figure. That's what's necessary and although it's miserable, it's life for a great many people, none of whom deserve to be living in poverty.