Budget- can I make this work?

[Stressedgiraffe]

I need help budgeting. What can I do to reduce things or is it impossible?
What have I forgotten?

Income : 3000
Outgoings
Rent :1650
Bills: 250
Phones: 125

Entertainment
Amazon Inc kindle, prime, audible- 36
Netflix- 7
Aws/gcp- 20

Transport
Bus fares - 200

Food
Approx 500

Pocket money/ things for school
200

That leaves - about 100?
This isn't possible is it?

How many of you are there? And what does aws/gcp stand for.

I'd be tempted to cancel Netflix or prime.
You're spending a huge amount on phones and the bus so would definitely be looking to reduce those if possible but hard to say without a bit more info

Stuff you pay for yearly, so Christmas, car servicing, holidays, birthday gifts.

have a look at money saving expert website….

Insurance? Christmas?

You're right more info needed.
This is for 4 people. Me, dh and 2 teenagers.
Bus is mainly to and from school/college
Phones are for 4 phones but could be cheaper

No holidays or car.
Christmas and birthdays need to come from what we have.

Don’t upgrade your phones when contract ends. BT do a family sim which is £9 each per month for calls texts and internet.

what is aws? Cancel it. Pick one service and cancel all others (personally I’d pick prime because otherwise delivery costs will quickly mount up depending how much you use it).

I pay £7 a month for my phone with sky. Not the fastest but still a smart phone so would be okay for teens.
Can you get a monthly or weekly pass to make ir cheaper?
Checked that you can get cheaper power through switching websites? Use a cashback website if you do switch and for all other purchases eg phones, insurance.
Reduce pocket money and be honest (appropriately) with kids about why, and talk about how else they could earn money

Yes reduce phones and review bills - money saving expert/uswitch.

What are you paying AWS/GCP for? Storage? If so that's a lot.

Cancel Netflix for a bit

Where are you with rainy day money - if the boiler broke

Insurance?

What are the teens expected to buy with their allowance? £100pm could be v generous.

What's your rainy day money situation? Have you got emergency savings?

Is £3000 based on you both working full time?

Can the teens get part-time jobs?

Your biggest spend is the rent so I assume a move to cheaper area or whatever isn't possible?

With the food bill, are you doing one big shop or little shops here and there? It's surprising just how massively the food bill adds up! A switch to a cheaper supermarket might help and if you have hungry teenagers, consider buying some stuff in bulk (cash and carry etc)

And then yeah, the phones. Sounds like you're all on the latest handset/deal so once the contracts are up, keep the phones and move everyone on to something life Gifgaf. You'll save a fortune right there.

It is a tight budget because of rent costs so is there a way to make more money?

As all your essentials are paid then yes, you can live like that but as you point out, there's no money for saving or holidays etc.

We don't have any of your entertainment packages here and I can easily feed two for £50pw, I fact, I do feed three of us on that, with adult DD buying treat food once to cook for us. Look at a site like Tesco mobile, we pay around £25pm for two phones.

You mentioned college. Are one of your DC over 16? If so, they can do a part-time job as well. Places will be crying out for Xmas staff soon if nothing else.

Maximise your income so check on a benefits calculator if you are entitled to a UC top up. Paying rent, and with 2 children you will have a work allowance before UC deducts income at 55p / £1 earned so you may be able to get some help there.

Otherwise it is looking at ways to reduce budget for phones and non-essentials, check if there are concessions available for bus fares for example.

Our total bills - bt, insurance, water ,gas and electricity come to 250 which I thought was good.

Probably need to reduce pocket money but it's for college lunch etc

Bus it's cheaper to payg at 2 per trip
So 20 a week for school/college
Than 25 for a weekly pass

Aws gcp- for personal programming

Moneysaving Expert has comprehensive budgeting advice, so will help with a complete list of possible expenses so you can include those that apply to you, also with tips on how to reduce where possible.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

But from your list, what I can see is that you rent is high compared with your income, so are you entitled to universal credit to help towards the cost? Also can you earn more or move somewhere cheaper (the latter being easier said than done, obviously).

I've also put some possible things to consider below:

Income : 3000
Outgoings
Rent :1650
Bills: 250 need to break this down, what does it cover. It would be water, council tax and gas/electricity as a minimum, so sadly I think it's probably more than this

Phones: 125 this can be reduced, go SIM only for about £7 a month max, buy second hand/cheaper Android phones and keep them about 3/4 years minimum

Entertainment
Amazon Inc kindle, prime, audible- 36
Netflix- 7
Aws/gcp- 20 Not sure what this last one is, but cut all these down so you're only paying for one or two streaming services at a time. Watch everything on one service, then move on

Transport
Bus fares - 200

Food
Approx 500 Might be able to shave a bit off this

Pocket money/ things for school
200 this is quite generous if just 'spending money' but probably a good amount to aim for if it includes things like school uniforms/shoes

That leaves - about 100?

Honestly it looks like there is only a marginal difference you can make reducing outgoings. Not saying dont do it but its not going to suddenly generate lots. You also dont have the one off costs in there - insurance etc.

Can you as a family increase the income at all? Either you or your partner, or I think I saw another post that said you had teenagers - do they have part time jobs? Then they could cover their phone and school stuff.

The bus fare seems high unless it's for all 4 of you - can you check with school/college if there's any funding for the kids transport?

Bills are good. Rent is the killer, being more than half your income.

I can see you're not on a low income but have you done the turn2us checker? Sometimes people assume they're not eligible for anything but then you are.

Oh sorry is the 20 per week the bus fare?

Have a look at your local bus company website as they may have reduced monthly or yearly or termly tickets for students, rather than weekly. It sounds like the weekly ticket is based on adult fare perhaps.

The bus is for all of us
20 x2 for dds
Around 10 for trips to town

Dd wants to get a part time job but atm we're having problems getting her NI number we've been trying for months. HRMC can't find her it's so frustrating.

We also have 2 dogs and a cat so food prices include pet food.

I would echo everyone else, cut down the streaming services. We have disney + and amazon prime as I get them cheaper with my o2 contract.

Phones go sim only and if you need to upgrade buy a refurbished phone. Ours are £5 each for 10gb data from o2. Then we get family discount on mine, and dds. Plus the discount for prime & disney. Occasionally there's other offers too, usually a free sausage roll/coffee from greggs which dds use when going out.

Another tip is to sign up to airtime rewards, you get cashback from certain retailers which then comes off your phone bill.

Cut down the food bill. Pet food see if you can bulk buy, we do ours on subscribe & save and buy when on offer.

Utilise olio/yellow labels at the end of the day. We use a community kitchen to get a bag of cheaper groceries once a week. I average around £300 a month for 1 adult, 2 teens, 2 cats for everything including cleaning and toiletries. We do eat mostly vegetarian as its cheaper.

Buy everything online using topcashback. So far this year I have £40 which I will use towards our Christmas food shop.

It's hard living in a high rent area, ours is £1750 a month and can't move as other properties are still more and if we move further out the savings will be wiped out with travel costs. So we are trapped until dds finish school!

Your food bill is high, you could cut this down. Have a couple of very cheap meals a week like beans on toast (using supermarket brand beans), egg on toast, jacket and beans, and cut down on meat meals if you eat it.

pocket money you could reduce, they don’t need to pay for college meals they could take cheap pack lunches.

You can cut your entertainment costs, just pick one subscription.

Oh, that's frustrating about the NI number. If you've exhausted any sort of internal complaints procedure, have you tried writing to your MP or even complaining to the Minister responsible for HMRC?

I'd be doing that, emphasising how it's contributing to your CoL problems, because it's stopping your DD from working and being able to earn much needed money.

It's also worrying because it could cause her difficulties with applying for university/student finance and even her state pension.

Is there any chance of moving to a much cheaper area?

Assuming you're both working full time, living in a high cost area isn't benefitting you financially by allowing you to earn a high salary, as you're not earning much more than NMW, so could earn the same somewhere where your rent could be not much more than half what you're paying now.

Can you increase income? £3k take home is 2 full time minimum wage salaries. Could you look for better paying jobs or increase hours if one of you works part time?

Can't move only moved last year and it would be impossible to find anything cheaper for a 5 bed it's quite cheap as we're in SE.
This is my salary so not entitled to any benefits as I earn too much.
Dh is looking for work

Are you claiming everything you’re entitled to? Your rent is high, you may be eligible for some universal credit?

Christmas and birthdays need to come from what we have.

You’ll need to start putting even just a bit by per month, even if that just comes from doing surveys or cashback on switching bank accounts or whatever.

No debts? Has your income just gone down or what’s prompted you to realise you need to get a handle on this?