Am I being ridiculous?

[darkvelvet]

Hi,

We have recently moved house - we have moved back to our home town - It's me, DH and our two DC's - both teens.

Prior to this we lived in a 'cheaper' part of the UK and we were lucky to have no mortgage. The move back here, whilst the right thing to do has meant that we now have a mortgage for the next 15 years.

I have been going through our finances and it looks like after we have paid the mortgage and all other non- negotiable bills, we will be left with about £2000 per month. From this we will need to buy food and any other luxuries/non-essentials.

I am worried that this will be tight and that we will end up burning through the savings that we have. DH thinks I am being ridiculous and that £2k is lots

Am I right to be worried?

But OP has £500 a month PER PERSON left over after mortgage and bills. My DS has about £250 a month, but he doesn’t starve.

That time of the week is it?

ok but it’s all relative I have 4k left after-
Housing: mortgage, insurance & property tax
Utilities & phones
Groceries & household food
Transport
School books, uniforms etc
but I’m not telling anyone they are being ridiculous I’m just saying it’s all relative and it depends on what you are used to. Just because it looks great to you doesn’t mean it is, it looks tight to me, so who is right?? Neither of us really because we are not the OP.

well it will be an adjustment if you usually. get through 4k a month but no you won't be eating mouldy bread and playing eye spy every weekend for the next decade as your only source of fun.

work out what you used to spend on clothes, hair cuts, beauty treatments, eating out, day trips, pocket money, coffees, food shop, savings etc. just look over receipts for the last few months. then adjust that down proportionally to 2k.

And she never said they would starve she said she was worried…

There's only two of us and we have far less than that, we don't go without food, have breaks away, go to gym etc.

It might help to roughly compartmentalise your budget, ie so much for food and make sure you stick to it, so much for family treats in or out, so much for breaks/a holiday if that's your thing, so much for saving and so much for individual spends. ie, we keep £300 for supermarket spending (includes cat food, alcohol, the odd thing like a birthday card), we have £175 each spending so are quite lucky - we pay for gym, hair cuts, having coffee or drinks with friends, buy presents out of it. We do like breaks away, but also look for the best cheapest option.

I take home less than that and ALL my bills including mortgage and non-negotiables have to come out of that...

What are you spending £66 a day on for funzies that you're going to struggle to afford?

My household income for my and my son is £2000. That's before mortgage (£600) and other bills are paid. You'll survive. Comfortably.

You are right to be concerned. Not because £2k isn’t a decent chunk (because it certainly is) but because any amount of money can be frittered away without due consideration, some planning and a budget. Your husband’s flippant attitude certainly doesn’t help in making sure your finances stay on track.

1 - you'll manage

2 - did you not do all the financial calculations before committing to a mortgage?

£2k is loads. I wish I had that! I’m a carer and I have £600 a month for all bills!

I agree with this. We've had some changes that's meant our disposable income, while still reasonably good, is less than it was so we do have to think before we spend now. Even more so now that costs such as food, oil heating, petrol etc have all increased.

I don't think you are being ridiculous but I don't think you have too much to worry about. You might need to stop and think before ordering takeaways/going out to eat and start putting money aside for bigger spends but I think you'll be okay,

Some posters have missed the point that food comes out of that £2k.
Food for 4 could easily be half of that.

The time to think about this was before the move/mortgage surely? You'll manage of course. Cut your cloth and all that. and stop with shitty rage bait posts

My entire take home pay is £2,177 before anything has come out! Single income and I have a child. Out of that comes everything!
If you can’t manage with £2000 for food and fun money every month you really need to seriously sit down and look at your spending.

What on Earth do you eat - gold????

People are jumping on you because others survive on less, which is unfair.

However, you have missed the helpful context of explaining how much more you had to spend previously? And do you expect that 2k to also include an amount to allocate to savings each month?

It will totally depend on what your normal expectations are around luxuries/non-essential spending. If your teens are used to generous monthly allowances and lots of expensive activities paid for, as well as luxury clothes and toiletries, you may struggle. If you expect to go out for a family meal every week, and have a few nice holidays per year, you may struggle.

I don't think you are being ridiculous, I think you need to sit down and look at your spending on socialising/hobbies/clothes/toiletries/home decor/alcohol/holidays/school trips/pocket money/teens clubs as well as considering savings and things that might not be in your bills but may still need to be paid for (e.g. any plans to decorate or upgrade your house, new furniture, unexpected repairs etc). You have £24k to cover all that. It is absolutely doable, but depending on your current spending levels you might need to rein things in and have a chat with the teens about changes that need to be made.

No it's not obscene, but it's certainly enough that others find it ridiculous that OP think it'll be tight to manage and they'll be whipping through their savings.

I don't think you're being ridiculous at all. Prices are set to go up as well, £2K is going to be an increasingly tight amount to live on.

People are jumping on you because others survive on less, which is unfair

I don't think this is the case. It's that OP is worried it will be tight. People are agreeing with her that it's ridiculous to be worried. If someone can't work out that £2000 for a family of 4 is enough to feed them and have some fun then they lack basic financial sense. That's what's ridiculous. And yeah....giving OP a wake up call by someone telling them that they have a 1/4 of that and manage just fine is perfectly fair, maybe it will make OP think.

I agree, it will be tight. Honestly, sometimes I think people on MN are living in the 1950s and have forgotten about inflation.

My repair bills this month are over 2k on a shitty mid-century terraced house. Life is expensive.

I'd also think about once your teens are at uni - you could easily be expected to contribute half of this to their maintenance funding.

We have significantly less than that a month to cover everything for a family of four - including all bills, groceries, etcetera.

Really?
So after all their bills are paid, you think families with less than 2K to spend on food are going to find it tough? I know COL is a bit crazy at the moment, but that's quite some scary inflation you've got in your head.

That would be a fortune to most people....

No, people are living on less than that IN TOTAL and managing just fine.
I'm sure you don't spend 2K a month on repairs to your home.