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?

I guess it depends what you would normally spend your disposable income on.

I take home £1745 a month and have to pay rent and bills out of that, but someone else may still think I'm left with a fortune.

Absolutely plenty but I suggest you do the food bill into general account budget too. For a family of 4 with teenagers your likely to be £150 + a week on food depending on where you shop and how you shop.

2k is more than enough - but it will be different to how things were and you need to go through this with the kids, you might have to prioritise some things over others and it should be a discussion with teens involved - good learning for them.

Set out a budget and see how you go, plan meals and snacks and be clear with the kids whats what, get them learning to cook as well - will all help if go to uni or move out

Just know where money is going and make decisions based on that

2k is quite a lot

Oh do fuck off. Surely as a grown adult you don’t need to be told that £2000 is more than enough disposable income a month 🙃

£2k for food and fun stuff. Even if your food bills are £200 a week thats over a grand on fun stuff. Like I get why you are feeling things are different but you are being ridiculous. Some of us don't even earn £2k a month.

Bit late to be thinking about this. Should’ve dine the maths before you moved. If you can’t survive on £500 pw, you are in trouble.

In a word, yes.

You will have to cut back on the Prada

You have a serious case of what’s known as financial dysphoria

Teen girls. Just did a rough check. 600 a month for 4 of us … approx… dont know if that’s including one of my big non perishables shops or not.

£2K is certainly doable. Many have much less. I'd work out a budget.

How much per month food?
How much fun money?
How much to put away towards cost of Christmas/holiday etc?
How much for clothes etc?
Put rest into a savings pot to build them up after moving.

Set up those sub accounts, particularly saving for christmas, holiday, savings.

See if you can stick to it for a few months. If you can and have built some savings back up, start putting the savings money each month into aggressively overpaying your mortgage. Bring the term down.

So you need a monthly food budget from that, and money to cover:
clothes (including for growing teens)
clubs/hobbies
(annual bills like TV licence, insurances, AA etc?)
Christmas and birthdays
days out
meals out or coffees with friends or pints after work
books and school essentials including trips or tech or uniform
sundry expenses
pocket money for teens and treat money for adults
unexpected household repairs
any additional spending on decorating new house house/replace broken plates/want nicer curtains…

Im probably forgetting some other things you need to provide for.

Yes £2000 sounds like a lot, but I presume groceries for 4 is at least £500-600 monthly. (That’s only £125-150 per week).

Add in the cost of clothes that teens will wear. And how much school can cost in reality (and if it’s a new school, you probably don’t know all their traditional winter fayre, parent fundraising event, whole school gathering type things yet).

I would advocate trying to sit down and work out what you have spent in old location for the same period last year (use old bank statements) and how much you expect to spend now in new location, on a weekly or monthly basis. Split annual costs like birthdays, Christmas, annual fees, holidays etc over 12 months. Lay it out clearly and neatly for DH to see (and teens if useful and you see you need to cut back).

Show DH the reality of “if you have a meal with work colleagues this month, you can’t afford the March ticket and pints with X friend until next month” trade-offs that might be needed. And the reality of many costs increasing - some due to the move and some due to inflation and growing kids.

Perhaps (and I don’t mean this patronishingly but some people need things shown visually) set it out in pie charts or use Monopoly money to allocate to different envelopes and see what can move between envelopes to balance the finite budget. But maybe a clear list works well for your people so is sufficient.

And once you’ve worked out figures, sit him down and ask how he wants to balance the budget or if he’s willing to have no holidays or to run through savings in just X months, and have none there to replace car or boiler when needed.

Sounds like you have got expensive tastes if you are worried that £2k won't be enough. So you will have to stick to a budget.

That's what some people have to cover both luxuries and non-negotiables each month. You are worrying unnecessarily. You should be able to save nearly half that a month if you buy wisely - Aldi and Lidl sell good food for a lot less than even Tesco's or Morrisons and certainly for less than Waitrose.

So that's OK, no?
PP said she spent way less than £1000 for 2 people and you are also spending way less than £1000 for 4 people.
Or have I lost track of people/weeks/money!

A budget will also help see where your spending may not align with a budget friendly lifestyle. For example, if you go total up last years holidays and it was £12K... well clearly you'd need to save £1K a month, half of what you have, to afford that. So maybe that would be a good area to make some savings. You can have a really good family holiday abroad for less than a quarter of that.

How many streaming services do you have and what do you actually need? Full package sky tv, Netflix and disney? Maybe you need to cut something there.

Shop at waitrose? Try aldi.

Weekly takeaway at £100? Cut to every other week.

Buy lunches or coffee at work? Bring from home.

You can find lots of ways to make savings that will really add up.

You’re being ridiculous.

How much did you spend on food and fun stuff each month, before you moved? If it was more than £2000 you will have to look at ways to cut costs - cheaper supermarkets, fewer coffees out and takeaways. Then look at your other bills and see if you can save anywhere - unneeded subscriptions, interest on credit cards or other debts. It's a good idea to do this regularly anyway. £2000 a month for 4 people sounds quite doable.

My take on this post is that you are used to have much more disposable income. And that’s an adjustment. I would think you need at least £150 per week on food so roughly £650 a month so really you only have £1350 left over for everything else. Teenagers are expensive. So for me that would be tight- and I’m assuming by the post you feel that you have less now than you had. So I would be worried. But I know my take is controversial on MM and people will come to tell you that people live on much less. Which of course it’s true. But the post is about you and readjusting to a new budget. So you have to weigh in if the move to London was worth the sacrifice of adjusting to this new budget so you don’t burn through your savings.

If you're including literally all food, clothing, travel, activities, pocket money etc I don't think that's a huge amount for that many people. But it's not poverty money.

What is this, some weird brag? Get a life

Yes they do.
Surely you should have done the maths before you moved OP.
But 2k should defo be fine.

X

I put my money after bills into “pots” on Monzo. I put aside £1200 per month for the things you describe for me and 2 kids. That covers our food shopping, takeaways, treats, days out, clothing for the kids etc.,

I very occasionally go over this amount but not for any reason other than being frivolous. We don’t go without anything on the weeks I stick to the allotted amount. So I personally think £2000 is plenty and would still leave you money for savings for kids birthdays, Christmas, emergencies etc

I don't think it's going to be enough OP.

I don't think a family of four can survive on £2000 after all bills and mortgage are paid.

Can you take in ironing? Get a second job? Sell a kidney?

🙄