to be irrationally worried that we only have £140 left to last to next Tuesday.........

[WheresTheMoneyGone]

and have 4 DCs? 2 x DCs need new school shoes before Monday (I threw their last ones out when they finished school because they were wrecked - they only last a term - bloody boys). We have enough food until Monday - online shop will be delivered today with enough food for 4 days and I have taken that off bank total. I always feel irrationally insecure if we have less than £100 in account!

We will need to put £15 on electric meter and £25 on gas meter today (meters installed before we moved in and bloody costing £5 a day just for gas!!).

Big car bill this month for MOT repairs and tax credits reduced by £60 last week and every week until end of June due to DH earning slightly higher than expected - £1000 - which I informed them of immediately we got his final payslip for the last tax year so they reduce our payments by £240 month!

I fucking well hate this obssessing about money all the time . We don't smoke/drink/go out/have holidays/do anything really. Before anyone says we should not have had 4 DCs, we were better off until last year when I got made redundant and can't now find another job earning enough to cover childcare.

Sorry if already mentioned but I was under the impression that a persons income could rise by 10k before tax credits changed? (just for the first year though) maybe ring and double check?

YABU

Can you send me a copy of your meal plan babes please? X

Stranded...You missed me!

Or can someone else send it to me please?

Just wanted to say a public thankyou to stranded for the meal plan, and OMG its fab! :)

{BabyDubs is also sorry as this no doubt means more requests }

YANBU.

I do wish I had £140 to last me til next Tuesday though! Payday hurry pleeeeeeeeeeease.

That cheap family meals website is ace, not sure if it was you flake but somebody recommended it on another thread. I follow it mainly just for main meals but also make the soups for lunch and we have at least halfed our food bill. Now all I have to do is brew my own wine and I'll save even more!

Stranded could you send me a copy of that meal plan too please

•Stranded* me too please if it's not too late!! Ta muchly

Well, we have just over £68 left and a day to go with tomorrow's food bought including the DCs packed lunch.

Phewww. I have already decided to change the way I food shop as we are spending over £600 per month not including school lunches (DCs usually have them at school which adds another £30 per week ).

I apologise if my neurosis over money has annoyed anyone with less than us. We really do not have anyone we could ask to lend us money or help us out so I feel extremely insecure when we are lacking it!

Stranded if you get a second please could I get a copy of the meal plan if you see this?

TIA!!

£600 per month!! What do you eat??? I get sweaty palms if my weekly shop comes to £70 and wonder how I'm gonna pay for it. Generally it's £60 for 4 plus maybe a top up of £20 during the week including packed lunches. Op you have my weekly shopping budget "left over"

£600 per month even for a big family must mean lots of wasted food? Might be an idea to start making weekly meal plans and freezing veg etc?

flipping hell £600/month. That is gross!

You should take a look at the book--Economy Gastronomy. Very useful.

Strandedbear - I haven't asked before but could I have one please? I spend too much on food and things are getting tight (about £120 per week plus odd top ups for 4 of us).

It would be much appreciated.

Stranded, I would love a copy of the meal plan as well, if you haven't already got RSI from copy pasting it :)

I think I could quite easily spend £600 a month on food if I had that much to play with, you know. You learn to live to your means and one of the first things I think most people do when they have an increase in income is to add more treats or better quality food to their usual shop. It soon adds up and you dont really notice it as it is just the odd thing here and there.

I probably spend about £400 a month at the supermarket, to feed 5 of us including nappies and baby milk as well and that has gone up by a good £50 odd recently as we have a bit more coming in so are adding a bottle of wine (or 3 for a tenner) onto the order more often, getting more ready made snacks like crisps, getting more expensive fruit than just the same old staples etc so I can easily imagine upping my spend more if there was more to play with.

me please strandedbear :)

Might be easier for you to post it on a new thread though?

YANBU to be irrationally worried, we all worry rationally or irrationally about things that other people wouldn't.
I say this as a family of 4 who has no money until next Monday, we have a bit of food in, bills are paid but we certainly don't have enough food to last all 4 of us for a week It is due to an unexpected repair that needed to be done on our roof that has eaten all of our (measly) savings and part of our credit card
But we get by, because we have to, the DD's will eat come what may, DH and I will probably live on a couple of meals a day and my terrible home-made bread, which is horrid as I cannot bake bread to save my life

We usually spend about £30-40 pw on groceries but last week we only had £17 and some odd pence, next week should be better as long as there are no more repairs that need doing.

I suppose I cant really comment on spending £600 pm on food for a family of 6 as we are a family of 4 but it does seem a lot. We get all of our everyday bits from the local market; such as meat (when we can afford it), fruit and veg and then buy our tinned, dried and other long life things from a supermarket once a month. We started doing this when I left work to stay home with the DD's we were able to cut our food bill down by more than half what it normally was.

£70 here until next Wednesday..we have quite a lot of food in and petrol up to the weekend, so should manage but will need petrol Monday and Tuesday next week to get to work. will need to top up bread, milk, fruit, yoghurts but losts of potato and pasta meals on the menu for the rest of the week.