To think it is possible to live on £100 a week

[theseaismyhome]

If you are not paying rent, mortgage, just food, petrol and obviously clothes/shoes?

Or AIBU?

Is that just for one person? No bills?
Then, yes, it's possible. May depend on how much travelling for work is required.

Yes obviously unless you are a family of fifteen or have an expensive commute.

To be honest that question is so vague it can't be answered properly IMO. Is this person a young adult living at home with parents? Is this person trying to save for a car a house etc? To buy food for one person run a car, save some money for the future, pay for clothes, dentist, haircuts, prescriptions!! It can go on and on I'm really not sure if £100 is an ok amount. Hth.

Depends how big the family is. Aldi has made it possible, before that it was really hard and I couldn't buy anything but food and cleaning things. So no clothes, hair cuts or lunch (even at home)
Now I can manage the odd beans on toast, new bra and college £4 haircut.
But you do have to be really good at saving up for things like Christmas, birthdays etc

It depends on how many people the food & clothing are for
And how much driving
Stupid question

I think its possible if its just food and day to day expenses but travel can be really expensive I don't think you can have many treats with£100.

Very easy for two if all bills paid. We did it on £30 and now i dont think we paying more than £50 pw for two. However if huge family of 15 children and adults you struggle without a ldll.

For one person, certainly.

If it's one person then definitely, (based on previous experience of living on £75 per week).

One person.

Depends on the petrol. I was doing £75 a week on fuel for my commute. Does that £100 also cover tax, insurance and maintenance?

No utility bills, council tax either?

Depends how much they need to spend on petrol of course, but unless that takes a big chunk of the £100 a week, it should be possible, if the £100 is purely for petrol / food / clothes.

No, not as such :) that's paid for separately.

Very easy. I walk to work so cost of travel is a pair of shoes. Walk up to 25 minutes. You could live on alot less than £100 for one person. For two years we didnt buy clothes and just bought food (including items for lunch as expensive to buy sandwitches so made our own...brie (89p for lld, last all week) and rocket (was 66p for bag in ldll) or garlic sausage (think between 50-60p ldll lasts all week) and rocket etc) and extras mostly came from poundshop like toothpaste, shampoo. You be surprised by the names there. Love ldll fish at the moment. We dont eat much pasta (hate it) or any beef so usually chicken, fish, rice, bulger wheat, giant coucous, and as much veg as we can manage. As said before i doubt we live on more than £50 pw for two now. If we werent a meat eater it be cheaper still.

My recently widowed cousin has precisely £106 pw to live on following the death of her husband.

She has a house and much needed car to run as well. ( she's a carer for her mum)

She has no chance

Is internet included in that £100 pw. Mind you ours is £35 per month (plusnet) so easy within budget. Dont have expensive contact phones. Love pay as you go as my new smartphone cost £15 new and i put about £10 on other couple of months. Pay as you go is alot cheaper than contact phones where you dont use minutes and then lose them.

Like Damnautocorrect, we have hefty commuting costs - DH spends about £70pw and I spend about £30pw on fuel to get to work.

Is this for your adult child living at home?

They have a car? Car loan? Other car/commuting costs?

Debts?

Phone?

Saving?

Are they complaining it's not enough?

It's for me

I have 4 sources of income so things are quickly getting very confusing and I'm trying to save as much as possible but money just keeps vanishing!

Thesea. What i would suggest you do it only use cash to buy anything. Dont use any cards as you tend to forget where the money goes. Good luck. Trouble is after doing it for some times its very hard to get into spending again...... Had to get some new clothes recently as mine after 2 years had started to fall apart. Honestly itd forgotten how to shop. Took 3 days of going in before i left with one pair of jeans.

I've tried that (thanks) - but it's just doesn't seem to be making any discernible difference

It's okay as long as it's a 'normal' week but then something will happen like for example I drove over a screw last week so needed to get a new tyre. That obviously wasn't my fault but it's so frustrating!

I could live on that if it's just me and only had to buy food and clothes. If things like Internet, mobile need paying out of that it would be tight be manageable. But I don't drive so wouldn't have to pay petrol out of it.

Agree with getting cash out and only using that. When I was skint (then a single mum of 3 with p/t work) I would get out the minimum I could manage on, divide by 7 and try to not spend more than 'x' in a day. If I spent less then it was a bonus to be added to the rest (then divided again by remaining days) or put to one side for a treat. I didn't, couldn't, run a car so walked or got a bus everywhere. It can be done! I recently did again but there are 3 DCs and a DP so went for £70 for the week, £10 a day. We ate really well and in reality probably spent £50.

Possible short term but not pleasant or sustainable long term.

You would be struggling just for basic food, heat etc. need anything on top of the very basics like haircut, boiler repair, new shoes and you'd better make friends with the local loan shark.

I don't know if provident cheques and key meters still exist but I remember them from my childhood and it's not a nice way to live.