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?

As you said it is doable until something comes up. Maybe try to save £20 each week to build up a pot for those unforeseen costs.

Seriously it is manageable long term. We eat very well, with very good quality food. You just need to shop differently and buy with cash. if you rent things like boiler repair is the landlord problem. Trouble gets if you need to pay for travelling costs. Sounds like energy costs etc are excluded from this budget. You be amazing what free things there are to do where you are. We spent 7 hours on Saturday walking along the canal which was stunning in the weather, people watching in the park before exploring an old town then walking back. Treated ourselves to an ice cream on the way. I have popped into a supermarket before and bought a box of ice creams or lollys as cheaper than individual. Spare goes to homeless person or hot looking person.

Right, moneysavingexpert.com is the place to go. They have a debt free wannabe section on their forum where you can put up your budget and they suggest where you can cut. There is also an old school cooking section with great suggestions for cutting your food bill.

Yes of course you can live on £100 a week, and many live on far less. If you are unemployed you get £73 a week to live on, and that includes utility bills. Statutory sick pay is £57 a week.
Lots of people on here are very wealthy so have no idea how to live on not much money.

I suggest that you aim to live within £75 per week and stash the rest. (I'm good at the theory, poor at the practice)

Have you sat down and defined what that £100 needs to cover? If it is mainly just food it is easily doable. If it is running a car as well, a little tighter. If it is including clothes and you have a heavy clothes habit, incredibly tough.

The problem is I keep running out of cash by Tuesday and have to transfer money over from savings. I'm not in debt so thanks but I just want to save but am rubbish at it.

Is this just for you?
I would withdraw £100 cash each week.
Out of that take your transport money and any other essential work expenses.
Try and save a % each week. Put that away in a seperate jar. Do not touch, unless it is an emergency.
Food - I would say £20/week is adequate for 1 person ,with maybe £2 extra for toiletries/cleaning stuff.
Clothes - try and set £5 a week aside. Alternatively ,you could look through your wardrobe, and discover you don't actually need any!
Try and think of any unneccesary extras that mount up - bottled water, coffees, ready made sandwiches, etc etc. It's very easy to fritter money away on things that you don't really need.

I,m not very rich at all mariamin but I get what you are saying I think you would struggle to feed a family and transport costs for£100 /week a bus day ticket is £4\ day weekly ticket is £12.50 if you don't drive my dh works a £20 round trip away from home so petrol costs quite a bit.when we had card metres for gas and electric we had to factor in that too ,if it was£100 just for me I could manage quite happily on that however

I live on it - I'm on ESA. I have to cover bills and a third of my council tax. It's painfully tight, but I do it. I don't run a car - I smoke instead. Yes, you could save especially if this doesn't include bills. Your main losses will be convenience & social spends.

Husband works a 20 mile not £20 round trip*

I never go out really. Fuel costs are high though ... I honestly don't know where it goes. Trying to save every penny I can but just get poorer!

At first glance £100 seems like plenty for one person, but you need a spreadsheet so you can see exactly what you spend over the week/month. Then budget for the future - look at what you MUST spend then work out what you have left to live on, if you want to have leftover money for emergencies, factor that in too. If there is not enough left to live on, You need to look at where you can make savings.Be honest with yourself.PLan your meals and your shoping list properly rather than just grabbing something. Only a fool spends on unecessary treats when they have no "emergency fund" to cover new tyres and so on. Switch to non branded cheaper versions. You would be surprised at the odd coffee here or sandwich there soon adding up! If you are in the habit of buying a new item of clothing every other week, this also adds up even if you use charity shops. How much are your travel costs? Phone contract?

to be a financially responsible adult you NEED to know where it goes though. So you can work out what your essential and non essential spends are. And plan the spending of your money better.

when you say fuel costs are high are you talking for car travel or heating the house/cooking? can you switch suppliers, car share - is the bus cheaper? If you don't have to run a car theres a lot of money to be saved on not paying for tax, insurance, servicing and repairs.

I pay all my bills by DD and get paid cash from one of my jobs, which I use for food, petrol etc. This is £91 a week, which is plenty for me and ds(9). I do have some spare in the bank from my other job, which is used for clothes, household purchases etc., but for simply food and travel costs, it's very doable.

Oh and just in case you are making the same mistake as another MNer who posted once cos she was staggered at her electric bill, you're not on an immersion heater for your hot water are you? The number of folk who did not know that they should only be on for an hour or so, not left on all day to be continually reheating the water up to the thermostat temp. They are very expensive if left on all day for the convenience of not having to turn it on and wait for it to heat up.

You say you are running out of money by Tuesday. Write down everything you spend. From that list mark anything that was unexpected or not needed.

Are you organized, do you plan things or do things spontainiuosly? Things like having a cheap drink in work, if it's available, or spending a fiver on a fancy pants coffee, taking a packed lunch or buying an overpriced sandwich.

I was going to suggest the money saving website that someone posted a link to up thread. Haven't tried it myself but I've heard good things about it.

My job is car based which is why costs are high for fuel. I'm not including electricity etc I just mean for me. Oh and i could cover the tyre so it's a bit rude to call me a fool

No, just can't work out where it goes at all. Really strange as on paper my outgoings are low but I've still no money in my purse by Tuesday despite doing the things people usually reccommend like only using cash etc.

sorry OP I really was not calling YOU a fool! Just saying that those who spend willy nilly after pay day, including thinking they are entitled to regular treats (and I don't know that is you either) , without having a realistic idea of what their necessary outgoings are first, and how much they can actually afford to fritter away, are being foolish ie financially irresponsible.

Really strange as on paper my outgoings are low but I've still no money in my purse by Tuesday despite doing the things people usually reccommend like only using cash etc.
If you really want money saving suggestions you need to tell us exactly what you are spending. Get out your receipts, get a paper and pen if you dont like spreadsheets and look, really LOOK at what you have spent - starting with this past week.Unless you think someone is nicking money from your purse then you are spending it somehwere! Make sure things like chocolate/coffee/sandwich or newspaper grabbed in the petrol station are not included as part of your fuel costs in your calculations.

The writing EVERYTHING down advice is good. If you've always been reasonably ok for money and this is the first time you're really thinking hard about it then you wouldn't believe how much you spend without realising. Most of my friends don't have children and make more money than me and it's unbeliveable to me how often they nip into a coffee shop for a coffee, get a nice looking pastry as well, ooh and maybe a fancy looking juice for later. Then probably £5-7 on lunch every working day. I'm not saying you are like this but I know so many people that don't realise they actually spend £20 a day on essentially not much.

exactly sundaythymes - it's all those spur of the moment spends that people get into the habit of, they don't always see how they add up to a LOT more than taking a packed lunch!

Oh fair enough :)

It's just frustrating as although I am saving some it's nowhere near as much as I 'should' be able to save. I think you're probably right and I'm not budgeting as hard as I could.

It's things like washing powder, pet food, I think what it is, is, I start the week thinking I only have to buy XYZ but actually I need other stuff which I forget about!

OP I have 3 kids and do 2 loads of washing every day, i buy branded powder but try to get it in bulk when it is on offer. You can also buy branded powders unboxed (in bags) online much cheaper.

But bascially yes it's down to accurate/realistic budgetting. Work out what you spend a month on washing powder & pet food and factor it into your outgoings.

Plan plan plan! I have fifty a week for our family food shop (this could be less- we eat pretty well) and ten a week for incidentals, which I mostly only spend half of. It isn't easy but basically stopping myself from having the freedom to nip into a shop to get that extra load of bread etc is how I do it. I walk everywhere though and only do free/£1 activities with the DC. If you make your life very boring and never ever ever buy anything unless you have previously planned to you will easily be able to do it. I'm not saying you can't still enjoy life but it's a different way to live from 'oh yeah let's go for a quick drink after work, ooh ok let's share some chips too and a few other boys' to 'I look forward to our night out in one month's time for which I have budgeted £20 which can under no circumstances can be exceeded'.

Coffee or a pint out are my 'indulgences'. While I was earning big money, I once worked out that Starbucks got £150 off me in a week, and there'd be another couple of hundred going to pubs & bars!

Now I have a total of 4 coffees OR pints a fortnight. If I'm feeling flush, I might get a second one OR a brownie in the coffee shop. It is actually miserable by comparison but, as Sunday says, it's not too bad if you can re-imagine/re-paint your mental picture of your life to suit.

It's utterly shit being permanently on a cliff-edge ... but, as you're doing this to save money rather than it being your complete budget, you won't have that stress. You can do it!