Should we be this broke with £750 disposable income?

[Lionking1981]

Just this. We have 50 pounds left and it has to last us 9 days. I keep pleading poverty to my family because i find it so hard to make ends meet, my mum gives me the odd tenner to help me out but we have just worked out all our bills and food and we have 750 pounds disposable every month. I don't feel we overspend. I feel a bit ashamed of this. Dh doesn't think it's a lot and it's normal for us to be struggling. We have 2 dc. What do you think?

Please stop taking your mums money, it's not fair.

I did a challenge once where you had to brand swap everything to the next level down, and we were very surprised and how little difference it made to us, but how much we saved.

Agree with other posters that you should write things down. Top up shops are hazardous, you pop in for milk and bread, and suddenly you've spent £30 on stuff you don't need. Get into the habit of having an emergency long life milk in the cupboard and some of those part baked rolls. Try to eat all the stuff that you already have in your cupboards and freezer, if your kids are anything like mine, they say there's nothing to eat, when actually you could live for a month on the food we've got.

My friend told me that Iceland has some brilliant bargains, I haven't tried it yet, as the local one closed down, but they delivery cheaply.

Like lots of PPs said, It's scary how much money can be wasted on take away coffees and meals. Try to limit those if you have them. We have a takeaway once a month and really enjoy it, but I bet people who have them several times a week barely notice.

Hopefully you can find where all your money's going. We cut back because we had to, but I quite enjoy it now!

I made 3 sheets on computer, supermarket/food, fuel and other spends. Printed out blank and keep them in my diary, fill them in each time money is spent. I did this for a month and realised very quickly where we were overspending. Also at pay day I fill in a grid (again handmade on computer!) with income at the top, then deduct bills, fuel, food (all budgeted for using the info from the first month) and any essential spending needed this money (car MOT, dentist appointment, birthdays etc) and then see what is left. I withdraw all the cash for the things listed and put into envelopes, leaving enough for direct debits for the bills. If there is any spare then we decide what to do with it (pay off debts, have a date night, save some) I started this in January and have saved £800 so far- not mega bucks but the most we've had in savings for over 4yrs!! X

Try the free month of YNAB, (You Need A Budget) - it claims to save you the equivalent of 250 dollars in the first month by restructuring your spending in line with your priorities. I thought that would be bollocks, frankly, turned out it was true.

Lots of threads on here about how well it works if you do a search. The psychology of it is very sound. Best of luck, at least you're on the path to sorting it out now.

The OP isn't asking for sympathy, she is asking how she can work out what is going on and address it.

Wow! Reality sure ain't the same for everyone!

Same as everyone else has said really, you need to be far more realistic about what you ARE spending and on what.

I do a spreadsheet, I've done this for years, and review it whenever anything changes and if no changes monthly.

I operate on a 4 week month as my money comes in weekly/fortnightly/4-weekly. I've arranged for my direct debits (the ones I can change) to be spread throughout the month and come out on the days money goes in or day after (feel I'm not explaining that well) but when I was getting a monthly wage I'd arrange for them to go out 4 days after pay day (to allow for weekends and bank holiday delays).

Currently in my 'outgoings' list is:

Gas
Electric
Tv licence
Mobile Phones
Wifi
Housekeeping (that's not just food but toiletries & cleaning products, I round up and the 'spare' allows a takeaway at 'beginning' of our month)
Clothes & shoes (rarely buy for me but dd and even though not every month if it's not spent it's set aside as sure as eggs she'll take a bloody stretch the next month!)
Pocket money for dd (providing her room is tidy and no sanctions for bad behaviour)
Personal (small amount only in cash and when it's gone it's gone)
Savings (for extra costs in school hols, dds birthday & Xmas, also for others birthdays etc)

Haircuts - I cut our hair mine to save money dd as she's phobic about hairdressers (bad experience when little)

Food I get basics as far as possible (most basic stuff is fine but everyone has stuff they just can't compromise on), make soup most weeks (healthy & filling and a good way to use up veg on the turn, toast any bread past its best and use as 'croutons').

Even when I was working I'd make packed lunches (I'm veggie and shop egg or cheese sandwiches get boring) or if caught short get meal deals from the supermarket nearest workplace. Drank tea/coffee at work (usually free provided by employer or a small contribution to a kitty), would take in fruit, cereal bars biscuits in from home for snacking at work - again not just money saving but meant I had ones I liked and would eat.

I still have a load of thermal mugs from when I commuted into nearest city for work, would do myself a tea/coffee in it at home for journey in and do one at work for journey home, nobody ever minded lots of us did the same. I've a flask I used to use for soup for lunch in winter. (Workmates would often do same, not always soup, sometimes stews or pasta dishes and people would discuss/taste test/share recipes, my old boss used to do a fantastic sweet potato and roast veg stew she brought in sometimes - I miss that )

When I've felt like my spending is out of control I use my card as much as poss, clear out my purse, get receipts for EVERYTHING and after a week sit and go through it all, reconcile the receipts with the bank transactions, breakdown items into my budget categories and see where I'm going over.

That's a hell of a lot to be spending without knowing on what it's nearly double my rent!!

On Moneysavingexpert.com ( and other sites)!you can find budget planners. Get a bank statement and list down everything. Use it to budget.

Until I did this, I was amazed how much money we seem to get through and never have enough for odd expenses. It made me consider everyday things such as haircuts, which can soon add up, and also to put money aside for the large school uniform shop in the summer (shoes can cost over £100 alone).

There's also a tool on mse (forget what it's called) where it tells you eg how much a daily Starbucks coffee costs over a year - the idea being it shocks you into not buying it!

I forgot transport because we currently don't spend on that (dd walks everywhere and I'm agoraphobic and been home last 6 months) but during winter months and summer holidays we normally each get a weekly bus pass which for us covers from my local town right to another town 15 miles away which has a bowling alley and fun pool etc for stuff for dd to do yet works out to £5 per week less than if we paid 5 days a week standard fares to and from local town so well worth it.

Also when I had a car as well as budgeting petrol costs (including checking a local Fb page for that weeks cheapest petrol retailer) I'd save each month to cover the annual costs of mot (inc any necessary repairs), tax. Insurance paid monthly but ALWAYS shopped around and then had the 3 cheapest compete for my business.

Also make sure I get best deals on utilities, wifi etc.

Oh yes to saving for 'back to school' expenses too, even the little bits (stationery etc) can soon add up.

I do an envelope budget. I get cash out at the beginning of the month. I fill envelopes for petrol, groceries, meals out, social, transport etc. I have cash in them and don't use my card unless it's an emergency. Means we don't overspend and I know exactly where all my cash is going.

We have a spreadsheet where all spending goes. There's categories with budgeted and then actual amounts and if everything were spent as to the budget we would stay in the black.
I adjust it each month i.e. Children's clothes will have more allocated to it when school
uniforms need buying, the saving for birthdays/Christmas has more leading up to Christmas, there's no school dinner money in August etc.
Then all spending goes in. We try not to use cash too much as easier to track by card. I check the banking app every day and update the spreadsheet every day or so. Means we can see how things are going according to the budget. Is also important to split less frequent expenses into monthly amounts and then save for them so it isn't a big shock at a later date. We started this nearly a year ago so soon will be able to look back and see what we have spent over a year.

As to whether you're unreasonable it does depend what you're spending the money on. So you need to find that out. But if you're regularly running out of money and also having meals out and takeaways, then it seems that you need to eat out less.

I'd be willing to bet that snacks, coffees, lunches bought out are what is hurting you. They add up dangerously quickly.

Lots of fantastic tools on moneysavingexpert. As well as the demotivator tool to tell you that your daily morning coffee that's 'only' £2.50 will cost you £600 a year if you do it every day, there's the moneysaving mantra which is about making you think before spending and not wasting money:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/money-mantras

OP, sign up to the weekly newsletter and read it every week. Lots of tips about maximising income and minimising essential expenditure to leave more left over for the fun stuff and getting the best price on everything.

It might seem boring or daunting at first but after a while it becomes second nature and instead of running out of money before pay day, you might even get into a situation where you have spare money (it sounds like you have more than enough to cover the basics and have maybe just got into a habit of spending a bit too much on 'small' treats so you run out of money or struggle with big expenses).

When you have spare money, you can do things like pay for your insurance or car tax in one go, which is cheaper, or if your washing machine breaks, you just buy a new one and pay in full instead of panicing and taking out a credit agreement.

If you are in the habit of shopping mindlessly and having lots of stuff and treats, you should catch up with Shop Well for Less on BBC iplayer (there's also Eat Well for Less on sometimes, which is about food shopping).

It's a bit formulaic once you've watched a few, but the basic premise is families who earn well and spend all their money and more on an excessive amount of the most expensive brands of food or consumer goods, but they are 'always skint' or cannot afford something big that they want like a holiday, a wedding or a decent car.

They swap brands and cut down on things like mobile phones or TV services and save huge amounts. In the current series, the family were spending £3k per year on mobile phones (they had 4 teens and they and the parents all had latest iphone contracts).

You have £750 left after bills and food?

That is a lot to me. We have £400 left after bills and that's to pay for food and literally everything else (so clothing, haircuts, hobbies etc) We are skint though!

£750 left after food has been bought would be incredible!

Do you pay everything with a card?

Family member in same situation as you, always pleading poverty asking to borrow money constantly, but couldn't understand why she was always skint.
Sat down on more than one occasion and went through her bank statements, (everything paid by card) and there was approx £600 that she didn't really need to spend. Take away alone accounted for a large amount of that.
The problem is because she pays everything on her card and never checked her account, she didn't feel like she was spending actual money!
We've give up trying to help now, few years down the line nothing changed. She's still always skint.

If you do use your card for everything, try using cash instead. It makes you conscious of what you actually spend. Keep all receipts. Write it down, Make sure everything is accounted for and you know exactly what your money is being spent on.

Eat well for less is brilliant as it doesn't just look at spending but food myths too, like people thinking branded orange juice is better for you etc

I must look at the consumer one.

Demotivater tool THANK YOU don't you just hate when you can't remember the name for something?

Op if you think £3k a year on phones is bad you're spending £9k a year and don't even know on what! That's a salary for some!

Our disposable income is a lot higher than yours but it was a lot less in the past. I really don't understand this trend of adults with families and good incomes not standing on their own feet financially. I would have been ashamed to ask my parents for money for everyday expenses and the thought of going out from meals and getting takeaways while pleading poverty to my parents would have been unthinkable. If your parents are much better off and want to treat you that is a different matter, e.g. take you out for a meal. However, many older people are living on small, fixed incomes, especially as they reach their 80s / 90s (not saying your parents are that old) and would put many of us to shame with their budgeting. If you have a really low income and ask for help for an emergency, e.g. to pay a dental bill, unexpected household appliance break down that is one thing, but to plead poverty and then go out for a meal, that is quite another.

We have a spreadsheet too. It has detailed income and expenditure for the whole year, flagging up when we can switch suppliers etc. After compulsory bills, which includes food, annual car costs, mobile phone etc I have a separate section which includes everything else that I can possibly think of. This is, any annual trips, clothes, savings, mortgage overpayments, house repairs, saving for replacing appliances as and when they break, prescriptions, printer ink, school uniform, pocket money, hair cuts, money for school things, kids meagre savings, Christmas, holidays, birthdays and anything else that I can think of. Anything left is disposable. Sometimes we have nothing if for example we need to buy other things, but we know that we have saved for the important things. At the start of each year I work out how much these things will cost and then split by 12 months, saving the relevant portion each month. That pot then goes into a separate bank account so it can't be spent until needed. I have a matching spreadsheet which shows how much is in each pot. I also have separate spreadsheets for things like Christmas, birthdays and holidays which I drill down further to make sure we can cover everything.

You need to figure out what you spend throughout the whole year and what is important to you and then start at that point.

From what you have said it sounds like you pay your bills and buy food and then just spend the remaining on things as and when they come up. I couldn't survive like that on 750 a month because I would always think that I have more than I do and then not be able to pay for the car service for example. However budgeting with 750 would be more feasible because you can work out what you need to make work for you.

Along with coffee shops that have got people into a 'daily latte' habit, I think that the emergence of 'tap the app and takeaway magically appears shortly afterwards' has a lot to answer for in making people blindly spend loads on takeaway without thinking or realising how much it ends up costing because they're not handing cash over.

Some people's bank/credit card statements must be a long line of Domino's, Deliveroo, Hungry House, Just Eat etc.

We budget £1K "family spends", but that includes or food shopping,so we probably on a similar amount of disposable spends to you.

It seems like a lot, but actually it really isn't enough to spend freely on luxuries, meals out, takeaways etc, and I think you need to get your head around that. Don't get me wrong, its a comfortable amount, but it still needs managing to get it to last the month out. There's lots of things that come out of this money, vet bills, school trips, birthday parties, passport renewals, house repairs, new household items, school shoes, kids activities, clothes and equipment, car repairs, hairdressers - the list goes on!

We take packed lunches to work, and a takeaway coffee is a rare treat, not an everyday thing. We have either one meal out (c.£60) or 2 takeaways/lunches per month, but no more than that. If we have lots bigger costs to pay in a month we cut back on things like takeaways, or run the freezer down a bit and save on the food bill.

I think it's easy to think that it's loads and to feel like you can afford the coffees or lunches out all the time, but it's not really enough for that. Plenty to live comfortably on, and cover all costs, but not enough to enable a stream of casual luxury purchases.

As others have suggested, keeping track of where your money is going really helps to gain control.

With 3 kids, ours adds up to a lot. Also travel is a lot for dh (going into London). We easily spend that a month on those things, v rarely have takeaway, kids haircuts x 3, my hair cut v rarely etc. etc.

Do you keep a record of all your bills on a spreadsheet or similar? I have an excel spreadsheet and cross off every time a bill is paid.

We have much less than that per month at the moment as I'm on maternity leave and we always seem to be short at the end of the month. I've worked out its mainly from top-up shops, you only need to nip in and spend 20 quid a few times and that can be 100 gone in a week. If you have a joint account and both have a card it's easy to each buy bits here and there and it's quickly adds up. Plus sometimes it can take quite a few days for card payments to show up so you can think you have more than you do. I find that a lot with PayPal.

We're going to do what a previous poster suggested and draw all spare cash out at the beginning of the month so we can both physically see what's left.

It's fascinating how easy it is to fritter money away on coffees/take aways/meals out/softplay with the kids (and a kiddie meal there) etc etc.

IMO, that is all not even money well spent.

Take out costs a bomb, it really does. But it's so easy to do, and it seems so normal and like everyone else is doing it too

I spend too much on my kids activities (sports, music and all their kit) and I have a bad habit of liking to have lunch out (even if just a sandwich or soup), but it all adds up ... I am planning to have more home-made lunches (noooooooooo ) and have started bringing my own thermos to kids rugby matches instead dod buying coffee after coffee after coffee...

I used to work near a small tesco and then wondered where all my money was going. I added up that I was spending a tenner at lunch and then £15 after work. So £25 a day x 20 days a month = £500. I was only on £1000 a month! It's usually small things adding up that causes it but your brain automatically tries to think of big purchases.