To ask your top tips on saving?

[RetroFlowers65]

Dh monthly income after tax, NI and pension is £3750 and we never seem to have any money left at the end of the month. We should be able to save to take the kids on lovely holidays etc but we just can't. I know we are lucky compared to some but could I have your top tips at saving as I feel we should be able to save £1000 a month easily on our income.

Well unless your mortgage is ginormous, id suggest you cut back on the caviar and gold shoes.

How much is your mortgage? How much are you spending on eating out? Where do you food shop/what do you buy? Do you have huge direct debits i.e. car loan etc? These are the obvious things to address.

Without knowing your monthly outgoings, it's going to be impossible to give you any advice.

get a budget and stick to it

www.youneedabudget.com/

Obviously it depends on your outgoings but unless they're big, you should be able to cut back and save up for security and holidays

Write down all your necessary outgoings. See what you can do to reduce them eg change energy suppliers.

Write down all your outgoings with have some flexibility. See what you can do to reduce them eg buy less convenience food, make own lunch

Work out where the rest of your money goes, and stop spending what you don't need to.

Save what money you are no longer spending unnecessarily.

That's it really!

For a month write down everything you spend.

Write down bills and mortgage.

What's left... How much do you you need for petrol, what's your food shop.. Write it down. Once petrol and food out way what's left for savings?

Get your income paid directly to me, tell me what your expenses are, and I'll return the money I believe you need to have to live on.

I'll look after the rest for you, and you can have it back when we both feel it's a good time.

No?

Get a savings account that you can only access with notice. Transfer an amount every month. Work out what the hell you're spending £1k a month on!

Open a savings account at a bank that is not your normal one so you can't make easy transfers from it - set up a standing order to that account for payday and live within whats left. Really if its not there in front of you, it will be much harder to spend it and you will adapt quicker than you expect.

I save 10% of my income this way

You need to look at your expenses over a year - if you just look at one month it doesn’t pick up the variable expenses - holidays, celebrations, things that went wrong etc.

Get a savings account that you can only access with notice. Transfer an amount every month. and do it at the beginning of the month when the pay check has just arrived, not at the end when you've already spent it.

You don't save a the end of the month if there happens to be anything left, because there never is. You move the money to savings on the day you get paid.

We waste it and I know that and I want to stop.
Mortgage and council tax £700
BT £135 (3 mobiles, fibre and tv)
Gas & Electric £80 total
Water £22
Home insurance £15
Car payment, insurance, service plan, break down, car tax £320
Tv licence £12
Netflix £8
Now TV movies £10
Amazon prime £7
Spotify family £15
Pre paid prescription cards x2 £21 total
Food shop £120 a week family of 5
Home service plan £30
Apart from that can't think of anything else.

I agree with the pay yourself first approach. I just transfer 10% of my income into savings on payday, into a savings account with a different bank.

If you really want to save then you have to reduce or remove all the things that aren't necessary...Amazon Prime + Netflix+ Spotify + NowTV + BT TV. Are there enough hours in the day for all this?

Do a budget, decide what's important to you and stick to it.

Yes we need to save on the 1st of each month. And I forgot kids after school activities £150 a month

I agree with pp , transfer a set amount on pay day into a savings account . In fact set up different accounts for the different things you want to save for and put a bit in each , that’s what I do . Once it’s out of the current account it’s gone and you only have what you’ve got left to spend . If you share an account it would probably be an idea to give both of you spending money in line with what you need to buy so you know what’s gone and what’s left . Our joint account is easy to manage because I’m the only one that uses it , dh just gets money off me if he needs some ( not a power thing just that he doesn’t carry cards / money )

What you haven't included is once a year or on offs. Holiday Christmas school clothes dentist car repair....

I started saving by using an app that let me put in all regular expenses, including savings, and one off estimates. Then I had a really clear idea of how much I had to spend over and above the essentials.

That concentrated the mind. And tracking every spend from every member of the family!

Have a look at money saving expert. Com.

I know Netflix etc are luxuries and will look at cutting back on them after everything listed we should have about £2000 left. Looking at past bank statements we just waste it on shit like take aways and movie rentals.

Presuming you also pay for clothes and shoes for 5 people, plus extra like Xmas and birthday presents and says out?
Your income isn't that high to warrant saving £1k a month.

Your shopping bill is quite high too. I feed 2 adults, 2 teens and 2 dogs for £100 a week and that includes 3 bottles of wine and a takeaway over the weekend.

Do your food shop online too, I saved nearly £50 a week by doing this. You don't pick up crap and it helps you meal plan better. Now we can include treats like a takeaway in our food budget.

At the beginning of the month I transfer money into different savings pots. Eg, £100 into holiday ac, £80 into car account, £50 insurance etc etc. I have pots for anything that might come up and also a general savings account, kids savings so don't get upskittled by any big expenses.

You need to set up a budget and decide what you think is a sensible amount to have as spending money and put the rest away. Its slightly crazy to think you can't muster a family holiday on a monthly income of nearly 4K!

Clothes, holidays, Xmas, birthdays, uniform hair cuts come out of my salary which goes into a separate account. £1800 pcm

So your joint income is £5.5k and you have no savings??