To ask how much money you have spare a month?

[whoknewitwouldbethishard]

Our income has just changed dramatically and we now only have £400 a month spare after bills and outgoings.

With this, we need to feed two adults and an almost one year old. I'm beside myself with worry here.

Is this a decent amount?

We've lost £600 a month 😩

It is not a huge amount if it has to cover things like fuel, clothes, entertainment and incidentals like gifts and haircuts etc. If that is purely for food it should be doable. Are you using the tax free childcare account to get your childcare bill down? Anything amongst your bills you can drop? Go on to the MSE forum and you will get great advice there on reducing outgoings and budgeting.

I am assuming the drop is due to decrease in income with you going part time and having to pay childcare? It is common to have this gap but by the time your little one is three he or she will get up to 30 hours free childcare so that will help. In the meantime download a spending app tracker on your phone to track every penny spent. You are not alone. Most of us had to make a massive lifestyle change after kids. It gets better.

-£26 monthly at the moment as I had to borrow money off my Mum for nappies and baby milk. Next month will be £21 spare. Which will go in my little boys birthday fund for his 1st birthday in 2 weeks 😊

Every penny is counted for at the moment.

stressed you've not got a very good imagination if you cant see how someone would need help in that situation.

we used to get tax credits when dp worked full time and me part time. it was because of the childcare in our case (we wouldn't have got TC's if say we used family for childcare)

OP, I feed two adults and 1 13yo and 1 2yo on about 250 a month easily. I shop at aldi, meal plan, freeze stuff that I would have previously chucked away. there is loads of groups on fb which will give you cheap meal ideas etc.

We manage on £30 a week for food and essentials OP for 2 adults and an 11m old. You'll be fine.

It sounds tight but manageable. Think we lived on that when saving for a house deposit. I did an online shop each week, with a meal plan, so I could keep tight control. Think that came to £75 for family of 3 (including plenty of healthy food and all cleaning products etc).

I get the childcare issue - is there any way to be more creative with working patterns so you can increase your hours without increasing childcare costs? Eg both do compressed hours and take a day off each every week?

Or work an evening job? I do my normal job each evening as I can do it remotely, but lots of friends got shop/ call centre jobs etc at this stage so they could work once DH got home

Yes we use childcare vouchers currently.

No, I've been part time since returning to work. The drop in income is due to my husband having to take a pay cut sadly

I have £440 a month before any bills, rent, food, essential toiletries. I don't have anything spare and the last week is often literally penniless.

400 will be for food and any emergencies

It’s not the food that’s the issue to me, it’s the small expensive crises eg boiler going wrong, leaky pipe, car repairs. You need to have a few hundred in hand for that.

We don’t do joint money.
After bills I have approx £250 in my account.

Im not sure what my partner has left over after bills. Probably a couple of hundred, maybe more.

400 a month for food and emergencies isn't bad for two adults and one child is it? You can have the odd meal out with that as well.

I wasn't being horrible in my previous replies by the way. I understand it must be difficult to adjust to a new budget but honestly I think you'll be fine. Scrimp now and look to the future.

Tax credits have gone in my area. If I could claim them, I'd be 108 a month better off!

I’m a little surprised people are saying £400 a month is “plenty”. I watch “rich house, poor house” and most of the poor families on there seem to have around £600 a month for food and utilities. And they are considered as living in poverty.

I wouldn’t call £400 a month plenty, but..if it is purely the food budget then yes you can manage it. As others have said, it will take some work, meal plans, no take away coffees, things like that. In that scenario I would probably buy my food shopping online because then you can really take your time comparing prices between brands and, if you find your virtual trolley is a bit too much, you can take stuff out and adjust which would be hard to do standing at the checkout.

stressedandskint - can’t you claim UC?

None.

I agree with the rich house poor house.

As a food budget it's brilliant but everything else its maybe a bit tight.

Break downs, Birthdays, Christmas, school always wanting money ( photos, parties, book days, calendars, trips) school dinners, clothes and sort of fun stuff at all.

Yes it's liveable but may feel a bit tight.

Have you checked the website turntous? Your husband's drop may have pushed you into the bracket. Aldi all the way. I've discovered sausage meat is an excellent alternative for Bolognese and meatballs!

OP said she was "beside herself with worry".

Charles Dickens's Mr Micawber's recipe for happiness: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

OP also said "we now only have £400 a month spare after bills and outgoings. "

£400 will be fine for food but I think it’s the extras that could be an issue.

I have a spare £150 leftover a month. I could squeeze it to £250 if I really budgeted hard and only bought essentials and no luxuries (Which I do some months for birthdays and christmases and the odd day out or small treat)

My bills are paid, my kids are fed and clothed, my house is warm and clean and that makes me very happy and very fucking grateful. I cannot bring myself to complain about money when there are people literally living on our streets begging for food, freezing themselves to near death and relying solely on charity and other people's kindness to get by.

I think you need to focus on being thankful instead of being greedy OP.

Oh for goodness sake get off your high horse. I was asking for advice, genuinely unsure.

Blimey nasty comments!!

Yes it's doable, once you menu plan properly you should have money left over

I'm a single mum working part time, I have around £400 left after rent and bills. Food shopping comes out of this, I shop once a fortnight at Aldi. It's SO cheap and the quality is just as good.

Thanks everyone.

We do aldi anyway for nappies etc, not because of price but genuine quality! Big fan of their wipes etc too.

We do meat there but always top up in Asda as the month goes on so maybe we need to cut that out and go 100% to aldi. I'm sure there are numerous ways to cut back, it just seems daunting to begin with!