To think 2 adults can live on £800 a month not incl rent?

[abacucat]

Just that really. I think this will be perfectly fine to live on and pay bills.

For me Council tax £200, food £200, car ins, £30, car tax, mot, service, £40, house insurance £20, water, gas & leccy £100, tv licences £12, broadband £18, phones £40, fuel £80
=£700, leaving £100 for shoes, clothes, hobbies, haircuts, the washing machine dying or needing a new car.

So no, it would be too tight, doable in the very short term but there is no allowance for unexpected costs and it wouldn’t be any fun.

Write down everything you have to pay out like gas electric water car tax mot etc and then write down what you need to pay out like mobile phone etc - these 'needs' can be cut down where you can. Then add them all up and see how that leaves you for food. Can you live on the amount left each month on food? That'll give you your answer.
Watch the 'eat well for less' programme for cheaper food ideas

You must live in a very palatial and up market place to pay that amount of council tax a month. Goodness knows what the rent must be going by the C.T. Think you should move to something less costly and you would have more funds for day to day life.

manicmij Not necessarily. Our council tax is around that and we live in a very modest little bungalow but in an expensive area in the south. It would cost a lot to move to a cheaper area and all our family and friends are here. Here is home so moving to a cheaper area is not always the best option.

I'd rather live a frugal life close to family and friends and feel like it's home rather than move somewhere cheaper and feel lonely and spend money travelling to keep in touch with loved ones.

Once we are finished renovating this money pit of a fixer-upper we will be living off a similar amount as the OP suggests. We think we'll manage fine if we budget carefully.

No, I'm in a E band house. The average is D and that would only be £10-15 a month less.

Been looking at bank statements which has been very useful. What we actually spend at moment in a month is:

• £80 gas and electric
• £10 2 mobile phones, one contract, 1 payg
• £40 internet and phone - could I am sure get a better deal
• £6 a month netflix - have been thinking of cancelling anyway, watched it a lot when we first got it, but not now
• £154 council tax
• £18 water
• £40 clothes and shoes
• £15 haircut
• contents insurance £15
• car insurance £30
• petrol £50
• food £60 (varies a lot. Can be less if I am making lots of veggie stuff, can be more if I am buying ready made stuff. So this seems average)
• Meal out £40
• Cinema £15
• Usual going out £130
• Holidays and weekends away £250
• Toiletries and cleaning supplies £4
• Expensive theatre tickets occasionally bought - £20
• Replacing broken washing machine etc, - £100
• Dentists - £10

Comes to £1077 plus rent.
So if we no longer go holidays and weekends away, cancel netflix, and dont buy expensive theatre tickets, we can still go out 3 times a week, go places in the car that are free, go to cinema once a month and eat out once a month. If I can figure out how to earn a bit more, we can still g on holiday. So hardly penury.

Shit, no I am wrong. The £60 for food is a week. So that should be £240.

And petrol is £200 a month.
So our actual current expenditure is £1407 a month plus rent.

So you need to drop that £1400 to £800? That's a massive drop!

I know!

How do you spend £130 going out a month? I’d look at dropping that! We spend about £60 going out, we probably go for a meal every other week.

We go out 3 times a week, plus cinema once a month, plus a meal out once a month, plus some day trips to free places in car.

That would probably be the easiest thing to cut, either go to cheaper things or go out less often id say?

That and holidays

£50 a week on petrol is a lot. If that's on commuting then that falls under what I said about expensive travel costs. If it's on other stuff you could try and cut that down.

If you’ve both got mobile phones, do you need a landline? We don’t have one, we just have phone contracts.

£20 is what we spend on the internet

Doable but need to be far more disciplined than me food shopping. My bills on my house come to over £600 (don't have any loans) makes a spreadsheet using last 3-4 months bank statements so you don't miss anything. Don't forget tv licence/Netflix/now tv etc each £10 adds up

Don't you generally need a landline to get internet at home? Or it's not actually cheaper to get the internet on it's own, so you might as well have a landline, even if you never use it?

Comments about petrol is something to think about. I'm fortunate enough that I just fill my car with petrol when it's empty and don't really know how much I spend - not helped by it being a company car, so nearly half the petrol I buy is actually paid for by my employer as it is used on work business.

But my basic commuting petrol that I have to use to get to work is about a third of what I buy for personal use and the rest is used on days out etc. I think nothing of driving an hour or two at the weekend to go hiking, or to the coast and might not spend much when I get there as I take a picnic and use free parking where possible, but of course my 'free' day out has cost about £15 in petrol that I don't really think about. If the OP does similar, it might be worth thinking about. Can the days out be closer to home for example?

No, at least that’s not the case for us. Our internet is £20 and we don’t need a landline for it.

are you doing this for a reason.need/saving for something.if not it seems like your cutting out all the things in ur life that makes it what it is.that makes it yours and brings the joy and growing that life is.

For 2 adults I would cut back on food, say £40 a week, and also cut back on nights out, days out and the weekends away.

Yes that's absolutely fine. We have been living comfortably on less. We eat well, have a social life and I feel privileged and happy.

Yes Dorset does, especially Weymouth and Portland Dorset district council.

My childcare bill is over £1k a month for starters, so no, I couldn’t
If your husband can’t work and you’re not caring, can you work differently ie different role or more hours etc, give yourselves some buffer