£400 spare a month

[extremebungee]

Due to a pay cut AIBU to live on £400 per month after bills?

This is to include everything including petrol, clothes, haircut, treats, child stuff, extra food, presents, days out.

A basic food budget would be covered in the household bills but how hard will it be to stick to this?

It is for 2 adults and a secondary aged child.

Daily commute for both adults is 3 miles per day so limited petrol.

I know people have less and it's not a race to the bottom. However i
s this liveable rather than just survivable?
I do realise we are lucky to have any discretionary income.

For real ... so after bills I live on nothing and people are saying £400 will be tough?

@RosaWaiting

I have a bog standard small car for my own run around, doesn't do huge mileage, annual servicing ranges from £150-£230 (depending on type), cheapest tyres are about £60 each (thus £120 for a set assuming just 2 go) and I'm probably needing to do one set a year ish, annual insurance of £300ish, MOT £50 (and something always needs doing about £100 if I'm lucky) tax is only £30, so without unexpected bills that equates to about £66 a month without anything major going on wrong on the car. And that's just one car (and a cheap one at that) I appreciate op may pay for insurance monthly and already discounted.

Op I don't understand the economics here.

You and your dh are both teachers. Presuming neither of you are newly qualified, you're presumably both earning at least £30k, so £60K a year between you. You and your DH should each have at least £2k a month after tax etc, so £4k net each month. You're entitled to child benefit for your dc, and as s/he is at secondary school presumably you've got no childcare costs.

You pay rent to your PiL, which includes food,. Unless they are charging you a sky-high amount I cannot work out how you only have £400 a month left. Is there some other backstory about paying off debts?

I'm confused. I don't understand how two teachers living with relatives have only £400 a month disposable income?

This. Even if you had your own home I wouldn't get it. You have no childcare with a kid that age- even if you were both NQT you would be on c. £45k - assuming both in full time. And your joint income could be heading toward £70k and that's assuming you are bog standard teachers - rather than in upper pay ranges /lead practitioners.

Is this post a wind up?

So you’re both teachers and live with PIL , so I’m assuming no household running costs gas/ electric/ council tax etc. Food is accounted for in whatever rent contribution you make to them and you only have £400 a month between you left?

I'm assuming this budget is self inflicted and you have put a large chunk aside in savings for your own home or similar?

I wouldn't count petrol as non essential. I wouldn't count kid's presents as non essential and I wouldn't count hair cuts as no essential (unless you all have long hair?). I wouldn't count clothes as non essential either. Presumably you will have to buy at least children's shoes every season? While cheap summer shoes are fine, school and winter boots can be expensive and you have to budget for these along with school uniforms instead of taking a big chunk out of an already tight budget in August. Have you included mobile phone bills/school trips/birthday parties/school books/school donations/medical bills/opticians/car maintenance/social work events/child's activities?

400 for week to week expenses is doable but it would make life much less stressful if you had a 'pot' with funds in it to cover the expenses that often need to be paid immediately. I would take 200 pounds out of the budget straight away to cover these sort of larger bills that need to be paid upfront which leaves 50 a week between the three of you for day to day expenses. Its doable in the short term but not much fun. depending on your interests. E.g. If you are all into outdoor activities and sports/live near a beach and surf/enjoy gardening and have a big garden/live in the countryside and enjoy long bike rides then things will be easier. If you live in a city and enjoy eating out/going to the cinema/have expensive hobbies and activities, and not doing the things you enjoy, life will be more stressful.

Your disposable income is less than ours - and it appears we are likely to earn less than you, have more children, childcare costs and £1k a month mortgage.

It’s doable, people on benefits get a little more and that’s not including there bills.

Personally I would find it incredibly hard, if your child needed new school clothes, school trips, prescriptions costs etc...

Split it into weekly equal amounts.

Sometimes you have more things planned one week than the next and unexpected things crop up.

I found when I was trying to make an amount last each month, I'd get stuff I needed at the beginning of the month (eg haircuts, shoes, uniform) when I was flush then only have a limited amount left towards the end of the month when unexpected things would then crop up.

This way, you have £100 on a Monday say. If you find yourself with leftover money you can put that to one side even if it's only a few pounds.

Start again with £100 the next Monday. If something unexpected crops up and you overspend, you have the previous weeks leftovers to dip into to clear it.

If there are no leftovers, at least you only have a "couple of days" to wait until the next lot of money.

Of course, you would have to divide your £400 up over the number of days to payday which is rarely 28, and generally 30-31, so for example if your money had to last 31 days, it would be £12.90 per day so £90.32 per week, then you'd have three days before your next wage but you'd have £38.70 to last until then.

If you get used to spending cash only, that should make you think twice about buying stuff, and also aiming for a couple of no spend days each week will make the money stretch.

I'm assuming this budget is self inflicted and you have put a large chunk aside in savings for your own home or similar?

Yes you are right. I didn't want to give too many details but its the agreement we have fir staying with parents for a year.

Thanks to all the advice to those that have posted. I am on 28k and oh is an NQT. I may look to a bike but I would have to buy one.

I also take dd with me to school . It starts at 8.30am. We could look to walk though.

Wait until you have to live on a State pension......

Wait until you have to live on a State pension......

Not looking forward to that.

Go to work on a bike - I get that this is ecological and healthy but I've never understood it as a way of saving money. Bikes are expensive in the first place, then there's puncture kits and maintenance, lights, new tyres, brake pads, helmets, clips, lock and chain, saddlebags, hi vis bands, saddle pad, waterproofs etc. They all cost a fortune. I bought a cheap bike and still it's one of my most expensive hobbies.

@cantfindname as teachers hopefully they won't be on just a state pension. I certainly won't be.

I think it's just about doable. Tight though. Teenagers can outgrow shoes three times in a year sometimes. If a washing machine breaks down the lot is gone. I'd try to live on £300 of it and save £100pcm for sudden expenses (including new shoes for DC or school trips etc.)

I'm assuming this budget is self inflicted and you have put a large chunk aside in savings for your own home or similar?

That's what I'm thinking too unless the PILs are absolutely FLEECING them! If it's self inflicted it's tight enough and I think you'll find yourselves needing to dip into savings.

People are assuming it's £400 a month to blow on whatever they fancy but there are plenty of other costs after food and bills. You won't be getting a secondary school child's shoes/trainers in a charity shop. In fact, despite some MNers conviction that no one ever needs to shop anywhere but the charity shop, that very much depends on the ones you have access to as well as the type of clothes you need. You can get away with second hand sweatshirts etc if you're a sahm but plenty of jobs require a certain standard of appearance and there's no guarantee your local charity shop will have what you need.

Fine to say get rid of car and walk but that's 6 miles a day hail, rain or snow. Doable yes but a bit bloody miserable and besides that wherever else you want to go other than work either needs to be reasonably close or you're paying bus or train fairs which are not cheap.

Posters here are always so quick to declare how lucky everyone else is and can make out tuppence ha'penny is wealth beyond their wildest dreams .

From your last post this sounds temporary. Of course it's doable, I don't think that was ever the question in terms of "survival", but if you were asking because this was what was left after a potential house purchase I would not say it's sustainable for a good quality of life and would sacrifice the house, for example. But it sounds like it is a means to an end, in which case I'm sure you will cope with it in the meantime, and it sounds like your wages will be increasing in years to come.

I think it would be doable but wouldn't be very fun, it's still about £100 a week tho so should be ok x

I don't think it would be doable for the long term. Short term perhaps.

Your spare cash knocking around is more than your fulltime support staff will be receiving in a week and have to support themselves without recourse to parents or cars.

You'll be fine. After all, if an emergency hit, you wouldn't have to worry about whether you'll be made homeless, would you?

Support staff get the same as an NQT roughly in our town.

Infact we were both support staff thats how we met. I did NQT three years ago. Oh this year. He actually took a pay cut from a HLTA.

And what about the rest of the support staff? There are different grades and pay rates - technicians, reception, reprographics, admin. And they don't benefit from the same sort of collective bargaining/T&Cs as teaching staff.

Like I said, you'll be fine.

@MitziK oh for heaven's sake what has it got to do with support staff?! She's meant to have some kind of guilt because she earns more than what she used to?? (after taking the time and money to do her training and no doubt under immense stress now not being paid enough for what she does either!!) of course there are people worse off than her, that wasn't her question!

Not sure of the admin grade but lab tech is 24k. I know people survive on a lot less it wasn't about that to be honest it was generally a wonder if it was bu. There is a range of opinions it appears that it's definitely survivable but possibly not that enjoyable. Which is fine.

What on earth do the bloody support staff and their rates of pay have to do with the Op MitziK ? Jeez she said what her salary is upthread, she's not exactly a 1 percenter and they're not her support staff!

No, but if they can support themselves with less a week than the OP has knocking around as spare each month and don't have the luxury of somebody else providing accommodation, gas, electric, water, appliances to use and food, I fail to see where there is anything to be worried about.