To ask why we struggle with money so much.

[whatismyusername29]

Hi all, probably not the right place but guess posting here for traffic.

I am SAHP. I have two dc with additional needs. My partner works and brings home around £500 a week after tax plus he usually does overtime so can be more. He gets paid monthly so usually around £2000 take home maybe a little more with overtime. . Up until last year he was paid weekly so we have struggled with this transition and making it stretch.

We also get child benefit, I get £30 a week for my son from his father. DS also gets DLA (low rate mobility and middle rate care) and I receive Carers allowance for DS as his needs are quite significant. Despite Dd having additional needs too we do not claim for her yet.

We own our own home. Our mortgage is just a little less than £400 a month on our home worth around £200,000 We do run two cars which is quite a big expense. Our bills tend to be quite high - gas/electric/water. We do spend quite a lot on food. We have some debt (maybe around 2 grand).

We don’t have many luxuries. Haven’t had a holiday in several years, neither of us drink alcohol so that isn’t an added cost.

But why are we skint? Our mortgage is low, we aren’t in a huge amount of debt, don’t have luxuries. We do have subscriptions for Netflix, prime etc but who doesn’t?! Both have phone contracts but again who doesn’t?!

DS’s school lunches are costing me a fortune normally. Around £45 a month but he won’t eat a packed lunch. Dd is younger and gets free lunches in infants.

A holiday (covid allowing) would be nice but how?!

Aibu to think we really shouldn’t struggle so much?!

We are overdrawn by the end of the month always.

Advice? Best ways to save money? How to cut down on food costs.

I appreciate we are in a better position then some. Are bills are paid and we have food but there just isn’t a lot left. I cannot remember the last time I bought clothes for myself!

We need new carpet but how?! Unless we put it on credit but want to avoid that.

We want to get married but not sure how we could possibly avoid it?!

We do have some savings but only around 2 grand. It’s saved for a rainy day - cars going wrong, stuff going wrong in the house etc.

We’ve just spend £700 getting out heating system fixed!

I know many people will tell me to get a job. I want to but that easy with my two and the unsociable hours dp works!

Not everyone has phone contracts. We pay £8 each SIM only with giff gaff or £192 per annum, your bill is £780 per annum.

@maras2

You say that neither of you drink alcohol but do either of you smoke/vape?

No both never smoked - or vaped.

Can you sell your unwanted stuff on eBay or gumtree to pay off your debt?

You’re doing well on a tight budget and already have some good tips to work on. Another approach you could take is to make your holiday cheaper. As you own your own home in a nice part of the UK, you could look into house swaps using sites such as these:

www.homelink.org.uk

How bad can a kitchen be? Are we talking looks shabby or white goods failing?

Honestly OP there is a whopper hole in your budget you arent even nearly explaining, there's about a grand a month difference between your income & what you say you spend. You need to really get on top of your finances, living on a low income means you need to know where every pound goes. You should easily be able to save a hundred quid a month for a camping holiday.

@snog there really isn’t much to sell. Old toys often get sold on Facebook local pages. Clothes tend to get worn out so cannot really be sold. Don’t have much else that’s worth selling I don’t think? What things do people buy on eBay?

Budget budget budget. It’s boring but necessary. Go through your bank statements make sure that you know every single cost going out, and when they go out. Then budget for everything else and stick to it. Change your way of thinking to- I can only buy it if I can afford it so no
Dipping into overdrafts. Only spend on necessities, a lot easier to do
Currently in lockdown. You said there’s always something to do like decorating.
Decorating doesn’t need to be done 9/10 times- unless it’s an emergency repair so what if something looks a little unkept. Do
It when you can really afford it.

Pic of the kitchen, maybe people can suggest some inexpensive fixes to help you get 2 or 3 more years out of it.

And I don’t mean this to be harsh but 3k a month take gone is equivalent to a salary of just under £50k

It’s not a low amount of money, and someone starting a thread entitled “I can’t manage on 50k” would get a bit of challenge.

I think you’re spending a lot on “small” things and not realising it adds up

@IEat

Monthly pay is the root of all evil. I wish we’d go back to weekly . So much easier.

Just transfer it all to a savings account on payday, and set up a transfer to your normal account each week.

[quote whatismyusername29]@Temptashun as above. Kitchen is in a great need to be replaced! ex army housing sold on cheap. Very cheap kitchens were put in to sell houses after refurbs.[/quote]
You do not need a new kitchen.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

How bad can a kitchen be? Are we talking looks shabby or white goods failing?

Honestly OP there is a whopper hole in your budget you arent even nearly explaining, there's about a grand a month difference between your income & what you say you spend. You need to really get on top of your finances, living on a low income means you need to know where every pound goes. You should easily be able to save a hundred quid a month for a camping holiday.

White goods are fine as what we’ve bought. It’s the cupboard and cabinets falling apart as they very basic. The kitchen will 100 percent need to be replaced whether that’s now, in 5 years or 10 (don’t think it will last that long). Also the refurbs were done by what dp would call ‘cow boys’. We’ve had to fix a lot around the house over the last few years £££

Yy to the decorating. Dh and I earn 5 times what you do and havent decorated in 5 years. We've had the same very cheap ikea sofa for 9 years. The carpets were ten years old when we moved into the house and are still here 5 years on. They dont look show home but they are perfectly serviceable.

People piss money away, often just to keep up with others.

OP, you have said that you are are continually about £200 in your overdraft, right?

I’m pretty sure I can tell you why.

1. A lot of the figures you have given are approximate. Your DH’s salary, the amount you pay for council tax etc. Based on my very rough calculations, that 200 quid is between 4-8% of your budget.

If you firm up your figures for both income and expenditure, you will see where the money is going and can then decide what you want to do about it.

1. You have been adding in extras throughout the thread. Dogs aren’t cheap! Your dog needs to be included in the budget. Don’t forget his expenses.

Again, If you firm up your figures for both income and expenditure, you will see where the money is going and can then decide what you want to do about it.

1. You have said a lot of this is because you have gone from being paid weekly to being paid monthly. For a rough and ready reckoning, everyone says that a month is four weeks. But it isn’t. And you need more than a rough and ready reckoning to get rid of your overdraft and start saving.

Yet again, if you firm up your figures for both income and expenditure, you will see where the money is going and can then decide what you want to do about it.

Then you can see exactly what you have coming in and going out and make decisions accordingly.

About those decisions....you need a roof over your head. How much do you spend on housing including council tax etc to keep it there? In your case, it is unlikely to make sense to move but you should still know what these numbers are.

You need food. This is a bit more complicated because you could eat lentils three times a day, every day and save a fortune but nobody really wants to do that. Meal planning will help you keep costs under control and if you have a few vegetarian meals a week, it will make a huge difference. Meat tends to be the most expensive part of any meal.

What else do you need to stay alive? The answer is not much. Everything else is a luxury. Your phones - luxury. Netflix - definitely a luxury. New clothes - luxury.

Recognise anything over your very basic needs as luxury items.

I can hear you saying ‘But I need....’.

You really don’t.

But once you have paid for food and shelter, you can can choose to have it. You just need to have it.

Recognise that and it will become much easier to make financially sensible choices without feeling deprived.

@Temptashun we ‘need’ a new kitchen we just cannot afford one. I don’t think you can make that assumption. It’s been on our agenda for years so just could afford it. It was fitted by ‘cow boys’ and falling apart despite fixing parts multiple times. We plan to live here until we die and there’s no way the kitchen will last the next couple years let alone another 50 or 60 years.

To add out a weak stair fell through on our staircase trapping my leg.

We are grateful for our ‘cheap house’ but it’s been a struggle.

Do you spend on takeouts (sorry if already mentioned). Due to stress and SEN fussy eating, we got into a habit of treating ourselves at Costa and the DC at Macdonald's and it was pushing £200 some months

Importing all our bank statements into You Need A budget revealed it, I really recommend. The money goes somewhere.

I have almost the same income as you (about £3k per month) and have to support myself and my two children (teens so probably more costly than yours, notwithstanding the lunches) and I can't understand where your money is going. You do have an extra person to support but my mortgage is £200 more than yours and like you I spend about £100 per month on debt (will soon be cleared). I end up buying a few non-essentials for the house/children each month (but I know what they are and I know where that money has gone) and also save between £400-700 per month. Pre-covid we went on two holidays to Europe per year (a main one and a shorter one) and a few other weekends away in the UK. My ex has recently started paying about £150 CM, which I've included in my figures, but he spends naff all else on them, though they are there about 6 nights per month so I guess that saves me a bit on food. Like you, I had to spend £650 of my savings on a central heating problem in October - but I've more than replaced the full amount now.

I'm saying all this because I just don't get where all your money is going. I know you have an extra car and an extra person to pay for but it seems your money is running away with you and nothing you have said explains why/where. Does dh have a huge commute?

Oh- OP- I’m sorry if this sounds mean, but from your replies, you’re just not ready to tackle this yet. And that’s okay- I think coming to terms with budgeting and accepting some things is an incredibly hard and emotional thing to do. But regardless of whether your kitchen is falling apart, that you need new carpets or a holiday, you can’t afford any of them. And unless you make some changes you never will. You really don’t “need a money tree”- you need to be realistic and honest with yourself and start from there. As others have said, you’ve not accounted for around £1500 a month of your expenditure. Unless your husband is secretly spending (it doesn’t sound like it from what you say?) then you’re both spending without realising!!!

Another vote here for the debt free wannabe board on Moneysavingexpert.com - a few years ago I owed in the region of £15K (mainly due to daft relationship decisions, but that's another story) and it was largely due to the advice on there that I managed to pay it back. As someone else said earlier though, don't expect them to treat you with kid gloves. They'll definitely tell you it like it is.

Something else to bear in mind is that the cost of living has definitely increased in the last few years, especially for basic things like food. You can use ingredients like mashed potato, soya mince, barley, lentils, split peas etc to bulk out meals, though I'm sure you probably do this already. We have also found having a slow cooker a Godsend, and if we had room for a bigger freezer we'd definitely have one and I would batch cook more.

I've kept diaries since my late teens, and due to having not much money at all until I was in my 30s, I always made a note of what I spent on food. I now look back at some of the lists and laugh that you could get a pretty good loaf of bread for 45p and a litre of petrol for less than 80p....there was even one week when the local Safeway (as it then was) had so many fantastic offers on everything I needed that I managed to get my entire weekly shop for £25. That was a one off though!

To be honest, though, feeding four of you on that budget looks pretty decent to me. I think Lidl came out cheapest in a recent survey for food, though I would recommend keeping a spending diary (one of many tips the money saving expert board will suggest, I'm sure) and literally writing in there every penny you spend.

On the household utilities, have you looked to see if you might get a better deal if you swapped supplier? I finally gave in recently as Octopus and a couple of others had been in touch, we swapped, it was utterly seamless, and already, even in the depths of winter, our bills are much lower than they were.

And then there are those money pits called cars...though it's a bit of a pain, also shop around for your car insurance - we do this every year and it can often make a difference. You've mentioned car tax and car insurance, but in my experience it's the unexpected car bills that push running costs up and up so they need to be accounted for too. And if you want to see who has the cheapest petrol in your area, have a look at www.petrolprices.com/, it's free to sign up and they don't send you unwanted spam. You can check by postcode. And though it might only sometimes be a few pennies, it can mount up.

For treats and holidays, have a look to see what instalment schemes are out there; though this year, as we're presuming even if we're let out of the country we'd need to quarantine, possibly in a hotel, when we return, so we just won't be able to afford it. We're therefore looking at tents instead....(we also live in the south west so hopefully if we get the timing right we'd be able to go SOMEWHERE out of season...)

And again, as others have said, it does look as if you're doing amazingly well for the four of you.

You sound quite like me - earning reasonably, not spending excessively, but still thrown for a loop by unexpected expensive stuff like the dryer going or being able to afford holidays.

What changed my perspective totally was budgeting in a different way and accounting for those big occasional costs on a monthly basis. So for example building in EVERY expense - a fund for repairs, a fund for a new washing machine every 6-8 years etc, hair cuts, dentist visits, weddings and associated costs, pet costs. It was those things that I wasn't budgeting for properly, and then it was like it was an awful surprise every time - especially if it was something like the boiler going, but even if it was just a hen weekend away.

I was actually earning enough to manage it all, but because I wasn't setting money aside for the longer-term costs I was instead spending the money on a short-term basis because I felt it was spare.

Make a list of EVERYTHING and also how often it comes up. Then turn it into a monthly figure - eg budgeting for a household appliance at 400 every five years is a monthly cost of £6.66 - put it in the budget and then put that money away each month so it's waiting when you need it.

You can also compare how much you are spending on things on a five-year basis. Lattes were my Achilles heel! But when I saw that £2.50 five times a week turned into £650 a year and then £3,250 over five years, I soon bought a £10 insulated thermos and packed my own filter coffee for the train! Not saying this is your issue, but giving an example of something that turned out to feel less important to me than being able to have holidays every two years.

This will also make you prioritise your spending. The Netflix or Prime might go, or you might pick just one, if you can see how they tot up against the "big purchases" that you might rather make.

And if you aspire to a new kitchen OP you need to up your income. Most of the people buying new kitchens are two earner households where mum has returned to work after maternity leave - there's a couple of lean years where childcare costs are high but it's worth it to keep working because once 30 hours (and school) kick in the family finances are much more comfortable with two wages coming in. You can't work right now with homeschool but you can prepare for work - get a plan together, check if there's anything you need to do to refresh qualifications relating to your career pre kids etc

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Yy to the decorating. Dh and I earn 5 times what you do and havent decorated in 5 years. We've had the same very cheap ikea sofa for 9 years. The carpets were ten years old when we moved into the house and are still here 5 years on. They dont look show home but they are perfectly serviceable.

People piss money away, often just to keep up with others.

We’ve lived here 8 years replaced our old sofa last year.

We’ve only replaced carpet in living room. The rest was here when we moved in.

I’m house proud. I want a nice home but I just can’t afford it all 😭

What about a school dinner lady / playground assistant, whatever they’re called now?
It would fit around the DC and your DPs hours, sure it won’t be a huge income but it’ll definitely help.
If your dad have SEN, they’re entitled to a school place right now so you could still start looking.

I was actually earning enough to manage it all, but because I wasn't setting money aside for the longer-term costs I was instead spending the money on a short-term basis because I felt it was spare.

This is SO true. A lot of us fall into this trap.

£2.5k a month is not significantly more than a family on full benefits, especially when you take into account the costs of running 2 cars and looking after 2 disabled kids.