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!

If you had cheap phones on sim only and cut the takeaways out you would be well on your way to paying off your debt in a year. After that you could pay for a cheap holiday using savings from these two luxury items.

Everything sells on eBay! Unwanted gifts, outgrown kids clothes and toys, books, household crap, even empty boxes and plastic bags! Even loo roll tubes!

Also check out the Mumsnet £10 a day thread for ideas to boost your income

Charles Dickens said it perfectly. This is a quote from David Copperfield: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.”

If you can cut out some of the luxuries (maybe by redefining what you mean by luxuries vs essentials) you will be so much better off emotionally as you will really feel in control.

A new kitchen needs to tbe at the bottom of your list if money is tight. You simply can't afford it. You've listed your spending and it doesn't come to nearly as much as is coming into the house. And one takeaway a month is quite enough for anybody. And £45 a month for a phone . And think about managing with one car.

Not RTFT but have you considered doing surveys lower risk than matched betting but I get £40 a month in Amazon vouchers with only a little effort. Save the student has loads of info. Might just help make the Amazon purchases free. If both you and DP do them you could get £80 per month. I do them when watching tv or bathing the toddler.

Op very similar to you guys here.

Expensive bills as in water,our gas and electric combined is around £150 a month

Dh made redundant so looking for a job so our income is around the £2400 mark

Two adults and two dc

All
Goes well until an appliance breaks as we've discovered in the last year.

We can just about tick over and then something goes wrong and needs replacing or fixing. That's where our excess goes all the time.

We've had one takeaway in about six months.
Having everyone home on lockdown means higher heating and food shop bills even though we go with a list and use Aldi and Lidl

It's hard at the minute.
I feel grateful we can cover the bills but there not a lot of squeeze room here either which I hate.

When we were both earning we had a good amount of disposable and we saved some and would use some to do things that needed doing to our home but all the savings complete dipleated after months on furlough and the extra things needing fixing or replacing.

I was happy to be back at work and earning more again then went into lockdown again and then dh lost his job so a double whammy.

I've been through our budget with a fine tooth comb.

There are a couple of things we can call
Up and try and barter with which is on the list to do this week

You can perk up a home quite cheaply. Rugs are often much cheaper than new fitted carpets. Paint walls yourself. Have you got a sewing machine? Curtains are easy to sew.

Can you or your DH repair your kitchen to give 2 or 3 more years to save for a new one? Wooden or MDF cupboard panels dont just "fall apart" unless mistreated, even cheap ones. What wears is hinges, joins, handles, fittings, drawer runners and fronts etc which can all be replaced, stuck back on/screwed in without any expensive tools. Veneers can come away or peel but that's cosmetic and again you can repair things or even repaint panels. Cheaper wood can bow but you could brace under a shelf with a cheap stick of timber.

[quote whatismyusername29]@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.[/quote]
If you cannot afford a new kitchen but are managing fine anyway, then you don't 'need' a new kitchen. It's a want.
Cabinets with no doors don't look nice, but there's no harm to them.

You seriously need to change your mindset. It's nothing to do with being 'house proud'. I feel much better when my surroundings 'look nice' but if you're going into debt every months then it's not a priority - at least it shouldn't be.

Use vouchers cleverly. Join top cashback before you change any utilities and do it through them. Generally you'll get about £50 which can be claimed as cash or swapped for vouchers e.g. Primark or Tesco that are worth a little more.
I have a refer a friend link that I doubt I'm allowed to share here. Happy to do so via private message though.
Clubcard vouchers are pretty good for holidays if you're spending a fair amount on food. Credit cards with rewards are worth it too. I also used to do online surveys in return for supermarket vouchers. It takes a lot of time but if you can't work it's an extra few quid.

Tesco mobile contracts are £7.50 per month. New phone every two years.

Overall, what really comes across is that you have no idea what you’re spending money on.

You’re very, “but doesn’t everyone?” about phone contracts, subscriptions, takeaways.
No, actually everyone doesn’t.

Then you don’t mention your dog. Because it doesn’t eat much?! Go add it up. Insurance?

And then it’s, “oh I forgot that!” (was it TV licence)

It sounds like you have about £3K a month before overtime, which is regular. Not a fortune for a family of 4, but not that bad for a family of 4 that only pay £400 mortgage.

The problem here is that you have no idea how all the little things add up - and you need to. Go back over your bank statements for the last 3 (or more - Xmas a blip?) months, at the same time as starting to track everything now.

When you eventually need to replace kitchen cupboards, there are good second hand kitchens on ebay/ gumtree etc.
Could you do something from home to make money - childminding, upcycling furniture, an online business, rent a spare room out?

Op you definitely need to record everything so you know where the money is going.

In your shoes to get more money I would
1 get married and claim the married person allowance
2 claim UC
3 claim DLA for DD
4 look into work from home options for yourself
5 sell anything you have around the house that you don’t use and that is sellable and put this money towards your debt

To reduce your costs:
1 ditch prime
2 cheaper phone plan
3 work on food costs. I agree they seem expensive. Aim to shave off 30 quid a month.
4 only one takeaway a month until you have built up a good savings amount
5 write down everything you spend
6 budget for birthdays etc. whatever you spend on these st the moment, halve it.

Good luck

I haven’t read the full thread so apologies if this has already been said but you can cap your water bills at around £300 per year with having a disabled child.

I agree with those who recommend MoneySavingExpert. It's excellent.

He has a mantra -
"If you're skint, ask yourself - do you need it? Can you afford it? Have you checked prices elsewhere?"
And
"If you're not skint - will you use it? Is it worth it? Have you checked prices elsewhere?"

We're not remotely skint BUT still use this mantra, and actually use an adapted version of the 'skint' one. "Can you still afford it when you've taken into consideration all the higher priority 'nice to haves'?" Otherwise you can spend the same money multiple times.

I realise you're going to switch to a cheaper phone deal when the time comes, but the fact you'e a £45/month deal in the first place horrifies me. It suggests your tastes are more expensive than you can afford. That's an expensive phone. An iPhone SE, the entry level iPhone, would be abut £25-30/month. And of course there are many much cheaper smart phones than an iPhone. We have many times your income but DH bought a refurbished iPhone 8, and I have an iPhone SE, DD has my old iPhone SE (old model). Once you're off contract you should be able to get on cheaper deals (DH and I each pay £9 a month for 10GB data, and DD is on a £4/month deal for 3GB data). Next time you come to buy a new phone - which should be when yours ceases to work and can't be repaired or have battery replaced - then go for something cheap.

Our kitchen was old when we moved in 10 years ago, probably 20 years old now (!) and was a basic model (cheapest Homebase we think), with various cupboards not shutting properly, broken drawer, and the corner of the counter broken. It doesn't look great, but it's been liveable for far longer than we hoped when we moved in. Carpet's the same - about 20 years old. We'll have the carpets professionally cleaned before we consider replacing them, and when we built an extension 10 years ago the carpet guy cleverly stitched together all the offcuts around to make a new carpet which functions perfectly well.

Car - obviously with SEN kids this can be tricky, but if possible you should cut down to 1 car. We did the maths and realised that even if we needed to get a taxi a certain number of times a year, it would still be a lot lot cheaper than running a second car.

Also can you access the family fund to be able to have a holiday. The give grants. I’m obviously talking about post covid but Merlin also offer free days out for their places like Alton Towers. There are loads of resources you can access when you have a child in receipt of DLA.

You are deffo spending too much on food - you need to meal plan & batch cook! saves me a fortune! Bulk dishes up with lentils, make lots of soups for the freezer etc

I just eat porridge with water and honey every morning - massive bag of oats costs 50p!

Maybe bake your own bread things like that!

Take enough money from your savings to stop you going into the overdraft - the overdraft makes the savings pointless!

Cancel Amazon prime and reactivate as and when needed for a month - why pay for it all the time when it’s not heavily used

You’ve already said you will be out of your phone contract soon - that’s good - you shouldn’t be paying more than 10£ really

You’re also not budgeting at all like others said - you don’t even know how much your dog costs a month - the dogs food etc needs to be included as an expense

Maybe you need to put your husbands monthly pay in one account and transfer his weekly amount into another account for spending - would that help you manage the money better if it was weekly!

I tend to put an amount aside in savings each month and then force myself to live off what I’ve left for the month - pretending that extra cash I’ve save doesn’t exist! I always manage - some months I have a fiver left to get me through a week - but make do with why foods left in the house

Why are you paying for a TV Licence? if your only watching Netflix and Amazon Prime, and your not watching live TV, or BBC Iplayer you don't need a TV licence.

And the idea of prime AND netflix would make my DH cry with horror. If you need prime for the delivery, which is useful, then cut the netflix. You really don't need both!

Why are you paying for Amazon Prime? Cancel it.
Then when you order stuff, at checkout sign up for the free trial they offer you to get your free delivery. Then, as soon as your order has completed with your free delivery,, go straight back into it and cancel your free trial of Prime. Job done if you make it part of your Amazon transaction.

(Not sure if this works if you order most weeks, I tend to shop every 3-5 months if that, and it works for me)

We have same income as you for a family of 5 (2 teens and one nearly 11yr old), 2 dogs and a cat. Lockdown made me realise all our spare income goes on hobbies (dance/music/swimming/school trips) which were all cut back for the last year. Also less money spent on work clothes, haircuts and petrol. This has allowed us to spend more on food (takeaway/asda delivery). We did have 2 holidays in the summer camping for a weekend (saved up several of my birthday/Christmas presents 5yrs ago for a decent tent) and a UK holiday cottage so it is doable although maybe not if we hadn't saved the money from the hobbies due to covid.

We do all the other things people say though with gifgaff mobile for £8 for the adults, teens have £5 pay as you go BT sims, shop around for all insurance, usually foodshop at Aldi £85 for our food per week, no takeaways as a routine outside covid.

I feel we have a good lifestyle and no real "wants". I do notice though that there is one big expense every month that I haven't fully accounted for in any budget I do - things like a broken hoover, car issue, unexpected vet bill, equipment for hobby - so now I just mentally add £200 every month for an unexpected expense which can be treats or savings if not used.

Hope you manage to get control of things with all the good advice on the thread - it does feel a lot better to know where everything is going.

You need a spreadsheet op.

Every penny in on one side, every penny out on another. Exact bill costs not estimates, all DD and SO and then all your additionals. Did shopping clumped together. Take outs clumped together. Treats for the kind clumped together etc. You need to go through about 4 months at least and average it out. I reckon you'll be amazed where it's going.

What kind of stuff are you buying regularly enough on Amazon that you need Prime to cover delivery?

As others have said, you need to create a budget that reflects absolutely everything you spend.

I get paid monthly too. I have a spreadsheet which shows (by month) all of my income coming in each month, and then everything I expect to spend. Don't forget things which don't happen every week but still need to be accounted for, e.g. Christmas, birthdays, dental / hair appointments, car tax & servicing, etc. Go through your online account expenditure with a fine toothed comb to see where it's all going.

For expenses that happen monthly (e.g. power, water,) and annually (for me that's things like building insurance, pet insurance as it's cheaper to pay them annually) we have a separate joint account that covers these. I've worked out how much we spend on each of these things per year and divided it by 12, so I know the monthly cost of all of these things combined. When we get paid each month that's how much we pay into this account (plus a small buffer). It means that when I get my annual building insurance invoice I've already built up 12 months worth of payments to pay for the whole invoice in one go. Hopefully that makes sense.

The only direct debit that comes out of my bank is my phone contract and dentistry fee. The rest is from dp’s bank.
So who gets what money going in to theirs? If DP is paying all the bills from his salary including food, who is getting the DLA? Even if all you get is Carers and CB that's nearly £100 a week or £420 a month. So what else are you spending beyond £45 phone and your dentistry fee?

Excel is your friend, learn how to spreadsheet and stop fluffing about with the numbers. Know the exact amount your minimum income/expenditure is weekly/monthly/yearly - every single penny, only then can you actually work within your means.

Your answers here show you have no idea of the actual figures involved, just vague guestimating and you aren't rich enough to do that but you could be a lot more comfortable if you sit down and budget properly.

You are without doubt wasting money buying services you can't afford - one example is debt, that is a service you are paying for - why?

Learn money, learn budgeting, you can't afford not to. Stop faffing. Get thee to MSE!

www.open.edu/openlearn/money-business/mses-academy-money/content-section-overview?active-tab=description-tab

Because you're running a household of 4 people and 2 cars on only one (average) salary.

family life is what's important, love and respect and affection.
that's what your children will remember and carry with them all their lives long.

not whether all the kitchen cabinets had matching handles.
you seem a bit hung up on having a new kitchen. read what others have written. perhaps you have been taken in by marketing spiel.

most things can be patched up to work well enough for many years.
you have the necessary appliances, that's the main thing.
good luck.