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!

I am seriously impressed you live on that! I have no idea how. My partner and I (no children) earnt roughly the same for a few years with a similar mortgage, running one car and we couldn't manage. Slowly worked our way through all our savings of 15k.

I don't have a lot of advice but I can sympathise. We have a bigger mortgage though and although our house is modest with 3 beds, no front garden or garage and worth about 230K, our council tax is very high the second highest bracket. Childcare is £53 a day and we have to have 2 cars and both on finance. We have no savings and just getting into debt now due to my maternity leave. I understand why you have Netflix etc because you don't have another treats. We are the same. We haven't had a holiday in years too and both of us work full time. I'm a low earner. DH is about 36K but has massive deductions: pension etc. It's so hard. I hate the stress of it all. It would be lovely not to worry about obey for a change.

Money I mean just at the end there.

@LemonSwan

I am seriously impressed you live on that! I have no idea how. My partner and I (no children) earnt roughly the same for a few years with a similar mortgage, running one car and we couldn't manage. Slowly worked our way through all our savings of 15k.

3k in and a £400 mortgage, genuinely surprised you think that’s not manageable

Buy a firestick and cancel the Netflix. It doesn't cost much to get an antenna fitted for free view, though.

Check your universal credit entitlement - dla will give you an enhancement.

If you're going £200 into overdraft, every month, then you have to only save £200 in total to not be in overdraft, anymore. Make small savings where you can and that should correct itself.

Cut back on food bill, don't have takeaways, Netflix is not a necessity. Forget about Amazon for a while and try and pay off some debts instead.

@SendHelp30

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.

Entitled or not, special schools are not running at full capacity, right now.

@LemonSwan

I am seriously impressed you live on that! I have no idea how. My partner and I (no children) earnt roughly the same for a few years with a similar mortgage, running one car and we couldn't manage. Slowly worked our way through all our savings of 15k.

😮 Not sure if you mean the 2k after tax or the additional money but you must have been living the high life!

@Ariela

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)

I've done this several times, the rest of the time I boycott Amazon because of their tax-dodging and poor employment practices.

And I don't have Netflix either.

The one thing that I can think of that doesn't seem to have been mentioned so far is switching your landline/internet. Plusnet is about £20 a month for the basic package, and if you have contract phones, you can use those for calls, so won't need calls included in your landline package. That could save you £360+ over a year.

And definitely apply for DLA for your youngest, and for UC. On a month when your DP gets a lot of overtime, you probably won't be entitled to any UC, but in a lean month you will. When your youngest gets DLA as well, you'll be entitled another £280 or so a month in UC.

Depending on where you live, you might be able to get help towards your council tax when UC is in place.

I work with a lot of poor families and some of them only have about £80pw left after rent and bills are paid because of the benefit cap. Your income would seem like luxury to them, although I realise that there's not a lot of slack.

One thing I have learned over years of working in financial inclusion is that you'll never control your money until you know where it goes, so accounting for every penny spent is important. One of the easiest ways is to get a till receipt every time you spend in a shop, keep a month's worth and go through them in detail. See what you're spending the money on, and that will highlight where you can make savings. It can often be things like buying own brands rather than branded stuff, for a family of 4, this can add up to a fair bit over a month. Things like an occasional magazine, bar of chocolate, bottle of expensive shampoo etc picked up in a supermarket every now and then can make a difference.

Another thing that some families have found helpful is to have a month when you don't buy anything essential. This highlights how little you can live on. Before every purchase, ask yourself firstly, do I absolutely have to have this, and secondly, do I have to have it right now. If the answer to both is "no", put it back. That can show how much you spend on non-essentials.

And switching to Aldi/Lidl can give huge savings, as can having a couple of meat-free days every week.

It would be lovely if you could come back in a couple of months and tell us how you've got on, OP.

We struggled to manage on that without children, and we didnt do holidays, clothes buying, ordering things, contract phones, going out or anything. I budgeted to the penny. Still have the spreadsheet so will outline for you -

£2000 -
Mortgage - 600
Groceries - £400 (probably not enough!)
Utilities - 150
Water - 90
Council Tax - 170
Phones - 10 each
Life Insurance, Car Insurance, House & Cat Insurance etc. - £100
Internet - 40
Transport - 100 (probably not enough!)
Credit Cards - 200 (100 each a month from when we had to furnish our home)
Private pensions - 250

That includes no daily spend, no going out, no takeaways, no day trips, holidays, clothes, personal care, savings, maintenance or making home improvements. And we dont have children! Add in that and it would have been undoable.

Ironically when you have more money things are cheaper - our income only increased by c. £1k and we are much much more than that a month richer. We can now bulk buy in costco, our loans are back to 0%, mortgage cheaper, utilities cheaper etc.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Givemepastaplease

Kids can go in the car with her?

Not on a late shift

That was too SleepingStandingUp

£2k per month to support a whole family, no wonder you are struggling. The best solution would be for you for find a job/ a way to work on a self-employed basis when your partner is off, and your partner takes care of the children while you work. Otherwise I suppose he needs to train for a better paid job. I really feel for you, it must be impossible to make it balance with tje current set up.

OPs total income is closer to 3k per month though. Really wish people would read the updates if not the whole thread.

We are probably in a similar position. It's a combination of little purchases and then a few months of bigger expenses. As others have said, work out what comes out your accounts via direct debit. Transfer the rest into a Monzo account every time you get paid. Work out what you have to spend, and therefore what you CAN spend on food etc. Then stick to it. Over the months try to reduce your food budget, your direct debits and get yourself a Help to Save account (if they haven't been scrapped) and fire £50 a month into it.

I have read the thread. Its max 3k. Shes running an extra car, is SAH so the utilities are on more, has multiple children and a house which is falling apart! I honestly can see why its not working and sympathise.

The sun are doing the holiday voucher promotion at the moment.
Would it be cheaper for your Chap to travel to work by motorbike? Could be an option.
Farmfoods do vouchers on their site that can be downloaded. Is there any work from home stuff you can do? Some mystery shopper jobs involve phoning companies to make enquiries. Market force is one such company. But you can sign up to a few of these mystery shop sites. Good luck and chin up.

You could use iPlayer upstairs OP.?Or other free catch up services. No antenna needed. My antenna hasn't worked in years.

@WhatWouldPhyllisCraneDo

OPs total income is closer to 3k per month though. Really wish people would read the updates if not the whole thread.

Still impossible given the stated circumstances and outgoings and dependent children. Either he needs to earn more or she needs to work too, or they will contine to struggle, despite the benefit top ups.

Oh- OP- I’m sorry if this sounds mean, but from your replies, you’re just not ready to tackle this yet.

I agree with this. You seem so flippant OP!

Cant think of what else we spend at the top of my head!

Well there's the issue really!

You need to sit down and draw up a budget and keep on track of what you are spending and where, and just be more aware of it.

2k + benefits isn't that much for a family of 4, especially as you have a mortgage to pay! With that amount, if you're not deliberately careful with your money by knowing exactly what's going in and out, you are bound to struggle.

@CheddarGorgeous

Oh- OP- I’m sorry if this sounds mean, but from your replies, you’re just not ready to tackle this yet.

I agree with this. You seem so flippant OP!

Yes I kind of agree having read back through the posts - sorry OP.

You seem to be coming back on and defending every expense. But the fact is that you are paying for a lot of things. Something will have to give if you want to stop being overdrawn, and some of those things are not essentials. This is just life - you'll have to either cut back on some things or get a job if you want to make ends meet.

You have two children and dare I say it you will need to think about building those savings as well. Sorry to be so frank but that's the reality. I hope you manage to sort things out. Get a budgeting app and draw up a careful plan, being honest with yourself about what you really do need and what can go - because something needs to.

Spreadsheet and bank statements is definitely the way to go.

List out every penny coming in and going out.

Do it by date starting with your bank balance at the close of the day before DP's pay comes in so:

Opening Balance = -£200
Day 1: Pay = £2000
Day 2: Mortgage = -£400 at this point balance = £1400
Day 3: Shopping = £100 balance = £1300

Keep building it up like this. It's a chore to start with but if you get into the habit of doing it you will soon be at the point where you are only needing to add a few transactions each day.

You can do this. I am sure that when you start really looking at bank statements you will have a much clearer view of where you are spending money without really noticing.

I started doing this at the start of last year when I felt we were constantly dipping into our overdraft. It showed where we were spending on inconsequentials. I am now at the point where I am forecasting the next 3 months and I can see day by day where I expect our balance to be.

I've RTFT OP and the way I see it, the lifestyle choices that are all adding up are the easiest thing to change, but it sounds like you are attached to them so won't go without X to have more money for X.

Prime is a good example. Plenty of people manage without NDD by being super organised so you never need to panic buy a present as you suggested, or just tolerating it being late otherwise.

Given you have got such a high phone contract and didn't realise the impact it would have when you signed up to it, I think you've made loads of choices like that and without realising they've all added up.

Something is going to have to give. You have to be willing to let go of some things or your situation won't improve.

I think worrying about Prime and Netflix is the small change. Its been our one relaxation over the last year. Other subscriptions like Strava, newspapers etc can add up though.

OP I don't know if you realise it you can export the transactions from online banking straight into YNAB website, from multiple banks, you only need to categorise them. Do you have a login/ sight of your DPs bank account? Without full information you won't get a hold of it. Data, data, data.