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'd drop the private dentistry? Honestly how many times have you actually claimed on it?

No way you can persuade DS to go on packed lunches??

How many hospital appointments do you have for DC that justify the second car? Would it be cheaper or possible to get the odd taxi?

Definitely go through all your spending and look at the difference between income and outgoing to work out where all your money is going.

How much do you and your DP spend on yourselves? Any coffees, lunches, snacks etc? Even a few quid a day can add up to £100+ per month, which is far more expensive than a packed lunch.

Definitely ask about the reduction in water rates that you should be entitled to. Do you do top up shops that you might not be counting as part of the grocery budget? How much are the takeaways costing? If it's a lot, can you get a supermarket meal deal some of the time as an alternative?

Download your bank account information and go through everything. Also look on Moneysavingexpert's budget planner for hints and tips about cutting all your costs and increasing your income. The odd tenner saved here and there will add up and could really boost your disposable income by a noticeable amount.

You need to seriously look at your bank account! You must be getting over £2.5k cash a month but you can only list about £1k of spending. Where is the rest of your money going?

Amazon Prime is a rip off, to be honest. Lots of the streamed shows are chargeable on top, and their deliveries aren't always payable anyway - I've bought from Amazon for a lifetime and I can't remember ever paying for delivery. I either put stuff in my basket over time til I hit the amount to qualify for it free, search around for one which includes free, or add a book, which removes the delivery - then I put the book away as a gift for someone.

Do you waste any food? What is it that you're buying. Work out which meals cost you the most and swap for cheaper alternatives. If you eat a lot of meat or fish, which is expensive, either use less meat, eat some vegetarian meals, use meat as a flavouring to a meal rather than the main component, or use cheaper cuts and slow cook them.

You need to do a spreadsheet and find out where your money is going. Do you buy a few unnecessary things say from online shopping or eBay. I agree 2 cars is quite a big expense on the money you have got coming in.

@toocold54 OPs partner must be on around £30k a year. Most lenders will give you a mortgage from £25k.

OP, is your mortgage re-payment or interest only? Just make sure you’re not interest only without a plan to pay off the balance when it comes as so many get caught out that way.

Could your DH submit a flexible working pattern so he does the same hours but has slightly more predictable shifts? So if he knows he will definitely get a day off on a Tuesday, you could get some cleaning work or something on a Tuesday? Even £200 extra a month would be 2k a year which would be a nice holiday! It’s difficult at the moment with Covid to be getting work though.

Can your DH get promoted at all?

If your car is only 4 years old, it might be worth a few quid, could you sell it, clear the debt and buy a cheaper, slightly smaller one?

I poppeed some figures into 'entitled to'

you will get about £40 odd a week universal credit, plus help with council tax

@NettleTea

I poppeed some figures into 'entitled to'

you will get about £40 odd a week universal credit, plus help with council tax

Entitled to is not very accurate

The method below is accurate often to the £1 I worked out £400 back on page 2 but OP ignored my comments re UC

www.uceplus.co.uk/how-much-will-my-payment-be.html

Cleaning work is a really good idea as it's great for fitting around children at school and there's masses of demand for cleaners atm. You are allowed to work as a cleaner during lockdown too. People will charge at least 11 or 12 quid an hour and you already have your own car. You could easily make profit of £100 a week during school hours and that would seriously help your family budget.

Your water bill does seem very high. Are you on a water meter? If not this generally works out cheaper than a rateable value charge unless your family uses a huge amount of water. Depending on your child's disability you may also be able to get a discount here
www.southwestwater.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions/bills/can-i-have-a-lower-bill-if-im-on-benefits/

If you use a spreadsheet and list all incoming funds in one column and all outgoing amounts the other you'll soon see whether you will have money left or not. Some bank apps let you do this be downloading everything then assigning the bill to groups (e.g. takeaways, car 1, car 2, entertainment etc). If you start grouping the costs rather than having them in one long statement it'll really help to see where you are spending money.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/#bplanner

Would you be entitled to universal credits with claiming dla?

If you are struggling with your husband being paid monthly then how about when he is paid transfer 3 weeks worth of money out to savings account, then every week take that weeks money back out.

Meal plan and stick to it.

I can't imagine you will be entitled to anything else, when DH was paid around that amount and I didn't work we barely scraped by and wasn't entitled to anything but it is worth checking.

If you are paying interest on your debt then pay it off with your savings. If you have something urgent to pay off before savings are replenished then put it on a credit card (if you can get a 0% then even better)

Once your phone contracts have come to an end then look at giffgaff. I pay £10 a month and that suits me fine, lots of people have the smaller goody bags and work well for them (also you get paid to use their forum and can easily make back £5 to £10 per month in payback).

Keep all receipts and write all expenditure down for a month, it's surprising where it all goes sometimes with popping to the shop for milk and spending a tenner instead of £1.50!

@whatismyusername29

Thanks all. Two cars can be expensive. Thankfully they are pretty reliable but the savings are there to unexpected car costs. We don’t really want to spend that for now. We’ve just used some to out towards fixing the heating.

My partners phone contract is around £20 a month on a rolling sim deal. Mines higher at £45 but my contracts up soon so I’ll be dropping it.

We don’t have sky so we watch Netflix so not sure dp would be willing to give up (I wouldn’t care as j don’t watch tv). We also don’t have a tv antenna upstairs so we watch netflix in bed. Our prime isn’t really for TV, it’s for ordering things on Amazon not the TV part of it. I do use Amazon prime for things (mainly needed and not impulse buys 😅.

Our water is high. Around £80-90 a month. We live in one of the most expensive water areas (south west water)

Our gas and electric is around £90 - £100 a month combined.

we spend around £100 a week on food. So £400 a month. We get take away maybe twice a month so not excessive I don’t think?

Probably about £100 a month on fuel for both cars, sometimes less.

£45 a month for DS’s school lunches

£10 a month each payment plan for private dentistry!

We are also still paying off £50 a month for a sofa we bought but that won’t be for long.

The only direct debit that comes out of my bank is my phone contract and dentistry fee. The rest is from dp’s bank.

We pay around £50 a month to by for internet and phone I think. No other provider provides internet where we live so no choice but to stay with them.

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

Hi, you say you have around 2K worth of debt, are you chipping away at that every month? You dont mention it in your list of things to pay for.

@SandysMam

OP, is your mortgage re-payment or interest only? Just make sure you’re not interest only without a plan to pay off the balance when it comes as so many get caught out that way.

Could your DH submit a flexible working pattern so he does the same hours but has slightly more predictable shifts? So if he knows he will definitely get a day off on a Tuesday, you could get some cleaning work or something on a Tuesday? Even £200 extra a month would be 2k a year which would be a nice holiday! It’s difficult at the moment with Covid to be getting work though.

Can your DH get promoted at all?

If your car is only 4 years old, it might be worth a few quid, could you sell it, clear the debt and buy a cheaper, slightly smaller one?

Re-payment not interest.

I should have been clearer, sorry . Although the house is worth £200,000 now it was actually bought for £130,000 but increased rapidly. £30,000 (seems insane to have that kind of money now) was put down on deposit so £100,000 was borrowed over 35 years - at the top of my head. We have tried to over pay it with not much luck!

He’s already got promoted recently. Before promotion he’d earn a little less than what he does now but with lots of overtime. Now he earns it without overtime. Some months he does a lot of OT and brings Home £2400-£2500.

His job is not flexible at all unfortunately.

Selling car could be an option but my cars been really good to me. I’d worry about buying another and it goes wrong. I’ve spent hardly anything on it so far 😀

It is mentioned further up thread but I also recommend a Monzo bank account. Me and DH put a certain amount in there every month for food, fuel, kids clothes etc and it’s so easy to track we also do a save the change thing on there that rounds everything upto the nearest £ and put the change in a savings pot and I transfer £5-10 per week into the pot for Christmas. I also started meal planning (including lunches to take to work) and this cut a chunk off the food bill. We are in the same position needing 2 cars due to living rural and working in opposite directions and shifts it is an unavoidable expense if you don’t have the luxury of decent public transport and I don’t fancy the 3 mile walk there and then back if we run out of milk!

OP you need to go through what you spend really thoroughly

The money doesn't just vanish. Do a full list of really detailed outgoings.

The fact you have Amazon Prime for the fast delivery jumps out at me. I'm wondering what you're ordering that you feel it's important to have?

Also, just an example, how much is your Netflix? I just found out some people pay £13 a month!

Good that your mobile contract is going, that's a big expense.

*sorry, re Amazon Prime, important to have on rapid delivery.

Private dentistry - what are you teeth actually like?

After a while there are no surprises really. DH and I pay each time for our private dentist and we know that every time DH will have nothing done and I'll be having X-rays, fillings and at some point £1000s of work done but so far not yet.

Are you me, or my DH? If my DH you are wasting your money on the dental payments, it's how they make their money.

If you really feel that everything is essential, and you're still skint, you need to increase income. You either need to cut back or increase your money, there's not really any other option.

I don't know how much those benefits are. So it would be helpful to know your exact income.
Are there additional expenses related to the children's additional needs? I suppose I'd think of the school meals as one as the refusal to eat packed lunch could be related.

It appears your mortgage and food bills are low. But still depending on the amount the disability benefits and child benefit top the 2k up it's not loads for a family of 4.

We have some debt (maybe around 2 grand).

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.

Unless you are earning interest on the savings and/or the debt is interest free, this makes no sense- just clear the debt.