AIBU to not understand how people are saving money during this pandemic?

[squishedblueberry]

I know commuting costs have cut and buying lunch and dinner out etc but we seem to be spending more and more.
I appreciate we are lucky to be able to do this before anyone jumps on me but am baffled as to how people are saying they are so much better off.

Signed up to Disney Plus and Netflix to keep ourselves sane. Spending more on takeaway because eating is one of the few things we can still do that feels like a treat.

I’ve ended up having to buy equipment so I can work from home as has DH. Bought countless entertainment for DS as he’s getting so bored so toys, books, games etc that we can play together, crafts and things. We had to replace the deck as it was unusable and we are spending so much time at home we wanted to make the most of it (didn’t have to I know, but it was dangerous so DS couldn’t go out on it).

We’ve also ended up having to do some jobs to the house because things have finally given up due to us being in it loads.

And that’s before the books and things we’ve ordered for ourselves to try and keep ourselves sane, supplies for hobbies, having to buy more expensive clothes from DS as can’t nip to Primark and pick up vests etc cheaply and he’s growing like a weed.

I know this is all very privileged and we are lucky to be able to afford it but it amazes me when people say they are so much better off. We’ve also lost money on a couple of auks holidays so that adds to it and I’ve lost work so am down on income to what we usually have.

Petrol is our biggest saving at maybe £300 a month, since dh's job moved an hour away. Less on food and drink for us as we gain so much time - not travelling to work we have more time to shop and cook. No trips anywhere, no holidays. Family all live 2 hours plus away so savings there. We do buy more online though.

We have more time to cook so takeaways have probably gone down. We had looked to eliminate casual expenses anyway, like going to the tea room when we visit National Trust or similar properties, because we moved our DC to private school and wanted to save more. But basically, not going out much has eliminated a load of expense - family of four getting snack lunch you can easily spend £40-50 in those places; say we'd do that, or have a pub lunch, about 20 times a year, that's £1k or so. Loads less on fuel.

Commute costs about £5.5k. Not having two birthday parties I reckon I've saved about £500? I travel to London about 40 times a year and could spend about £20 a time on travel/lunch/dinner/snacks - that's £800. No theatre/ trips or treats in holidays for the children. Didn't have much of a holiday or go on any weekend breaks so probably saved £4k there.

Those who dont normally go to work and get benefits wont have seen any change in those so will be living on the same. Just fact

I go to work 5 days a week, I still get tax credit and housing benefit top ups and am better off as I don't have petrol or kids clubs to pay, I actually get an extra £20 on my tax credits, it's not just about non workers but those who are used to living off minimum income including the huge number of working poor can't really get any worse off than they already are financially

We’ve gone down to one car, which barely needs any fuel as we’re not doing 100 miles a day between us like last year - 2x office workers now working at home. That alone has saved thousands in the last twelve months.

Childcare, buying lunch while at work, no meals out, no holidays and no work travel costs for starters.

I’ve not saved a thing. I am shielding my severely disabled non verbal son and he’s just had a birthday. I splashed out on a massive bright colourful balloon display loads of presents. I just needed him to realise it was his special day. I also have a six year old who has to take a back seat whilst I’m constantly caring for other son- I’ve replaced my guilt with all his favourite things in the shopping order- re vamped both their bedrooms so they’re more comfy staying in. Ordered more school books and supplies on line for homeschool- upgaded both their iPads to take the new software- these are all things I definitely wouldn’t be doing if covid wasn’t in existence.we’d be in Devon with our families making memories in the fresh sea air - in fairness the first lockdown was a lot easier (for us) as we were out in the garden all day every day! In the paddling pools, sandpit, relaxing, bbqs etc. I feel like we’re all climbing the walls now! I’ve ordered new kitchen appliances as my husband is now an avid cook- he wanted an air fryer, soup maker, toastie etc etc you get the idea- I’ve bought more toys for the boys than I normally would because they’ve got a lot more time to use them. I’ve found new skills in both of them I’d like them to explore so that meant extra art materials, jigsaws etc. I can’t wait until we’re all back at school and work so I can stop spending! And don’t get me started on their snacks and my sudden drinking habbit!! 😂🤦🏼‍♀️Spending is one luxury I’m not about to give up just yet x don’t get me wrong Id much prefer our old life - you just can’t buy freedom x

DH and I are fortunate that we haven't had any reduction in income. DH has no commuting costs and I'm using less fuel, no wraparound care, fewer takeaway coffees and popping in to the shop. No meals or lunches out, no soft play or days out, not bought any work clothes.

Neither DH or I are spending our "fun" money because we aren't going out or doing anything. We aren't having lunch at work.

We've paid off both our credit cards and increased our savings and it's made is realise how much crap we were buying.

I’m so happy you posted this op. I felt like the only one....too scared to look at credit card statement. Purchased laptops, desk, pc, printer, so many books etc., garden furniture, trampoline etc.. Have had to buy so much... older children are bored at home, eating constantly... so I got new bikes for us! My hours have been cut & my stress levels are high. Thank you for making me feel better... sick of people telling me how much they’ve saved (and/or telling me about all the amazing things they’ve done to their homes/gardens)!

@Lykke1000 personally I mentioned Netflix because OP mentioned it as one of their extra expenses since lockdown. Seems like to them streaming services feel like a significant thing?
It's not for a lot of people I wouldn't think. Also not an unusual thing to have pre lockdown. But as with everything else it depends on budgets I guess.

NO idea whether you're being reasonable or not, but am assuming your family is NT.

My love has been working from home for some years now, so the commute is from the sofa to the kitchen. I can't work because I'm FT carer to ASD teen.

No holiday ( we knew by Jan 2020 that our 2020 holiday woudl be a write-off, so just had to hang on in there and hope the appropriate companies cancelled on us. If they did, we got a refund. They did. No way we'd book now. It's too risky, in health terms and financial. We already figured there won't be any holiday for the forseeable, so we've worked out ways to counteract that for us. Nothing mssive, but for a couple of hundred quid, we can do it. For some people, that's unaffordable, so we know we're fortunate to be able to plan/afford it.

Outings: didn't do much in the first place. ASD makes life complicated. We couldn't afford cinema/eating out and so on, so that's no different. No public transport, because of the ASD, and because there are too many people not masking, so we can't.

The people not maskign means that neither me nor our teen can go anywhere that other people might be. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've been able to go into a shop since March 2020.

If just one person isn't masked, I have to leave. My immune system is shit, so their "right" to not wear a mask apparently supercedes anyone else's right to be safe. They're not immune, so they're still able to contract it and spread it, but apparently, asking them why* is rude. Teen can't go in at all, so doesn't.

SO: no outings, no eating out (absolutely not. That would be crazy), no commute. We read for education and for pleasure, but we already had a large collection of books at home. I make stuff, usually from upcycled materials, but don't always have time, because of the ASD and how it presents.

Are we saving? Yes, a bit. Not huge amounts, but a bit. It's better than nothing. Some poor sods can't afford to eat, so we consider ourselves lucky. We've enough food, we're warm, and we've a roof over our heads. We only need new clothes if somethign is beyond repair (no one here gives a cactus about fashion/trends: we wear what's comfy and is suitable).

I may have missed some things. Are you being unreasonable? I've no idea. We do what we are able to do. Mornign walks/walks once a day. Morning coffee in our garden when it's warm and sunny enough. Enjoy and appreciate what we do have instead of complaining about what we don't have.

I'm not saving more money. I'm a lone parent, so cinema trips, dinners out, weekends away etc disappeared from my budget a long time ago! 😂

If you want to save money, there are lots of areas you can cut back on. Buy toys/games/clothes from Facebook market place or ebay, use borrowbox to read books, get rid of one of your subscriptions (do you need Disney AND Netflix?) Save money on takeaways by ordering just the mains and getting a couple of packets of microwave rice to go with it.

If you really want to save money, there are lots of ways that you can cut back.

forgot to add, and can't work out how to edit: we read lots. I thought I'd written that in the above post, but apparently not. ANywya, we read lots. Always have. We used to buy books from charity shops, library sales, all sorts. So we have loads of boos, an we enjoy reading them. Fiction, reference, sciecen, all srts. We've an interest in neurology because of ASD, so always reading about that. Or Discworld. Or something.

We have films and DVDs, an access to other media, so we njoy watching those, too.

When peopel talk about boredom, I'm stuck for a reply. Replying that we're busier than ever seems disparaging, but is true. I have to write down priorities for the day, and try to get those things sorted/done. I managed 4 of 7 today, so the other 3 do have to be done tomorrow. It's supposed to rain, but whatever the weather does, I've a report to start drafting, so that will have to be done. The deadline for the report is looming, so that *does have to be started tomorrow.

We're saving money because we were quite spendy, e.g. the takeaways are saving money because before we'd have been in a restaurant.

Our income hasn't changed - we've been very fortunate in that respect.

However our budget was always very well planned and tight so we haven't saved much.

Any savings we have made have had to be spent in other ways.

Increased food costs seems to be the main cost to us and we have had to increase our DD for gas and electricity.

We had to buy a printer and have then had ink cartridge costs.

I WFH since July 2019 so no change to me for commuting costs and random spends.

We did get a holiday refunded but this is a delayed spend rather than a saving, as eventually the money will be spent on a holiday and we'll have a holiday in a year we wouldn't normally have had a holiday!

It all depends on your lifestyle during and before lockdown. I didn’t eat out or buy coffees at work. Rarely bought clothes, and when I went out it was always cheap. Now my utility bills are through the roof, DD has outgrown everything several times since the first lockdown, and I have had no choice but to buy online, which has cost more than the shops I used to be able to go to. Some of the costs are through choice, like getting deliveroo once a week as a treat to make up for the fact the life is kind of rubbish at the moment! Plus bought materials to help DD with home learning. I have tried to keep the extra spending to about what I’m saving in commuting costs (£125pcm) but definitely not saving on anything except haircuts - and I spend that money on books for myself because I deserve them as a reward for not killing anyone!

@lockeddownandcrazy name is very apt! Your “fact” is nonsense. You make it sound like people who are on benefits and receive food vouchers for their kids are rolling in cash. It may be that compared to someone low income who is now on furlough or has had a bad turn they seem to have more. But if someone was receiving benefits and working minimum hours as a hairdresser or waiter or anything else where your income was tips, they’re really not better off.

You sound bitter at someone specific or because of your own situation but please don’t tar all people on benefits with the same brush. Rude.

Monthly expenses - commute £150, lunch and breakfast at work plus coffees £150, manicures and pedicure £100, facial £100, business clothes £200, socialising £400, travel -£250 per month on average- that’s £1350 savings a month

We were trying to work out why the other day. Spending more on food, bills, printing, kids clothes as can't nip to the "cheap" clothes shops - tried to avoid shops as can't stand the queuing etc. Spending more on fags as v stressed out and is only chance to get 3.5 mins to self! Spending less on fuel, snacks out etc. We bought a couple of passes at the start of last year (Merlin and a zoo) - that was meant to cover days out - obviously could hardly use them so was wasted. Saved on things like weekly family swims, but that's nit even the cost of a printer carrridge!

Finances stretched as work for self and clients unsure what is going on, I extended mat leave for a couple of months, got work and had to pass off straight away to another freelancer, as on top of a fourteen hour day with three kids, homeschool etc, I have no stamina to do a decent job and no time in which to do it. I am bone dead at the moment. Hoping I can find more work after this lockdown. I've essentially been in lockdown since November as kids had to isolate from school, we then went into tier 4 and then into lockdown. I'm saving on nursery as deferred place, but income from work would have covered that.

My bus pass is usually £60/month, don’t buy that anymore as I now wfh. At the office I would generally bring lunch but maybe buy it out once or twice a week and maybe a coffee etc, so there’s maybe another £40 a month saved.
I usually spend around £100/month on clothes. Don’t see the point in that anymore as no one sees them so I just wear leggings and trackies round the house.
Used to spend about £70 every weekend on going out for drinks/food.
The electric has gone up a tiny bit, but overall I’ve saved a fortune.

We had 1 take away since march lock down started and that was NYE.
No petrol, no commute so no extras on the way like coffee etc.
Food bill gone down massively because everything is being cooked fresh, even the pasta is made fresh now.
Heating has gone up but not as much as I expected it to.
We saved about 300 a week by not eating out, drinking out, going out at all. Everything we do now is free, walks etc.
No hair dresser or mani pedi anymore. No gym, no new clothes, no monthly facials or massages.
Baby arrived in lock down but I'd pretty much bought everything we needed the day I found out I was pregnant so no massive cost there either.
I like our life now better than our old one, I miss some things for sure but most of what we did was a pointless exercise in spending money. We now play board games and have music nights and have "early" nights and grow our own food now and built a greenhouse with pallets and the old windows that never got collected because we went into lock down and lots of smaller projects that re purposed all the shite we'd spent a lifetime collecting. I don't think I'll ever again spend money the way I did before.

Where I live everything is closed. Not using car, no nursery, take away shut and not nipping to the shop. Bought a few bits of clothing for children but otherwise life is on pause.

I'm disabled & unable to work, I've saved money because I haven't been going to the supermarket, I have an online order, no chance of spending money on assorted crap, I have started subscribing to the Readly app instead of buying magazines, for less than the price of two monthly magazines I can read any number online. I have started buying treats such as sweets, snacks & crisps in bulk from Amazon, saving about 25% on buying from the shops, I have a bread order once a fortnight from a local bakery delivered on Deliveroo, buying proper bakery bread instead of supermarket bread means that there is less waste & the bread lasts much longer. I also buy all my meat from a local butcher at our local market who is delivering through an app, I buy in bulk & split up in to meal size bags for freezing. I'm not spending supermarket loyalty points which means that I have nearly £300 saved for either next Christmas or to spend on home things when I finally get a new house. During the last year I have managed to save around £800 a month, something I have never managed before which means that when I do get a new house I won't have to get in to debt to buy new furniture, pay a decorator or buy new carpets.

In some ways it's great to see how much money an awful lot of people are able to save as a result of all the lockdowns etc, but there are those of us who, for whatever reason, including job losses due to the pandemic, health issues or whatever other circumstances have conspired against us, we're out of work and are having to 'exist' on meagre government benefits and are unable to afford the luxuries of eating out, going to the theatre/other entertainment venues, etc.

Life, for us, has had to continue without all those savings. Personally, my children are grown up and left home, so I don't have the worry of the added expense of having to pay for additional gas/electricity to keep the house running/heated with everyone spending more time at home or tv subscriptions/educational materials to keep the little darlings occupied.

As for saving money, I received a letter yesterday from the DWP (benefits people) telling me that I'm going to be receiving a 'massive' increase in my benefits from mid-April of 70p, yes, seventy pence, per week ..... ooooh, what to do with it?

Even if everyday prices hadn't already gone up due to both the pandemic and certain things having already been affected by Brexit, if I were to be able to save it all until Xmas I'd have the huge sum of £24.50 but that's just not possible. Simply looking at the cost of certain basics like a loaf of bread, 4pts of milk and 12 eggs, these have gone up by 10p, 14p and 20p respectively in recent months, so just one of each of these items is already eating into weekly funds by 44p and I've still got 10 weeks before i get that extra 70p, then there's petrol for the car which has gone from 103.7p to 115.7p per litre since xmas, so even driving to the supermarket to buy these more expensive groceries is costing more.

So, as I started off by saying, I do think it's good to hear that so many have been able to save over the past 10 months but a massive number of people haven't been anywhere near as fortunate and probably feel as though all the posts about saving vast amounts of cash are rubbing their noses in it.

As for my 70p per week pay increase, I'll try really hard not to squander it and attempt to put a bit away each week. 😕

[quote NosyJosie]@lockeddownandcrazy name is very apt! Your “fact” is nonsense. You make it sound like people who are on benefits and receive food vouchers for their kids are rolling in cash. It may be that compared to someone low income who is now on furlough or has had a bad turn they seem to have more. But if someone was receiving benefits and working minimum hours as a hairdresser or waiter or anything else where your income was tips, they’re really not better off.

You sound bitter at someone specific or because of your own situation but please don’t tar all people on benefits with the same brush. Rude.[/quote]
Yes, my user name is apt, but the fact still remains if you get your money as a state handout you keep getting it where if you work for it you dont at the moment. Those people who work arent better off they are dipping in their savings to feed their kids who are at home, paying nursery fees to keep their places open etc, whilst the people on benefits keep getting the same money or more along with the free prescritions, free laptops for their kids,, free meals handed out.
Bitter - yes probably.