To try to get our household outgoings to <2k

[Jillybons]

Dreading work tomorrow and want to try and start my own business. To do this we’d need to get our household outgoings to less than 2k. AIBU to ask if we could and where you’d cut costs. Budget as below currently

• Mortgage 785 (interest rate is 3.5) so probably could get this down
• council tax 100
• electricity and gas 100
• Food 300
• Leisure incl takeaways, clothes, socialising, holidays, personal savings etc 500 for the two of us
• Netflix, Prime 30
• 2 x car insurance 110
• Petrol/car maintenance 200
• insurance home/Homeserve 50
• water 30
• Internet 35

Think that’s it! Though the smart people of Mumsnet will probably figure out something else we’re spending on 🤦‍♀️

Oh and also pet insurance 50 quid but would feel awful if anything happened to the dog and couldn’t afford treatment

Leisure incl takeaways, clothes, socialising, holidays, personal savings etc 500 for the two of us

That’s loads. Which I’m sure you know.

Petrol/car maintenance 200

A month?

Internet 35

Shouldn’t be more than about £25

Our car insurance is combined so we get a discount. Admiral do dual car insurances - two different people two different cars. Cost us £46 per month total

Small save but good place to start?

Oh and our house insurance for our four bed is £26 per month

Thanks both, yeah looks like leisure is somewhere we could cut, maybe to 100 each a month and give up savings and holidays for a while

If your pet insurance is with Pet Plan you are paying over the odds. Have a look at the comparison sites as you should be able to get an equivalent policy for a lot lot less.

Er...you cut your £250 a month each leisure spend down. Done.

Iw ould absolutely look at the mortgage.
I am 😱 that your mortgage is that much, but just £100 council tax. Wow. And I am in a cheap area!

I assume leasure is now pretty much down so I would take for a bit from there.

Food. Depends, but you could most likely go lower by doing some batch cooking and stocking up on bigger packages. I buy giant tilda rice bags. Considerably cheaper overall than buying small ones.
Just look at this
www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/256502509
And
www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/293247162

How many people are you feeding/ clothing?
My food bill is less than yours for me and 2 teens.
Do you need 2 cars? Especially if you start your own business?
Leisure/savings etc can definitely be cut down as they are a luxury.

I'd start with your mortgage if you're not tied in with penalties to the rate you have. Much lower rates are available which could cut that in half if you have a decent amount of equity.

Is this just for two adults? Any children or pets to consider?

Food - 300 - does that cover everything including toiletries, alcohol, cleaning products etc?

Leisure incl takeaways, clothes, socialising, holidays, personal savings etc 500 for the two of us - that's a huge amount of money. You don't need to buy clothes or takeaway every month.

Netflix, Prime 30 - why do you need more than one service? Get one and swap each month depending on what you want to watch, or just use all the free catch-up services, YouTube, DailyMotion etc.

Petrol/car maintenance 200 - is that each or in total? Could the maintenance not come out of your general savings?

Focus on mortgage rate as 3.5% is high. Not sure LTV buts should be between 1%-1.89%. Hopefully you are not locked in and can switch to

Leisure is high. £500 a month? You can easily half this. Plus with lockdown I am sure this cost has come down m.

@Jillybons

Oh and also pet insurance 50 quid but would feel awful if anything happened to the dog and couldn’t afford treatment

Definitely worth keeping this, but pets are an added cost you haven't included in the rest of your budget.

How much do you spend on dog food, flea/worm treatment, vaccinations, collars, treats, chews, beds, etc?

Mobile phones?

Your car insurance and petrol costs etc seems really high!

How big is your house? The council tax suggests not a huge house so utility bills look high to me, presuming no children in the picture.

How is Netflix and prime adding up to 30 a month?

Insurance also looks high

Can you remortgage for a better deal if you aren't in a fixed deal already? Are you in credit with your gas/electric? Can you reduce your monthly DD? Netflix and Prime should be more like £20. How many people in your household? Our food bill is cheaper than yours with 2 Adults and a toddler.

Thanks all for your advice so far! Seems like I need to get looking for some 2 car policies and cut our leisure spend as well as remortgaging. Just one dog and us two.

We could get rid of one car but it’s one old banger and a newer (not posh) car so we should probably keep the newer one (finance paid off) in case the other one meets its death!

Like PP say you've also missed out phone bills from your budget, as well as the pet insurance and all pet-related costs.

Does your food budget include dog food, for example? What about top-up shops and picking things up from the garage when you get your petrol?

Do either of you pay for things like dental insurance, contact lenses etc? Small costs individually but they soon add up over a year.

£500 leisure is massive. A statement of the obvious, but do you really spent approx. £125 a week on takeaways / socialising?!

£300 food for 2 of you is also massive. Meal plan, batch cook.

@sunflowersandbuttercups you’re right! We forgot phone bills but both on cheap contracts so about 30 a month for two.

Food bill includes dog food too

And little top up shops tend to come from the ‘leisure money’

It’s a good point on contact lenses/dentist etc as don’t really count these

Cut back on the leisure spends! Over £100 a week, plus your Prime/netflix subs on top, is a lot, and all of it's discretionary.

If you can pay the car insurance in one hit instead of instalments, you'll save a few quid. And make sure you use a comparison site when it comes to renewal time, to get the best deal. Could you manage with just one car?

I'm jealous of your council tax. Mine would be almost £2k a year if I didn't get the single person discount, and it's only band C.

You could find a cheaper internet provider too, once you're out of contract. You haven't mentioned phones, if you've paid for your phones, look for a sim only deal.

Is Homeserve worth having? We looked into it years ago, and decided it wasn't. All our bills over the lifetime of our boiler only came to a few hundred, a lot less than Homeserve would have cost over the 19 years we had that boiler. My current boiler is less than a year old, is guaranteed for 13 years and all I have to pay for is an annual service.

Shop around for your house insurance, too. Mine, combined buildings and contents, is just under £200 a year and that includes an additional premium for 2 valuable items.

TV licence?
Life insurance?
Mortgage protection?
Phones?
Slush fund?

How is Netflix and Amazon prime £30. Netflix is 9.99 for the expensive version and prime is £80 a year.

I think leisure money is probs the wrong word as it’s used for ‘everything else’ I.e grabbing a coffee, 100 quid a month into an account for once a year holiday etc

What do others spend on ‘leisure/everything else’