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 🤦‍♀️

Tips on food shopping that I don't think have been mentioned:

Never food shop when you are hungry, you will spend more.

If you shop once a week, stretch this by one day. So say you go on a Tuesday evening, next week eke out what you have until Wednesday. Then the following week don't go until Thursday. By doing this, every 7 weeks you will get a 'free' shop.

£300 is about £10 a day. I spend that on a sandwich and coffee most days let alone proper eating.

£10 a day on a sandwich and a coffee is ridiculously expensive (obviously its your choice how you spend your money). You could make a decent roast dinner for a family of four for that. So in answer to your question, thats how people do it.

@Covidatemyhomework

I think I’m one of the few who think that £500 pm for ‘leisure and everything else’ isn’t actually that much. Where else does unexpected costs come from - additional car maintenance bills, car tax, boiler breaks, need new washing machine, holiday payments etc come from? The thing about budgeting effectively is to make sure that you budget for EVERYTHING including those thjngs that you will need to replace in the months or years down the line

Yes I agree with you. £500 a month for everything else isn't a huge amount really if you average it over a year. It different for us because we're not trying to budget and we're a family of 5, but we use Monzo and put £30 into an "occasions" pot which covers birthdays/weddings/events, £50 into a Christmas pot, £20 into a car pot, £30 into a general household emergency pot etc, £200 into a holiday pot etc all of which takes the pressure off if something happens.

The food bill seems high to me OP, we spend £350 a month for 5 of us. Car insurance is £100 for our multicar policy as well, although combined with home/other insurance may bring your overall insurance spend down. Gas and electric is £60 and water £30 for us as a family of 5 so definitely feels like you could save there! Try signing up to one of the ones that gives you £50 or something through a referral.

Monzo or Starling might be a good idea to help with budgeting.