To wonder what's going wrong with our finances!?

[pondering12345]

In the process of moving to a joint account with DH, so using this opportunity to review our monthly finances:

Income
DH take home pay £2600
My take home pay (part time) £1075
Child benefit £145
Total income £3820

Expenses
DH car loan £270
My car loan £160
Mortgage £645
Water £60
Gas and electric £250
Home insurance £15
Broadband £25
Council tax £190
DH credit card £110 (we each use our own credit card for any purchases for ourselves and pay off the following month)
My credit card £100
My phone £35
DH phone £35
DH car tax £20
TV license £15
Zoo membership £20
Apple Music subscription £15
DH contact lenses £40
DH haircut £15
My haircut £20 (£60 every 3 months)
My nails £30
Window cleaner £15
DH petrol £100
My petrol £100
Food £450
Takeaways (one per week) £150
Kids hobbies & swimming £100
Date night £50
Disposable income £500
Total expenses £3535

This leaves less than £300 per month to put towards tonnes of other expenses - annual car insurance, gifts, Christmas, holidays, kids clothes, home and car maintenance etc.

Where are we going wrong here!? I don't feel like we live a particularly lavish lifestyle.

Our household income is more than OP . Pre pandemic I used to spend what I now see as a completely ridiculous amount on hair, nails, brows etc . During lockdown I learned how to do most of it myself ( Eg brought complete gel nail kit on Amazon for an outlay of £70 , I wax my brows& upper lip and colour my own hair ). Only go to the professionals for a very special event Eg wedding now ( but even then do my own hair colour since hairdresser says I do a good job - for £6 a go!) I do feel sorry that I’m no longer supporting local businesses but when I go past they all seem busy enough . Meanwhile I’ve saved a fortune. It also saves me time too.

I wrote a huge post and the internet ate it..., you are living beyond your means, things are only going to get worse for the next year or so. Stop frittering money away.

Agree with the previous poster who said champagne lifestyle on lemonade budget.

BTW unless your are on a fixed tariff that is going to run for ever you have seriously underestimated your energy bills ours have gone from £168 to somewhere in the region of £250 and Octopus have suggested we up our DD to £400 to balance things out.

£30 a month on nails also seems like a lot with little to show for it, £360 a year....

Jeezus! NAILS! Thirty quid a month on NAILS. I despair.
This person does not know hardship.

That comes across as very snobby.

It wasn't my quote, but I tweaked it later on, it is not snobby it is sensible.

Chances are it's all the little expenditures, that will add up, that's taking a good amount,

What do you think a lavish lifestyle is, because it seems quite comfortable to me, and I earn a lot more than you do!

So...nearly £2k per year on takeaways?
£360 on nails?
Zoo membership £240?
So by cutting out those expenses you'd save £2.5k pa
Date night (?) is another £600 pa
I get my windows done every 8 weeks. They don't need cleaning every 4.
How much debt are you servicing on the credit cards? Are they 0%?

Energy, fuel prices, inflation and interest rates are only going one way ^

Cars, nails and takeaways would be the first to cut. Definitely chop in the cars for owned outright - I did this and bought saved and sold until I have something I really wanted. Started with a £500 run around

So you have £600 disposable income? £500 plus £100 that goes on the credit card. Stop spending £500 and use that to pay the credit card off then put into savings.

Tbh it can easily be £40 for my family of 3 if you get a Chinese / Indian. With Chinese we would have some left for next day though!

Hence why it's once a month or so now for us.

We bring home £5k a month and we only have 1 car on finance. I never would get my nails done and would never spend that amount on takeaways. You are simply living above your means. Zoo membership! You need to strip these things right back.

How long until your cars are paid off?? Once they are, do not replace them until they are at least 10 years old. Put the money you save there on your mortgage

Id cut my food bill, phone costs and contact lens costs. They could all easily be much less.

Given some of your other costs go towards snall local businesses eg window cleaner I would actually cut those last.

Hi OP.
I think you've done a good job in thinking through your costs and documenting them, which is the right way to start budgetting. You've had good suggestions above about what you could cut out which I won't repeat.
The thing that sticks out for me is the additional spending that is bundled together.i.e.£210 on credit cards plus £500 on 'disposable income' without any description. So you are spending £710 a month on 'stuff'. I'd break that down too and you should find aome substantial savings there.

What is Zoo membership, is it like National Trust or do you sponsor animals?

it's the contact lenses. Get DH a pair of glasses and you'll be quids in!

How are you spending £450 a month on food AND £150 on takeaway AND extra meals out?

You're spending £450 on just groceries? So over £100 a week on 6 days of meals??

Tbh you're quite fortunate OP. You have a shit load of unnecessary stuff you could cut back on if you had a mind to. You're enjoying a canny life there really.

OP: we have no money left, how come?
ALSO OP: We spend over £800 pm on disposable income and credit cards for personal spending...

Your car loans alone are 500 quid alone. Can you get a cheaper car ,or go to one car maybe. You say you haven't got much money over , but you have takeout nails and date nights. Last are important, but you maybe could take the takeout down ? You have a nice lifestyle so that's why not much over!

That is a lot on cars/petrol? Can you not cycle/walk/public transport! And lots of disposable unnecessary stuff there!

We pre-allocate a lot of spends, monthly amount towards car insurance and service, savings, holidays, Xmas.

Only once that's been taken out the equation do we decide what we can afford for personal spends, takeaways and family membership.

We asked for Xmas presents to be zoo/farm membership for a couple of years. Takeaways maybe once a month, eating out the same. Went down to 1 car and allocate funds to taxis from the saving. Cheaper phone contract, allocating savings so can buy outright.

I think your lifestyle is actually quite lavish, you just haven't realised it. Maybe your spending crept up over time? We have a lower income but much lower outgoings too.

We share one car between us (although I know this isn't always practical with you both working and we're lucky that our working hours slot around each other). We bought it outright for a few thousand. You could just buy two older cars and spend far less than your are spending now.

I don't get my nails done, don't regularly go to the hairdressers. You could look at getting a hairstyle which requires less frequent trimming. I have a balayage and I let it go a long time between appointments. It's quite a subtle one so looks natural rather than grown out. My hair is just cut straight across so I can trim it myself. My husband has long hair with an undercut which, again, is possible to maintain ourselves.

Our phones one or two hundred pound phones bought outright when we need a new one and I think I pay £7 a month for a sim card.

Your whole food bill is really high - we spend on average £70 a week for a family of four. We do have takeaways but not weekly.

I think you need to reframe your expectations around disposable income. You spend an absolute fortune on food despite not seeming to eat home cooked food most nights if you're having weekly date nights (presumably involving going out for a meal), a takeaway once a week and regular meals out with your friends. And you have a zoo membership yet are still spending lots of money on other days out with the kids. Do you buy food on those days out? That adds quite a lot onto the cost.

Do you have any savings? Is some of this coming from pressure to be seen as wealthy? I don't mix with the sort of people who would think anything of my car or my phone as anything other than a mode of transport and something to communicate on (and browse Mumsnet :D). I'd have a think about why you're spending so much on 'showy' things and not the background stuff you actually need to feel safe and secure.

Our household brings in a similar amount. We don’t have a takeaway every week (prob once a month) and if we do it will cost £20 max. We don’t have memberships to zoos etc.

I only get my hair cut twice a year and it’s normally £30ish each time. I have never had my nails or eye brows done and do it at home.

Theres quite a lot on food considering there’s takeaways and date night plus meals out included too. Do you have a lot of wasted food / meal plan?

Also, we have a couple of memberships which were given to us as gifts. A national trust one and one of local museums (one of which is a incredible, well known attraction and expensive to visit). The kids get quite a bit of variety from those and we don't even have to spend anything to do it. They were excellent gifts and we were really grateful. You might get more for your money from something like that.