Gaging opinion £400 pw

[Toomuchtrouble4me]

Simply that. Family of 4. Is £400 a week reasonable to live in? This is without any bills so includes:
food for 4
household shopping (detergent etc)
clothing
treats (coffees etc)
household essentials (lightbulbs, batteries etc)
medicines and beauty products
Basically mortgage, bills, large expenses are separate, but thus includes all bits and bobs that are bought weekly plus funds for kids outings and buying gifts if they are going to a party etc.
Is it enough?
we’re trialing how much we need to spend on these things in a week and I don’t seem to be able to manage in £400.

YABU.

Jesus we're struggling along with £50 a week after bills for our family of four. I'd love to be able to blow £400 on tons of rubbish for our family. What are you buying? 18 carat gold soup??

so, basically 1600 a month for a family of four, with all bills (other than shopping - food, clothing and otherwise) paid? Yes, of course that's manageable.

Yes more than manageable.

Seems plenty if it doesn't include bills.

Someone will be along soon though to say that unless someone has £1000000pw then they're in poverty.

Then someone will say how they feed a family of 6 on £20pw and how DARE YOU come on here flaunting your wealth.

Yes, that's plenty. Equates to 1700 a month. Say, £500 a month on food. That leaves £1200 a month spending on the extra bits which is honestly loads. Not sure how you can't manage on that.

Also a family of four. We budget £175 a week for the same things you've outlined above. So yes you should be able to manage on £400.

I'm shocked you can't manage on £400 a week! Even with luxuries and treats.

You’re really struggling to manage on £400 a week? Isn’t that the take home salary of someone on £27k?!
what the bloody hell are you buying

Bloody blimey that's more than enough!

I have about that to spend on bills, food, clothes, entertainment and travel for me and my daughter... A month. Yes, it seems extremely do-able.

£400 a week is loads. We are a family of 4 and we aren't particularly frugal but shopping is under £80 a week (including toiletries, cleaning stuff etc.) What on earth are you buying each week which means £400 is not enough??

I'd absolutely love a breakdown of where that 400 is going. It really is a huge amount per week after bills for most people.

stealth wealth boast🧐

How many times do you have to buy detergent, light bulbs, batteries etc in a week?

That’s plenty, by a long way. We spend £50 a week on food shop for 2 adults. How is £400 not enough!!

£400 a week after all bills are taken care of seem like a lot of money to ‘manage’. Surely we don’t know what you buy but I still feel that with the most food shopping, you should still have enough left for everything else you mentioned.
As mentioned by a PP, someone earning minimum wage for example does not have up to that amount to live on (bills, etc inclusive) so really it depends on your family circumstances

Well its depends on lifestyle, kids activities, uniform costs etc.
Food costs us around £200 a week - that's without much meal planning and thought.
Petrol about £80 per wk for 2 cars
Then depends of have expensive kids activities or smoking or like a drink.

Are you drinking fine wines:-)

So are you saying it’s £400 per week disposable income? Of course it should be enough. It’s just me and my son here and if I had £200pw week disposable income I’d feel bloody rich!

I think OP you will find this post pretty unanimous is that you ought to be able to manage, and that a lot of people will find it in quite bad taste given the current climate.

We use AMEX cards for all our day to day spending - London based. Family of 4.

The monthly bill is usually in the range £800-1200 depending on whether we've done anything unusual - e.g. expensive meals out, weekend away, etc.

We're not really trying to economise, so I'm not sure how you're struggling to get spending below £1740 p/m.

Do you wander round Waitrose throwing random expensive items in the trolley? Maybe try Aldi? Too many takeaways?

That should be plenty.