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.

@Rebel2023 I seee, fair enough. My mum always bleached her toilet to the nines so I do the same 😅

This is a massive kick in the teeth to people on minumum wage who don't get benefits. Their entire take home wage is less than £21k a year. Talk about ignorance.

Yeh I know... It's a weird situation that I dont wear entirely comfortably. I grew up very working class, parents were very much paycheque to paycheque. I have to be careful too- I'm autistic and I've definitely had people try to take advantage of me. Luckily my cousin lives locally and we are pretty close so she's good at pointing out the users. Just landed with my arse in the butter for some reason.

£400 a week should be easy really to cover food and miscellaneous really, it's not like beauty products, medicines, presents and clothing are normally a weekly expense? I'm guessing your food shopping and treats like coffees etc are eating up a massive amount of your budget and if it were me I'd look there on where I can cut down/look for less expensive items in that group

400 a week? Think you need to look at your spending! Jeez! If you cant manage with that i think you need to look at it all properly.

We do £100 a week on food i do £50 a week on fuel plus £50 a week for partners train fare and will go up when he is commuting more.

We do plenty of days out,pay for clubs and sports for the kids etc but still mounts no where near to an additional 200 a week. What luxuries do you have and not even give a second thought?!

I think this really does sound like your spending is out of control. Some people barely have £50 a week and manage. Maybe try working on £300 a week then see if you can reduce further.

We used to earn more than we do now combined and we have more luxuries now than we did before. Easy to spend tenner here and there and not batter an eyelid. But its wasted and probably not needed

it loosens the dirt and germs to make them easier to wash away with water

No it doesn’t you mentalist 😂You think all that wash your hands covid advice was to wash away germs?

Oh and that doesn’t mean you need to bleach toilets, but anything soapy works

I suspect this is one of those posts that's just written to rile people up, I mean honestly who would write a post so inflammatory and in deliberately poor taste about whether £400 a week is enough to live on after bills are paid when a lot of people are trying to make their basic budget go further.

This is as tasteless as the royals showing up empty handed at a food bank.

Yes. We are a family of 6 and we spend about 300-350 a week on everything you listed.

150-180 on food
then petrol, extra curricular clubs, parties, clothing, household items, days out, activities etc..

but we could definitely spend less if we wanted to.

You have 2 less people than us. If you’re struggling on 400 a week you need to take a serious look at your spending habits.

Surely you know that’s not a ‘normal’ amount of money to be spending each week for 4 people. So I don’t really get the point of what you wanted from this thread.

You’ve got £1200-1400 per month. Read the room man. Jeez.

Ignore the haters. If you can’t manage on £400 then time to cut back. You don’t need treats like coffee etc.
meal plan your week and buy the ingredients you need as this will save money.

Surely lots of those things aren’t bought weekly?? After bills, single parent family of 3 here I spend about £60-80 on food (which includes toiletries and detergent things except my more expensive products bought every few months), £65 on petrol, £15 on school lunches for one child, £5 lunches for other child who takes packed some days, £36 on wrap around for one child, £15 currently on a macdonalds or similar each week as we have to grab food between activities. Kids get £5 and £4 a week pocket money. They then buy their own treats. I then decide on a week to week basis if we need anything else. They’re past the party stage. We do have a monthly direct debit for one activity the eldest does but is covered by her DLA or I might struggle, and I pay for guides termly for both which isn’t much, other child does an activity funded by grandparent. Clothes aren’t bought weekly. More like when needed. I save about £50 a month over 2 kids accounts to go back and use when needed so it’s easier to budget Also cover their Xmas and birthday sometimes or contributes to them. I don’t really have a social life so don’t go anywhere to spend money. Sometimes a coffee once a month with a friend. I then check what’s left in the account. We usually raked a packed lunch to weekend and holiday places and maybe buy an ice cream or cuppa.

Definitely yes.
I read it first as £400/month which IMO is doable short term. Kids activities are the one thing that makes it hard though.

but a week? Hell yes

Does it include petrol and travel costs/ kids activities? I am not as rich as you and I only have £1100 a month after all the bills. Food shopping £100-£150 a week depending on stocking up etc petrol is £60- 80 a week . Kids activities are brutally expensive in January as you have to pay termly for lots of things. Nothing dc do is very expensive per class but paying 11 weeks at £6/7 for 2 activities per child x 3 children is painful.

It’s also a bit income dependent to be fair. Some weeks I spend more than others. School holidays don’t cost me as much in the school dinners and wrap around but do add to the food bill a little.

Very manageable - write down everything you spend on a weekly basis - it will be a revelation!

I spend
£500 a month on supermarket incl health and beauty, cleaning, cat food.

£200 a month clothes for me
£200 a month clothes for kids
£200 a month entertainment / going out for me
£250 a month entertainment and activities for the kids. Currently that’s ski lessons, trampolining, brownie and weekend stuff
total £1350 p/m or £311 pw.

i feel this is a generous budget, I have a nice standard of living, six figure salary and don’t want for anything but don’t go crazy. You do have to not randomly buy yourself a £200 handbag or have an expensive facial or whatever!!

I recommend hyperjar for budgeting.

This can't be a real post.

No adult (raising children as well!) needs to ask if £400 is enough for 7 days' worth of food, coffees out and lightbulbs!

If this is anything but a goady cost-of-living joke OP, then you might need some adulting classes.

@MirabelMax here goes:

swimming lesson x 2 - £22
after school club x 2 x 2 - £52
birthday party gift - we seem to average 2 per month so will average at £10 per week.
food - including cleaning products, lunches, booze etc. £120
weekly family activity. £70.
spanish tutor. £25
travel. £11 for me. £90 for partner.

that’s minimum.

This is about our budget for food, eating out, activities, clothes anything that isn’t a direct debit out of my account for fuel.

ignore the people saying it’s obscene. I don’t think it is. We spend about £150 on food/cleaning/toiletries plus cat food which has gone dear, factor in when clothes need replacing, hair cuts, going out for tea/cake and the odd day out, kids sweets/shop trips and it soon goes!

£400 a week works out at £21k a year, which isn't actually that much for a family of 4 (£7k per adult and £3.5k per child).
I understand it seems a lot for those on benefits, but you're not really supposed to have a good lifestyle on benefits - if you could, there wouldn't really be much incentive to get a job, would there?

For many people in full-time work, 1700 pcm is their take home pay, so it's nothing to do with not working. It's the equivalent of earning about 24,600 a year. And many people on benefits are also in full-time work, because work is so badly paid it doesn't actually cover costs. Make work a bit more enjoyable and pay people a decent living wage and you'd be surprised at how incentivized they are.

We are a family of four. Have a budget of £300 a week to allow for savings for, Christmas, birthdays, school holidays, car emergency pot, emergency pot and kids savings. We regularly go over £300 but this is because we’re shit at saying no to stuff and treating ourselves. You need to figure out a way to make it harder for you to access all that money. We’ve got a a starling joint account and have started using a pot to put all our money in and only transferring in £200 a week to the main part of the account. Definitely helps us see the money go down and maybe say no to the takeaway and have a rummage in the freezer.

My earnings history.

£2.20 p/h Saturday job 1991-1994
£3.20 p/h McDonald's 1994-1996
£4.50 p/h security guard 1996
£4.50 p/h meat factory 1997
£4.50 p/h warehouse 1998
£6 p/h insurance admin 2000-2004
£8.50 temping in London 2004-2006
£40k p/a first IT job in London

£47k 2nd IT job in London

£56k 3rd IT job in London
£85k 4th IT job in London

I've earned crap money and struggled to get by. I know what it's like, but I don't feel guilty for now earning more money and having a more comfortable life. I've worked really hard and made sacrifices to study professional qualifications and increase my earning potential.

I very much doubt there are many (any) people supporting a family of four on minimum wage. They'd certainly qualify for in work benefits and probably have access to very cheap social housing - something we can only dream of with our £2,200 p/m mortgage for a pretty crap 3 bed semi.

I stand by my previous comment that it isn't really that much money for a family of four (in London), when you factor in all costs - food, clothes, shoes, kids activities, petrol, lunches, trips to the cafe/nandos/pizza/etc.

Has the OP returned at all to look at any posts or has she (presumed) crawled off realising how very luck she is?