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.

Do your DC have extensive hobbies/clubs to come out of that? Or you drink lots or eat out a lot? It's more than I earn and I pay all household bills (no rent/mortgage), spending, food plus half childcare x 3 days per week on it for a family of 4.

😂 This

Tbh I can see how £400 per weeks get sucked away for us it would be
£200 food shop
£40 top up shop over week
£20 coffees out just me
£40 takeaway for family
£40 petrol
Random purchases like clothes for kids, uniforms, bit for school, new trainers, subs for clubs.
If you smoke lots money can disappear quickly

Oh come on people, we don't know how much the OP needs to spend on hood cleaner/wax this time of year!!

I mistead it and was thinking £400 a month is tight for food, cleaning etc... but manageable with planning.

I would struggle to find £400 worth of stuff a week.

Yes. Thats more Than manageable.

For context, family of 5. Food costs can only be £100 a week max and petrol can only be £40 a month, usually only use the car for food shopping and to visit my dad in a care home.

We then have £150 a MONTH for everything else after bills. And I mean everything clothes, haircuts, shoes, saving, leisure (just kidding, we do fuck all).

Hoof

bloody phone

Most people I know have less than £400 a month spare after bills, never mind a week.
What the fuck are you buying??

I love the separate section for detergent. You must get through a lot of that stuff! I buy it about once a month.

Think you'll be alright for light bulbs love 🤣

Fucking hell, if you truly can't cope on that much money can I suggest treating yourself to a calculator?

£300 a week on food and drink is an awful lot of money. It's clearly full of luxuries. So if the OP "can't manage" surely it's just a case of cutting back some of the luxuries?

Do you actually mean £400 a month? £400 a week is a huge amount of money

Did you mean £400 per month?! Because £400 per week is more than enough..!

Our food budget for the month, for 4 is £350. Fuel £277. Mortgage and bills teeter around £1900.

Wtf are you buying / spending money on if £400 a week isn’t manageable 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃 Jesus wept

Rereading your post I'm quite baffled.

This is basically £400 for extras (treats, gifts, etc.) and intermittent purchases (topping up household supplies like detergents, buying new clothes etc.), since bills are separate. How on earth is £400/week not enough for this?

I would genuinely, no snark, be interested in a breakdown of the costings you've drafted so far. I'm wondering if something's missing from your post because surely you know that £400 per week is absolutely more than enough after bills?

I, embarrassingly, easily spend more than that - family of 5.

250 food shopping
50 coffees and a lunch out on weekend
40 mid week takeaway

So then it would be easy to spend at least another 60 on various things like a kids' party gift, a trip to Boots for vitamins and skincare, petrol and parking, buying unnecessary treats for the pets, popping into the bookshop, stuff like that. It just seems to evaporate.

I don't budget and I often wonder where all my money goes and why other people can save for a holiday and I can't manage it. Having just read through the thread and compared what I do, my conclusion is that we are pretty much eating all our holiday money. I think it's time to try a food budget.

We have £250 per week, it's absolutely fine!

we do 140 a week for five ,so yesi think more than enough

Good grief, I’m not the best at budgeting (I can do it obviously, but I’m sometimes a bit lazy or have other priorities) and my petrol bill is over £100 pw, but we could easily manage on that.

I’d have a sit down and look at exactly where the money is going. Maybe try taking cash out at the ATM and only spend that for a while so you can really keep track of every penny and see how much you have left as you go.

No - because someone on £27k will not have £400/week, because from that £27k they will need to pay bills etc.

£27k annual salary for a household is difficult to live in, assuming you have mortgage/rent, bills etc.

Our household income is significantly above £27k and we have nowhere near £400/week to live off. Half that, on a hood week.

I think someone is being goady.

Yes, this is it. People live to their means. Our household income has changed massively over the years, ranging from as low as £25k to as high as £85k. The more money we had, the more money we spent. As a student I survived on £50/week, which included £15 on transport, all my food, clothes and entertainment.

Well you're not being unreasonable to spend that much if you want to but if you literally can't cut it below that then I don't think you're trying very hard.

What are you spending on food?

Can you break down what that £400 is going on?