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.

I have £400 per week before bills. So im sure you'll be fine.

Clothing, beauty and socialising wil eat up that £400 very quickly.

So if we assume an average of £120 a week for food and household shopping, which is on the frugalish side for a family of 4. A haircut or two, a replacement pair of shoes and a family meal out will quickly eat up the remaining £280.

Oh DFOD

It's easy to spend £400 a week!

As a family of three we spend
£150 on food and supermarket stuff
£15 on dd's busfare
£10 school lunches,
£60 eating out about once week,
£25 drinks in the pub on a Friday night,
£30 pocket money for dd,
This adds up to approx. £275- so if we go out anywhere at the weekend then the rest will be spent on parking, petrol, cinema/theatre tickets, birthday gifts, museum entry, lunch out, books, art supplies for dd if needed, garden centre things- esp in the summer, pet supplies, etc. so not far off what the OP spends

Clothes and beauty expenditure comes from a separate budget for me rather than household expenditure so that's extra and DH pays for his hobbies from his own money.

Are you feeding your kids caviar?

I would say £400 pw is very doable it not such riches you don't need to keep a keen eye on what is being spent.

Regular Incidental spending is the killer - daily takeway coffees, little treats like a new lipstick, ice creams for the kids etc..

I am going against the grain - it doesn't seem like loads to me. We're only a household of two adults and baby and food and petrol is £200pw. If I added two more teens I can easily imagine that being £300pw and a day trip somewhere / meal out or what not could easily eat the other £100.

I think it's a perfectly manageable amount, but not enough for extravagant living. I hardly ever buy clothes though.

That should be plenty but yes it will be a shock if you're not used to thinking about it. I'd budget it into pots - say food, activities, savings for things like Christmas and birthdays that don't happen every week.

Our weekly shop is around 150 (2 adults, 2 teens). This includes stuff you've labelled as household essentials/household shopping and personal care items. 1 prescription per month for eldest and prepayment cert monthly DD for me brings it to around £175.

Your £400 sounds like more than enough to me and pretty fucking tone deaf

If you can’t manage on that, I’d start by cutting out the treats (coffees out etc) and see how much that saves you. If you are serious about trying to manage to a set budget, you will soon see how you are frittering money away on treats.

Fuck off must be a joke thread

Looking at the responses it's clear that people have different ideas on essentials... meals out, takeaways, coffee etc are luxuries for a lot of people. As is spending £100 a week on hobbies...
Fuel for commuting and bus fares are essentials.

It's easy to spend £400 a week!

Yes, of course it is. Throw £4000 a week at me and I'll find things to spend it on. So what?

@PuttingDownRoots the Op said the £400 was for food and household items, treats, clothes, beauty, trips out and essential items like light bulbs - so basically anything that isn't a fixed bill.

Oh dear god! Try living of a fraction of that, then come back!

I personally would have four budget pots:

1. Fixed monthly essential expenses - mortage/rent, energy, phone, broadband insurance, water, council tax etc..

1. Variable monthly essential expenses - travel, food and household goods, cosmetics and medicinea.

1. Savings or debt repayments

1. Variable non essentials - socialising, hobbies, clothes, beauty, replacement of electronics.

I was meaning the difference between the people who thinks its loads, and can't imagine spending that amount and the people who thinks its a normal amount.

If you have the budget for those things its fine. But its clearly possible to live on a lot less.

Of course it is. I suspect the OPs issue is she needs to separate the food and household items budget from the treats, clothes and beauty budget.

Hmm. To be fair - easily spend £200 a week on food, and could easily spend another £80 on petrol a week. . So that leaves £120 for going out/clothing/hair/treats etc. Easily spent.

But also v easy to economise down!

I've seen on a different thread that some people say a cleaner is an essential whereas for a lot of people, a cleaner would be a "nice to have"/luxury.
Even stuff like haircuts can vary hugely. I get my hair cut probably between 1 and 3 times a year, others get theirs done every 6 or 8 weeks.

@Toomuchtrouble4me

Out of the list you've given in your OP are you able to give a break down on what you are spending?

I just think you will get better quality answers than 'of course you should be able to manage on £400 per week!'

e.g. food £120
household products £10
Clothing £20..............................

On some weeks I would definitely go over £400 - school uniform and shoe shop for instance, big family meal out, booking holidays etc

My DH gives me £400 a week “housekeeping” to include my fuel and any incidentals - adult DCs still at home and give me keep money too. I get through £400 quite easily with food costs etc going up. Definitely not buying new clothes every week. We were both saying how we are not sure how people on lower incomes are managing - I’ve previously been a single parent on family credit as it was then, I would not have cope with this cost of living crisis back then.

What the hell are you buying to spend £250 on food?!?

Honestly just normal food, household supplies to last a week. No alcohol & nothing extravagant.

I'm in Dublin so I spend €200 or so & maybe a bit extra on a top up shop. (So in £, it'd be £175 or so plus the top up). I know exactly how much I spend per month actually as going through a torturous divorce so I've costs worked out to the cent.

It's not that out of kilter, even UK vs Ireland as I often read the threads to compare. Not sure why you are so surprised!

Even on this thread, there are lots saying they spend £150 - £175 🤷🏻‍♀️

There is only two of us in the house. We keep to less than £50 for food and deodorant, shampoo, cleaning and laundry products etc. petrol, coffee out wild money. £30. We try to only go out for lunch once a fortnight. So we are often only spending the £50 including my coffee out each week. £400 a week is heaps even with kids.
Why don’t you note down everything you are spending for a month to see where you are overspending. Our total budget for the month is £800 as that’s all we have.