How do people do it?!

[sameshizdiffday]

Over the last 12 months me and DH have had a combined wage increase of approximately £400 per month - lovely!

Our bills however, over the last 12 months, have increased by more than double that! - not lovely

Now at a point where we're both stuck in our overdrafts with no money to do anything, no hope of a holiday this year (or in the next decade if things continue like this) and I just feel really down.
We're both getting paid 'market rate' for what we do so I don't think a job change would help.

2 kids - 13 and 10 who keep asking if we're going on holiday in summer

I know we're not the only ones in this position so, does anyone have any tips/ advice on what to do?!

I think your 3 big issues are your gas/electric, mobile phones and car finance.

We're in a 4 bed detached, three adults working from home all day so heating currently on at 19 degrees all day but off from 9pm until 7am and we pay £279 a month and are comfortably coming in within expected usage according to our monthly bills. i.e. our account is predicting we could actually pay a little less a month and still break even over the year. I appreciate all houses are different but you could surely save a significant amount there if you tried.

Mobile phones - we have 3 on Sim only deals, one at £15 a month and 2 at £12 a month - your £120 a month seems incredibly high. Can you do anything with that?

Car finance - just wow! I appreciate you can't do anything about that at the moment unless you can manage with just one car, but if you can save in other areas now I'd put a fixed amount of the savings in a regular saver account each month now so next time you need to change one of the cars you've got a lump sum already saved up then buy something outright. We tend to only change cars once every 8-10 years which gives us plenty of time to save a decent amount towards the replacement.

I'm not unsympathetic OP - I think life is quite tough for a lot of us financially at the moment but it does look like you could make some savings if you tried. It is all extra effort though which is difficult when you're already fed up with things.

@TheYearOfSmallThings I think you sound ignorant to be honest. Grim is thinking that eating at Frankie and Bennies (frozen food sold at a premium price) or buying a marks and spencer meal deal is worth more than a holiday. A lot of families cook completely from scratch using fresh ingredients and bulk bought pulses and lentils.
I cook lovely food using lentils, spices, rice, vegetables. I bake fresh bread and make pizza and pasta from scratch. It's delicious and no one in my family feels short changed. If we want to have fish and chips at the seaside we will, if we want to treat ourself and buy nice salmon for sushi we will, but not every week. Buying expensive food from the supermarket doesn't interest me. It's not worth the money. If it's a nice joint from a butcher or a block or artisan cheese from a deli then fair enough but there's no providence there. I have enough family working in the food industry to know that.

@TheYearOfSmallThings I think you sound ignorant to be honest. Grim is thinking that eating at Frankie and Bennies (frozen food sold at a premium price) or buying a marks and spencer meal deal is worth more than a holiday.

You have just made up a lot of stuff there. I have never eaten at a Frankie and Bennies, or suggested that a M&S meal deal is worth more than a holiday. YOU pulled those examples out of thin air. And you did it to try and justify your extreme lifestyle whereby an adult exists permanently on a diet of porridge or toast for breakfast, nothing all day, and then some vegetables with or without a bit of tinned fish in the evening.

I'm going to say it again: that is not enough food for an adult. There is no reason a person in the UK should be living on that by necessity, and if (as I suspect) it is not by necessity but by choice, that reflects a disordered thought pattern, and should not be held up as an example for others to follow.

And claiming that anyone who doesn't practise extreme frugality or overly controlled eating must be living on fast food and ready meals also reflects bizarre beliefs.

Same here OP, except no pay rises.
This is the reality of the UK now and for many years to come I suspect.
PPS have great advice but longer term I suggest not voting Conservative at the next general election. Billionaires and energy companies are making huge profits but our government chooses not to levy a windfall tax as other countries have done. They choose to strip money from the ordinary people and channel it to the super rich.
Also, lobby your MP to rejoin the single market. Lots of Leave campaigners in 2016 said we'd stay in it as it was economical suicide to leave it. If we join the single market it will help the economy and lower costs.
It is not just something that is happening to our country. It's a choice by our government.

It has been changed so you do need to get a TV license to watch iPlayer on demand now. So just avoid iPlayer altogether as well as any other live TV if you don't have a license.

It's complete madness to think our weekly food shop in 2019 is now considered luxury items in 2022.
I live in a small two bed mid terrace gas and electric was £485 in Jan. I don't have the heating on at night and on low in the day to the point where I question why bother having it on because I'm still cold. Im paying out large sums of money and am still cold. What's the point.

Who said that it was a binary choice between eating ready meals and surviving off two cheap meals a day and skipping lunch in order to save enough for a week in a caravan? I’d rather my family spent the majority of their year in a warm house, eating nutritious meals with the occasional treat thrown in than scouring the supermarket for 10p fruit and eating a tin of tuna as a treat for our dinner. If that meant we didn’t get a holiday that year then so be it. To me 51 weeks a year spent living in total frugality would be miserable and a one week holiday wouldn’t be a reasonable trade off. If you make different decisions for your family then thats up to you but I do challenge the reasonableness of a family of (presumably?) three people eating for a month for £150 out of choice rather than necessity.

You basically didn’t use gas and it was nearly £200? That can’t be right?

We had the heating on about an hour a day. We use gas hob quite a lot. Quickish showers for adults every other day (we have a gym) and a bath for kids probably 75% of nights (I skip when they go swimming, more because it seems unnecessary than cost saving) and our gas was about £65. So less than the government subsidy that month. Like most people we are not on a fixed tariff anymore so just on the cap. Obviously electricity is extra to that and was more than gas in Jan, but still the combined bill was less than your gas alone.

Without being rude as I know everything has gone up. You could cut down with lifestyle choices. Maybe you shouldn't have to make them but 580 on car finance 120 on phones and over 500 on gas and electric is £1300 a month. That's crazy my gas and electric has been around 300 for the winter. No car finance and 40 for 2 mobiles. I think this is where to save. You need to be monitoring your usage more and cut down and rethink the finance with either a combined personal loan at a lower rate over a longer term or go down to 1 car.

I suppose it’s about perspective. I was a single mother (well, ex coparents so not entirely on my own parenting but little in the way of contribution to the kids) on benefits. It was miserable. I did this for 2 years before making the choice to put my all into job hunting. I landed a good job and now for the first time in years I’m planning a long holiday this summer with the kids. My life before, when on benefits, was a nightmare I really couldn’t afford even the basics. But I had learned to cut my cloth accordingly, so even now I’m earning well I’m able to budget on little and put substantial (well, to me) money aside for things I could never do but desperately wanted to.

OP are you paying your gas and electric bills monthly by direct debit (so they will be much lower on the summer), or is that really your correct year round monthly payment?

If it’s year round you need to recalculate it yourself as it’s probably wrong.

If it’s less in summer you need to consider changing to fixed monthly payments as this really takes the pressure off winter budgeting

I mean I am in no way shape or form poor and frankly that's significantly aided by the fact that I don't have car finance!

I bought a 5k car 6 years ago now, it shows no sign of needing to be changed any time soon and it's even fancy enough to have a parking camera and Bluetooth connection to my phone for handsfree. Total cost per month so far is £69 l and it drops every month.

I recognise that's not as easy any more as second hand car prices are very high but still.

Ditto. The thought of paying that much a month on cars just makes me feel a bit poorly!

Wow. I live in a large 4 bedroom semi with solid walls (no cavity wall insulation) and my monthly energy bill is £215 (doubled from pre-Ukraine). Turn your thermostat down, turn off radiators in rooms you're not using, and only run your CH in the evenings. That will save you some money.

Also, we have payg phones for £10 each a month, so your mobile phone bill seems huge.

You economise and use less - it's hard - we are all feeling it

I re mortgaged in May - reduced it by £100
I swapped to a new car that's costing £120 a month (old one was £185)
I only have heating on when needed and turn all the lights off (4 bed 1970's semi, some draughty old double glazing slowly being replaced - cost went from £109 a month to £285 but I'm £300 in credit as of this week)
Shop online - and buy savers/own brand
I still have Sky - I don't get out much!
Mobile is £56 a month for mine and middle child - she will be taking this over when the contract end in July so it will reduce to £28
Showers not baths
More walking
WFH when possible (which I hate)
No holiday this year - we usually do Eurocamp in May - driving down but just can't do it - might go camping in Wales in the summer

It sucks but hopefully it wont be forever

That seems a lot! I'm in a 2 bed apartment with gas and electric and I use £5 ish a day so about £150pm

@ghostyslovesheets to be fair, whilst the rest of it is good advice the remortgaging one isn’t… For the vast majority of people, remortgaging right now will cost them money not save them. If we could all go back to early 2022 and remortgage then we would!

@Minibea meat isn't nutritious. It is not a necessity.

I think you’ve got the wrong thread. This one is for helping the OP understand where she can make cut backs, if you want to debate the relative merits of a plant based v meat diet then start your own thread

😕

Another one saying you should re-examine what you consider to be essentials.

If you cut down on sky and food you could free up £150/month without going too frugal. That’s £900 saved up by August, enough for a long weekend somewhere or a couple of weeks camping with decent kit.

Longer term, cut down on the car finance and phones to save even more.

We were in a similar situation not so long ago.

We have:
Cancelled sky, using Netflix.
Started to shop at Aldi instead, making cheaper meals or batch cooking.
Cut out takeaways.

The biggest change was getting rid of the cars. We handed back both PCP deals which were £340 and £280 per month. Got a bank loan and 2 bangers for £200 per month….saved a fortune and I really don’t miss any of the flashiness of the PCP cars. Both old cars do exactly the same job!

Christ OP, sort out your cars and you'll get your family holiday.
What would your kids prefer?

But you need to have 2.5k to buy a car? Where does op get that?

Get credit? That's not always easy when it's unsecured and risky for a second hand car.

Get credit? That's not always easy when it's unsecured and risky for a second hand car.

If you qualify to spend nearly 600 quid a month on car finance you won't have a problem getting a loan for 2.5k