Could you survive on 1k?

[coffeeanteac]

If you had £1000 left after the main bills.

Could you survive on £1000 for food amd petrol and everything else takeaways, gifts, fun.

DH thinks most families couldn't. I think it should be ok. There are only 3 of us and we all live about three miles away from work and school.

On paper yes definitely sounds like it’s doable.. in reality we are also 3, have more than that left after bills and still struggle! But I’ll admit we aren’t very careful about spending.. we are about to tighten the belt to save more so yes I do think it’s doable! x

Why don’t you claim universal credit?

I would find it hard/ family of 5.
Food is currently £7/800 so £50/ week spare is only £10pp for discretionary spend

OP - for two years and with the prospect of a larger salary after that it’s totally doable. You just have to cut back on anything non essential for the adults (that’s how I do it anyway!)

I totally understand that. I appreciate we have a choice.

Gosh @HatchedInALaboratory sincere apologies for my stupidity.

I meant that we definitely could!

You could survive, sure, but not comfortably.

So out of the 1000 still comes food, petrol, kid’s activities, insurance and so on? I wouldn’t choose that no but clearly if I had to I’d make it work.

You didn’t say ‘we’. You were speaking for others as you said ‘Of course you could’.

Oh yes I forgot the cats are due their vaccinations.

@BitchBrigade £200 a month to cover groceries, petrol, car tax and mot, car repairs, house repairs, clothing, toiletries...etc. No one can afford this.

£1000 As spending money after utilities,mortgage, yes of course . That is pretty decent

Obviously.

Some people are deluded, honestly. We have a high income and our 'after bills' monthly spending on food, fuel, fun etc is not much more than £1k. We are not poor and don't remotely struggle.

@TheLocum it’s not “spending money” though. It’s for food, petrol and general family expenses. I think when you add school age children into the mix, it doesn’t go very far unless they have no extra activities/sports etc and never have any days out etc.

Why would you assume they aren't?
My UC claim on top of working only takes me just over this amount, and that is because there's a childcare element. I won't get that extra bit (because I won't need it) once my son is in school so this will be about my total income.

Ok, I read it as that’s the fun money after all the essentials paid. In that case £1000pm no I wouldn’t manage

🙄 I find this incredibly tone deaf at the moment!! Would your DH like to swap? We have £400 after our bills, for 2 adults & 2 children.

Surviving month to month would be no problem whatsoever, £1000 is plenty for our day-to-day needs with a reasonable cushion. Saving could be a bit harder. If your lifestyle is such that you put £500 a month aside for your foreign holiday in the summer and a few short breaks dotted throughout the year, well then you might struggle to do that. And are pension savings included in the bills? Now that I'm getting older I see that as more of a priority than I used to.

We spend £50/60 each on fuel a week so that £400-£480 gone from that £1000 already, we included that under essential bills.

If you didn’t that leaves £500 for food, and everything else with food costing £125/150 a week that’s the budget gone! Not including stuff for the kids

Could I manage if I had to is different to could I sustain my current lifestyle on £1,000.

Currently, we try and use my wage (part time so is roughly £1,700 monthly) as our disposable income (including food). We’re a family of 4 and struggle to stick to that. Most months we end up transferring money from our main bank account to top it up.

-Roughly £200 a week on food (including meals out or takeaways etc)

-Any other expenses / purchases

Tbh I think I could cut down our food bill if I really tried.

Yes of course
I have to

As No Alternative really

DH and I have 3 DC and we survive on 800 a month after bills and food. It's tight but we manage

We couldn't do it.

We could scrimp to try to do it but as soon as an unexpected expense came up, we'd be screwed e.g. birthday, car repair, dental expenses. We couldn't save anything to go towards these expenses and they'd end up on a credit card which then eats into the 1K for months until another unexpected expense arose and the credit card expense increased. We have tried to do it when leading up to holidays and it is very hard and very joyless.

This again

But the OP needs food to come out of that £1000. It needs to cover everything after her fixed direct debit type bills.