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.

I have to survive on less than a thousand. That’s including bills. Some people are fucking clueless.

What goes in the bills section and what goes in the £1000 section. People have different definitions for both.

Food... we spend £500 a month
Kids hobbies... we are lucky, this averages about £50 a month for both children. (Not including big equipment purchases or fuel). We have very good value clubs locally!
Clothes... minimal.
Presents etc... probably £100 a month averaged out over the year. But could cut down.
Phones... DH needs unlimited data as he travels a lot. But the phone is relatively basic.
Fuel... hard to clarify as DH gets most back in expenses then a bit more back from tax. But my car is usually £60 a month.

Then there's stuff like MOTs, house maintenance, school trips...

A month or a year? Month definitely. Year, tricky! Been living in a student loan as a single mum for the last 4 years. It's been ... fun ...

Well for us we spend £800 - £1000 on food and groceries/cleaning/household etc and £400 a month on travel expenses.

I could certainly economise on food but the travel is commuting costs.

It would leave £600 for food and all the other stuff we need (clothes, family outings etc) so would not be possible in our current circumstances.

Food and petrol are my main bills.

No, 1k wouldn't cover food/petrol/more, but we're a family of 5. I think most families of 3 could.

Of course most families 'could survive' and even have some fun money available to spend.

If that's your situation - family of 3 and only very short necessary travelling, then £1000 will be plenty for essentials and more.

However, it's not enough to be able to spend as you wish, but obviously that's far more than just 'surviving' unless you have a larger family to feed and clothe, and work/school requires travelling further so higher petrol use.

But it also depends what you mean by 'main bills'. Is it just regular monthly direct debits? If it misses annual and irregular expenses like car running costs, essential clothing, white goods replacement etc. That could take a big chunk out of your £1k.

Fair enough, your family is twice the size of mine so makes sense it is around double.

Given what we spend on fuel and food alone in our household, it wouldn’t really be enough for everything else, but if needed to, I’m sure we could make changes to make it work.

It rather depends on the size of your household and your commute/travel surely?

A couple that WFH, absolutely. A family with 4 teenagers and 2 cars with a long commute could eat up £1000 easily.

We have £500 for 3 of us, DD is 3 and it’s not enough. But we will have £1100 once nursery ends which will be better.

Of course it is doable and many people manage on less but depending on your current income/lifestyle now you may still need to budget. I'm pretty certain our food bill alone must be close to 1k each month but I know there is plenty of flex in that if we did need to cut back.

No - family of x5 here food is around 150-200 doesn't leave much left!

I have £900 a month BEFORE bills.

Yes

If I'd been replying to this months ago I'd had said, 'of course'! However, in the past 4 months, we've slept £900 at the supermarket (2 adults, 2 kids, 2 cats) and petrol is £100 a month so no, we couldn't survive on £1000 a month after mortgage payment, utilities, insurances, TV licence, council tax, broadband.

We've had to dip into our savings recently for days out, birthdays, etc.

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

Including groceries and travel that’s really low for me. Our food shop would immediately take up half that, so £500 a month for discretionary spending for 2 adults, family days out, treats, activities, clothes and saving towards Christmas, holidays and the regular travel we need to see family? Not enough.

Could we survive well yes obviously, but would we be comfortable or able to do the things we enjoy? No.

That's £900 a month (on average).

No as it wouldn't cover our food shopping

£1k just on food/petrol and disposable income?! Yes people can live off that 😂

We’re a family of 4, we spend around £700 per month on food and household items, clothes etc, then there’s after school and kids clubs another £150 and petrol £50. We wouldn’t be doing much else, trips out etc and I’d be worried in case of unexpected bills - car issues or boiler etc.

It was reading the threads recently where most people thought £1900 was poor. I had showed him those threads too.

We'd struggle to do anything fun or buy gifts. Food is £100 a week. Fuel is £100 for just me.

Ooh, I would LOVE that much left over!

The thread has proved people can’t.

Yes exactly this. It's for everything that isn't a direct debit basically.