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.

After bills and mortgage, definitely! I spend around £600 a month on good shopping for 5 of us plus dog, that is sticking to a budget but with plenty of snacks and decent things included. £100 a month on petrol. That leaves £300 for anything that crops up, like new school shoes/birthdays/hair cuts etc.

It would definitely involve budgeting though to build up reserves for Christmas, holidays and emergencies though.

Food not good

Petrol: £120
Food: £600
Clothes/shoes: £100 (a pair of trainers is £40 if we're lucky)
Sports clubs/scouts: £150 (3 x football, 2 x athletics, 1 x scouts)
Dog food/vets: £50
Kids allowance £60

We are a family of 5 with 3 massively hungry active teens.

So no money for car repairs, holidays, going out for meals, take aways, camping trips, days out, birthdays, Christmas, boiler repairs, roof repairs, gardening, furniture, replacement mattresses, DIY, decorating, etc etc etc. We had no money for a long time and after a time the house basically starts falling apart.

This Feb our boiler broke (£140) , the car died (£675) , all of the kids feet grew and we had to buy new trainers (for sport) (£120) school shoes (£125), and football boots (£30 ) - thank you vinted). They are all in Adult sizes. It was a very expensive month.

It sounds a lot but in reality it isn't. When we had the equivalent we had no car, no holidays, no sport activities, all hand me down clothes (impossible now as they are all over 6 foot!), The house was wrecked, we hardly went out. We managed but it wasn't fun.

I spend about £500 a month on food (5 full time residents) and £60 on fuel. Fuel cost vary hugely but I guess most people with high fuel costs are also highly paid. Nobody is spending £150 a week to commute to a minimum wage job. This month I’ve had dental bills, optician bills, a car service and repair so I’ve definitely gone well over £1000 despite having no fun at all. If you count all unexpected or occasional expenses in with essential bills then I think most people would do very well on £1000. It doesn’t take much to tip you over though.

OP you say your food shop is £100 min a week, petrol £20 or less a week so let's round up to £500 a month on petrol/food, so you have £500 left over after every regular/necessary bill. Let's assume you have a very large extended family and buy a £25 gift every week, that still gives you £100 left over a week.

What other regular expenditures do you have? Are you going on a big day trip every weekend or something? Buying new clothes every week? Multiple takeaways/coffee? You and DH need to make a list of absolutely everything that you spend in a month and look at it realistically if your income won't be going up then you're going to have to make it work but I(personally) don't see how you can't do more than 'survive' with £100 a week to spend on whatever you like. Although granted 'survive' means very different things to different people some people's essentials are other people's luxuries so only you and your DH know what survive means to you and what you would be comfortable cutting back on. For example, I would absolutely be telling family sorry but money is tight so just a card this year(and they would understand), however, you might not be comfortable with that.

It would be doable but very tight for us. We have 5 kids though.

Exactly. Some of us don't even have anything left after essential bills ( or not enough to cover bills!)

Of course. There'll be still at least £100 left. But I don't have kids.

Well our food costs £700 and petrol £200 and kids clubs £150 so that already takes me over without taking into account any other expenses such as dog food & monthly flea/worm, hairdressers, occasional meals out or takeaways, school lunch accounts, car and home maintenance, clothes etc etc the list is endless.

I’m fascinated by the replies as I really do struggle with £1000pm after essential bills. It sounds a lot but it really isn’t when you have children. I agree with a PP that there is a real race to the bottom attitude here sometimes.

It isn't loads but it's a fair chunk. I like to save £1k a month plus have high outgoings for kids' activities and like to eat out a couple of times a week (on maternity leave) but of course it's doable:

I earn over £90k a year. I don't have £1000 left after bills. That would be back to the noughties. Cost of living is extortionate now. I'm up to £3k just mortgage council tax and energy. We do have a very good standard of living regarldless though.

I can’t say on the information given because food and petrol are bills? And they vary by commuting needs and size/age of family? Ie toddlers eat a lot less than teens.

Easy. I don’t come anywhere near that. Just bung it all into savings… I don’t know what I am saving for mind. But I couldn’t spend that if I tried.

What even is this thread!

Honestly I don't know how people cope on less obviously they do but there would be no money for Christmas, birthdays , holidays, days out etc would be a pretty difficult life. I couldn't not with the price of petrol and food alone.

What’s he talking about? That’s absolutely loads to have left over after bills are paid.

I'm fortunate that I don't have to manage on that much at the moment, but I could do so easily. Once I retire completely in a couple of years, I'll have less than that to live on, but I'm not worried that I'll find it impossible.

Ha ha, rich people thinking they are poor. Family of 3 here, live comfortably on less than £1k after the mortgage i.e. the £1k includes petrol, heating, food etc. we don’t feel like we skimp, even visit cinemas and pizzahut. We all make choices how we spend our money and all have different priorities.

I could and have survived on less before but it would be tight. What happens when the car needs repairing? What about maintaining your home? So short term I'm sure it'll be fine but eventually it's stressful and a slog.

Honestly some poster would have you believe they can survive on ridiculously small amounts. I do wonder if these posters ever have to do their own food shop or pay for repairs.

Definitely!

We do £300 so yeah... with £1k I'd be living the high life!!!

I could, and have lived off less in the past - but I wouldn’t want to.

I can't decide if this thread is hilarious or fucking devastating.

I take it that you won't be a family of 3 though?