To be struggling on 3k per month?

[Strictlyskint]

I am a single mum and really don’t know where I am going wrong. I am usually fine until there is a week to go until payday. Christmas is coming up and I am really stressing

Ah, I missed the weekly costs. But yes, you’re right

You should be able to save some money from £3k a month with a £550pm mortgage.

Is your house a money pit?
What extracurricular activities do you kids do? Are you getting any child maintenance, or is their dad paying half of their activities, clothes etc?

What hobbies do you have?

What subscriptions are you signed up for, including all the little ones that add up?

If you don't know where the rest of your money goes then you really do need to go through some bank statements.

That's quite a lot of money unaccounted for. Do you have the time to do that? I know it's hard to find the time with 2 kids

£150 on water monthly seems very high even if you are not on meter

How old are your children? Your shopping, water, electric and gas all look quite high (assuming you’re not rattling around in a huge house).

Are you getting child benefit? Is your ex paying child support?

Do you like shoppping? Buy regular takeaways? Spend, spend, spend?

Parents like this are so annoying! Are they retired? People forget how much going to work costs, even WFH will cost a lot for heat and power.
It isn't a massive income at all if you're paying a lot for housing or childcare. Even small things like a coffee or a McDonald's are expensive now. Bills always rise and wages don't.

From January 1st 2026 track every penny.

Try and save on water and food. Even £10 a week will add up.

Try and look at other bills.

You should be able to save a bit but you have to be more accountable and have saving goals too.

Don't let your parent’s comments get you down.

I was a single parent up until recently and I earned 2800 per month sometimes a little bit more overtime my rent alone was 1400. Now I am based in Ireland and we don’t have council tax or water bills. But I still run a car and fed your children and managed to save.

You need to divide up your bills into monthly payments only you need to assign a certain amount to food and fuel. You need to budget.

What about house and car insurance, tax, MOT;
Council tax
Clothes/uniforms
etc etc

My advice for frivolous spends is to set up a bank account called "frivolous spends" and chuck £50/month in there.

Then set yourself a regular monthly budget for things like clothes, make up, going out.

If you need to, you can top up the monthly budget out of the frivolous budget, but once the total budget is gone, it's gone.

I like this because it allows you to have a bit of freedom whilst also setting a limit to it. Challenging yourself to a "no spends" month followed by a treat is also good for stopping you spending when you don't actually need or really want something.

so you need a spreadsheet.

one column basic bills with fairly static prices. like the list you're listed here. do you have house insurance?

then a column for food shop. include kids lunches, take aways, odd coffees or coffee shop weekend treats, all those incidentals.

have another column for people spends - clothes, uniforms, hair cuts, school trips, birthday and Christmas gifts

another column for everything else.

start Dec 1st and go online every few days to upload it. you'll soon see where your money is going.

any cash taken out try and list under one of those categories

do you get child support or child benefit?

I was having a similar issue. Where was my money going.
I downloaded an excel of my last years spending from my bank.
Then I went though it line by line catagorising everything. Food, going out. Clothes. Toiletries. Days out. Travel. Petrol
Then did a pivot of what I was spending.
I was way over spending on food and days out.
I thought i was spending 500 on food. Turns out it was over 1000 eacb month with trips to the local shop and sweets etc.
You need to analyse your spending line by line and work it out.
I also added up all the tiny uneccessary monthly payments bits, natural history museum membership of 6 quid a month, spotify £10, sleep app £7 - these added up to over 250 a month.
I have since cancelled everything and put stricter budgets in place. Also started lookimg for bargains and bulk buys, like bulk buying tinned tomatoes on amazon and going to lidl rather than the easy sainos express shop at the end of the road.
Its the little tiny bits that add up the 6 quid here and there for a coffee or a subscription, you think its only 6 quid so ignore it. But 6 x 20 is 120 quid gone on little tiny 6 quids.
Ive started parking further away from the shopping centre too as realised parking was about 50 a month which I could save by walking 5 minutes.
In all since doing all of this I have saved about 1000 a month on unnecessary spending. Which was all my disposable income that I was wondering where in earth it was going.

I was having a similar issue. Where was my money going.
I downloaded an excel of my last years spending from my bank.
Then I went though it line by line catagorising everything. Food, going out. Clothes. Toiletries. Days out. Travel. Petrol
Then did a pivot of what I was spending.
I was way over spending on food and days out.
I thought i was spending 500 on food. Turns out it was over 1000 eacb month with trips to the local shop and sweets etc.
You need to analyse your spending line by line and work it out.
I also added up all the tiny uneccessary monthly payments bits, natural history museum membership of 6 quid a month, spotify £10, sleep app £7 - these added up to over 250 a month.
I have since cancelled everything and put stricter budgets in place. Also started lookimg for bargains and bulk buys, like bulk buying tinned tomatoes on amazon and going to lidl rather than the easy sainos express shop at the end of the road.@
Its the little tiny bits that add up the 6 quid here and there for a coffee or a subscription, you think its only 6 quid so ignore it. But 6 x 20 is 120 quid gone on little tiny 6 quids.
Ive started parking further away from the shopping centre too as realised parking was about 50 a month which I could save by walking 5 minutes.
In all since doing all of this I have saved about 1000 a month on unnecessary spending. Which was all my disposable income that I was wondering where in earth it was going.

Don't take notice of parents making you feel bad. You haven't got car maintenance or servicing or even tax, children clubs or clothes, vet or insurance, day out, take aways, coffees, presents, and other plenty of things. You need to look at everything. Any loans or cards?
The good news is you have enough income and low enough housing costs to sort this out by just getting organised and setting budgets. There's plenty of help out there to do this, even your baking app will help.
Bin the guilt and external critism and work to find some peace of mind by sticking to budgets.

I think putting some time aside (easier said than done but think of this as time for your better future), and get stuck into dave ramsey (ignore the USA churchy elements where they creep in if you can), and Rebel finance school (watch 1.5x time speed on youtube and start at the beginning and work through). Both of these are free and both have good uk based facebook support groups too.

In the meantime martin lewis has some great budget docs for free download - I don't see anything in your budget for things like cat vets fees/treatments, haircuts, clothes, kids clubs, home repairs to name just a few.

Having a bank account like monzo where I can allocate each month to 'pots' really helped me sort my money out too.

You can also (if you're feeling brave) paste your last 3 bank statements into chapgpt and ask it to catagorise your spending - that'll help with your 'where is it going' question.

That is banking app not baking app. But maybe a baking app can help too😂

So maybe your parents have a point. How are you going to address it? There's no point in just throwing your hands up saying I'm not good with money and I'm frivolous. As a parent I would be frustrated watching you.

You’ve answered your own question. Stop being frivolous.

Yes that is huge.

For us it's around 500 a year.
4 people

There isn't really anything you could cut here apart from Sly. £70 is quite a lot. However, it may be something that's important to you as a family. Could you get rid of the phone line and just have a mobile?

I’d definitely shop around for some of that - gas and electric, phone, Sky and water all look higher than they should be and you may be able to switch provider or find a cheaper deal. Or get on a water meter, potentially (but do some research). Car insurance looks quite high - is it a valuable car? Does it include breakdown cover?

Personally, I don’t think you would have loads left. You haven’t accounted for kids’ clothes/shoes, school lunches if they have them, kids’ clubs, any wraparound care you need, car breakdown cover/service/MOT, haircuts, setting aside money each month for home maintenance, for birthdays and Christmas, or holidays….. That is a good salary but as the lone adult earner it won’t go far. So ignore your parents.

Do you receive maintenance? Child benefit?

In your position, I’d be setting up a standing order to save a fixed amount each month, possibly in more than one account to allow for different pots. Maybe one for birthdays and Christmas, and a separate one for car and home maintenance. Do it so it goes out on the first of the month and try not to touch it. If you get to the end of the month, there’s never anything left to save! I’d work out what you would like to spend or be able to spend on these things, divide it by 12, and have that as a short term savings goal. Even a small amount will really help.

Sky not sly!

I don't think you are overspending. £150 per week is about right for food and toiletries.

My husband earns £3.3k a month after tax and our mortgage was £750 but we overpaid most months. We paid it off in January. We have two teenagers (nearly 15 and one who's just turned 18 but still in FT education, doing his A-Levels), I don't work. We've taken the kids to nearly 60 countries and 20 US states, had a two storey extension and paid off the mortgage. 5 weeks in Asia is usually cheaper than 2 weeks in Spain, Greece or Turkey in the 6 week holidays. Even going to places like Japan and South Korea.

We don't have pets, or Sky, and have scrimped on things, but we've had a good life on that wage. You really need to see where your money is really going.

I need to do it too because we we told ourselves that we would crack on saving now that the mortgage is paid off and we barely have. We've blown a lot of money on takeaways. We've saved less than what we would have spent on mortgage payments. Mindless spending is so easily done 😬

What about using Netflix instead of sky. And maybe cooking some meals that you could eat over a week?