Overspending please help

[SunConure]

To be losing £500 per month. I am overspending by about £500 every month and I need some help to get it under control.
£1100 mortgage + council tax + electric gas etc
£110 phones for me and dc (in contract! )
£500 food (I am addressing this - joined a larder!)
£360 medical bills
£280 cleaner
£200 utilities on holiday home (no mortgage)

£200 travel to work
£100 pet insurance (high b/c of past claim)
£100 dc pocket money and activities
£200 loan repayments
£100 car
£2-300 on general living

For two people and a pet this is very high. In short, medical costs aside I'd suggest you are still living as though you are still in a highly paid job full time.

£50 a month pocket money and another £50 is not extortionate for a teenage boy. Is it worth having a conversation about cutting the cleaners hours and sharing some of the savings if he/she is difficult to motivate?

If you are seeing a therapist - cut back by 50%. It doesn't have to be forever, just until the house in France is rented.

If the internet is to be believed, everyone in the USA wants to emigrate right now and they can visit for up to 90 days on a holiday visa. Rent it out and be careful to set the rent appropriately if they will expect a local mgmt company to sort any maintenance issues. I generalise but they don't seem terribly low maintenance in their expectations and you don't want to make it more stressful. What is interesting is that if American's leave the Schengen area [which UK is not part of] for 90 days, then can go back for another 90 before having to leave fully. So if you found the right candidates, you could rent France out until school hols and spend the summer in France and swap over. If you haven't heard the term digital nomad, look it up.

£500 on food is high for two people especially if eating out too. Is that a lot of Deliveroo? If it is, then I'd do some calculations and if you are spending £200 on pizzas every month for a teenage boy and visiting friends then I'd load the freezer up with nice ones instead. You'll still save a fortune and they'll only have to wait 20 mins. Bonus, you teach a teenager to be a bit more useful.

Look at how much food is being wasted if a lot of that is fresh food. Plan your meals or shop on the day only. A bag of salad here and there in the bin doesn't feel like much but clean out your fridge today and work out how much you'd bin by the end of the week if you don't eat it all by supermarket day.

Is your freezer loaded? Start an economy drive and work through it. Mission full defrost commence :) You want nothing but ice and vodka in there by July [except pizzas obviously] so you can swan off to France for a nice holiday and continued recovery.

Is there not a charity you could access therapy through if not on the NHS? £360 is ALOT, but MH is important.

I think even with the cleaner £280 is a lot - how often/how many hours is she cleaning. Again id sack her rather than generate debt BUT if it helped my MH I might see if I could use her less or shop around for a better rate.

Selling or renting the holiday home sounds a good idea too. As does adding the loan to your mortgage.. it may be worth speaking to a financial adviser

@TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams i love your post - thank you
I do cook from scratch but was buying everything organic and premium. Dc was eating a lot of meat but he will have to cut back

🤣🤣 Oh yes a person facing job loss should first think about the livelihood of their cleaner

Hi. I understand what you mean about having a cleaner and it reducing your stress, as I when I let mine go, i cried!!!! 😆 But I just couldn't justify it any more. Bin the pet insurance, and put the £100 a month into a savings account. You could pay all.those premiums and never need it. It's a con. Go through your direct debits and standing orders and be ruthless. .you need to sort the phone. Giffgaff..£8/month, no brainer

Your budget is not detailed enough at all @SunConure. Needs more of a breakdown.
do you have a car?
house insurance?
life insurance?
haircuts?
subscriptons?
gifts?

Someone has inserted a second child into this thread and posters are just going along with it.

OP has only one - a son.

Hi car is on there. £100 for maintenance and AA, insurance etc. Car is paid for but old. I think the other stuff is included under “general living” I cut my own hair and have Netflix (£8) and house insurance is £30

Yes one ds who is wonderful but typical lazy teenager ha ha

I’m slightly different in that I wouldn’t get rid of the cleaner completely as I would rather my money went into a small business/sole trader but would reduce the hours because she/he must be there pretty frequently to cost over £200.
Self employed cleaners in my area charge out between £15-£20ph, perhaps you could ask that they concentrate on kitchen/bathrooms.
As others have said your food bill is astronomical for 2 people a month, and if the general living expenses are for things like clothes, eating out etc then I would cut that right back.
Your sons allowance is pretty generous, even if he had a hair cut every 4 weeks I’d be surprised if it cost more than £22, he doesn’t need to buy clothes every month and tbh he’s of the age that a Saturday job would probably be a good idea.
My eldest is slightly younger but he doesn’t get a set allowance from me. I pay his phone £10 a month, transport if he’s going out with his mates which is probably around £4 per week, although he cycles a lot as it’s quicker. He works every Saturday morning as a shop assistant and uses that money to fund his spends.
I buy his school shoes/uniform toiletries and then he gets clothes as he needs them, I usually tie it in with birthdays/Christmas.
I have 3 children, there is no way I’d be handing over £300 a month even if I could afford to.

Well done OP, the more you can cut down, and take control of your budget, the better you will begin to feel. It will hopefully make you feel calmer and more positive too. It's often the little things that we change which make the biggest difference to our well being, wishing you peace and love

I’d go for a longer-term let of the holiday home if possible - that way you don’t have to worry about cleaning it in between guests etc, which is presumably difficult to keep an eye on from another country. It means you can’t use it for a few years, but it doesn’t sound as though you’re going much anyway?

DS will have to understand that you’ve changed jobs and finances are tighter, so he’ll need to help out more around the house; that way you can reduce the spend on the cleaner.

Do you have a new job lined up? Or will you be out of work for a while?

Someone earning a good wage should have the foresight to understand the importance of savings.

If you value the cleaner than keep that. But you could shave plenty off the food budget. Sort the phone situation out once the contract expires. Other general expenses could be cut back. The other medical seems like you could cut back in that. Renting out the holiday home do it covers it’s expenses is also a no-brainer.

I have a holiday home in France. The issue wouldn't be selling it at a loss or trying to make a profit. I reckon it would take 6 months to even find someone to gift it to. The market is extremely slow and property isn't worth much.

I had savings but I invested them in France. The plan was to do up the house and rent out part of it. But the job loss has come at a difficult time and the house is not ready. Your comment is a bit harsh and judgemental

I have no other job lined up and all the jobs I’ve found to apply for are much lower pay or part time. I am applying anyway but yet to find one at the same grade and pay unless I move but ds is in GCSE year so can’t move rn

My house in France is not worth anything like 200,000 more like 50k
don’t really want to sell
it as it took me a long time to save up for it but I will if I have to
I think it could actually bring me money if I manage to rent it

If you're being made redundant soon, will you get a payout?

Is there any chance you and DS can go over this May and early summer and do the work yourselves to get it ready to rent out from late summer onwards?

🤣 at keeping the cleaner because they need the money. Very reductive, apart from anything else, to assume that they are only cleaning because they’re desperate for the money.

However, first and foremost, OP needs the bloody money too!

Pause the cleaner for the time being and use that money to pay off the loan quicker

Your cleaner is v expensive. You're living beyond your means

Food bill will definitely reduce if you move away from Waitrose. Hubs and I allocate £500 a month for food. I shop at Lidl and we always have money left in the account at the end of the month even this month where we had a couple of takeaways and fuelled the car as we’d done lots of joint outings.

"What is interesting is that if American's leave the Schengen area [which UK is not part of] for 90 days, then can go back for another 90 before having to leave fully."

Americans are subject to identical conditions as all other 'third country' citizens, including British citizens. The rolling 90 days applies to them in the same way as it applies to us.

Phone cost is insane. I only pay £5 pm for my package and have a a refurbished phone.