to be fed up about never having any money even though DH earns (just) over £100k?

[MakemineaGandT]

I know it sounds like a lot, but with a big mortgage and all the other usual bills we have very little disposable cash.

We don't have a cleaner or any other kind of help

Neither of us has had any new clothes for at least 18 months

We spend £100 a week on groceries, so hardly extravagant

We haven't been on holiday for 3 years

We do all DIY etc ourselves

We've been out twice this YEAR

I just don't know how we can cut back. It feels as though we are working so hard and yet we are always struggling.

It makes me really annoyed when I see comments (for example on that taxing over £150k thread) about the "super rich") - I guess on paper we look "rich" but it certainly doesn't feel like it!

Unavailable - dinner menu for a week chez Janeite might include something like:

*veggie spag bol and garlic bread
*sausage casserole and baked potatoes
*pitta bread, falafel, salad and sweet potato wedges
*veggie curry and rice, with yoghurt raita
*veggie tagine and cous cous
*soup and a pudding

• veggie lasagne and salad

Plus the stuff for lunchboxes on 4 days.

The only comment I have on this thread is that I believe it is not unreasonable to spend £100/week on groceries for a family of 4

I am struggling at the moment to keep our weekly shop below that amount for us 4. Has nobody realised that food prices have risen massivley recently.?

We are not extravagant(although I do judge wine to be an essential, not a luxury)

That is not including any nappies/ baby milk etc. And I often do a quick run at the weekend for fresh milk/ bread etc which seems to magically turn into another £20 quids worth

are you a veggie then?

Ronnie, as an aside, the thing that really makes me laugh is that, as a hang over from more affluant times, we actually appear to be quite affluant (ie furnuiture etc) so people (including the dc have no idea how things are and ask stupid questions like "shall we all go to the cinema tomorrow" (ie shall we spend £30 ish on tickets and another £15 ish on sweets at short notice). I am running out of polite ways to say no and am thinking I may just post a "don't ask anything we are poor" notice on the school pinboard)

imo what you eat does make a difference.

I personally couldn't live on that menu - not enough meat for me. And eating meat is more expensive than eating vegetarian.

I do think it's easy to spend £100 a week on groceries (and food has definitely gone up in price), but it's also possible not to.

Janeite puts on Brando voice to Pointy - "Are you talkin' to me?" - if so, yes!

but if you were struggling for cash, Wanna, you would eat less meat. That's the whole point

yes, janeite. I thought I was being very fiunny

yes, but whilst there may not be enough meat for your personal tastes, you wouldn't actually starve. So you could live on it. It's boring, unadventurous, routine food but if your food bills are prohibitively expensive, you make these compromises.

The thing is dinners for £100, maybe.
But people don't just eat dinners do they, what about cereals, milk, bread, laundry stuff, cleaning stuff.
I really do struggle to believe that all comes in at £100.

ummm
I am not in the slightest bit bitter
But I think asking questions about how some one can have made a sequence of decisions that causes them to compain when earing a decent salary is reasonable.
Particularly when she came on a thread to ask if she was being unreasonable.

It is easy to borrow beyond your means. It is easy to do that to feed your children when on minimum wage or on benefits.

But to pretend that people borrowing to the hilt to fund a large house and all the trapping is not stupid is equally stupid.
It may make her situation worthy of sympathy. But just because being supremely stupid is easy does not make it less so. And neither does the fact that lots of people seem to have been equally stupid.

Do we not have any element of personal responsibility here or does the fact that people are willing to lend those of us with good/large incomes substantial amounts of money make it compulsory for us to withdraw all prudence and good sense ?

We were repeatedly offered 5 times our income. We didn't take it. Because the house would have been fantastic - but it would have been ...........STUPID.

buying all groceries for 4 people for £100 is still very do-able, DD.

Although I agre that prices have gone up so much that it is not hard to spend £100. I used to raise my eyebrowa at the thoupght of spending that much a week on shopping.

Misshardbroom - Thanks for that. I am very impressed and have taken notes. Now, how much is a slow cooker!

anyfucker - see my post of 21:29:52

keep all leftovers for lunch next day/to give dc for their dinner/freeze.

each week look at what you have left before you go shopping again and meal plan. try to make the most of what you have and only buy the extra things you need to make the meals on the plan for the next week.

if you are inclined to buy takeaways when you can't be arsed to cook then cook things in bulk and then put into portions and freeze so you can reheat those instead of buying a takeaway or ready meal.

Katie - depends a lot on where you shop, how much you plan ahead, how much you make yourself, how big your portions are! . Agree wholeheartedly with whoever it was earlier who said that bread and butter fills a lot of gaps!

I'm not suggesting that we should all live off wartime rations, I'm just saying that I'd find it very easy (and enjoyable) to saunter round Sainsbury's popping things in my trolley according to what I felt like eating, and doubtless it would cost a fortune. But I can't afford to do that, so I plan at least a week ahead, shop only for what I need, shop in cheaper places, make & freeze everything I can... and reduce the bills accordingly.

mine eat a packet of ceraeal a DAY and 4 pints milk on just breakfasts

I don't think children really get it. I don't remember having any worse time on a Norn Irish beach in the rain compared to a foreign holiday etc.

We had soup or stew every week and all other manner of v cheap grub and it was lovely but just grub. As long as I was allowed some toast I always felt really spoil..odd child

I do remember being completely scundered by my lack of fashion growning up though which I think explains my obsession now.

We never went out to dinner or the cinema etc it was out of the question financially not because my dada didn't earn a lot but because he had the triumvirate of gambling drinking and whoring to pay for before his family outgoings.

Stable and loving is more important to me and it sounds as if you feel the same way NC

My Dh makes huge stews that he then puts into little containers for me to have for lunch during the week.

The dog loves them.

oh and buy any reduced items that will freeze.

We spend between £60-£80 for family of four,including nappies,toiletries and cleaning products.Lidl and Aldi good.Am lucky as am up Norf and we have a great cheapo shop called Heron that sells decent branded food that is "Excess stock" and probably has 2 weeks to go before sell by date,so get activia yoghurts 4 for 60p,milk is £1.15 for 4 pints,babybels for 59p and so on.Great for doing the lunchboxes.!

absolutely. But generally you compromise on the thing that will hurt the least first.

I cut a small fortune off our monthly outgoings by making bread for lunches. Saved dh having to pay upwards of £3 a day for sandwiches in London. I would rather do that before cutting down on my meat intake - that would be one of the last things to go.

sky tv - could cut back (it's all shite anyway), broadband - could cut speed (about £15 difference between top speed (about 9 meg I think it is now) and bottom speed (1 meg) on ntl. cut back on mobile phone bill - no-one needs to pay out £20 a month on mobile phone calls/texts unless you don't have a landline, but if you have a landline you can call people from it and it will cost less...

cleaning products are prohibitively expensive. And again, own brand is much cheaper than branded - and it's all made by the same people, and really there's no difference.

pagwatch, I'm just re-learning about personal responsibility. It's something that's been lacking over the last 10 yr I reckon, what with an abundance of available credit.

No. I mean..really...you have to be taking the piss.....

unavailable - if you really want to know:

mon: org sausages, oven olive oiled potatoes, sweetcorn
tues: something with mince - spag bol, meatballs, chilli, shepherds pie
weds: something with mince - one packet of organic mince for two days for four people.
thurs: special fried rice - bacon, courgettes, onion, all the chinese seasonings, mushroom etc
fri: fish and chips from the chippy or poached whiting with mash and peas or I bread it depending.
sat:liver, onions and bacon or pork chops, sometimes a veggie curry
sun: occasionally a roast more often home made pizzas or tortilla wraps and chicken or fishcakes with tinned salmon. note - if its a roast then monday will be different.

my dp makes his own lunch and likes to eat weird things involving chickpeas and tomato puree (hes in training)

we eat cereal and toast for breakfast and I eat a lot of eggs for lunch, theres obv fruit as well and apple juice and organic milk in the house oh and a lot of cheese and yoghurt and raisins/honey.

my ds has school lunches and my dd is bf with a few purees.

phew