Family of four to feed, clothe and entertain on £85 per week?

[messybedhead]

Due to the new financial year my tax credits have gone down and we find ourselves left after all direct debits have gone out (essentials only but also some debt ) 85 pounds per week.

Can anybody help me budget?

In order not to drip feed:
I work but DP doesn't as we have a DS who has not started school full time yet but will in September.

I have already budgeted my travel costs but not DPs which will be 19 per week.

He is looking for evening and night work so that we would not new childcare as obviously we cannot afford it (2 DC therefore 2 lots of school pick ups at different times )

Right, how old are your children? Do they get through vast quantities of food?

Hobbies (for yourselves or childen)? How many cars are you running? Have you budgetted for everything for them (tax, mots, etc)?

We are family of 3, and ds is only 2, I try to keep food costs below £200, although I know there are those who will think this is a lot!

How much are you currently getting through?

I find the biggest killer is costs that don't occur every month - the cat's injections, a wedding, and two birthdays this month, so lots of lentils for us atm!

Thanks for your reply !

No cars or pets.

DC 9 and 4 so not as costly as teenagers which I appreciate!

DS does football training which is £2 per week, the rest of us don't do anything anyway as it all costs so much. I may have treated myself to the odd bottle of wine but I can see ill have to stop that.

My DC are pickers but actually don't eat a lot.

I have been invited to 3 weddings this summer though!

I haven't accounted for DPs bus pass so bringing us down to £65

Seems doable.

£15 a week clothes/shoes/haircuts
£35 a week food
£15 a week towards Christmas/birthdays/holidays
£10 a week entertainment (rent a dvd once a week, go on a family walk, and you'd still have enough left over for 4 bags of chips!)

Assuming everything else is already accounted for obviously!

could you cut travel costs by cycling? or something? how do you get the children too / from school?

£85 per week for food and clothes and other basic essentials not including bills?

i don't think this should be too difficult (hopefully) i would budget for a maximum of £35 per week on food shopping, and buy toiletrees + other essentials like that once a month as long as you have storage for these things? look in your cupboards do you have tins and cans of food? pasta? lentils?

clothes i would try to buy only as season changes? and maybe you could ask for clothes for their birthday presents / ask friends/family for hand-me downs? look in primark/george also.

i would also aim to save around £5 a week incase of small emergencies etc - although it doesnt sound much in a year its £260

Titchy's list seems good. I'd start putting money aside for the weddings now if I was you! The one we're going to is in a fortnight, between hen do (thank god just night out, not weekend away), stag do, present etc it's really knocked us for six.

I'd try to build up a rainy day pot if at all possible, for unforeseen emergencies. I also like to have a list of things I need for when my birthday/xmas comes round. I know its frowned upon here, but I would never ask unless someone asked me first iyswim, and they are the only time I ever buy anything for myself, so it makes sense to get something you need I think. Mine was last month and I now have two pairs of work trousers oh, the glamour!

Thank you for all of your suggestions! I feel like a spoilt princess at the moment.

I admit I find the idea of feeding all of us including 2 lots of packed lunches for DC and lunch for me a struggle.

We like rice and everyday value eggs so that's a start!

It's just till autumn? Till there is a second income? Lots of board games for entertainment. Walks and picnics. Free museums.

There's a good link to a site which has very low cost recipes. I can't remember its name but I'm sure someone will link to it.

here is Boffinmum's meal plan, which is on her blog that I find useful. She says its a crisis diet but I use it quite often there's a week two one as well on there. I reckon you might well get it cheaper if you went to aldi/lidl as well.

just do all packed lunches bread, cheap spready cheese/ham/jam , some raisins/sultana's (really cheap if bought in massive value bags)

start trying to do it with your next shop - set a budget, make a list and stick to it...make sure you dont go over budget figure out where you can cut out costs.

walk/cycle/free transport as much as possible, if you have to get a bus pass look into monthly/yearly passes as these are often cheaper.

always look at how much things cost per kilo (for example) so you know if your getting value for money

Any food allergies, will you eat vegetarian as a family etc?

Yy to meal planning! Don't have meat everyday. Bulk out mince with lentils, get a slightly larger chicken for your Sunday roast and use leftovers for curry on monday, boil carcass and do hearty chicken soup with pulses and root veg and maybe homemade bread for Wednesday. Packed lunches can be cheap and cheerful bread and filling with carrot sticks and homemade flapjacks. Own brand weetabix for breakfast is less than a pound for all of you. And use cash so you're not tempted to spend more than your budget.

Thanks I'll have a look at the budget meal planner. There are no allergies and we will be happy to eat vegetarian meals .

Entertainment wise, well we don't spend on there anyway and so don't really need to cut back.

It's the little things like buying ice creams ( not in this weather) or a packet of moshi monster cards!

Plus the fact that I have a 'good' job- one that is quite often discussed and not always positively on here. I earn a good salary and didn't think I'd have to worry about the pennies. I know once we have two incomes we'll be fine but until then it's going to be difficult .

Maybe look at selling some clutter to make a bit of extra money? It all helps. Also, have you looked at your essential bills to see if you can get cheaper elsewhere?

If you go out and the kids want ice cream buy a multipack from a shop rather than individual cones, One bar, Three bars.

Useful thread

Personal favourite of mine

More good advice

We should write a book. We're way better than Mrs Moneypenny

Holiday stuff for kids

Topcashback, I love them

I used to love this, but they charge a fee and I only use them now to get Topcashback to price match when they don't have the highest cashback

All of your suggestions are brilliant - thank you!

This thread has prompted me to check my bank acc because tax credits have gone in today. Ours have been reduced by £94 every 4 weeks. Fuck. There's nothing more we can cut from our budget

Reading this with interest. Our tax credits have gone down 50 a week ! I knew it was happening as dh's salary has gone up but it's still a shock ... trying really hard to cut back on everything, we don't drink, smoke.or go out but it's the perils of walking into Tesco and spending £20-40 when I only needed one thing!

Tempted to take out just the cash I need rather than pay on card or do shopping online but not sure I could stick to it... I need to though !

Using cash only is very effective I find. And writing down everything I spend. It really helps rein the spending in.

Titchy do you or anyone have a recipe for making curry/ risotto out of leftover chicken? How do you reheat the chicken etc and I confess I have only used jars for curry but would live to know how to make it cheap from scratch also have no clue how to make risotto. Sorry to hijack thread. To boost income try signing up with pinecote online surveys they pay £3 a time, I usually get sent one weekly. Also eBay the kids clothes when they have grown out of them and buy the next set on eBay.Keep the money you earned from selling in your Paypal account to help with cost. Do check postage costs though they have gone up at the post office.

Another tip I remembered if you shop in a supermarket that has saving cards/ stamps buy the amount you need for the month on 4/5 separate cards when you get paid and only take the card/stamps no money with you when you do your weekly shop.

60 a week mine went down by.

What I think I'm going to find hard is my budget of 85 per week comes in dribs and drabs.

33 cb on a Tuesday, 27 tax credits on a Wednesday.

100 left after my wages that has to be split over 4 weeks!

Pearlywhites you're a genius!

Is it just iceland that does that or all supermarkets?

Pearly Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food book. Tells you how to make foolproof curry pastes and all the curries too. Generally brill for 'proper' home cooking too.

Lidl and Aldi is a great way to go shopping-wise.

Try freecycle for an extra freezer (or even fridge-freezer) if you don't have a huge one already and then buy bulk when offers are on. I 'bulk' bought all the bread for this month in Morrisons at the start of the month. 14 half price split tin loaves and 20 packs of BOGOF cobs (4s). Sausages for casseroles were half price in Lidl last weekend so we bought 24 packs @ 52p each.

Always look at the per kilo/litre prices. You'd be amazed at how much extra money you spend by just picking up what looks like the best buy initially.
e.g. Lidl's minced beef £3.09kg, chicken is £2.35kg, I never buy cheese at more than £5 per kg..once you start really looking at what you spend where you'll be amazed