How much do you have to live on for food, petrol and fun?

[Reality]

Sorry, I know this has probably been done lots before, but I'm just working out spreadsheets for our household budget and after all housing and bill costs, childcare and debt repayments it's about £500. £600 if I swap my car for a cheaper one as planned.

Which is a lot less than we've been used to.

Can you reassure me that this is all going to be fine?

And maybe give me a guide to what you live on and if you consider it enough.

We have -50 left over after bills.

It's shit

But depending on what the 500/600 has to cover that should be fine.

£40 for food per week for four people
£20 for petrol so dh can go to work
£20 for softplay, sweets, clothes, drinks out and bus fare anything else.

We live on;
veggie chill and rice
pasta with chopped toms and basil sauce
pasta bake
£1 pizza from Asda
risoto with cheese and tin veg
beans on toast

sandwiches
water/milk for kids
5 fruit bags for £1.50 from asda
asda smart price washing up liquid and laundry powder
bulk buy toilet roll
go thru energy/water/telecoms bills and contact providets to see if you can get a better deal and save money
water meter is not already on it and bath everyone once a week and then stand up wash each day, use as lottle water and electric as poss to save money
charloty shopes for gifts/toys/kids clothes
Have one treat night per week so you can budget for that and save money during the other days
look for free events/activities for the kids
read the other budgeting threads on here

good luck

Thank you.

I'm already budgeting (after being a massive spendy twat) and this month we have lived on the £600 and it's been fine, but that's only one month.

I'm confident I can feed us all for £300 a month so that leaves plenty for incidentals and fun stuff, really.

£500 grocery shop
£150 diesel
£80 everything else inc "fun", haircuts, clothes and shoes.
I could trim the groceries spend if I had to.

Eg my shopping budget is 200 a month. I include that within bill money though because its not like we can go without food.

The petrol budget is 75 a month, if we use more food, it comes out of the petrol budget.

We don't go without really I mean we don't have anything left but I don't have any hobbies, I don't buy clothes etx so although its a bit crap we get by.

Just read your OP again;

I would easily spend another £200+ on groceries if it was available but it isn't so I think what we do have is plenty. I could trim it if I needed to as I said.

Fun money is no where near what I would like but we are paying off a credit card at the mo so will increase this amount when it's paid off. October hopefully.

I think you will be fine with your proposed budget.

food £350
petrol dp £70
petrol me £50
we each have about £50 each a month left over to pay for haircuts, clothes, toiletries, socialising. any gifts etc.

we dont have a family fun budget we just make savings elsewhere for days out etc.

Food £500 for five people, and could reduce that if I really had to. Petrol £70. About £200 on extras, but we always seem to struggle towards the end of the month. Partly because H isn't really on board with budgeting, and happily pops to the shops at the weekends and spends on extras, and has coffee shop coffee regularly etc. Then there always seems to be kids party's and school trips, and extra's like that to pay for.

You don't say how many people that £500 is for, OP?

Sorry! Thought I had. There's five of us, me, DH (gannet ), ds1 10, DD 9 and DS2 nearly 2.

This thread will get messy!

You'll have people saying they manage to feed a family of 10 for about £15 a week!

. There's a huge variance on here between what people have available to them money wise and it is difficult to draw comparisons.

If that's all you have left then it will have to be enough regardless of how much others may or may not have left over.