How can we cut £1000 a month from our budget...?

[Wibblewobbles]

We are on a pretty good household income but I've just been made redundant from my £21k job and will now be a SAHM for at least a year or so especially as I'm about to go on maternity leave.

After tax and childcare it makes a difference of about £1000pm shortfall in our budget.

Looking at our finances the only thing we can cut down on is the credit card bill - everything else is unavoidable stuff like council tax and mortgage.

Our typical card bill is £2400! I have no idea how we manage to spend this much as there's only two of us plus a toddler... It does include all our food shopping, petrol etc.

I am just trying to work out what we spend excessively on. I realise we're spending £100+ a month on lunches at work. This will be less once I become a SAHM but on the other hand I'll presumably be paying for toddler groups, days out etc instead. But maybe we need to start making DH packed lunches...

I am getting really worried now Didn't even think we were particularly spendy - I try and buy things second hand where possible!

See I don't think a glass of wine with a meal every night is necessary, or the norm. Surely he could cut down to Friday-Sunday or something and have a squash...

Maybe ready meals instead of takeaways? Or do you have yime to batch cook a few thibgs for the freezer? I know it's really hard with a new baby.

Passthecake30 That's why we've cut back to one bottle per week now.

Ah ok👍🏼 We have one bottle here too, but I tend to save it up for the weekend.

Jacket spuds instead of takeaways?

Nice one,op.I agree that there is no need to use cash, it is the same whether on a card or not as long as you don't pay interest.

Please finally get out of the Christmas spend spend spend mindset. Declare it cancelled now. Youve got decorations, you will have food, all presents need to stop. If Xmas strains the finances IT GOES.

Buggies should be cheap as chips second hand.

specialsubject Yes I'm thinking I will just have to be upfront with my family at Christmas and as they know I've been made redundant they should understand that despite having a nice car and all sorts of nice gadgets in our home have nowhere near as much disposable income as we did before.

I got a great buggy for £100 on eBay yesterday which would have been about £600 new! Last time round we used a cheap £20 stroller but this time I wanted to get something a little bit sturdier as the cheap one got so creaky and difficult to steer as time went on.

I used up some leftovers for lunch and dinner today instead of going to Tesco Express and spending £20 on random convenience food.

Starting to enjoy this frugal malarkey already

I got hired with 5 months pregnant and with 1 and 3 year old at home so don't rule out getting a full time job whilst pregnant. Then I just took 2 weeks off and went back full tiem. I suspect your problem here is more the redundancy and expecting a long maternity leave rather than trying to cut back on things. Is there any way you could get a job?

Unfortunately there aren't any jobs in my field locally - my current job is 1hr commute away and the redundancy is sort of a blessing in disguise as I wasn't sure if I'd return after maternity leave anyway - once DS starts school (next year) I would have had to change my working pattern completely and it would have been really impractical. So I am planning on taking the redundancy as a sort of extended maternity leave - the plan is that for a year or two I'll be a SAHM and once the brain fog of having a baby wears off, DS settles into school, and I start getting bored, I'll look into freelancing or alternative career options.

If we get desperate I could apply for some sort of minimum wage job like retail but the trouble with that is it might actually make my CV look worse, and being overqualified I'm not sure if I'd even get hired for a shop job...!

Fortunately DH earns enough that we can live sort of comfortably on his income alone as long as we manage to make these cutbacks. It just means that we might have a couple of years without some of the luxuries we've got used to, and without proper holidays... Not too much of a problem, who wants to go on holiday with a baby and a pre-schooler anyway We do have family abroad we can visit so at least we will sort of get to travel once or twice a year even though it's not a "proper" holiday as such.

Op you are a natural

Yes, the car etc were bought in better times and any semi intelligent adult should be able to understand that. Roof, food, clothes, bills before sparkly tat!

I suspect DH feels like you are going backwards towards student living lifestyles rather than carrying on your upward trend of what you can afford, and TBH, it's not great when that happens. Of course, you don't have a choice, but perhaps you have jsut come to that conclusion faster than he has but he will get there soon?

Holidays and the things you consider luxuries may be closer within your grasp than you think.

Babies have a high turn over of stuff - outgrowing physically and developmentally. If you've both been working a while and have some nice unused stuff around the house you can fairly quickly raise hundreds if not thousands of pounds all tax free by moving stuff on.

A few thousand for luxuries goes a really long way if you carefully plan it. Those few luxuries can make the difference between life feeling a bit like a functional existence and really good. Without childcare costs, work clothes and accessories costs and with time to cook from scratch and shop around for food, banks, utilities you actually need to bring in quite a bit of PAYE money to balance against all that.

Excluding the emotional side - being at home full time isn't for everyone and its such a contrast to work it can take time to mentally shift.

I am a massive ebay advocate, lots of other selling platforms work well too. For me in the last few years, in a not disimilar set up to yourself (DH salary covers house, bills, cars and the odd day out if we're carefull), the eBay fund has funded a few really good holidays. I get Easyjet flights the day they're released book self catering accomodation and we just take carry on luggage. We got flights to Berlin this Easter school holiday at just £6 each out for the DC.

Now my youngest is in full time school ebay just became a full time business (I've always done tax returns) and I'm fantasising about whether to push and just attempt to blast through the turnover for VAT threshold or stay under and keep a little me time back whilst having no childcare expenses and being able to go to every school assembly, help out a bit at school, be around with no real stress if the DC are sick etc.

Life is full of funny twists and turns who knows some precious time to take stock of life and time with your DC is unlikely to be something you'll regret.

If you are a sahm and you are married your partner may be able to claim some of your tax allowance.

Wine boxes can be good and are cheaper than bottles.

Joining somewhere like costco can help you save on all sorts of things, also look at amazon subscribe and save, i foung it the cheapest way to buy decent nappies, wipes etc.

Look up frugal meals on pinterest. Pasta in particular is cheap and makes a good lunch with leftovers.