Help me work out where I can save please.

[jessicawessica]

I seem to have absolutely no money left at the end of the month and can't see where I am going wrong and how to save something just for an emergency.
My income is £1,765.00 pm.
Outgoings are;
Rent £400
Gas & electric £162
TV, phone and broadband £72
Car finance £75
Mobile £15
Various Insurance £15
Car Ins £23
Petrol £70
Food/ cleaning etc £650
I should have about £300 left over every month, but I never seem to have this.
What am I doing wrong and what should I be doing?

£72 is a lot for Tv phone and broadband . We pay £28 plus £7 for Netflix

Do you pay council tax? Meals at school? Travel costs to school? Kids mobiles clothes and activities, pocket money?

Alternatively you could three meals on a Monday- enough for 5 days and serve it up 5 days on the trot by microwaving- teens like to take the piss

Well you don’t need tv or a landline. I’m with Sky broadband only for £15pcm. Your good bill is also a bit high-are you eating meat everyday or something? There may also be scope for reducing your mobile bill slightly depending on what you need.

Also is that net or gross. If it’s gross then you need to account for tax.

Your gas and electric sounds far too high. To do the comparison look on your current bill. Confirm if there is a standing charge per day, then the KW per hour of gas & electric. You should find a cheaper deal using comparison websites

Why don't you get each teenager to cook one meal per night & you all eat that meal. Your food and cleaning bill is huge !

I agree with everyone else, that's a lot of money on food. I've got four weeks of cheap menu plans on my blog if that helps: austerityhousekeeping.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/dinners-for-the-home-week-1-2/ The recipes are in the associated book which might be free to download over Easter if you keep an eye out.

PS There's more really good ideas for other books in the comments before that post, and there are three more posts for Weeks 2, 3 and 4.

I spend £80 on food with 2 teens a 7&9 year old. If yours are fussy tough luck when they pay for your food then they can choose what they eat etc I’m a single parent of 4 so can’t afford more than £80 per month

Also don’t pay for tv
£10 for phone £15 bb

@kaykay06 £80 a month on food? Does this include all meals? What type of meals do you cook? Curious as me and DH (no kids, one on the way) spend close to £400 a month on food. Would love to know how I could save a bit more on my food.

I shop in Aldi and morrisons. Always buy fresh meat and fruit. Veg I buy frozen where I can.

£400 for two people? That's insane, my question would be how do you spend so much?

That's for a couple of bottles of wine a week (god I miss that being pregnant) , toiletries and cleaning items too like dishwasher tabs etc. DH has sensitive skin so have to buy branded body wash.

My husband works from 7:30 -8:30 every week, and works weekends room so he has big lunch boxes and then a home cooked meal when he comes home. I can't stand freezer food and like to make my meals each night. The only thing I will eat that's frozen is frozen veg. Any frozen meat is a no. Call me a snob but it just isn't meat.

Friday I spent £50 in Aldi and then £30 in Asda. (£10 of that was DH whisky) and I know I will have to do a top up shop of fresh bread etc in the week.

We don't eat excessive, just well.

I buy the own brand cheese, mozerella, yogurts and pasta shapes. Thinking about it, it's more like £350 a week.

**month. Blimey I'd be bankrupt !

I don't think it's possible to spend less than £40 a week on food for four and survive tbh, unless people give you freebies or you have an amazing allotment.

So you don't actually spend £350 a week on food, you spend that at the supermarket, that's not the same thing.

Still seems an awful lot for 2 people. I also shop at aldi and can't even fit £100 of shopping in a trolley.

Recently the wife and I started to budget differently. We didn't particularly need to but we were wasting too much money, spending it on things we really didn't need to.

What we did was open up a second bank account and put an amount in at the start of each month. Our main account covers all bills, shopping, etc, but the second account covers our niceties and extras. If we want to grab a coffee in town it comes out of extras. Popping out for a pub lunch and it's extras.

It really starts to make you take a look at exactly what you're spending your money on and if you should then even be spending it.

Is your income so low (with 3 DC) for a reason? Unless you are not working and subject to the benefit cap, you should have a higher income than that. Do you claim tax credits? If not, you can claim Universal Credit on that income as with 3 kids, and rent you will recieve a decent figure.
If not working and subject to benefit cap, can you work 16 hours? It will take the cap away and you can add working tax credit to your existing child tax credit claim.

£650 for food?
£72 Broadband?

Make massive savings right there!

@caughtinanet - no it's a month as my previous post said that you questioned.

I haven't broken down food:other bits ratio. Because I don't really need too.

£350 pm isn't unheard of. Just asked the ladies at work and they spend similar . £80 for weekly shop then top up of fresh items in the week.

ThisMustBeMyDream

The op income is average, not sure why you think that they should be earning more. That's more than national minimum wage for which many many work full time for.

I cook all from scratch most of the time, mince and potatoes etc meat is fairly expensive but veg cheap to bulk dinners out and aldi is great for both, £80 includes washing powder etc but I don’t need that every week
Need to be quite thrifty really, because I can’t spend more than that but quite often I don’t get up to £80 sometimes I’m a pound over

Had some great advice here, thanks.
So have got a new broadband, tv and phone deal for less than half what I was paying, so that's some saving.
Can't leave British Gas until May as am in a fixed deal contract but have been doing some comparisons. As soon as I can that's being switched.
The food spend is still driving me mad. I think I end up buying so much food because nobody will eat/ or likes the same meals. So I end up doing spag bol for DD, carbonara for DS2 and a curry for DS1.
Roast Sunday dinner....only 2 like.
Jacket potatoes and salad....only 2 like and not the same 2 as above.
2 like homemade pizza, 1 doesn't so I end up constantly having to juggle 3 different meals.
I just have a cheese sarnie cos I can't be arsed to cook for myself after that. And the worst thing is this is every day.
I have got to the point where I detest cooking, yet I used to love it before the DCs came along.
My ideal menu would include stuff like curries, lasagne, shep pie, fish pie, stir fries, etc, but they won't touch them.
So crap!

That food situation is difficult. It’s so much work for you.
Are there genuine reasons why they won’t eat the same thing (allergies, vegetarian, SEN)?
Otherwise you just need to cook one meal and everyone eats it. Tell them that you need to save money and that not everyone will get their preferred meals every day but they will a couple of times a week.
Come up with a meal plan together.

Fussy eaters....have to cook 3 different meals every day as none of them share the same likes in food. Absolute nightmare and I know i could save a small fortune if they weren't so picky.

This is the major issue.

Time for them to stop being so ridiculous.