Any one else just skint?

[LittlemissMama67]

Hello, I think I'm just looking for anyone who can relate so I don't feel so alone really? Anyone just always seem to be skint? My partner has a fairly way paid job £35,000 after tax. And I well don't I earn £500 a month, but we have 3 children and I basically work to pay for the car and the rent. Our rent is very cheap £300 a month because we're renting from family so we're very fortunate in that respect but even with £40,000 a year coming in we just always seem to be scraping the barrel. And im not trying to be like oh woe is me because I know a lot of people have it far worse and when I was a single mum my money didn't stretch as far as bills and we often ate not much. But now things are better and they're still so not okay 😳

my partner is paid weekly so we always know more is only a few days away, but he gets paid tommorow and I just had to scrape 4 separate bank accounts I have to send him £3 to get a meal deal while he's at work. What the hell is actually going on???

Don't get me wrong some weeks are better than others, but whenever we try and get some savings behind us something arises and poof they're gone

Yep. I'm a student nurse, permanently broke at the moment.

You need to write down all your outgoings, what you age spending on food etc for the month and cut back if possible.

With £300 rent you should have some disposable income unless you’ve got loads of debt?

Are you bad with money or have lots of debts? With such a small rent and reasonable wages you shouldn't be skint.

£3 for a meal deal. Does he do that every day? If so there's savings to be made there by making his own packed lunch and taking it with him.

i have a very in depth weekly budget, as soon as he's paid he sends me what I need for my bills, him what he needs for his and the rest goes into the joint account for us to use during the week, it just never seems to last the week. I factor everything into the budget, food shopping, petrol, gas and electric and all our other bills so we're covered in that respect, it's just what's left sometimes is more than enough and sometimes means you can't leave the house.

Somethings wrong there. That's a decent enough income to live on and £300 rent is very very cheap.
You need to look at your finances and see where the drain is coming from

That’s a LOT of unaccounted money. That’s literally £500+/week for petrol + heating. What’s going on?

We have debt yes, not an unholy amount but we have a consolidation loan that's £355 a month that was this week, I think that's why I'm feeling it so much

I think I've made this sound worse than it is. Some weeks were left with £300+ to do what we want with. And some weeks £80

its not as dire as it sounds we do have disposable income, it just dosnt seem to go very far. I think this week has just been a long week because we've been skint since Sunday and I haven't left the house. So we don't have enough money to put some buy. But in one week my partner needed a new tyre. It was my sons birthday and my daughters car seat broke. When those 3 things happen even with £300+ disposable income it's dashed pretty fast, again not trying to say I've got it bad at all. I'm aware I don't.

I do think monthly budgeting with weekly pay can be hard, however it doesn’t sound like you’re very smart with money with a £3 meal deal if that’s standard for him while he’s at work.
Just to put it into perspective, mine and DP’s combined take home is the same as your DH’s take home. We get child benefit for 2 children on top and I get some child maintenance from my ex however still combined that’s less that your combined income.
Our mortgage is just shy of £750 a month and we run two cars, and I wouldn’t say we were scraping the barrel like you are even at the end of the month!
You need another look at your budgets and what you’re actually spending, those meal deals and coffees add up!

The meal deal is a one off because he was in a rush this morning and forgot to grab his lunch, he used to get McDonald's or a meal deal everyday but we couldn't afford it so he started taking lunch

Ahhhh so you’re not skint, you spend all your leftover weekly income, initially you shouldn’t be seeing that £300 at the end of the week as spare, you need to keep that to ease cash flow and make a buffer for the weeks where bills are higher.

we 100% do need to do that!

Sorry but...£80 per week left over some weeks and £300 others...is hardly skint? If you have two weeks of £80 left after outgoings and two of £300, that is £760 disposable income?! Even £80 left every week is £320 after outgoings. I think some of this must be your perspective on "skint" and what you're trying to spend on?!

I feel bad, I feel like I've made out we've got it bad, we don't we just have worse weeks. I know there's people who are really struggling. I used to be one of them. My bills when I was a single mum were £1400 and I got £1170.

high rent on a horrible house.

storage heaters that chewed up £75 a week way before the energy crisis.

food for me and my son, always Aldi and always not much.

always had tv licence knocking at my door.
always had final notices for all my bills.
always calling my dad to lend me a tenner.
once searched all my coat pockets, bags and under the sofa cushions in the dark, to scrape together enough change to put in the meter to get the lights to come back on. I scraped like £4.50 but it was enough to get us through that evening. I know what it is to actually struggle. This isn't it.

Saving pots are your friends. This way you can distribute your income, so it has a purpose. Not like "oooh we have 400 quid left, let's go shopping" (I'm not suggesting you do this, it's just an example). If you distribute i.e. 100 quid monthly for car, 100 quid for kids expenses etc. this money will go somewhere intentionally and you won't have to worry that you have all these expenses at once.

I agree that rather than think of the £300 / 80 as spare I would go cold turkey and just not spend for a month, other than food/ petrol.
You will then have a cash cushion and will be able to manage month to month rather than week to week.
I think the " money next week" mentality means you just spend everything you have.

We're going to try and spend minimally is February and see how we get on

Yes you nee ld to plan a monthly not weekly budget, get some of your direct debits moved if you can do they all come out around the same time. Save everything for a month or two until you have 3.5weeks saved up, then next week when you get paid you have a full months month for all your bills.
The following 3 weeks money you don’t touch as this is building up for the next months pay

Need to set up vaults/saving pots on your bank or even on piece of paper. Go through every bit of money you spend. Have headings such as heat, rent, car repair, fuel, shopping, fun, emergency, subscriptions, birthdays. Everytime you have spare money divide it between them.Say you have £100 in emergency when the car seat broke you could put that towards it and build it up again.

I'm not surprised you're skint if your total household income is only 40 grand and you have three kids. That's not very much in 2023. I would work towards increasing your hours or earning power when you're youngest gets older. That's going to be your main tool to do better financially. Look at doing some online courses.

It's a lot more than what some people have. What a horrible judgy comment.

The budget spreadsheet on Money Saving Expert is very good as it includes things that have been catching you out - car tyres etc.

This