Every month it gets worse

[livingcostsrising]

We have an objectively decent income.
But the rising costs are just depressing. Six of us, two adult kids who pay rent that covers their food and a bit towards bills. Two younger ones. A cat.
£4k allocated to go out every month.
I try to save the rent towards unexpected bills.

Your outgoings are not bad considering there is 6 of you and a cat. £300 is dropping off that in a few months and you could prob shave £100 off by shopping around for deals.

not sure you mentioned your income as if it’s covering the above if not worry about it to much.

Argh in a small kitchen no jarred sauces!

Your adult kids sound the problem. No wonder they want to stay til they are 30! You buy expensive snacks, find Netflix AND Prime, let them shower for ages, you cook for them, you’re financially compromising yourself for them.

When I first moved out I was always broke - no new clothes or shoes, no car. Staying at home makes it far too easy for them if you fund everything - why would they prefer to stand on their own two feet?

7 minutes in the shower?! I’d be in the garage turning it off at the fuse box (we have a weird electric one). If you can’t do that then tell them, every shower over 2 mins will add a fiver to their rent bill.

Raise the rent to something like what they’d pay in a flat share commercially + realistic share of bills and food so they get used to the outgoings, and save half the rent rise so you have a fund for emergencies or can give them a gift when they do eventually move out.

Also - each adult child makes one family meal per week, they can give you their ingredients list and you add exceptional cost to their rent (so they learn to make cheap food!)

Airfryer probably useless for whole meals for six if you’re using oven anyway (size issue - oven cheaper if you can’t fit whole meal in airfryer) but good for hot snacks like toasted sandwiches or if you have someone using the oven separately due to shifts? Slow cooker is good - get a big one. We have both and I’ve only used the oven twice since the kids went back to school (both times: birthday cake!).

In winter I’d be thinking - dhaal, tomato and lentil soup; vegetable and pearl barley soups; lentil or quorn chilli, chickpea curry, leek and potato soup, stir fries and rice, Thai vegetable curry and rice, cauliflower cheese, macaroni cheese, home-made flat breads and meatballs, tortilla, sausage and bean casserole, poached eggs on toast, beans on toast, liver and onions, cheap meat stewed in the slow cooker, etc.

My mum used to deep-fry potato slices in Yorkshire pudding batter and we’d eat them with baked beans. Or sliced up potato and onion fries until it all caramelises, in sandwiches with salt and vinegar! Very cheap winter food.

Ditch jarred and packet sauces. You’ll do better with tinned tomatoes, a pot of cornflour, brown sugar, cider vinegar, stock cubes, a decent herb and spice rack (I have a bathroom rack on my wall which holds over 30 pots!). Find recipes that use cheap grains for bulk. Healthier and ultimately tastier.

Ditch fizzy drinks and buy a bottle of concentrated squash (Tesco sells Vimto squashes and CapriSun squash which popular with teens visiting my house at least).

With expensive crisps, keep in box under bed and only a few in cupboard to stop mindless grazing.

Ditch biscuits: Cereal is a better snack than biscuits (I think!). Homemade popcorn instead of crisps. Homemade flapjacks.

Lots of fermented foods! They actively promote feeling of being sated.

Income is covering it but expenses are creeping up - utilities until the smart meter are at over £700 on electric due to car. The adult kids are definitely a problem. I think it's partly financial and partly social - I don't find them helpful and I'm still clearing up after them, wiping down the kitchen, no one except the younger two do anything helpful really.
It is complicated by poor health, I can't pretend we are all 💯 ok, the older two have issues, but could definitely do more. I've sent a group chat again about using the shower timer.

Do you think you would be better off financially by using a smart meter ?
Have you done any comparison? It might workout cheaper just to send in a meter reading every month ? Do you pay estimated bills for instance?

Definitely call Virgin and just repeat that you can’t afford it any more and don’t want a new contract. Ask about removing the tv element. They can apply a monthly discount to your bill without starting a new contract.

Do your adult DC pay for their own phones? If not, you could ask them to do that rather than a direct rent increase - might be more acceptable to them.

Regarding the cat insurance, I would say definitely keep it. We were paying a similar amount for our 17 year old cat, and in the last year of her life, it was invaluable to cover vet appointments and medication for her various illnesses - all stuff that wasn’t serious to have her PTS, but was affecting her quality of life.

The adult dc pay for everything personal although they do take stuff that I buy generally obviously like spare toothpastes and shower gel - I keep a few spares in case I can't get to the shops. They buy everything like branded shampoo or whatever and everyone has a space for their stuff. I don't pay their phone contracts.

I will contact Virgin i didn't realise I could remove the tv bit and tbh netflix is much better in terms of what anyone watches.

I feel a lot more capable of making some small changes, even freeing up £100 as someone said is huge right now. I think the meal planning will help.

I don't want a smart meter but to get an EV rate we need one. The car is being charged at a normal rate and will be about £6-700 extra until we can change which is just so unmanageable. All the credit is built up has gone now, and we will be starting winter in deficit.

Do you do a huge amount of mileage on your car each month?
We have an electric car and it only add £15-25 a month to bill depending on how much we use. That’s 500-1000km a month

Yes a four hour two way commute every day , so hopefully once in place the new rate will help but in five days it cost an extra £80 in electricity (submitted two readings to check)

how is it stupid?

Do you think in the long term that a electric vehicle Is the best option for you financially given you use it for a long commute. If you just used it occasionally then it might be a good idea but charging it at home seems like it is going to be expensive on your electric bills ?
How about switching the car for a petrol or hybrid and not going ahead with the ev installation. Then your electric bill won't go up as much?

We don't have a choice on the vehicle - I'm hoping that the EV rate will make a difference, it's so high at the moment because we are waiting for a smart meter.

On a plus! I just went to Lidl (given up trying to work while half term is on) and spent £133 only, despite stocking up on all the basics and bulk buying. So fingers crossed. I did get told off for doing my trolley in the wrong place.

Obviously I don't know what area you life in - as regards cost of rent etc - but can the adult children not afford a professional houseshare ?
My son lives in a city houseshare ( not London) for £600 a month which includes a share of the bills and council tax ?

They need deposits and stuff - think this is the plan. £600 and then food? I might look at local room rates for house shares and let them know?

Lidl just sent me a £5 off voucher ! I've unpacked and there's loads. No meal planning yet but I've got an idea of the next three meals and then after half term I can do it properly.

@livingcostsrising depending on the size of the deposit it might be more efficient to give them a deposit and have them move out than keep paying for them for months on end! Did you say you buy their food? Can't remember.

Just thinking they will be better off - you can usually get a place with your own bathroom and share of kitchen they would only have to pay for food. Could even get a place together say a two bed flat ( depends where you live of course).
It depends whether they live you out of necessity because their earnings are low and they can't survive in their own place, or are they on good wages but live at home so they can afford luxuries ?

I definitely can't afford to give them a deposit, we don't have savings. I feel like all our cash has always gone on the mortgage, the kids, keeping afloat and as salary has increased its been consumed by teenagers. I think losing the child benefit and the change in how student finance works has been a knock. I don't have a pension, dh does but only basic employer ones. I've never worked long enough (kids and ill kids) to accumulate any.

Work how much they would need for a deposit - for example they find a house share for £600 a month - they may need the same as a deposit. So do some research and find out what's available in your area and how much it is. Don't charge any rent for two months or so. So in stead of paying you they have money for a deposit. There are also some places that don't require as much as one month. They will also need proof of income and references from their employers. Try spare room.com. lots of Prof house shares on there.

They all had at least one year rent free before we started charging rent. I really don't want to start giving them money we dont have - there are two more behind them. They don't want to move out, and I can't force them, the only realistic option is reducing costs and/or increasing rent.

I completely disagree here. The OP’s adult kids absolutely should be paying their parents and much more than what they’re currently paying. Moreover, the adult kids are already saving, and probably have five figure sums each by now.

@livingcostsrising Understood, if you don't have the money it doesn't matter if it's cheaper in the long run. But realistically they need to put a timeframe on moving out and work towards a clear goal for it, or as you say you need to at least charge them for their share (roughly...not down to every piece of spaghetti!) of the food shop, a proportion of the utilities etc

In our house, it's either Netflix OR Disney Plus. The month some star wars thing came out, they voted to swap to Disney Plus and Netflix was cancelled. I pay a tiny bit more each month to be able to do this- and you can downgrade the Netflix to the one with adverts now.

Octopus Energy have just offered me a fixed rate tariff on electric- I am going to have a look at that as well.

We also had an elderly cat- in the end we swapped to the cheaper accident cover only; if he was hit by a car, we would have cover to help him- but we did have a full discussion about what this meant. If he got a long term illness, we would have to have him put down. We agreed that at 17 (maybe even older as he was a rescue that no-one wanted) we would have to make a decision. Eventually, he had kidney failure and we all decided, even the kids, that it was better to put him to sleep in a kind and gentle way rather than intervene.

I think this thread is going to help lots of people, OP

That would be brilliant @FofB if it does, I think just 'talking' and challenging some of my thinking has been really useful.
Lidl has been a really good change.
I'm going to try meal planning again, and look back at some of the recipe/ recipe location suggestions.
Ive explained the shower timer again and one of them is more on board.

I'm torn on the cat. I just asked dh if it was still worth paying because she could get ill and he was like 'we'd put her down!' So clearly not as attached as me 😲

I’ve always had cats and stopped insurance once they were elderly other than cover for accidents. If they became ill we’d pay for straightforward medication but not any complex procedures, cancer treatment etc. At that age there’s a kindness is recognising it’s their time to go.

How old are all of your children?
I think that makes a big difference in what you can reasonably charge and expect of them.
If you're got, say, two uni graduates in decent jobs, and two teenagers, then everyone needs to be pulling their weight a bit more, particularly with respect to helping with cooking, and keeping bills down.
If you've got, for example, 19 year old twins who're currently on a gap year to save up money before uni, and two under-10s, then that's quite a different scenario.

I'd say you need a family meeting with anyone over the age of 10. Lay out what you've said above; the food spend is huge, the bills are creeping up and you're starting to struggle. Then let them all know what is going to happen from now on. If you have an amount you need to hit (eg we need to save £200 a month), then brainstorm together ways to hit this goal.
Some options include:

• Family meal planning once a month, with each capable child cooking or helping to cook approx one meal a week.
• Cancelling netflix, extra tv channels, etc as a family, if the kids want these they pick up the bill themselves
• Genuinely splitting the bills into 6, with the adult kids paying 1/6 each.
• All kids who are physically capable to help more with household chores.(particularly the adults - as a trade off for the cheap rent.) Eg they could be doing family laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc. If they have transport they could also help with taking the younger ones places.
• If you really don't want to increase their rent (or they're totally opposed to it), I'd go for the tact of 'to make up the £100 more we'd like you to pay, I'd need you to take your little brother to football on saturdays, clean the family bathroom once a week and make a meal from the ingredients I buy once a week'. I fully appreciate that parents want to make their kids lives easier, but the harsh reality of the amount you have to do will be a huge shock to the system if these kids don't at least start contributing to the household!
• Room and board only including set things (see below)
• Keeping things generally the same, but putting the adult kids rent up to compensate.

I know someone who's 'rent and board' for her adult children included a load of washing a week done and folded, dinner in the evening, family milk and bread, and use of the facilities (gas, water, electric). They had 2 adult kids living at home full time, with another who was at uni and visited frequently.
It didn't include lunch and snacks, netflix, fancy toiletries, or cleaning of their rooms or bathroom. My mum thinks this is atrocious, but when chatting to their mum, it took their family food spend down by about £50 a week not buying snacks and lunch stuff. The kids bought these themselves and had a small area each to store them, and it actually got them cooking and feeding themselves sometimes, which they hadn't been doing before that.

It sounds like if your kids are getting through £28 worth of cheese a month, it may be wise to go down the route of 'I will not be buying these for you any longer'. and just provide meals. Similarly, if they're taking the piss with frequent and super long showers, it may be reasonable to say 'look kids, the water bill is huge and if it doesn't come under £XX next month, and you're both still taking the piss with long showers, then you'll be paying anything over the £XX between you, as your rent only includes £15 towards the water bill'

The thing I'd hesitate to reduce is the kids activities, at under £100 a month for the two of them, that's only between £10 and £12.50 a week each, and it sounds like something both they and you benefit from hugely!