please critic my budget and give ideas, what would you do??

[Pinkfemme1]

I'd love some advice about my situation.
I'm a single mum with 2 school age kids, who I have full time
My current yearly salary is 50k, I get child benefit and some hit and miss child maintenance of around £150 a month (he is self-employed, it's impossible to challenge that)
After taxes and pension contributions I have around £3100 a month
£140 k left to pay on mortgage, house worth around £300k, so around £160k in equity. Where I live (Leeds) I could in theory get a house for that price (160k), but it would mean moving to a much less desirable area, smaller house, away from support network and kids' school.
However I currently pay almost £900 in mortgage a month and then
council tax £120
electricity and gas £230
phone £17
car inc £65
petrol £100
food £300-400
cat food, vet etc. £100
kids afterschool activities £95
water £50
tv licence £14
life insurance £73
kids ISA £50
internet £26
If I ever want to go out by myself, I have to include babysitting costs. Recently just went to a friend for tea, that cost me £35 (babysitting plus a bottle of prosecco), just to go to play badmintno is around £25 (babysitting plus the fee)..
and then there are other costs like repairs, car tax, professional membership fee, other things that seem to come up a lot. Looking at my statements it's some cosmetics, some days out with kids, some babysitting fees, and then repairs mostly.
I never seem to have any money left at the end of the month, I literary have around £200 in savings, can't afford to take kids on holidays or anything, except for camping.
I've also started a side hustle and had to buy a few things for that before it makes money, but this just means more work. my kids want my attention, but i have little energy left for anything.

I'm a bit burnt out with it all and not sure what's best to do. Any advice would be welcome!!

The gifts thing is hard at times, people give me gifts for different favours and then I do in return. There are teacher gifts now for all the school and not school teachers scouts, music teachers, language teachers, coaches. My ex is not interested in any of this. Everyone else seems to be giving gifts and money to everyone. I don’t want to feel like the poor single mum one, that people need to feel pity for 😢

Yeah, I’m not great at asking people to bring stuff, usually overcompensating by spending too much. People then cancel at times and I think wow I’ve just spent a £100 I don’t have and they don’t even come 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Definitely cut out the gifts. Small token gifts only. Make it clear in advance. Anyone who is only friends with you because of gifts needs to buzz off.

Gas/electric - there are loads of useful threads here and resources elsewhere to get a grip on energy usage. A good start is to unplug everything until the meter stops going round. Then plug in the essentials (fridge/freezer) and gradually the rest of it as necessary. Anything that gets hot or moves will devour electric. Make sure you don’t have an immersion left on (or a random switch in the back of a cupboard that you don’t really know what it does). If the meter is still climbing with everything off, check again. We’ve had electric stolen off us before (once deliberately and once by a plug socket next door being on our loop from a botched house conversion into flats). But it’s more likely to be an immersion heater or something.

But even if you halve your energy use, it’s not going to make an overwhelming difference. I would focus on the £860 excess and reducing childcare/babysitting costs and general expenses.

Teachers and coaches etc don't need gifts. A nice card is much better.

That’s really good advice. I use air purifiers, would they take a lot of electricity?

This. Buy/make a card. If you are worried about appearances, no one will know whether there is a fifty pound note in the envelope. And how gauche would the recipient be if they started bad mouthing you for only giving a card.

I used to work in schools nearly 20 years ago and I still haven’t bought a mug since.

Is there a good friend in the same boat that you could maybe swap an evening a month with for babysitting?

I think maybe it’s the size of the house and the tumble dryer/ dishwasher etc.

3 bed detached. 3 adults -dishwasher on every day but only on eco setting.
Oven on loads as I bake quite a bit and cook from scratch.
Washer on sometimes 2/3 times a day, at least one load most days, most washes on at 30 degrees. I refuse to use the TD, I hang on racks & radiator racks and I occasionally run the dehumidifier.
House is freezing, suspended floors, but we wear think socks, sit under blankets/throws, have an extra duvet on etc in winter. I don’t have the heating above 18 degrees, down to 15 at night. My Direct debit is £155 per month for gas & electricity all year round and I went into last winter £800 in credit so I didn’t have my DD increase.

And could you look at a Merlin annual pass? If there are Merlin attractions near you. It's roughly £30 a month for 3 for you which I appreciate isn't cheap but if you managed to go twice or three times a month to Alton Towers, Legoland, Chessington, Thorpe Park, Cadbury World, the Sea Life centre or whatever is close by you'd save on entry to the other stuff so in the long run might be cheaper.

I don’t know. We have two dehumidifiers and one uses a lot more electric than the other. The rubbish one gets quite warm when (rarely!) in use. Google your model to find the energy usage.

Tricky, only thing I can suggest is that when your cat is no longer to not get another cat due to costs. Not that helpful but cat costs more. Month than you spend on your children’s activities,

Pausing ISA savings might be an option for childre. We don’t save for children as rather they have what they need now and can’t afford now and to give hem a lump sum when older sadly.

can you find cheaper life insurance?

Good points!!

I have friends who have them for sleepovers when needed, which is really good, also my babysitter is only £6 an hr as it’s a friend, but it still all adds up. I need to probably try and tap in to the sleepovers exchanges more

Cut out the presents and don’t waste money on fancy meals. You can easily stretch out something like spag bol to feed another person or two with lots more pasta, a handful of lentils, a bit of grated veg - probably less than £1; certainly not £100.
Your electricity looks super high, even looking at that octopus screenshot.

Leeds has a dearth of close NT properties.

The closest are:
Nostell Priory
Fountains Abbey
Wentbridge Castle Gardens
Brimham Rocks

OP if none of these are close or appeal to you, don’t pay £8.60 a month for NT membership!

Yes, the thing that stood out for me was the gas and electricity. I have a large four bed detached house and 2 adult sons, one of whom loves a really long shower and the other who has a very powerful gaming computer on (almost) 24/7, but pay a lot less than that.

It’s quite a lot of effort, for sitting in a freezing house. It’s depressing we have to be in these situations

I’ll have a look at that

Have you spoken to octopus about how much you’re paying? Is your account in credit? It looks like your direct debit is a lot higher than you’re using. They recently cut ours from £230 a month to £130 a month because we were building up so much credit. This is a 4 bed house, 3 kids, I love my tumble dryer…

I’d ditch the kids isas, and save that in your own name. Have some really cheap meals in your meal plan, a beans on toast night and a jacket potato night really helps the weekly budget.

And don’t give in to the kids on snacks etc. The people I know with £££ spare are the people who don’t buy stuff like that all the time, and trampoline parks etc would be a 2-3 times a year treat.

Thank you, I will

Don't do the gifts, no one really wants them anyway.

I thinknwhen DC are young you have to find ways of socialising with them, you can't be paying for a babysitter on a regular basis. Also don't be afraid to ask friends. I'd do a one off evening babysitting for almost anyone.

Gas and electric is very high, for comparison mine is £88 a month (single parent with one teen dd.)

Life insurance also very high, mine is £23 a month.

£900 is a lot for your mortgage but I'm guessing this will go down if interest rates improve.

Car insurance also quite high, I pay mine annually rather than monthly as it's cheaper.

It’s quite a lot of effort, for sitting in a freezing house. It’s depressing we have to be in these situations

It is. Very depressing. But I don’t earn anywhere near your salary, I’m very low band NHS, so barely above NLW, and couldn’t dream of having my heating on higher and actually being warm.

Thank you!! I agree. My kids seems to think that not buying packaged crisps is child neglect. They have pocket money as well, which I didn’t add that they waste on ice lollies and Haribos mostly 🤦‍♀️