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Critique my budget

33 replies

LottieMary · 06/10/2024 18:44

Returning to work from maternity leave soon and trying to get finances in order - figures are for when I go back based on current bills, which seem to have gone up astronomically recently. I assume they’ll all increase in April / on renewal again as well 😭
We’re reviewing all areas, aiming to increase capacity for some longer term savings.

Any advice on where to start here?

Income 4600 pm

I’m working in stages, starting with household bills and car expenses

Critique my budget
OP posts:
VictoryOrDeath · 06/10/2024 18:59

Mobile seems high - I pay £8 per month, but bought my handset outright. Are you stuck in contract still?

Mirrorxxx · 06/10/2024 19:00

How many people is it for? I don’t see food?

Shmee1988 · 06/10/2024 19:25

House insurance seems an awful lot. £85pcm- £1020 a year?!
Water also a bit on the high side, we pay £36 and there's me, dp, and 2DS.

Haroldwilson · 06/10/2024 19:28

That's a lot more than I pay for life insurance.

Mobile - are you on a contract with a phone? I buy a phone then giffgaff £6 a month.

Why are you paying that to specsavers, is it to pay off glasses? Or for contacts?

ivykaty44 · 06/10/2024 19:28

£1020 per annum House insurance £85
£876 p/a internet and mobile £73
£612 life insurance £51
£144 Breakdown cover £12
£960 car insurance £80

id work on reducing the above bills

reakdown cover you can get o with your car insurance, get your car insurance 30 days before it’s due and shop around. Never leave till last as it shots up in price

internet and mobile you should be able to reduce that by £30 a month and why is your life insurance so high? Do you smoke?

Pearlyb · 06/10/2024 19:29

Is specsavers for daily contact lenses? Could you switch to monthly ones or find a cheaper supply of daily ones/ reduce the number of days you wear them?

House insurance looks high - over £1000 per year! Have you shopped around? Mine is half the price.

Electric looks high - have you fixed below the price cap? If not look at mse to find what the best fix is at the moment.

You should put something into the car maintenance and MOT every month.

Also I'd set up sinking funds for clothes, haircuts, presents, Christmas and home maintenance.

Mumof2namechange · 06/10/2024 19:30

What's the sofa payment? You have a healthy income, try not to buy stuff on credit because you usually pay more overall and it's just a bad habit. My salary is significantly lower than yours and I've never used credit except for the mortgage.

Sorry to sound naggy but you did ask for input!

FifiFalafel · 06/10/2024 19:58

Our house and contents insurance is less than £180 a year. I reckon you can do much better with that if you look around.

Starlight40 · 06/10/2024 20:20

I paid £26 for breakdown cover recently. They don’t try and fix your car at the roadside, they just tow you to the nearest garage. Also car and home insurance seem quite expensive. I think you could get these cheaper.

MrsBobtonTrent · 06/10/2024 21:25

House insurance looks massive. When you renew, try raising the excess. If you regard it as a product you only use in dire emergencies rather than something you make a claim on everytime you spill something on the carpet, the price will come down considerably.

Mobile phones - bin your contract. Use your existing phone and get a cheap rolling SIM only deal (month-by-month payg). When your phone dies, get a second hand refurb one or buy last years model new outright - much cheaper. We pay £5 a month each.

Water - is this meter or rates? If you have the same number of people (or fewer) in your house as bedrooms, usually better to be on a meter.

Not sure what onedrive is. But if it's backup for photos/documents, it may be cheaper to use a combo of google drive and a usb hard drive.

Do you get a lot of value from prime? You may find you spend less if you don't have the "free" delivery.

Without knowing what your housing situation is (size, location etc.) it's hard to comment on electric and mortgage. Life insurance looks pricey, unless you are in poor health - was it sold to you along with your mortgage? This is often not the best deal. And bear in mind that you often have a death in service benefit from your employer or connected with your pension. Check it out and ensure you are not overinsured.

Get rid of the sofa payment, and try not to do it again!

CottonbudQueen · 07/10/2024 11:46

Your Internet is £43 pm .. who are you with ? Are you fixed in ? My ISP offered a renewal quote of £80+. When I threatened to leave it was reduced to £30+. That's TV basic package, broadband, landline 400mb. I wonder whether you could bring down some other costs by getting a Firestick .... you know one of those lifetime deals.

Precipice · 07/10/2024 19:03

Are you and the pet not eating anything, OP?!

Joking aside (I do see that you put that you're looking at this in stages, but it still stands out to me as something that's going to be a significant yet likely somewhat fluctuating cost), your internet bill is 10 pounds more than mine, so unless you're on a fixed term contract, I'd be looking at changing. I would stop Prime and OneDrive - instead of paying to host your files on someone else's hard drive, host them on your own. Why is your phone bill so high?

Whatthetrolley · 07/10/2024 23:30

You pay for a boiler? Do you pay for gas??

RachPelders · 07/10/2024 23:35

The only critique I can think of is that it's really odd and jarring to have your budget in alphabetical order rather than order of importance. That would drive me nuts!

BillieJ · 07/10/2024 23:36

Onedrive - can you have separate back ups for phots, docs etc and share between the free allowances of Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, Onedrive etc?

Elec looks super high, but if you don't have any gas, I suppose that may be reasonable if it includes heating. It's a lot more than I pay for gas/elec together.

I would ditch Specsavers, but that's because I don't have contacts, so I don't really understand why you would pay hundreds every year.

Bjorkdidit · 08/10/2024 03:48

Those bills come to just under £3k with scope to cut down (I'm of the opinion that, even if you can easily afford it, it's always worth reducing the cost of boring essential bills unless you literally have more money than you know what to do with as it leaves more to save for the future and for nice things/fun stuff).

So you have around £1600 spare plus your partner's earnings, with grocery shopping as the only essential major omission.

So unless you're already saving £1k+ each month, it's likely that your non essential spending is significant and also needs looking at. Or is the £4600 your total earnings?

In any case, Moneysavingexpert.com has a good budget planner, look for the money makeover which walks you through reviewing all your expenses.

Once you've identified what you 'should' be able to save, set up standing orders to move it to separate accounts when you get paid, in case you're at risk of frittering apparently spare money in your current account.

Split your savings into at least two pots. One to cover fluctuations in monthly spending, eg insurance, Christmas, car repairs, white goods replacement, so likely to get spent in the short to medium term and a separate one for the long term savings you want to build up.

Perhaps also have pots for things like car replacement and holidays as these are expensive and have a discretionary element to the amount so a good way of ring fencing what you can afford to spend on these items.

LottieMary · 09/10/2024 18:51

this is great thanks everyone!!
mobile is for two people so scope to cut down.
electric is both electric and gas; have switched recently but need to check out the price cap / fixed deals
House insurance due for renewal shortly so will look now - it’s high because house has ‘suffered movement’ but I think we could probably still cut it slightly

life insurance - feels high but I think the major thing is I don’t really know how much we should be insured for! The calculators are all mega high.any advice on how to figure out some numbers would be great.
husband is committed to a few of these so will chat with him more about internet, OneDrive and specsavers in particular…

OP posts:
OolongTeaDrinker · 10/10/2024 11:21

I wouldn't cancel specsavers as they are of reliable quality and you can also get free eye tests and good discounts on glasses with the subscription.
Does your house insurance cover contents insurance as well? Even so it's high, but if your house has issues then that might be inevitable.
Our biggest expense per month aside from the mortgage is groceries - you haven't factored this into you budget, so that is an important consideration.

Pigtailsandall · 10/10/2024 20:12

I'm not sure what you are buying on Prime, but I'd cut that. You are far less likely to buy small impulse stuff anyway without it, and you'll have to really think about and assess your purchases beforehand

Penguinpairs · 13/10/2024 10:00

I get my contract lenses from Feel good contacts, my glasses from glasses direct and then have an eye test with my lovely local independent optician who emails me my prescription. For me it works out much cheaper than monthly subscription service

You have pet insurance and vet on there. Definitely keep the pet insurance but the other £16 you may be better just putting aside every month until it's needed depending on what it's for

Overthebow · 13/10/2024 10:08

Car insurance, mobiles, house insurance and pet costs look high, and what is the sofa payment? At the moment you only have £700 spare each month which has to cover food and savings for both yourselves and DC before you even get into the non-essentials like clothes, haircuts, DC activities, parties, days out, holidays so you probably do need to cut down somewhere.

LatteLady · 13/10/2024 10:32

Life Insurance, how much does it pay out? You might want to check your work contracts and see what the death in service amount is... for me it is six times my annual salary.

Also your Council Tax looks way above the average, is this spread over 10 or 12 months? Might be worth asking for a review.

Sofa, have you considered a 0% credit card and paying the balance off over a year?

Next take a look at your phones and see if you are paying out for hidden extras... I did that and I am ashamed to say I discovered almost £70 going out on apps that I had failed to cancel... and look at the annual payments, too.

Finally, why are you paying both pet and vet insurance, surely one would be sufficient?

caringcarer · 13/10/2024 11:45

House insurance is very high. I've got a 6 bedroom house and family lower than yours.

Electricity is high. Cut heating back.

Mobile is expensive. I use Smarty and have unlimited everything for £20 per month.

napody · 06/11/2024 20:46

LatteLady · 13/10/2024 10:32

Life Insurance, how much does it pay out? You might want to check your work contracts and see what the death in service amount is... for me it is six times my annual salary.

Also your Council Tax looks way above the average, is this spread over 10 or 12 months? Might be worth asking for a review.

Sofa, have you considered a 0% credit card and paying the balance off over a year?

Next take a look at your phones and see if you are paying out for hidden extras... I did that and I am ashamed to say I discovered almost £70 going out on apps that I had failed to cancel... and look at the annual payments, too.

Finally, why are you paying both pet and vet insurance, surely one would be sufficient?

Wondering if you live in London? Sadly that CT is pretty standard where I am and other places too

Crazykefir · 06/11/2024 20:55

Not read all your replies. You need to factor in fun money, clothing, holidays. Your income isn't bad you could focus on savings.

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