How much are you earning a week?

[saveyourtears4]

I own my own business, on average I make £4500 before tax a month (I work 18-22 hours a week) and my outgoings are £1000. £600 for business bills, £400 house bills. (My partner pays our mortgage). I have 30 free hours funded childcare and child benefit for 2 children. I honestly don’t know where my money goes. I’m left with nothing at the end of the month. It’s half term, I have spent £255 on food shop alone, that doesn’t even include what my partner has spent on food. My partner earns £4000 a month after tax. We have nothing left. How are people managing? what is the average monthly wage in the uk?

So you have £8000 ish a month coming in and you have nothing left? Sounds horrendous.

Me about 500, partner about 300 a week, mortgage 225 (week), one car, no kids. We do OK, not rich obviously but a long way from poor - we go on holidays, have hobbies, go out for curries etc and have 3 months in hand savings.

2500 after tax, no young children but still teenagers, DH earns around £500 a week
we split bills 50/50 @ £500
I have other outgoings of around £1000, debts
I generally buy most of the food but can get it down to around £70 a week and DH buys tops ups (If I were to do a shop with DH we would buy bare minimum lol, that's why i do the shopping)
He is a saver and i'm not, I often struggle to make it to the end of the month with money left in bank, I also have ADHD and what can be a trip to the shop for bread and milk can turn into an £80 shop, including candles, PJ's, whatever crap they have in the middle and food that will go out of date.
DC are mine so I generally buy their clothes shoes toiletries etc and pocket money although the older one is now working so pays for his own stuff and often his own food as he is always out

You could try a food bank I suppose.

Op you and your dp need to start listing every single outgoing to see what’s happening- maybe it’s all justified but possibly you’ll find where the money is going

So many threads asking people about their finances, one way or another.

You know @saveyourtears4 the majority of people who post on this thread will lie about their income. Most people will exaggerate how much they earn.. Some will wildly exaggerate it!

If you and your partner are actually earning nearly £9000 a MONTH - between you, and are struggling to make ends meet, you need to seriously review your outgoings, because something is very wrong here.

There's no way I am discussing mine and my DH's finances and income by the way. It may be a good idea to go onto MoneySavingExpert. You will get more help there.

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😆

I earn about £450 a week.

If you don’t know where it goes I have little sympathy - get a spreadsheet and write it all down

255 for food for a week ? For a family of 4 - with two tinies since they are at nursery - I would guess you could halve that with a little thought

the average ( median) monthly wage post tax is easy to look up and is 2189 ( this is median across all workers including part time )

Several thousand a month and no money at the end of it. See the thing is, when your salary increases, so does your lifestyle.

You buy bigger houses, bigger cars, spend more money and then can't afford the lifestyle. All the money goes on paying for the lifestyle you chose and wanted.

I'm also aghast at the amount of people detailing their finances on a public site. It's anonymous, but your details aren't to the people who own this site. It can be hacked and has before, hasn't it.

If you don't know where you money is going you need to go through your bank statements for the last couple of months and make a spreadsheet of outgoings - group it into essential bills (gas/elec/council tax, mobile, broadband etc), insurances, petrol & travel, food shops, subscriptions (amazon prime, netflix, etc), takeaways / eating out, entertainment, holidays, etc.
Then look at what you can cut and what you can might be able to get a better deal on e.g. car insurance, broadband, household insurance etc.

Are you sure? 😆

I don’t understand - why would this be untrue?

I assume you are saving a decent chunk towards your annual tax and NIC payments as well as repaying your child benefit as your partner seems to be well above the £60k threshold? Otherwise who knows where your money is going? Have you not got a spreadsheet detailing income and outgoings? Do you prepare accounts for your business? You just need to do the same but for your domestic finances. £255 for weekly food seems very very high when your children are small and presumably being fed at nursery?

I'm not sure how my weekly earnings helps you work out how your family manages to spend about £8k pm with little clue where it goes .

A revolutionary idea I know, but you could try looking at your bank accounts. Download a year's worth of transactions into a spreadsheet and play with the categories to see what goes where and what savings can be made if there's things you think you should be able to afford but can't.

Of your £255 food shop - for what period and how much wasn’t on your list/on your meal plan?

https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1802/calculator/index.html This website (ons) will tell you exactly how your income compares with others in the uk

Was trying to figure it out in my head and got it totally wrong 😂

You have a ridiculous food bill. Mine is far less for 4 adults.

Look at the posters editing history of the post 😅

Because the PP changed the amount twice (click on Edited and you'll see) 😄

Aha! Gotcha. Sorry you got an attack of the brainfarts @thisishowloween hope you feel better soon 😂

It’s Friday, that’s my excuse 😂

In my defence I’m self employed and don’t have a set wage so was trying to divide my annual income last year by 52 and failed miserably.

Which is why I pay an accountant 🫣

Do you not take a wage from your business? And leave the rest in the business account for business expenses/tax etc

DH and i have our own business . The business turns over a certain amount per month, (it varies quite a lot) but DH and I each take a wage from that and the rest is for paying business bills, VAT, and , at the end of the year, tax.

Then household expenses come from the wages we pay ourselves