How do people budget?

[TDSR26]

I’ll admit myself and my other half are both not great with money and have plunged into so much debt we’re drowning!
He’s currently working two jobs pretty much 7 days a week, I’m a TA so my earnings aren’t great but I do everything at home and I need to be there for the kids.
We try and budget each month but our money just seems to disappear and we’re often just cutting it fine by the end of the month or spent slightly over what we’ve earned.
We have three kids so everything is so expensive as a family of 5, they all do quite a few clubs outside of school so that does take up a chunk but they enjoy them and it’s good for socialising (some school friendships haven’t always been great). There always seems to be something they need / outgrown / for school, it just seems never ending!
I sell and buy so much on Vinted and I can’t even start on the food shop as that’s just ridiculous these days!
Neither of us socialise much with friends or go out together as we simply cannot afford too.
We hardly ever go out as a family to eat unless it’s an occasion i.e birthdays etc.
Day’s out are saved for school holidays, we haven’t been on holiday in two years and that was paid for by the in-laws as a gift.
We moved house four years ago and it’s so outdated and we’ve not had any spare money to do anything, not even the kids rooms!
It just feels like an endless cycle of just trying to get by and we’ve got to the point we’re both so miserable and stressed out!
How do people do it?! Any advice welcome 🤗

It's just one small example, but I think frozen corn cobs are really poor value for money - as nice as they might be. Frozen sweetcorn (put them in little dishes on the plates instead) & homemade garlic bread (that you prev bought for 20p or similar). I buy my prawns when 50% off in lidl.

For every time you save £1 or 50p it REALLY adds up... next thing you know you've gained yourself £100+ a month.

OP your kids are not young anymore - you could easily go for a 4 day a week job and earn double. Like many people in this position if you Want the luxury if being around for the kids you need to accept the sacrifices and struggle. I'd look to get a customer service or similar job double your salary and get the kids a bit independent. They are not that young that you need to be around

OP are you prepared to talk to your DH and seek help from one of the organisations that specialise in this?

Or do you just want to tinker around the edges and find yourself still in the same or worse place in 2 or 3 years?

This isn’t going to be solved by buying some cheaper chicken or changing a couple of things. It’s not going to be solved by getting another term time job and continuing just barely managing the debt each month. The kids will only get more expensive. The COL isn’t going to improve.

Perhaps it will take you some time to recognise the action that’s needed to change things and that it’s not going to happen with a few tweaks. At the moment, you’re not really in the headspace, but defensive and determined to defend your current lifestyle that’s caused and is making the situation worse. But hopefully you’ll read through the thread again in your own time and rather than feel angry about the criticism you think you’ve received, instead see the many useful advice given and ponder whether you and your DH are prepared to do the hard stufff needed to bring about change.

You can either face up to the hard realities or continue in denial and find the situation is worse with older children ina few years. I wish you courage OP, because I know it’s v tough.

Hi op would you be entitled to UC top up if your dh didn’t have 2 jobs. Next month will you be entitled to the extra child benefit for your 3rd dc? The other option would be to get help from a debt consolidation company also it’s hard when kids are in schools and it will get easier as they grow up. It’s shit now but unless your high earners you’re in a position that many people are tbh.

I am a mum of 3, mine are all older now but I became a childminder when they were little. This was something I could do full time whilst also having my own children at home. Lots of children, especially on funded hours, were term time only so i could off holiday care for other children. When money was really tight I did a Saturday morning (charged higher rate). When my youngest started college, I started uni and retrained.

Another small example, we use the nectar app and literally buy what is on offer each week on our nectar prices - apps on both phones & see who has the best deals each week. One of us has cucumbers for 72p each week plus points on top - 3 x cucumbers is another £1 saved etc etc

Every Fri up till end of April, BLC gives you 10% off over £40 spend (plus use app for extra discounts & points).

Buy discounted gift cards with your BLC etc for even more money off.

If your DD enjoys guides but you are struggling to pay please speak to leader in confidence about any grants. Our region will give grants to enable a girl to go on a trip or cover subs.

Is your 13 year able to get a pt job to help pay towards extras. There’s a 13 yr old lad on our estate who has a little business valeting cars, he advertises on our estate facebook. My teen babysat (guide young leader/first aid qualification) and then worked in McDonalds from 16 - pays ok and they get a free meal on shift.

Sorry I haven’t read every post so someone may have suggested this.

all the small little changes are worthwhile and the main one I agree with is spending on food shop. I shop for our family of 5 on Ocado and only buy organic milk and organic fruit and veg unless it’s frozen, and I only spend around £120 per week. I’m also gluten free so things like my pasta are more expensive. On average I do 2 or 3 meals that work out about £5 total (jackets, pasta and pesto etc, leftovers) and then 4 or 5 that are between £5-10 so all my dinners cost max. £60 or I’ll spend slightly more on these but have enough for leftovers for lunch. My main saving is I only buy two items of meat each week and the rest of our meals are fish or veggie.

But anyway, the reason I came on is to say that if you are that close to the wire every month and you actually want to clear the debt then you need to do something big. This could be

• relocate to a cheaper area and/or smaller house and use difference in house price to clear debt.
• each of you take on a days work at weekends ie you work Saturdays and DH work Sundays in a supermarket or similar. Every penny earned goes to clearing the debt
• drop down to one car, sell the other one and use the cash you get towards debt
• get a better paying job

You get the idea. If you don’t want to do any of these and can’t think of any others that you do want to do, then ultimately the choice you’re making is to continue living with the debt.

It sounds a stressful time, my husband and I often wonder how young families cope with prices of everything atm. I volunteer at a local community fridge, very welcoming and non judgmental with no referrals needed so maybe there is one local to you where you could pick up some free food etc. Apps like Olio and Too Good To Go are also excellent. Have you used sites like Freecycle and Trash Nothing - you can pick up some amazing household and garden stuff for free and in return can offer some things that you have finished with. Clubs are expensive, the local library may have activities on for your younger ones. Not sure how old your kids are but instead of 1 club for each of the kids maybe you could put together a lucky dip type bag with suggestions for ‘free’ activities such as bike ride to a nice location, den making in the woods, simple craft making, home karaoke night, pizza making, home movie night with popcorn. I’m guessing your energy bill is big. Any appliance that involves heat is expensive to run so boil just the water you need for morning coffee, wash at 30 or 40 where you can, minimal use of tumble drier, use the oven when you will indead use it not just to cook 1 portion of oven chips (I don’t have an air fryer), turn thermostat down a little on heating and temp of your water, use a timer for showers n teach kids to shower efficiently, close curtains once it’s dusk, wear an extra jumper if house is cooler. Definitely bulk cook, never make just 1 pan of Bolognese, make triple quantity for virtually same amount of energy use and then get inventive: Traditional spaghetti bol; topping for a jacket potato; filling for quesadillas with some extra cheese; add a can of kidney beans and some chilli/cumin for a cheat’s chilli; really delicious as a topping for homemade pizza or calzone filling. Also if you cook with meat then reduce the amount you buy and bulk out with canned pulses, baked beans etc and up the quantity of whole grain carbs. Have you any family or good friends near by that could have the kids for a little while or for a sleep over to give you and your husband some time together even if just to watch TV and have a good chat as that is important for both of you.

OP I know your are really keen to clear your debts and I totally understand why however if you are stretching yourselves to clear it and then leaving yourselves short I wonder if you are compounding the problem as then when an emergency happens your having to use more credit for that. I know this might sound crazy but if you debt is on 0% maybe you could reduce the amount you are paying back and use that extra to build up an emergency fund so when the next emergency happens you have the funds to cover it?

Babysitting can pay well. You could easily have a side business advertising on local facebook and babysit on a weekend evening. An older TA mum of 3 would do well around here.

If you are near stadiums or hospitality venues then register with agencies for ad hoc work. There’s apps like stint.

When I was going through hard times, I switched to cash. My cousin's daughter has got into debt and I told her, use cash, dont buy food out, use a note book and write everything down. I honestly didn't think she would do it, she did and said that she never realised just how much money she tapped away, especially buying food out. Good news is she is getting her debt down.
But most importantly she is now checking her bank statements and wants to know exactly not vaguely where her money is going.
It is v hard as everything is going up and up but do menus and shop with a list, that also helps. It might help it might not but sometimes to stand still and just get thinks slowly together if that makes sense. I lost a lot of money by rushing around and not checking or haggling with insurances, internet, mobile providers as they just put our bills up every year.
Good luck.

If she enjoys guiding then she can be a young leader from 14 which won’t cost you anything and great for life skills and cv. There’s also rangers for 14-18 yr olds.

You could also try PayPlan they can help with your debt. They can find a resolution for you that suits your needs. They are very helpful and give lots of advice. They are free and do not charge you fees. Stepchange can be helpful but they do charge fees on top of your debt.

Not sure if it’s been mentioned have you thought of an Iva or DRO, if you really can’t afford your debts it’s worth a look as it’s what they’re there for.
you could go on to a benefits calculator and work out if you’re entitled to any benefits. There’s, entitled to and turn to us, takes 5 minutes to get an answer, worth a try

My immediate thought is that you could cut that supermarket spending down a lot and that you're eating a lot of meat. We keep ours at £400 a month (for a family of four). I buy gift card vouchers for the supermarket using the Jam Doughnut app as you also get cashback and then just scan my gift card at the till to pay. It earns me on average 2% back on my shopping bill and also means I stick to a budget because I only have so much on the gift card to spend.

We only eat meat three times a week or so. It's way too expensive for eating at every meal. So we'd have jacket potatoes with cheese and salad like you do but wouldn't be adding sausages, or having ham with our pasta dishes etc.

We have very basic meals a lot of the time. Soup, beans on toast, omelettes, pasta with pesto etc. Fruit and veg mainly frozen so no waste or cheap fruit like plums, apples etc.

Bulk mince out with lentils or oats, all the usual strict food budgeting tips to be honest. We don't reinvent the wheel we're just really strict with our food budget.

Household stuff is really cheap. Mainly just toilet roll as we use bar soap for cleaning ourselves which lasts forever and just use laundry powder, no fabric softener, scent booster etc. I make up my own cleaning spray with lemon juice, water, bicarb and a touch of washing up liquid and it cleans most things.

If you could cut £200 a month off your food bill and direct it straight to debt repayments then that will hugely help you out.

The thing that's helped us to budget properly for the first time ever is to get monzo accounts. We still get paid into our standard santander account. We leave enough money in there to cover all bills and mortgage which go out directly. Then everything else goes into our joint monzo account and at the start of the month I separate it into various pots. Ours are things like kids clothes, food, kids activities, meals out etc etc. We only spend what we have in each pot. It really helps you to see where the money is going and you can create a new pot if you realise you need to budget for something different. For example, we started off not budgeting for coffees out. We enjoy the odd coffee out so now we have a separate coffee pot. Of course it means there's less in the other pots as a result but it means we aren't spending the same money twice. We also have pots for short term savings. For example I am now putting £100 each month to one side for kids birthdays (we have three) so that it's not so much a shock to the system when they come round.

our money just seems to disappear

Where your money goes should not be a mystery to you. You should be able to account for every penny. That's what budgeting is.

Once you know what you are spending on, you can work out what you can cut out.

You have to be absolutely on top of every single penny. If you don't do this you are likely to keep spiralling into debt.

It's the kids and the kind of jobs. This is the main reason why I stay with one kid, we didn't want to sacrifice absolutely everything. My kid goes private , we are also not from uk so we travel abroad to see family. Impossible to do all this with 3 . Plus a 4K mortgage. I honestly don't know how people do it with 2,3,4 kids and with relatives here that can help. We have to pay for absolutely everything. So we decided to be selfish and kept 1. In your case I would invest in re training in a skill that can bring more money home.
Also Stop with clubs. Unless it's educational. Tutoring, a language or music for scholarships.

Properly track all of your spending for a month. For food shop divide between mandatory food items/treats/household items. Every penny spend. Then look through it and multiply stiff by 12 ans then think if it is just worth having or better to be put towards the debt. Once you know how much money goes towards the mandatory stuff, make a plan for next month. Stick to it.
Make a long term plan on your financial goals.

Practical "advice" from me is that I have all my bills on autopay on my payday. As well as transfers to savings accounts and investments. So the day my salary hits my account, all is gone so I don't get the feeling I'm paying bills. I am also a fan of microwaving. So basiclalye eveytime I tap my debit card, a preset amount of money goes into my piggybank savings account. Open multiple accounts (if they're free) to keep track. I also keep very little on my accoutn that has a debit card so it is easy to track cause the account empties.

As for debt. Look at the debt you have. Check out interest rates and if they are multiple ones search for options to combine them.

Many clubs give discount on membership fees. In our scouts you can apply for reduction on membership fees and reduction on camp fees.

Hi,
Do you know if the Olio (food waste app) operates in your area? Or discount grocery schemes? It may help you reduce your food bill.
If you are really struggling at the end of the month. Please don’t be too proud to access your local foodbank. Even a one off visit may help you out.

i see you have had a lot of advice already op. my input is just as follows: you absolutely must clear the debt. aggressively, which means overpaying, not just the minimum. until then, selling a few bits on vinted and batch cooking crates of vegetables is going to get swallowed up by your debt. this will mean short term pain -- cutting back as much as you can.

is it possible you could have an age-appropriate conversation with your kids about the circumstances? they could be helpful and understanding.

wishing you luck