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We moved house four years ago and it’s so outdated and we’ve not had any spare money to do anything, not even the kids rooms!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 🤗

I’m not being judgy, just trying to get you to recognise that the choices you have made have consequences - your choice to work part time around the kids comes at a cost - debt. Reframe your thinking a bit - if you truly think that is the absolute best thing for your family, then accept the cost. Others will make different choices - eg using all annual leave for holidays, allowing the 13 year old to look after themselves at least some of the holidays and that means they have more money.

You may well turn your nose up at a second hand mattress - as I said I grew up in poverty - we had nothing new whatsoever. Again it’s a choice you’ve made.

So no got haven’t really costed it, but you insist on saying you couldn’t afford it anyway.

I was replying to the person who was urging you to change your job - holiday childcare for 3 kids would be eye watering, if you can find something they all can go to that covers office hours. I was trying to support your view that changing from a term time job isn’t the answer right now.

Just seen your post - no worries!

What are you talking about - she’s literally just given you costs. I assume the “times ?” Is because she doesn’t know how many hours she’ll need depending on her imaginary full time job.

Yes the 13 year old is fine on her own but I still have two younger children I have to think about.
Maybe if things were made easier for working mums and with more flexible hours in employment then I may have more choices. Working part time is a choice I have had to make to work around my children.
childcare is expensive as I have stated.
I don’t think annual leave would cover all 13 weeks of the school holidays!

Well I have, I’ve just given you the figures?!

Job wise try and get into a Housing Association. A lot have support roles, like in elderly sheltered housing. You would have transferable skills to older adults in compassionate communication, safeguarding, working with local authorities. Some of them pay better than a TA role.

She doesn’t need it for three kids though, only the younger two, and realistically the older one could look after the younger ones in a year or two. Lots of people use all their annual leave covering holidays, or share childcare with other parents. We managed to both work full time and only paid for two weeks holiday club per year. Meant we never had family holidays for longer than a week, but again, choices.

Those are not actual costs, she hasn’t taken into account TFC per child and she hasn’t compared it to her likely full time wage. It’s barely thought out.

OP clearly has no interest in actually changing anything meaningful in her life so she will continue to put her family further into debt and probably even more so when her DH can no longer work 7 days a week.

Money was very tight, but to be honest it wouldn’t have mattered, post Covid there was one pre/post school childcare option that could drop off and collect at my kids school. My child sustained a significant injury in their care, so that wasn’t an option no matter how skint we were. We cut our cloth, economised everywhere we could and got through it.

OP so sorry you seem to be getting absolute flack about three children. To everyone else the size of OP’s family is not really the point of this thread. Also three is not even s big family.

I come from a much larger family, in my 50s, and my dad even more so. all I’ve ever heard is comments about the size of the family. It gets to the stage it sounds like nastiness. There are many reasons people have larger families including religious beliefs.

as for budgeting start the month with an exact figure you have per week. Then the last week you will always have some money left. No one wants to run out as urs so stressful. I’d buy and plan 6 meals not 7 last day is what’s left. That one meal not planned covers 3 meals for the last week so gives you a bit of a buffer.

i would stick to being a TA it’s a good rewarding job and you know you get the holidays with your kids, they grow up so fast. My only advice would be try to find an evening a week job (bar work) or a Saturday job until the debt is cleared. That extra would probably cover a few days meals. Also until the debt is cleared I would stop all clubs, they are not needed. If not only one club per child.

enjoy your family OP. I may have been born into a big family but sadly I could only ever have one DC when I was a teenager, it’s one of the biggest sadnesses of my life .

Yes, thank you!
No matter how I explain it some people just can’t seem to understand it.
my eldest is 13 so can look after herself but childcare for 2 is still extortionate!
I am currently looking for a way out of my current school for many reasons but would properly end up in another school.
I’m trying to give it another year / year and a half and with two at secondary I will only need to worry about childcare for one which would be doable and I could get a full time job.
This job isn’t forever but it’s for now because it works and it’s what I have to do.
Thanks again for your support.

Statutory annual leave is 5 weeks each, so that’s 10 of the 13 weeks covered! Some of those holidays will be bank holidays so that will cover an extra week, leaving just two weeks to find at an annual cost of £200. Bargain!

I’d not expect a 13 year old to spend 5 days a week on their own, nor expect a 15/16 year old to provide childcare for their siblings 5 days a week in the holidays.

Wow! Just wow!

That sounds like a reasonable plan! I’m not unsympathetic btw, just trying to get you to think of this as the price you’ve decided to pay for being available for your kids. If being there for them is important to you, embrace it, but recognise it comes at a price.

It doesn’t have to be all day every day. Just a day or two each week.

What’s your mortgage interest rate? You’ve said you don’t want to extend the term but if the interest rate is lower than your other debts then it makes sense to switch the focus to the more expensive debts and go interest free on the mortgage for a few months at least. Once your kids are older you can up your hours and overpay the mortgage so you hopefully wont be paying it off when you’re 70.

on budgeting in general I find Monzo really good for groceries and everyday spending, you can set targets and see where you are and how much you have left to spend per day.

i don’t know how the 6.99 Tesco subscription works but I find shopping in store much cheaper than online shops, providing you have the time. So long as you can resist things you don’t need, there’s more potential to pick up reduced items and cheaper alternatives.

Yes because myself and other half don’t want to spend any time together and have the children on our own separately!
I’ve explained myself enough; I’m not making excuses and I don’t need judgment.
goodnight

You have said he works 7 a week days currently and is out of the house from 6am until late into the evening, so how would staggering your annual leave be any different?

As you’ve got free delivery with Tesco, if it were me, I’d try and stick to say £50 a week, for everything that you know you just can’t get at Lidl/Aldi. Then all the other shopping do in person and try and keep that to say £80 a week.
That’s quite a big saving over the month and you may as well keep using Tesco for the branded bits you need until the free delivery runs out.

Do you follow any debt pages on Instagram? I have found some of them so helpful. Also have you tried things like doing bank swaps? A quick £150 - £200 for each account, and 30 minutes of sorting you can even open an extra account to then swap, I've done in loads over the years. Pay that straight to the debt as an overpayment or save it as an emergency fund so next time something like your oven breaks you have the money and don't go into more debt.

If you take a pic of your receipt you can ask ai to analyse and give cheaper options.

Also a lot of the replies focusing on groceries. Yes food is mental money! But just to say your kids won't be kids forever. There's an end in sight to giant grocery bills and extra curricular activities and term time roles. Give it ten years and your finances will be so different it'll be laughable.

My tip would be to play around with maximising your take home between you. UK tax system does not support one higher earner and one lower earner. Take home is much more favourable if both household earners earn more equally.

If it’s very lopsided with partner working 2 jobs and you part time, you might find he’s paying a lot of tax whereas you’d have more take home as a family if he worked less and you more?

Play around with a tool like salary calculator online to see how it looks with different scenarios.

For example, if he’s a 40% tax payer, rather than him working more hours, could you also work part time in the evenings or a weekend to supplement part time TA income?

A day in a supermarket for example at the weekend and/ or couple of evenings when partner can be with the kids? Then you could benefit from staff discount on food too. First dibs on offers/ yellow sticker items to put in freezer if on late shifts. I’ve known a few TAs work between supermarket and school to get hours up to 40 a week and not need childcare. Save a couple of hundred potentially a month on food bills between discount and offers. Option with supermarkets to pick up extra shifts in evenings in school hols too when you’re not in school.

If you’re handing over tea/ bed times/ after school ruckus to OH few nights a week you hopefully wouldn’t be more tired by doing 15-20 hours evenings and weekends. Tough gig I know as TAs work so hard. 40 hour week even on minimum wage is £25k a year now though so if you can up hours some way or other it could help.

Solidarity with 3 kids and COL not being a thing when you chose to have said 3 kids. Pre covid the decision for 3rd was more based on car/ house/ time/ than needing substantially more income. Xx

Are you paying interest on the debt? And if so do you have any realistic chance of paying it off as you are?

I don't mean that as a criticism, just that you may be better off taking a measure like a DMP where interest is frozen, though of course it comes at a cost to your credit rating. This is to be weighed against how realistically your husband can continue working two jobs.

You need to get everything down on paper in terms of how much you owe, to who, the interest on each, length of loan etc, together with all your incomings and outgoings. Then phone Step change or Christians Against Poverty and go through the options.

Without knowing all the details (so may be wrong), it feels like you may be playing round the edges of a problem. Are you still adding to your debt or is it coming down?