What are your monthly outgoings/are mine crazy?

[tinyviolinforme]

I feel like every month I spend hours looking at a spread sheet. We do have a good income at £5,500.
we pay

mortgage and council tax £2046
phones incl device plans £96 (5 people)
utilities £498
tv and broadband incl extras like Disney £196
insurances (cat, cat, house, life) £166
gym £40
ring £8
milkman £151

im thinking that the milkman wasn’t as cost effective as I hoped. It was to stop me going to buy milk and eggs and then adding extras but I wonder if it’s a false economy.
tv is another one - it includes two tv licences as one of the kids is at uni and has some additional needs and I was worried they might unknowingly watch something that needed a licence. Maybe that’s me being over protective.

What are your food shop and transport costs?
How much are you putting into savings and pensions?
Any debt maintenance?

Insurances seem low for two adults with good life cover and critical illness.

The TV seems wild to me, but I just have the license plus Netflix.

Tv , utilities and milkman are huge. How much do you spend on food shopping ?

Your TV and Broadband seems really high. How is the money broken down?

The milkman works out at around £5 a day. What do you get for that?

Can you speak to your child at uni about what they are allowed to watch without a TV licence and see if they really need it?

Hi I’ve just been doing the maths on the milkman and it’s £50 more than at the local co-op (36 eggs and 6l milk a week). Food shopping is ridiculous. I think we’ve got into bad habits of picking food up and it being wasted or just ‘treat’ food. It’s gone up to £800 for six of us.

I’ve started a meal plan for two weeks and am thinking of getting tesco deliveries every Monday with the week ahead.

I think I will chat to my child and maybe make a list for them. That’s a really good idea, thank you.

Utilities are huge - house is a small 4 bed and one electric car. Hoping to build up some credit over the summer

(That doesn’t include debt or savings) it’s the direct debits/standing orders

Milkman ripping you off big time

All your costs seem insanely high to me, including your mortgage. And how on earth are you spending £500 a month on utilities as well as £200 a month on broadband and TV? 😬

I’ve just realised this. Cancelled and will just make sure I don’t buy anything else when I get milk.

Utilities look high.

No way I'd pay that for a TV service. Freeview and ITV X give us what we need.

That’s duel fuel, water and boiler cover (£18) - all the kids are teens/adults/jobless adult so only one is contributing at the moment aside from me and dh.

£500 still seems absolutely insane to me. We spend less than 1/4 of that amount.

Your money is probably going on feeding the teens

It includes broadband as I need a decent one due to working from home. It’s £95 for the broadband and tv and then extras have crept in like Disney plus, some sports thing for dh etc. I think I’m going to have to cut prime and Disney.

£196 for broadband and Disney? Sure you can get it cheaper

Literally how? I have a similar sized house and expensive under floor heating and pay much, much less.

TV costs are excessive.

Yes I didn’t realise how much food they get through (boys). I think I need to work out things that are cheap and filling.

That’s what they set it at £380 a month. One electric car. The dishwasher is on about three times a day sometimes. All the kids have different schedules but I cook one meal for them. It’s all the in between pasta and toast etc.

You need to break the utilities figure down, I’m sure you could get a better deal by switching suppliers.

tv and broadband- what are you watching? could reduce this by getting a cheaper package or freeview.

milkman - that’s loads! Ditch this and do an online shop every week instead.

weekly online shop - meal plan for the week as well.

MSE website have a budgeting tool you can use and details of all the best deals for utilities, phones, mortgage etc.

This is quite helpful actually. Cancelling the milkman feels like a start.

We pay £35 for Fibreoptic broadband and have Freeview TV. £196 a month is just stupid.

This is helpful. Dh is out with them all so I’ve made a list of 14 meals to rotate. I can start that in a couple of weeks once I’ve run the fridge and freezer down and they are all here again.