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 you actually getting for that TV charge? We have 150mb plus from Hey Broadband for £32 a month. I work from home, and there are constantly multiple people streaming. The TV then works off the WiFi, so we don't need Sky or cable etc. We pay for Netflix and that's it. So our fast broadband and TV is about £50 a month.

Oh, also you can usually get free audiobooks via your local library. Once you have a library card that then gives you access to Borrow Box or similar.

We have six litres of milk a week for one person, I don't have milk, we put 4 in the fridge and freeze two taking it out part way through the second one. I would think for six you probably need at least 12 litres so why not freeze some then you don't need to get more?

Me too, ours is over £200 a week for 2 and I have a lot of toiletries etc on Amazon subscription

I have suggestions for food costs.

Two deliveries from Sainsburys or your preferred supermarket a week. Even three if needed. Buy the delivery pass that covers every day of the week.

This will help you get a hold on the food expenses. Consider every item carefully. Tell yourself that all your food and toiletries go on these orders.
Or DH could order its obviously not solely your responsibility.

Food deliveries cut out the extra items that we buy when in a shop. Get into the mindset that you don't enter a supermarket ever again.
I thought it cheaper to shop around or use Lidl but I was buying extras. Ordering stops me seeing extras.

Order large amounts of filtered milk because it has a long use by date. That'll stop your visits for milk.

An idea if you are so inclined that can save a fortune is to make your own bread and rolls.
Make cakes and biscuits if you spend on those. Get the rest of your household to share in baking.
Only do this if you have the time or enjoy it.

Good grief, no!! I really hope you are joking about swapping fruit for biscuits 😱

Far better to halve any meat portions and pad it out with lentils or chickpeas. Try frozen berries instead of fresh.

Yeah, I get that. But if they are things that others use a lot, I'd look at how you can get them inclusive with other subs, but not cancel them.

your utilities seem expensive. I'd definitely be looking at them.

your goid shopping seems reasonable time if you eat good quality food for that.

maybe the others could be encouraged to wash up things like plates that only had toast on them or pots used for boiling pasta, but it friends how much you'll save by saving a dishwasher cycle per day? If you have 'kids' that clean up after themselves & use the dishwasher I'm not sure it's worth upsetting to save one dishwasher cycle.

Are you needing to cut back or are you just 😳😳 at the COL?

I’ve kept a spreadsheet for food. It’s been 680-700 for three months, this month has been closer to 900, I think poor planning as one has come back from uni.
I do put money aside for annual things like garden bin.
car, life, cat, house insurance are all monthly and in the list in op.

Needing to cut back because the adult kids have all ended up staying. One pays rent; one has additional needs and for xyz reasons can’t contribute at the moment; one at uni and one about to go.
also income isn’t guaranteed and I panic about retirement and never being able to save because it all ends up going on the ‘kids’ - we are paying some unexpected costs for medical treatment which the nhs has a long wait for (mental health therapy) despite being on the step up pathway.

Definitely look at all your utility bills. I've got a 4 bed and 2 teens and it's way less. Look at tariffs and check you're not in loads of credit.
What are the jobless adults doing to get jobs

No sorry!! Not swapping fruit for biscuits. Cheaper biscuits, if any. Rather than a pack of kitkats. Keeping fruit definitely, we always have a full bowl with bananas, apples, satsumas and grapes.

Your tv and broadband is ridiculous
Get an Amazon Fire stick
Get Disney + for free with Uber One
Broadband £23 with Three

Cancel the milkman, you’re being ripped off

Or just don’t buy biscuits? I don’t, no one NEEDs biscuits.

It's so hard isn't it.

my friend has 2 early 20's at home, looking for jobs but not finding anything. My cousin has an adult DC with significant needs, he does a voluntary job 2 days a week, but they really 'look after' him, he will never be able to do paid work.

definitely do what you can re pensions.

🤗

She already has!

To be fair it’s good reinforcement. I can’t believe I didn’t realise how expensive it was. Definitely a false economy.
I think im going to try Ocado because of the ability to have two lists for meal plans. If I go shopping I’ll end up spending loads more and go off list.
I order all the cleaning (dishwasher tablets etc) products in bulk from amazon and they last about six weeks for £80.

I order all the cleaning (dishwasher tablets etc) products in bulk from amazon and they last about six weeks for £80

That sounds astonishingly expensive. We probably don't spend much more than £80 a year on cleaning products. What on earth are you buying? Could you go to Aldi or Lidl once a quarter if you don't go regularly and stock up?

4 bedroom house in London:

Council tax - £157 (discounted)
Phones (2ppl) - £20 sim only
Utilities - £250
TV and extras and broadband - £35
Insurance (house only) - £55
Food - £400 a month.

Cleaning products is also ordered from Amazon and costs about £100 for 6 MONTHS of products. We buy big bulk bottles and decant into smaller ones. Same with toilet paper - £29 and lasts a year.

Have you had a look at Uswitch for your fuel? We just saved £45 per month doing that.

Also tv - we have Netflix £5.99 (with ads), now - £3.99 ( offer to entice us back) and prime -£8.99 = £18.97
Vodafone Broadband (fastest we can get in the area) £25

You really do need to shop around for good deal. I often cancel tv channels and then get discounts to entice us back.

I would actually suggest not getting your toiletries and cleaning stuff from the supermarket. Do a big bulk shop in Savers, B&M or Home Bargains every few weeks. The latter 2 are open until 7pm or 8pm.

Agree. We get most of that stuff at HB and Savers. There's nothing wrong with Nikki loo roll.

My gas and elec, for a 4 bed detached, are approx £180 pcm (Octopus) - so either you can get a better deal by shopping around, or you're using a crazy amount of energy.
Have a look at sites on cutting costs (e.g., are you tumble drying several times a week? Could you turn thermostat down a degree and everyone wears a cardy, in winter?).

Not RTFT but students don’t need TV licenses?

The other thing you can do (where amazon is doing a good price, and whether they do varies a lot for diff types of stuff..), is plan ahead once a month on what you need, and put cleaning products/coffee, on subscription - IF you have 5 things like this you order on subscription for a month, you get 15% off them.
But take care to spread out the frequency, and review whats coming next month often, to avoid ending up with a stockpile.

That didn't used to be the case, are you sure? Some halls provide licence cover, but i think students living elsewhere don't get an automatic exemption?