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.

I checked, they are not exempt:

www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/for-your-home/students-aud1

But it's worth remembering that you only need a TV licence if you watch live TV or use the BBC iPlayer. Many students will be happy enough with Netflix, Now TV etc, especially if it saves them £15 a month.

Utilities cost is so high. We're in a 3 bed house and it's 150 a month. Do you review your subscriptions like TV and broadband ? I'm just about to renegotiate with Sky as they want to charge me 56 after contract ends. We don't need sports. We only take a sub eg Apple or Paramount when we want to see something specific. Their new packages seem much more reasonable.

I’m beginning to feel my broadband is expensive

It is. It's ridiculous. As are all the charges for the TV. You can make massive savings there. Which streaming services can be cut? I rotate them - currently on netflix, when I get bored with that I'll swap to something else for a while. I never have more than one going on at once.

Glad you cancelled the milkman.

It looks like you've previously subscribed to things or taken out contracts without worrying too much about whether you were getting the best deal. Now everything has got more expensive it's starting to bite so start looking at each thing in detail and whether you actually need it (eg. the milkman, not necessary) and if you do need it (broadband, electricity, water etc), can you find a cheaper tarif somewhere else.

I live alone now and my dishwasher broke in October. Haven't got round to replacing it for one reason and another. I've been washing the dishes by hand since October. I got my annual electricity statement last week. Electricity usage had gone down 15%!!
Obviously you won't want to get rid of the dishwasher with a larger family but it definitely will make a difference only running it during cheaper hours, same for the washing machine.

The issue with broadband here is until recently we were only able to access Virgin and now more recently EE. Mobile reception is poor and most people use wireless calling. Virgin was crazy expensive and so I changed to EE. I think it’s the tv that needs reviewing and the broadband is the best of two choices.
im going to see what we get for £35 tv and whether anyone uses it.

Tried to cancel the student licence but I have to call them 🤷‍♀️ I’ve put the licence in but it says to call.

That's because they want to have a go at changing your mind! Be careful because they're known for trying to get people to trip up and give the wrong answers.

Just insist your son (?) as a busy student never watches live TV or uses iplayer.

The thing I said before is also true though - that he is actually covered by your own licence to watch anything, so long as it's on a device that's not plugged in. The information is hidden away on their own website, a lot of people don't know about it. And that suits TV licensing fine!

I'll try and do a link later, it's tricky on my phone.

Thanks @Pemba I did manage it but you are right it was quite a long process to go through. I told them he really just watches TikTok tbh and Disneyplus .

so - milkman gone
tv licence - gone
dishwasher after 11.30pm

not made any other inroads but next is tv subscriptions and food (meal planning).
need to think about other areas and read back on some of the suggestions

I use Tesco for online food shopping. You can have various lists on there too.

i have been using them before covid & have had very few problems which they've always resolved quickly & easily.

I pay £7.99 a month for any day/anytije deliveries

It's interesting that you mention using dishwasher after 11.30. When getting my new utilities plan I looked at the ones with this cheaper rate at times BUT the overall charges were higher at other times.

Broadband/ TV, milkman and insurance are high. I think you can cancel the milkman and some TV extras and shop around for better broadband/ TV and insurance deals. At least your insurance includes a car? Then it is not that high.
Your utilities are high too, but that is very dependant on the house. Avoid tumble dryer long showers, faulty boilers, if possible.
Check for better deals with your mortgage too.
Your food shopping bill does not strike me as too high. Surely you can reduce it, but due to inflation, it is not crazy.

It’s an electric car tariff - someone in the thread suggested checking if all electricity was cheaper then and it is, so I’ve started waiting and running it then.

Your food bill is probably why you are feeling pinched, but also that is a big mortgage. Have you possibly overstretched with the mortgage compared to your lifestyle? Most people can do one or the other, nice house and frugal living or live well and smaller house in a slightly less desirable area.

But your food bill also seems a bit out of control, especially the milkman. Get a delivery pass for your favourite supermarket and book a weekly delivery (usually works out at less than £1 a week with a delivery pass which you will likely save by not impulse buying and on milk!) then you can plan meals for the week and put your order in for stuff weekly. It might feel like a lot of work to start with but give it a couple of months and you will soon get used to it and it won’t take you long to whizz up a weekly meal plan and add everything to your online shop.

Thank you - am going to start meal planning, I’ve definitely lost sight of the food budget a bit and been buying meals for the day/ impulse buys picking up things. I need a supermarket online that lets me do two lists so I can do week 1/week2 meals, just trying to find one that does that. I have Asda, Sainsbury’s and tesco local

You can book more than one order at a time, so just book a slot for week 1 and one for week 2 and amend them as needed.

Weekly food deliveries are my lifesaver!

We switched our phones to labara £3 each much cheaper and haven't noticed any issues with signal.

That sounds like a lot on cleaning products. Have you tried using some of the Aldi own products? The Magnum dishwasher tablets are great and a fraction of the price of branded.

use MSE to check things like your mobiles. I got 3 x 35gb SIM’s for 75p each for 9 months with Lebara. When the 9 months expired it’s gone to £7.50 each but I checked and that was still cheaper than anything else I could find. They also include European data roaming whereas Sky used to charge £2 a day each when away to use your data.

It's not just your food bill though. Just about everything you've mentioned is a lot more expensive than average, while your family size, house, income are only a bit above average - so you're spending like high earners when you're not.

You might not be able to do a lot about your mortgage and council tax, but your phones and utilities are more than double what they need to be, TV/broadband about 4 times, your insurances look expensive unless your life insurance also includes critical illness or similar, so that's probably about £5-600 pm you could cut out without a huge difference in lifestyle when you include cutting out the milkman and possibly cancel the ring doorbell - the companies who've managed to convince people they need to pay £8 a month for a 'doorbell subscription' have really got something to answer for.

So there's some changes you could make that would have a way bigger impact than cutting a couple of hundred pounds a month off your food bill. Although I'd definitely look at the amount you're spending on cleaning products from Amazon - both the cost and amount you're using as it sounds like loads.

You mentioned using Ocado for your good deliveries- I’m sure there are other, cheaper options even if it means creating a 2nd list.

also ditch most branded stuff, supermarket own brands are just as good if not better in some cases. We get all our cleaning products and household stuff like toilet roll from Aldi or Tesco (own brand) and they’re great. Costs nowhere near £80 every 6 weeks!

even if you’re not getting a supermarket delivery, make a list for when you go shopping , buy unbranded stuff to try it, and stick firmly to the list!

I’m finding it hard to find one that allows more than one list, I think I will end up going shopping if it’s complicated to remove/add a whole week of meals. I was hoping to have two lists and alternate them. I currently go shopping and end up impulse buying.

I do my weekly shop online with Sainsburys. Could you do both shops one after the other, so order and pay for week ones shop then do week two? You can book quite far ahead and there is an option to add all of a previous shop to the basket, so after your first week one gets delivered you can then do the next one for two weeks ahead iyswim. That way you are still only doing one shop a week but it isn't for that week.

We have a ring doorbell but no subscription all works just fine I'd ditch that for a quick easy way to save.

Oh thanks. What do you get for that, can you record it or check back?

You seem to have stalled at your supermarket ordering so how much are your different supermarket delivery charges? If they aren't that much could you order Weeks 1 and 3 from one supermarket and order Weeks 2 and 4 from other? Once you get into a better routine and know what you want you can reduce it to the one supermarket.

I also agree with pp that spending £80 on cleaning products every 6 weeks is a huge amount. Get down to B&M or Home Bargains for probably half the price. They also have special offers on biscuits every now and then, my absolute favourites were 49p in B&M but £1.50 in a supermarket. And no, I didn't save myself a quid as I bought 3 packets 😬😂

@LittleGreenDragons that’s a genius idea! Thank you. Yes I had stalled, I’m very ordered in my thinking and I couldn’t work out how to easily manage two different lists (14 different meals over 2 weeks) via any of the online options.
im not sure I can cut much from insurance, that includes private / subsidised insurance for me, house, car, car and life insurance (for dh).

im going to look at ring and what happens if I cancel the subscription. We’ve had police knock several times to request footage as unfortunately there’s a new spate of car thefts and damage over the last year.