Is anyone else going round in circles trying to work out why they aren't dropping in diamonds?

[SouthWestmom]

Slight exaggeration. And this is not a stealth boast so I may just avoid accusations that way.

I'm late to budgeting and we now have a good income (for the SE) but are late to a mortgage so it's high for a relatively cheap for the SE house - owe 190k over 13 years so mortgage is 1400 pcm

The problem is the bills incl mortgage, utilities, childcare, - anything dd basically come to 3400 leaving 1000 for six of us.

This sounds amazing! But after food, clothes, lunch money, it's hardly any left.

I know I'm gong wrong somewhere. I'm not asking for sympathy.

Is there a good app or book or website (can't get on with MSE) that would help me budget and use our money sensibly?

It's not surprising that £1000 doesn't go far as far as food, clothes and lunch money for six people is concerned.

How long before childcare costs start to drop? That could make a huge difference.

I know you say you can't get on with MSE, but have you at least had a go at the Money Makeover? You could increase that £1000 by enough to make a real difference.

Does the £1000 have to cover transport and emergencies/annual expenses btw, or is that already accounted for? You could easily spend a few hundred pounds a month or more, when averaged out over the year, on things like holidays, Christmas, car, pet or household goods repairs and insurance and many people don't really account for that and then complain that their finances have been derailed by Christmas or 'unexpected' car repairs, that really need to be budgeted for in advance to avoid getting into a mess.

Living is really expensive these days. And having a good income doesn't mean that you have loads of money left over. Sometimes I think how can we have possibly spent that much. Then I look into it and we did.

I think the only way is to use one of these spreadsheets. Put everything on it. And not just the main things like mortgage but subscriptions money for MOTs road tax car repairs. Then Christmas and birthdays holidays. It's a wonder anybody survives at all.

It depends what you're including in bills, too. £2000 on utilities and childcare sounds a lot but does it include stuff like direct debits for sports activities / season tickets?

I have heard amazing things about YNAB app (You Need a Budget). I believe it's free for the first month or so.

£250 per week for 6 of you doesn't sound like much if it's got to cover food, clothes, one off expenses. I guess the answer must be to reduce to £2000 bills if at all possible.

I feel the same, We earn well, but my eyes goggle at our expenses, and we live well within our means. For us, it's the kids' extra curricular stuff, and the stuff you buy with it, childcare, that goes into a black hole. I meal plan, don't buy fancy coffees, take leftovers for lunch, use loyalty points, groupon, but still feel like I'm constantly opening my purse. Fed up of receipts everywhere. My youngest starts school in sept so I will have time to take stock and do a spreadsheet x

Same here, kinda (we only have one kid so far, live in an expensive house in an expensive part of the SE).

I've got on the YNAB bandwagon and it really has helped me to see where all our money is going and why we don't seem to ever have much. Over the last year we've been spending most of our spare cash on IVF and thank god that is at an end now. But DH seemed to think that without this expense, we would now be (to use your phrase) dripping in diamonds but I have been able to show him that we still have very little extra money.
The main thing that YNAB has shown me is how much I need to budget for every month for the huge amount of non-monthly bills we have (all insurances, car tax, DD's activities, stuff like national trust membership etcetera). Now I am putting away the right amount to cover those, when I see that we have got £400 left or whatever, it means we really do have £400 left; I'm not going to suddenly realise it's house insurance renewals month and so it all goes on that. The money for the renewal is already sitting there pre-allocated, ready to buy the policy. So I would say YNAB has given me peace of mind, but unfortunately unlike some people it hasn't suddenly made us hundreds of pounds a month better off.

Can I be honest though. I think for most people if you are already reasonably careful with money, then all the little changes you see people talk about (try buying supermarket brands... take your own coffee in the morning... buy everything through cashback sites... etc etc) only makes a small difference. No matter what we do, we personally aren't going to really have much extra money each month until all our kids are at school and that is in 5 years time. In the mean time, we are going to be cash poor. In fact for a couple of years we will probably be spending more than we earn due to huge childcare costs (the IVF resulted in twins due in Jan). In 2 years time we can remortgage which hopefully will free up a couple of hundred a month if rates are still reasonably low. But other than that I can't think of much that would really make a big difference.

Ok might download that YNAB. Haven't looked at that particular section of MSE either.

The expenses are mortgage, council tax, utilities, insurance, car loan, tv licence, etc

Thanks for some good ideas, I'm going to fire up Excel later

A thousand pounds for six people is very low, its less than six quid a day each.' The issue is your mortgage is such s high percentage of your disposable income. I'm genuinely surprised they loaned you that much. Do you have a big car loan? If childcare isn't the bulk of it, is debt?

OP probably didn't have that loan to value ratio when they first got the mortgage... in our case it's changed quite a lot for the worse, as I now work part time. Ours is a similar ratio.

Yes it hasn't been always so tight - my car died suddenly and despite a huge repair bill it still was dead and so that was an unexpected cost. (150 pcm). Debt is about £175 for another few years but I do try and chuck cash at it.

My main problems are:

Stress at not finding a solution, spending lots of hours overthinking and wondering what the magic answer is

Trying to save odd bits and pieces but never with a sensible plan - e.g. All my pound coins so I have about £70 but no real purpose.

Blimey Bluntness when you put it like that it's interesting.

£6 a day isn't much.

How frugally do you live at the moment? If you spend blithely then there will be some quick obvious wins like changing utility providers, going down a supermarket etc.

Time and money go hand in hand, if you have no money and a bit of time, get selling on eBay. It's amazing what people will buy. Old broken jewellery from years ago, McDonalds happy meal toys. It's strangely satisfying. Use those little minutes of time that you get in the passenger seat etc to meal plan, do online shop, shop around for a good deal. If you use a smartphone like this, you can save a lot of money. I have deleted fbook off my phone and spend the time doing this stuff while kids are swimming etc and it's time well spent that adds up to money.

I paid the childminder an extra day a year for a few years and spent that day getting the best rates for savings and organising policies, making a genuine PPI claim etc and that was always money well spent.

Other than that, you will probably have to hang in there until child care bills go.

Childcare is before and after school three days so about £100 a week til secondary (two more school years)