Can I live on £350.00 a month (after bills, food and childcare)?

[Lorddenning1]

• [NB: Title edited by MNHQ at OP's request to add text in brackets]

I am panicking a little bit as come April, my financial situation will change and i dont know if I can manage. bit of a back story, me and my partner work full time and have 2 kids, we pay £230.00 a week on childcare.
I have come back to work recently after having DS2, so at the moment i am not paying tax, as i am under the personal tax allowance, this will change in April. Also i claim tax credit and this years award is based on me receiving Maternity pay, so my income in quite low.
In April I will start to pay Tax again and my tax credits will go down, so I will be £280.00 a month worse off. So my question, after bills, Credit card/loan, childcare, Food and Petrol I will have around £350.00 a month to live on, this will be for birthdays, clothes, beavers, school trips, dentist etc, basically everything else, is it possible to live on. This will be my finacial for the next 3 years (until little one goes to school and i pay off a big loan, which all happens at the same time).

Is this your family money combined that is left or are you working different finances to your partner?

And gosh yes. I misread it included food. It's the money you have after all the bills?! We have much less. You can survive.

That's AFTER bills, food and petrol??? It's plenty!

Some people don’t have any money left after bills and food etc!!!
No one can possibly tell you if that’s enough. Look at the past few months and work out what you have spent on the extras you have mentioned. Have you spent more than £350 a month? Look at what you can stop spending on, can you downgrade eg buy clothes from Asda instead of next,

Are you being serious?

Dentist is surely free for kids?
School trips for one? How old? If at beavers then trips Can't be massively expensive
Birthdays? Lower expectations if you are struggling

Yes, if you have already paid for everything you need including food and petrol you should be fine. I'd do a budget to allocate the £350 to different things and then try to stick to it so you don't end up in debt when something crops up like your car needs fixed. So for example limit yourself to £50 a month for clothes, £80 for children's activities, £50 for socializing & day trips, £80 for maintaining your house and car, £50 for birthdays and Christmas, £10 for dentist, £20 for whatever.

Welcome to the real world...

Is this a wind up? You're seriously asking if you can live on £350 a month DISPOSABLE income?!
This is £350 left over after paying all your bills, buying all your food, petrol costs, etc? You're MAJORLY better off than most if this is so

Me and my dad live off £800 a month all in to pay for EVERYTHING, all bills, food, petrol, car insurance etc, and im disabled with fairly expensive extra needs. I honestly wouldn't know what to do with £350 spare a month for luxuries!

I don’t want to benefits bash but the fact that you’ve been caliming tax credits and are used to having MORE THAN 350 a month of pure disposable income is going to piss a lot of people (like me) off who can’t claim any extra help and would fucking love to have that kind of disposable income left over. How many birthdays and clothes do your kids need?!!

Another one who came on thinking you meant you were going to be living on £350 a month. But you don't.

Op the money you live off is the money that pays for a roof, food, heat. You clearly aren't living off 350 a month.

I would say yes that’s plenty, you will have to budget on your spends and decide what you and your family can do month to month. Do you have a float for surprise costs ie car breaks down/large unexpected bill etc?

You have loads of money tbh. I wish I had 350 a month disposable income!

I don't get why everyone is coming down on the OP like this. Everybody needs money after bills and food. 350 is not a lot. Her OP reads as though that will have to cover house and car maintenance as those aren't regular bills, haircuts, clubs and activities, presents, clothes, uniform and other school costs, shoes, days out etc. It is not like she has £3000 spare for all these things. One car service could wipe out all her income after bills for 2 months.

£350 a month after all bills? So not really 'money to live off' at all, that's disposable income. Fwiw I have £18 a month disposable income once all bills/food/fuel is covered...£350 a month would be bloody lovely!

This is after you've paid for everything? So just savings and "fun" money?

You should ask MNHQ to change your thread title.

The money you live off is NOT the same as the money you have left over AFTER living expenses.

How stupid.

That’s 87£ per week. It’s not too bad. The childcare years are hard.

The govt has started a new childcare scheme. They pay 20p for every pound you pay meaning you only pay 80p

I recommend you look at where you can save money if you are worried that you will not have enough. Iceland delivers shopping over £35 for free; you can almost always save money on utilities; buy birthday presents in advance when you see a good deal, etc (or second hand while the kids are little and don't know the difference); sell everything you don't need on eBay to supplement your income (I am talking old clothes, books, toys etc.) Most people can easily add at least £100-£150/month to their disposable income put it in savings as you have not been earning while on mat leave and need to build up your savings again. Does your employer offer Childcare Vouchers you can save over a grand a year buying these. It's not easy coming back from mat leave, but once you build up a bit of cash to spare, things will feel different. Good luck!

I'd say that's very little but you'll somehow manage if you're very frugal.

I don't quite understand why people feel so outraged - it's such a small amount that the boiler packing in or the car breaking could see you get into more debt. You won't be able to go on hols etc.

As much as I'm one of those people who grumble about our high taxes getting spent on benefits, you both work and need those to get by.

Frankly, the UK is probably the worst developed country in the world for not offering proper subsidised childcare for working parents.

your title is wrong

you ask "Can I live on £350 a month"

I think what you mean is "Can I spent £350 a month on fun stuff".

I don't think £350 a month is that much when you have dc. It will be tight but doable. Clothes, House maintenance, replacing a broken washing machine etc, hair cuts, dentists, school uniform, school trips, holidays, days out, Christmas, birthdays , its not a lot.

Quitelikely - don't mean to single you out but I've seen the new childcare scheme mentioned on a few threads and just in case you aren't aware it cannot be used alongside a tax credits claim. It's either the childcare element of tax credits OR the new scheme not both.

Perhaps I should of said £350.00 disposable income in title, sorry folks.

Thanks Changenamesjustincase, I do like the idea of allocating money to things each month, as if anything does break, we generally don’t have any money to fix them right away, I normally have to borrow off family.
I didn’t write the post to piss people off or to brag  I genuinely was asking for advice, I work in an office and its not something I can ask them, I kind of ask friends and family and they have a lot more than me.
We pay £930.00 a month on childcare and we get tax credits to help pay for that (its not a lot though) I am greatful for the help towards it as otherwise there would be no point working, and im paying something back into the system. If we wasn’t paying childcare we wouldn’t be able to claim them.

The £350.00 a month to live on is for everything else, like Car MOTs, appliances break, Dog is sick, school uniforms, we don’t buy each other stuff for birthdays or valentine and at Christmas we bought a starter motor for the car. We drive a 2004 Corsa (family of 4) and its mainly for me to get to work, we don’t go on holidays and I buy clothes from the charity shop. Dentist is free for the kids, but not for us, my little one at school has snack money at school, so that’s around £18 per term, plus the school always seems to want money for this and for that.

I’m panicking because people around me seem to be able to buy new cars, nice clothes, holidays etc and we can’t afford any of that, but now I see that we are ok financially compared to other people, so it’s really all about perspective, sorry if iv pissed you all off, cue a lot of eyerolling