Help us with our finances please!

[WeNeedABudget]

We’re trying to work off of a weekly cash budget from my partners wages knowing that it leaves my salary in the bank for other things. The budget is around £190 for food, fuel, a takeaway etc. We draw this out in cash leaving fuel money in the bank to pay for by card.

The problem we’re having is that things keep cropping up outwith the normal things we need to week to week eg tickets for a show my daughter is in, costumes for the kids for school etc and because I know my salary is there at the end of the month I’m guilty of just paying for these and this month for example around £700 of my salary is ‘owed to bills’ when it really shouldn’t be. It’s amazing how quickly the £20, £30 spends add up into hundreds.

Does anyone have any advice on how to combat this? To be precise I’ve worked our weekly budget out at £192 so was thinking I could set aside £22 per week to a different account to build up a ‘slush fund’ for these additional expenses. Obviously hoping we have a few weeks without too many to let this rack up!! This leaves £130 after fuel for shopping, a takeaway and anything we need to do at the weekend? Is this realistic? We’re a family of four and I’d say we spend around £70 on food shopping.

Can anyone think of any other way to do this to stop me eating into my salary every month?

Just to add the reason I want to try and leave my salary untouched is because we have some credit card debt I really want to pay off before we remortgage our house to extend.

To me, £130 a week sounds a fair bit for a family of 4, after bills and petrol.
I suppose it depends how much you want to pay off your debts and how much you want to save for your extension, but would it not make more sense to not have a takeaway every week ?
I'm by no means saying you shouldn't have treats, but, by it being part of your normal weekly expense, it isn't really a 'treat' anyway. Why not make it once a month ?

How often are you pulling together costumes fot eh dc at school ? Aren't these 'dress up days' usually once a year or twice at most ? Can't most of them be created from things around the house / things you can borrow ?

Apart from £70 on your weekly shop - where does the other £60 pw go ?

There are lots of posters on here that can help people with budgeting and with cutting back if you want them to - depends how much you want to share, really.

I must say I do find the YouNeedABudget software fantastically useful, and made all the difference for us in actually being ready for all of those extras. I would account for, say, 200 of your salary in a "things I forgot to budget for" line for the first month, and gradually work towards squirrelling bits away in the main budget that build up over time (so yes, you definitely need a "children sundries" line!). Have you got all the sporadic costs in there too? Dentist? Car repairs? Household repairs? Clothes for growing children?
If you are set on clearing the debt (hurrah!) then the takeaways might not be a priority- or perhaps a real reward for a month bang on budget?

So you spend £60 on fuel per week? Iscthat consistent?

I would draw £100 in cash for all food - main grocery shop of £70, then you have £30 to spend on a takeaway/top-up shop/lunch/coffee.

Then you have £30 to allocate to ‘other stuff’ which I’d try to build up.

I’d be willing to bet you spend much more than you think you do on food. We tend to forget the top-up shops, that the takeaway is sometimes closer to £20 than £15, that you forgot to take a packed lunch etc. Track your spending - write it down or use an app - and you’ll probably be shocked.

There’s also the fact that a lot if expenses you know will crop up, it’s just you either don’t know when exactly or you think they’re not worth saving for as they’re small amounts. The key is to get used to saving for ‘unknowns’ like dance show tickets because you definitely will spend that money to go and support your DD, same way you would if the car needed a new tyre. So you need a savings pot.

Just to add the reason I want to try and leave my salary untouched is because we have some credit card debt I really want to pay off before we remortgage our house to extend.

Also, just to say sometimes people do get this a bit arse about tit and try to pay off more than they can truly afford on their debt and then leave themselves short on things they really need/will definitely spend on and then you’re back in the same situation.

Better to be realistic about your true expenses over a year, not just a month - because there is no magical ‘normal’ month - and then work out how much you can afford to pay down the debt. Move it to a 0% card if possible.

We have a Monzo card. We put in £100 a week for the weekly shop, top ups and anything that might come up. We're a family of 5 plus a dog and a cat.

Sometimes we spend £70 but realistically I dont think £100 is enough if we want to include a takeaway/meal out.

I've set up a separate bank account and am going through cupboards and looking round the house for things we don't use and selling them on local selling sites. Too much crockery, old clothes I don't wear, bikes, etc. Then keep this money separate and you might be surprised how much you make. Didn't do eBay as you have to pay commission and postage costs are high (you also pay commission on postage).

Hi all.

Some absolutely great thoughts so far.

We spend £40 consistently on fuel unless we have a day out far away or we’re away for a weekend or something in which case this would be more.

The takeaway I know should be the first thing to go if we’re struggling but I’m not sure if we’re there yet. We used to be terrible and have 2/3 a week (sometimes more!) and we’ve cut it down to one. Cooking and shopping and meal prep I find completely and utterly draining and I hate every minute of it so to do it 7 nights a week would tip me over the edge I think! I do feel with the income we have we’re not at the stage yet where we need to cut this out but maybe we are?!

Costumes and tickets are just a couple of examples of these addition spends. The kids needing a new item of clothing or having a birthday party to attend and need a gift are more examples. These definitely do seem to be the things causing us the biggest issues.

Thankfully the debt is on 0% and if we weren’t desperate to remortgage next year I’d be much more relaxed about it but I want to get it paid ASAP. I think what someone said about going at it too hard is probably correct. Maybe I need to be more realistic about what we can pay and accept that maybe my whole salary going towards it isn’t realistic?

There is definitely no normal month. We keep saying ‘hopefully after x,y,z things will calm down a bit’ but it NEVER happens!

Does anyone know what the highest amount money a single parent of 2 children can have in the bank to qualify for help with rent and council tax? Thanks.

Re the take away - I have two stock curries I make, and I make a huge pan of each, portion them out and stick in the freezer and then when I want a take away I just have them. With boiled rice from a bag (i.e not the expensive individual portions). Bit of lime pickle adds to it.

I also have two 'cheap nights' a week when I am budgeting, which would be simple pasta and tomato sauce or pesto.

In your situation I think I would try and rake in some emergency cash by selling old kids' toys, books, clothes etc - set yourself a target of, say, £100 and that can be your buffer for those odd months where something unexpected appears (every month is that month!).

If you are having to budget, then you need to stop the takeaways.

Sorry but 2/3 takeaways is disgraceful and not encouraging your children to adopt healthy eating habits. You could be making your family 2/3 healthy meals for the cost of one takeaway. Suggest you go on to moneysavingexpert.com and have a look at some of the meal threads on there. We’re a couple in our 60’s who rarely have takeaways - they are certainly affordable but because we’ve always cooked from scratch we simply don’t like the taste (and for me the awful after effects of the rubbish inthem)🤢 The money saved pays for meals out/holidays etc. If you’ve never learned to cook properly then please have a look online - everybody can be a great cook with good ingredients and a little practice.

I have to say for some reason I'm lethal with cash. I always find that having cash in my purse disappears far quicker than using my card.

Just to give you an idea of what we do. We have two main bank accounts. One for bills and one for everyday spending. (food etc and anything that's not a bill) All our direct debits come out of the bills account. We have it set that DHs wage gets paid into the "Bills account" and my wage gets paid into the "Everyday account" The bills account is left alone and it runs itself. We also have several sub bank accounts and when I get paid, I transfer a set amount of money into the sub accounts. Our sub accounts are Car maintenance, Holidays, Xmas, Kids and General savings.

It works well. All accounts are easily viewed together via online banking at my fingertips. Its a kind of modern day version of the old envelope system.

We found ditching the takeaways less painful by gradually switching do posh supermarket ready meals and ‘dine in‘ offers to start with. (no judgement here on having takeaway btw)

Once we’d weaned ourselves to those, it was less of a wrench do go to fakeaways at home: homemade pizza on a bought base; breaded chicken grills with salad in a wrap as a healthy kebab. Etc.

I’ve recently started budgeting, and got blindsided by all the things I really hadn’t thought of. Sympathies OP, it’s hard.

Sorry meant to add that one takeaway per week is not the end of the world. Unless you go completely mad ordering tonnes of stuff.

Online food shopping changed my life. I spend less ordering weekly from tesco than I did going to Aldi. I plan my meals better and I'm not tempted by impulse buying. I have a monthly delivery saver which costs £3 per month.

My first thought is have you missed anything out of your budget plans? Things like an amount per year for birthday presents, school trips etc, set aside split across 12 months? Likewise amounts for car service, car insurance if you pay annually etc. Those costs have to be in your plan somewhere, or you'll always be "over spent" despite your best efforts. Have a look back at past bank statements and see where you're tending to spend.

We're on a really tight, but do-able, budget right now. I have a notebook where I write down all the spending against variable costs (the fixed costs like mortgage, council tax, utilities etc don't change month to month so I don't track them this way). My categories are a page each for: childcare, petrol, travel and parking, food, household (DIY etc), clothes, books, outings, gifts, health. I have a budget figure for each category and keep an eye on how that's going. September, for example, we came in under-budget on food but over-budget on clothes, due to DC uniform costs. I could see that happening as we went through the month, so adjusted in other categories so we came out even at the end of the month.

It is oddly satisfying, but does take quite a lot of mental energy. I have some things I find hard to give up - those will be different for everyone - so I don't mind at all not having alcohol or meals out, but I feel properly grumpy if I can't meet a friend for coffee. Even budgeting tightly, I choose to allow for a couple of coffees a month, and take my own and meet friends for a walk instead if I hit my budget limit.

I strongly disagree that if you need to budget you can't have takeaways!

Budgets are just about being mindful with your spending, they needn't be about cutting back til it hurts. There are plenty of threads on here from people with really high incomes who have nothing to show for it at the end of the month. They can afford all sorts of luxuries, just not ALL of them every month. OP is not on the breadline, she just wants to tighten her ship. A budget helps you choose where to spend and where to cut. If weekly takeaways are keeping you sane, then you should make room in the budget for them! I can think of far more disgraceful things...

Hi, does anyone know what the highest amount of money a single parent of 2 children can have in the bank to qualify for help with rent and council tax? Thanks.

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@Rache61170

I'm sorry, don't know the answer to your question but if you start a new thread in Money Matters, with a title like "Help with benefits for single parent" then you'll get people who do know!

@Rache61170 it’s £5999 for full support after that it’s reduced from £16k.

It’s reduced by £1 for every £250 over £6k to £16k so if you had £7000 in the bank you would lose £4 worth of benefit.

Hi all thanks for the replies!

I think trying to gather together an emergency £100 sounds like a great idea. I had moved £22 into a separate account to try and start a little fund ... then remembered I’m sponsoring the kids and need £20 for that so straight away it’s gone. This is the kind of thing that’s holding us back and I agree we definitely need a pot of money sitting there for these things.

Budgets don’t include any big one off expenses like Christmas, big car expenses, birthdays etc which I know is a huge downfall but I’ve always been a bit wary of committing to saving for these because it eats into either the weekly available spending money or my monthly salary. But I know that not accounting for these things means the whole thing is pointless really isn’t it? Short term sacrifices for long time gains.

And yes I agree with the takeaway comment. To have 2/3 a week is disgraceful and it’s just tiredness/laziness/lack of inspiration that meant we did it. My children never have or will (under my roof) eat like that though. They were always cooked for whether it was by me or having tea at childcare providers. I do feel though that on the income we have we can afford a takeaway once a week - it’s just our preferred treat. For others it’s different things.

In respect of your cooking, have you ever seen economy gastronomy?
It maybe on Google / catch-up search.
Basically it plans a weeks menu around 1 main dish so most of the cooking is done over 1 day prep then you just add on..
A big pan of Bolognaise, 1/4 is Bolognese 1/4 becomes chilli some becomes pasta bake then some goes into tortillas.
Sometimes menus become complex..
When I cook a whole chicken on Sunday,,the left offs can be thrown in a jar of curry, any gravy is frozen, put it over faggots or with mince & onion..this way of planning only needs to add potatoes / pasta & veggies. The other days it's fish & chips in the oven or chops or sausage & mash.

That sounds right up my street! I’ll have a look, thanks.

We love a good curry take away but can pay about £30 for two of us. So over a month that's £120. However, when were tightening our belts, we get a 'take away' curry from the supermarket for half that cost. If you cook it in the oven for much longer than the instructions, it's delicious! Over a month we save £60, which works out at £720 a year.

Also..don't really ask what everyone wants,, just plan it out & get it ready, get your other half on board with it too xx