Critique my Budget & Savings

[2020bust]

I separate my budget into the following categories:

Direct Debits & Bills: £1540
Childcare: £900
Food: £350 [£80 a week]
Petrol: £120
Cleaner: £125

= £3035

Our joint income is roughly £3530 [this may be slightly higher if either of us earns bonus but it's never much more] Or possibly slightly less if someone has a day off sick.

After the above outgoings it leaves us with about £495 to spare.

I have a monzo account and try to save what's left into different pots so:

Emergencies: £100
Christmas & Birthdays: £225
Extras: we don't put a set amount in here but it'll be anything left over so if we get any bonus or the childcare bill is less than the amount allocated, etc. That'll be put here.

Then the remaining £170 is spent on tobacco. I know, I know. I'm trying to half this to start with, with an eventual plan to quitting it altogether.

I always end up with no money left in the food budget and having to dip into the extras and/or the emergencies pot. I think it's a combination of bad planning, snacking, drinks, etc. And things that aren't accounted for normally like running out of things like mayonnaise, forgetting to make lunch and getting lunch out, needing new lightbulbs, etc.

I also feel like we don't have a lot of leeway for things like new clothing, haircuts, etc.

There's a few DIY project we need to do this year but no money or budget to do so, new furniture needed in certain rooms, etc.

There's never anything spare for days out which is a shame but obviously, non essential but when slogging away working full time for very little reward and feeling like there's no money to actually enjoy the time we aren't at work, it's a little disheartening.

Wow I just can’t get over £170 on tobacco and not having anything left to spend on days out with your kids. You could have a day out every weekend with that money!

How old are your kids? I think it’s so hard to save when your kids are young and you are paying so much on childcare.

There are ways of tightening your belt if you are organized enough to meal plan and batch cook etc.

@Turnedouttoes I'm aware of this, hence why I said in my OP this is an area I'm already trying to address but the reality is, if I free up that £170, it'll never be spent on days out. It'll get eaten up elsewhere or prioritised into the emergencies pot because ideally, I'd like to be saving much more than £100 a month for emergencies. (As the pot currently only has £100 in it - an emergency within the next month or so would be problematic with only £100 saved so far.)

I'd ditch the cleaner.

Cut down on tobacco - could you roll your own as a cheaper alternative?

Straight away, I'd switch the savings amounts around. £225 for emergencies or long term savings and £100 for birthdays and Christmas... Surely £1200 is enough for presents over one year, unless you have 8 children?

I don't smoke or know anyone who does but that amount is huge on tobacco... Over £40 a week? I thought it was supposed to be cheaper than cigarettes... But you know you need to cut down/stop for health and financial reasons.

If you list your bills and direct debits, there might be other areas to trim that you don't realise.

Okay, a bit more info. We already roll our own and buy tobacco, not cigarettes. £40 a week is roughly two 50g pouches of tobacco for two of us. As stated though, we do hope to quit soon.

The cleaner is a new thing. It's actually a family member. I couldn't really afford to pay for an actual cleaner so a family member is helping me out because I was struggling to keep on top of everything.

The Christmas and Birthday amount was me calculating how much we spend roughly on Christmas and everyone's birthdays during the year and working out how much we would need to save monthly for this.

We have 1 child but DH has 4 children from a previous relationship so 5 children in total to provide for. Ages vary from 1 - 16.

Direct Debits & Bills: £1540 This is too vague! What does that include? Have you called them all and tried to reduce them at all?
Childcare: £900 - fair enough not much you can do! How many dc do you have and what ages are they?
Food: £350 [£80 a week]- I think this could be reduced a bit perhaps to £65/70 by meal planning/portion planning and so saving at least £40
Petrol: £120- not much that can be done I suppose unless you are driving silly distances that you could walk.
Cleaner: £125- do you REALLY NEED a cleaner OP? Imo I don’t think you can ACTUALLY afford one...sorry

£170 on tobacco - well we all know that is a waste, and with having kids I think you should try your best to give it up!

You can see there are places you can spend less money. If I were you I’d go cold turkey on the smokes - get a copy of Alan Carr, read it, act. You’ll feel better about yourself. Does your DP smoke too or is it just you?

Food: I think it's a combination of bad planning, snacking, drinks, etc. And things that aren't accounted for normally like running out of things like mayonnaise, forgetting to make lunch and getting lunch out, needing new lightbulbs, etc.

Split your alcohol budget from your food budget. So £20/£60, say. That will make it much clearer if it’s good or booze you’re overspending on.
Keep a running shopping list at home - anything you run out of like mayo goes on the list, wait til next week to buy mayo and do without til then. Meal plan. Decide not to go for top-up trips, they really add up. And put lightbulbs etc on a different ‘household items’ budget.

The cleaner is a new thing. It's actually a family member. I couldn't really afford to pay for an actual cleaner so a family member is helping me out because I was struggling to keep on top of everything.

You’re paying about £30 a week - that is what you’d spend on a ‘proper’ cleaner though?

How many hours does the cleaner do??!!

Forgetting to make lunch was an issue for me too, but more so because I found making sandwiches every evening is a chore. I now keep sausage rolls and pasties in the freezer that can be pulled out and put in boxes in the fridge when I'm cooking tea. Or take a can of soup and microwave soup cup. Add in an apple and breakfast bar and it's a quick lunch. Buying lunches adds up if it's two of you through the week.

Just to clarify the £70 a week food includes cleaning products, laundry stuff, cat food & litter. The drinks I mentioned is soft drinks. Neither DH or I drink.

The tobacco money is for both of us too. Not just me.

The family member cleaning for us does a day a week, and she doesn't do set hours, she just comes and cleans until it's all done, so in that respect much cheaper than a professional cleaner because we are getting much more cleaning for our money.

She's only been once so far but she did roughly 4.5 hours. So double what I'd have got paying a professional cleaner to do it.

The £900 for childcare, that's 1 DC in full time, all day, Mon - Fri. Also use tax free childcare. The £900 is the discounted amount.

Your bills are quite high so probably could cut this a bit- more info would help.
Your presents budget is high too, you could try allocating less maybe.
Childcare/ petrol probably can't change.
I wouldn't lower the good budget £80 seems pretty tight to me.

Also recommend Alan Carr for quitting smoking. That would probably take you to feeling things were a lot less tight.

Do you have all of the best tariffs for energy, insurances, TV etc? Using Quidco to switch if not can make you some money.

What about mobile phones?

How often do you have your stepchildren to stay?

Do you get 30 free hours or 15? £900 seems a huge amount for discounted childcare.. DD goes 4 full days a week and it's around £640 a month before our tax-free top up, so we actually pay about £510 a month.

Do you live in an expensive area, could you move to reduce mortgage/rent?

Our bills are a similar amount but included in that is saving for holidays and paying for our caravan month fees so it sounds like yours are quite high - does that include DH's contributions for his 4 children?

Ah I just read again, £900 after your tax free top up, not any hours. How old is DC, will you be entitled to any 'free' hours soon?

Yes the £1540 Bills includes maintenance payments for DH's children. It's about £440.

We are already living in a cheap area. It's the South East but a cheap part. Mortgage is £580 on a 3 Bed Terrace.

Our DC is only 18 months so no free childcare hours for quite a while sadly.

And I'll definitely get that Alan Carr book. I've seen it recommended on here before.

I think it's hard, but my recommendation is for you to get into the habit of writing everything you spend down. If you can use Excel, then it is very easy to set up a monthly spreadsheet. Keep your receipts every day and at the end of the day add what you spent and on what kind of thing. That's really the only way to see what you are spending and on what. I did this and found that I would often stop at the shop to buy milk and a few things and it was costing me a fortune. I just do a weekly shop now and a top up on one day, if necessary, but it stops a lot of the mindless spending. You can also check your energy bills and see if there are cheaper alternatives.

Have you used an online budgeting tool? This is a good one from CAB:

citizens advice/debt/budgeting tool .

Sory can't do clicky link.

I recently changed electricity supplier--saving £20 a month, Internet supplier saved £13. Stopped buying extra when getting milk etc.not loads of money but all adds up.

Yes perhaps I'll have a look at using a budgeting tool. I'm not doing very well by myself.