Reasonable budget?

[Yorkshiremummyof1]

For the first time in years I have my money before my bills, it’s because I’m paid 4weekly and I’ve caught up with it. I’ve been in debt for years, paying it off etc but this is my last chance to break a cycle in terms of panicking about money! This is just my June budget, there’s less money for the end 4 weeks than there will be in July because I’ve already paid my rent so I’m counting it from when I’m paid on Friday to the next 4 weeks. I’d just like some sanity checking especially when the spends, bills not so much. Income includes “rent” from my partner, salary, CB, maintenance. Next month would have an additional £900 but I’ll get to that in July! I have a significant amount of debt so getting this right is vital. For clarity, there’s two adults, a child, two dogs and two cats. WFH so no childcare at the moment, DS is at school 5 days a week so has packed lunches

Income June 2281

Bills June 508.33

Razor sub 8
Virgin media 24
Rent 0 (paid)
Cat insurance 7.53&7.53
Now tv 1.60
Spotify 9.99
Netflix 11.99 (half is paid for by ex, don’t include it in income figure)
NHS 10.40
Kindle 7.99
Mobile 90 (yep! Going down by 25 in august. iPad and two mobiles because I’m a twit)
Council tax 84
iTunes 3.50 (cloud subscription, i need to move all my documents that are in the storage before cancelling)
Dog insurance 25 (two dogs)
Bulb 100 (overpaying as have a balance)
Water 43.40 (rates, think we would pay more on a meter)
Car insurance 35.40
Car tax 11
Dog food 27 (subscription so count as a bill)

Savings 350

Car maintenance 50
Marcus account 250 (building emergency fund)
Help to save 50

Spending 589.96 (this is where it feels too much)

Groceries 200 (usually more but have a freezer full of meat)
Veg box 90
Meat box 0
Fuel 100 (drop of DS8 at his dads in another town, school drop off)
Kitty litter 15
Cat food 45 (one cat has allergies so has to have good food, spent 43 at a time but might last longer than a month, buy from zooplus)
Milkman 25
My spends 45
Clothing 50 (this month £30 Clark’s shoes for DS8, also anticipating a growth spurt and school uniform)
DS pocket money £20 (enough for him to save to buy a game whilst giving him enough that he doesn’t ask me to buy him something, he has a nimbl card to teach him how to budget so he doesn’t end up like his mother. I buy him nothing, anything he wants he has to save for.)

Debt 607.94 including 176.24 to pay off credit card in full which is emergency card. So this payment won’t be there next month as my partner keeps hold of the card and once emergency fund is built I won’t need it.

Leaves me with £225.47 this month

However I have to give DP £40 for blinds, buy a cat litter box disposal thing and some crate mats for the dogs. DP has a lot more disposable income than me, we aren’t married and have only lived together for a few months so we aren’t merging finances, also won’t have a joint account till I have no debt because he owns his house and I don’t want to affect his mortgage renewal. We rent his house out and I get that income as his contribution to my finances.

I have £45 as spends which covers anything I want for myself, tried going cold turkey and due to various compulsive spending issues it made it worse. Actually in therapy at the moment and my compulsive spending has roots apparently. Once I transfer spending to my starling account, DP changes my logins for my main account so I can’t go in and transfer money out. Mum has my savings account logins.

My issue has always been chipping away at my main bank account to the point where I’m stressed about paying rent. This is the first time I have the opportunity to start from scratch. Next month I could have £600 left over with which to pay off debt so I want to prove I can do it this month, hence why I have some spending money for myself. Groceries is a huge issue in our house, DP likes a £10 bottle of wine, I like snacks and we’re a fan of lots of olives and deli meat.....he’s the type of man who will only eat sourdough and posh marmalade. Last month I spent....£600 on groceries. Yep. Disgusting. So I’m going to do a weekly shop and try to do it online

I’ve had years and years of bad money habits so I want to try to make good ones

Hello there
Personally would reduce your savings to maybe around 200 so you have an extra 150.
You need to be able to live and have little treats too. The money would be better going towards your debt. Have you looked at Dave Ramsey. I think the uk equivalent is save 500 for 'now' emergencies such as car breaks down etc
Then start snowballing debt before You even think about having 3 -6 months emergency funds squirrelled away. He does loads of YouTube videos. Have a look?

Oh I’m a fan of his methods to getting out of debt, I think the recommendation is £1000 which is why I’ve put the savings at that level. I should have a surplus leftover so I’ll still keep my spending at £45 and see how it goes. My main concern is actually good shopping, it’s like I’m terrified of a pandemic hitting and having no food....so we were well prepared in March of lockdown eek

It's hard isn't it. Have a look at Joshua Becker and minimalism. He really has changed my way of thinking about spending. Still work in progress but am getting there.
Some of his blogs are fab.

For the record I spend around 150 on food shopping a week. However it is closer to 200 a week as there are six on us at home.
😬 can't see to get it down.

In your position I'd slash your savings budget and move most to paying off your debt.

Hi OP, well done for writing everything down. Just some questions on your bills

Virgin media 24- is this the internet or any tv extras in this? (If so remove the tv)
NHS 10.40- what’s this?
Water 43.40 - for only 2 people I’m sure you could get it lower on a metre no? Do you run a dishwasher ?
Dog food 27 (subscription so count as a bill)- subscription boxes are expensive, is your dog on a special diet?
Veg box 90- another subscription service? You don’t need, fruit and veg from Aldi or Lidl is fine, frozen is fine and much cheaper
Milkman 25- so high? How much milk do you consume as 2 people?

@AnnaSW1 I have nothing in savings so I intend to slash it once I’ve got 1k put away for emergencies. Had a £400 car emergency in may that I had to borrow from a friend for

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Hi OP, well done for writing everything down. Just some questions on your bills

Virgin media 24- is this the internet or any tv extras in this? (If so remove the tv)
NHS 10.40- what’s this?
Water 43.40 - for only 2 people I’m sure you could get it lower on a metre no? Do you run a dishwasher ?
Dog food 27 (subscription so count as a bill)- subscription boxes are expensive, is your dog on a special diet?
Veg box 90- another subscription service? You don’t need, fruit and veg from Aldi or Lidl is fine, frozen is fine and much cheaper
Milkman 25- so high? How much milk do you consume as 2 people?

Virgin media is just internet, don’t have tv and don’t pay for a tv licence, did have one but we were only watching Netflix so made no sense. NHS is prepayment cert, covers about 5 prescriptions monthly and saves a lot Water, two adults and a child. Dishwasher run daily if not twice sometimes. I have to wash clothes daily as DS is at school and DP is NHS. DP and I shower daily. So I think we might pay more on a meter? Last time I was on a meter I think I was on £36 a month but I’m convinced we’d pay more in this house. Dog food, no it’s just an 18kg bag from Harrington’s, amazon is the cheapest. It’s not always monthly, I think it’s more like every 6 weeks they run out but that still means I have to buy one a month about 10 months of the year. It’s good value and one of the dogs is fussy. It’s cheaper than buying it from the supermarket or pets at home. Veg box is all our fruit and veg for the month for £90 and we don’t waste any of it, calculated it’s only about £2 a week more than going to Lidl and it lasts longer. Stops me buying stuff I don’t need as I’m not visiting the shop as much Milkman, well it’s 8 glass bottles a week. DS has breakfast and milk before bed, DP drinks half a pint every morning with his protein shake. It’s a more expensive way of doing it, but again it means I’m not going to the shop as much

It sounds a lot on TV type of stuff.

What is your DP paying for? You say rent but what does that include, and I s it a fair contribution? If you spent £600 on groceries what did he contribute to that?

hi, well done for working it all out.
You're spending £35 pcm on entertainment type stuff, and £127 pcm on pets which imo sounds crazy if you're struggling to provide for your family. Not suggesting you get rid but I would seriously consider your priorities when making future decisions like that.
As for the razor subscription - I spend about £1 a month as I get cheap ones from Aldi or Savers. It seems you're really living beyond your means .
I would spend an extra 100 paying off debts instead of saving until it's sorted. Good luck!

Your bills are pretty low about from your mobile. Virgin media £24. If you have Netflix you can get just an internet package with V/M no landline cheaper than £24 a month. That’s what I do I think it’s around £14. I think your doing great.

I don't understand you needing a milkman to "not go to the shop as much". Just order what you need for the week in your weekly shop. We buy 4x4pts a week in our weekly shop and that lasts. You don't need fresh every couple of days. It's so much cheaper from the supermarket. If you are worried about running out get a few UHTs in as backup.

And I would pay off debt before building your emergency fund.

I think if your DP wants sourdough bread and deli meats then he should be paying more than just rent. You need to look at all your fixed bills, he pays half of those, and then he pays a third of the food shop

But, I'd also get rid of so many TV and music apps. And the razor sub.

Yes def get rid of razor sub. I use Venus razors as anything brings me out on a rash and I don't spend anything like £8pcmon them.

That's nearly £100 a year!

What is the Kindle £7.99 sub?

Is it unlimited? I found that it gave a really rubbish choice of books, I just buy books on daily or monthly deals now.

The cat food also sounds really expensive, I buy a huge sack of premium Royal Canin vet diet for about £45 a bag from Zooplus and it lasts me 6 months for two cats, they also have a pouch each of wet which costs around £15 a month.

Netflix – if you think about it I don’t technically pay for it, ex pays half, DP pays half. Now TV is £1.60 and that offer expires in October when I will cancel it. If I cancelled Netflix, it would make no difference

We don’t have a TV licence, I downgraded our TV plan last august to no TV. That went from £37 to £24.

Spotify – I’m trying to get DP to do family plan as he has his own account, so that would make it £7.50

Food - £600 food bill was my fault so didn’t ask DP for any extra. I’m just going to spend £100 less each month for 2 months, he’ll still pay me the £200 anyway. (this is included in the bills amount he gives to me). I think I could spend £200 in total (or less) over the next 4 weeks given what we have in. Just need to NOT pop out to the shops.
Can’t get a delivery slot for 4 weeks, tried all supermarkets same for click and collect. City life? I would love to get deliveries as I’m so much better with them. Might have to check out when they release slots and see what I can do. I miss the days of mysupermarket

Virgin Media - £24 for 100mb – can’t use a different provider as phone sockets on a wall with no plugs. £24 seems to be the cheapest deal for Virgin, for some reason their slower internet costs more (looking on a comparison site) but I might still try the whole cancelling trick in July. I do also have to consider all three of us are sometimes gaming on the PC at the same time so slower internet might be a pain?

Razors – I looked at the venus gilette ones and that was the same price £8 for 4. I use one a week. I tried cheapo ones but even with shaving foam my skin gets shredded. Any recommendations for a middle ground?

Kindle Unlimited – Will cancel after the next month, reading quite a bit at the moment from it however have to start reading university books next month so KU would be wasted. Actually, it expires 22nd June so I’ll cancel it now and finish the books in the next 11 days. I have got my moneys worth from it, I read a few books a week rather than watch TV but…won’t have time soon so it would be a waste.

Cat Food – So….I don’t think it is £45 a month, but they’re young so they’ve been eating a lot. I think the food I got on the 16th May will last 6 weeks so its less than £45 a month I just am not exactly sure yet. I tend to budget monthly as its going to fall within the month at some point. I feed them wet food (boys so better for them) either Animonda Carny/Feringa/Smilla. Smilla is the cheaper of the three but they prefer Feringa which is £2.92kg, Animonda is £2.39 and Smilla is £1.66kg so I’ll have to open another can of that and see if they’ll have it. They get dry food as well, and I’ve been giving them more dry food recently, and just two wet feeds a day so maybe the cost of that will reduce. They’re chowing down food at the moment and growing so fast. It might be that the real cost is £30 a month once they’re a bit bigger. My honest answer to questions about cat food is I want to feed them a really good quality food - I may have got the balance wrong (happy to accept that criticism) but when I fed them supermarket brands their bums were terrible. It's better on a higher quality food however totally accept that there could be a middleground and I'd explore that, I just went with brands I was recommended on a pet forum.

Paying off debt before emergency fund - I think, with respect, that is a bad idea.

I'd accept maybe building it to £500 quickly, then to £1000 slowly but I have absolutely NO savings. If I have nothing put aside, I would have to scrabble to fix the car again, or if something broke. Perhaps £500 is more reasonable and I can top up to £1000 if I underspend on things? What do you think

@Sweetlikecoca

Your bills are pretty low about from your mobile. Virgin media £24. If you have Netflix you can get just an internet package with V/M no landline cheaper than £24 a month. That’s what I do I think it’s around £14. I think your doing great.

Missed the part where you have internet for £14!!! How did you manage that one...I am jealous

I've just cancelled one of the phone contracts that expires 28th August, I'll save money as the cancellation fee will be less than keeping the contract to its end term

Oh I take it all back I can get deliveries with Morrisons yay!

I just have a basic package internet only. No channels or landline £24 sounds like your over paying. Call them and see what they say. They do try and increase my bill every year until I tell them I will leave

I agree with you OP on the savings whilst paying off debt, where possible everyone needs an emergency fund.
As for Virgin - sounds about right. I used to £14 internet but working from home it was too unreliable so upgraded to fibre for £25. Many newbuilds only have access for Virgin someone told me once, so limited options.
As for her razors, animal food, veg and milk deliveries you seem reluctant to change so continue. Everyone has to live reasonably in order to be motivated to pay off debt.
Good luck

I've cancelled the veg delivery anyway decided that the quality wasn't up to it and we've recevied a lot today that we probably wouldn't use so I'll just order it from Morrisons after the next box (was on a sub, paid up to next week).

Animal food, its not that I won't change it as such, its more that I'm happy to downgrade as long as I don't feel I'm compromising too much. I'm going to open the Smilla later for the cats and see if they eat it - if they do that probably saves quite a bit straight away.

Razors, I couuuuld buy some cheap ones again and see how they go. I'll have a look on morrisons now.

I forget how much food shopping costs these days, I lived on £20 a week when I was single and childless, now I'm up to £43 and I don't see what I can delete out of the basket! Well...maybe the olives can go