Living on a budget, advice please?

[200aweek]

Hi MNers, namechanged for this.

Due to covid our circumstances have changed and we've had to make a strict budget. After all bills are paid, we have around £200 a week for food and everything else. I know that's a lot, but it's a lot less than we're used to. So I'm hoping for some advice and suggestions on how to really make it last.

Petrol is about £20 a week and food for the 4 of us is usually around £80-100. I'm worried about the expensive times like when car service is due, or school uniforms- I've just had to buy it all on a credit card which I hate doing as we have debt and I hate adding to it. There's pocket money for the kids, birthdays coming up then Christmas too, MOT due in Jan.

(I've shopped around and got all bills down to the cheapest. I can't make any further savings there.)

Please don't flame me I KNOW people are living on much less and I'm very fortunate. I count my lucky stars that we have what we do, I promise, I'm not complaining. Just asking for some advice and tips.

put some money aside every week in a different account for one off expenses .......your food bill could probably come down quite a bit. where do you shop? do you meal plan?

I found opening a Monzo account and creating pots for all of the big expenses the best thing I did to help with a budget. We work our how much those things cost up annually and divide it by 12. Then save each amount into each pot each month. We have it for presents ( birthday for everyone in family and Xmas), car expenses ( mot, service, insurance etc) then a savings pot.

Have you tried getting your food down? It doesn't sound like you are spending too much for 4 people but always worth going for more own brand. Also maybe doing more meat free meals can help save money.
Definitely set aside an amount each month for things like Christmas/birthday so it doesn't all come at once.

Ok, so organisation is your friend. Get am excel spreadsheet going on your computer with all your upcoming expenses like MOT and car tax and your income. Include as much as you can so you can see how much you need every month and you have limited surprises. Then figure out how much you can put to one side each week for these expenses and set up a standing order.

For food bills, lidl and aldi are great, but meal plan every meal and make a list. This will reduce your impulse food buying in the shop. Also, batch cooking things like chilli or curry works out well money wise. Having the odd night off meat and just doing veggie will bring down your meat costs.

After that, look at your extra unnecessary stuff like spotify or netflix and see what you can cut if you need to cut.

Good luck!

I second the monzo suggestion.
We also have around 150-175 a week after fuel is paid for (and obviously bills).
We shop at aldi, meal plan our meals for the week. Do a big shop and then a 'top up shop' on a Friday which stops frequent shop visits. Food takes up about £80 for the whole week and that's with weekend treats for a Saturday night etc. We then plan our weekends nicely using the rest so we tend to buy the kids some clothes from the supermarkets and go out for a coffee or too or a day out. We feel lavish living off that amount. And by buying little bits weekly there's never a massive influx of clothes. Granted, they are in nursery so no school uniforms yet but forever growing!
Its more than doable and we personally feel we enjoy family time more this way

how old are the dc? Can they do without pocket money for a while? Or cut it down? You need to be honest with them and all pull together.

Save as much on food as you can. I find doing stews and curry type of dishes with mostly veg and a little bit of meat work out quite cheap. As do pasta dishes similarly with mostly veg and a bit of meat.

Put some money straight into a savings account so you have money for birthdays and Christmas. Manage everyone’s expectations for gifts.
You can still have lovely birthdays and Christmas without spending too much.

Move money each month to save for annual bills is my advice. You can get shopping down to around £60 if you meal plan, buy own brand whenever possible for household items and in bulk where makes sense.

Excel spreadsheet. Put all income and all expenditure. Bills, pocket money etc etc Include x amount for savings for car, emergency if cooker broke, Xmas, birthdays.

then Save 10% of what's left (not to touch unless you really need to) then divide the remaining by 5 (some 5 week months) Don't over spend. Its boring as hell but my god it works. Then you'll know what you actually have to spend each week on shopping, going out etc.

We're just moving this over to money matters for the OP.

Can you negotiate any wfh days to save in fuel?
Meal plan and stick to it religiously. I find it cheaper to do a Tesco online shop as I get distracted with the cheap prices in Aldi and spend more.
Don't buy brands.
Anything you can sell on eBay?
Home made gifts or no gifts for anyone apart from your kids. People will understand.

And finally a pot or savings acct with £10 pw for service / school uniform etc.

In your budget allocate a chunk to go towards building up an emergency fund, until it gets to say £1000. That could take many months but the faster it can be done the better.
Then when an unexpected cost comes along you use the emergency fund rather than a credit card. You then replenish the emergency fund.

Track everything, no money goes unaccounted for. Spreadsheets and notepads are your friend.

Is their any training or development you can do in your job with a view to promotion? Ie to boost your income. What cheap/free hobbies do you like, walking, reading, cycling, arts and crafts, or whatever. Camping holidays or caravan holidays from now?

Your food bill is excessively high? Are you buying lots of alcohol or a special diet?

Totally agree with getting a Monzo card even if you just use the apps for pots.

We were in a viscous cycle of having to pay for ‘big’ things when they happened and leaving ourselves skint for the rest of the month but now I have a Monzo pot for everything and I can’t believe I can put money away for holidays and Christmas and it’ll just be there when I need it. It took me so long to finally sit down and try it after always thinking there was no way we could afford to do that as there never seemed to be a month without a big purchase to leave us empty.

I just tried to work out how much we spend on things as honestly as possible and divided it by 12. It also means I feel less guilty about spending on things like clothes or hairdressers because there’s money there in its own little pot to pay for it, I don’t feel like I’m taking it from somewhere we could use it more.

It’ll change your life, I promise!!

My biggest tip is to reverse your thinking, so try never to think 'oh it's only 50p saved, what's the point' but instead focus on all savings. Each week try hard to come under your budget, and use every penny to pay down debt. Treat it like a game and get excited when you save £2.74 on your food shop.

I expect you can get that food budget down.

If your kids are primary age, don't tell them in much detail but seriously cut back on Christmas by buying now, cheap and secondhand. If your kids are secondary, tell them. Be honest and cut the pocket money, the clubs and Christmas. It is life and it will not harm them. You can get extra next year if things are better.

Be honest with other family members that you can't do gifts this year, except maybe for kids - but cheap.

Money saving expert forums are good for learning how to scrimp. Good luck .