Living standards for a family of 4 on £75k a year

[Onfire]

I know there’s so many variables due to expenditure but based on a family of 4 running 2 cars, one paid for, one that’s £200 a month, no other loans, no childcare, a mortgage of £1100 how would you expect to live?

It’s 2 people earning so the total amount coming in per month is around £4600 after tax and deductions.

I ask because it seems like a lot, but yet it doesn’t seem to stretch very far. We do manage to save a little bit but most of the time this is maybe a role £200 a month here and there.

DH is in need of replacing the paid for car, it’s not worth a huge amount as it’s getting old and ropey but I’d be worried about borrowing money

Great post @TwinsandTrifle. Totally need to look at this myself.

Definitely review your outgoings. Moneysavingexpert has a good budget planner and if you've never done anything like this before, you could literally save hundreds of pounds a month.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/

Question the cost of and need for everything.

You should be looking at all your bills at least annually and thinking - do I need this and can I get it cheaper. If you're not on a deal for your gas, electricity, broadband, mobile phones and any TV packages, you're throwing money away.

If it's a few quid a day and you do it most days, it adds up to hundreds of pounds a month or thousands of pounds a year. Do you really need whatever it is, or can you at least cut down to far less often (food and drink out of the house is a good thing to look at here).

If you pay full price for a family day out without looking for a 2 for 1 voucher or using annual passes if it's somewhere you could go regularly, again you're throwing money away. If you eat in the cafe while you're there, you're throwing even more money away. Especially if the food isn't really that nice and you have to queue for ages to get it.

Can you use a cheaper supermarket and eat cheaper food? I'm not talking about switching your diet to low quality rubbish, but if you buy things on offer, use a cheaper supermarket, it can be a big saving, likewise eating more seasonal vegetables and eating less meat and fish. Sprouting broccoli costs nearly ten times the price per kilo than standard broccoli, is it really ten times nicer?

I spend 3k a month on mortgage and childcare alone. Essential and cheapest I can make them bills are £600.

Yeah money doesn't go far. Can't wait to finish childcare and mortgage! We'll be very comfortable then!

We earn slightly less and mortgage is 900 a month. Cars owned outright but both bangers. 4 children but no childcare costs. We save 500 a month towards holiday and Xmas and approx 850 a month on top. Spend tons on food but don't splash out on clothes gadgets etc. Have a couple of takeaways a month. Our essential bills so mortgage, council tax, insurances, Internet mobiles etc come to 1600 a month

OP I agree with pp about documenting every penny. Also use MoneySavingExpert to review all bills etc. to reduce outgoings.

An additional suggestion is a standing order on day 1 of £1000 into a savings account. That may sound a lot but leaves you with c£3600. Try to live on that and see how far into the month you get. If you need to dip into the savings at the end of the month try to take the absolute minimum. Say you take £200 out, then next month make the standing order £800 . Taking the money out at the start of the month makes you more critical of in month ad hoc spending.

You’ve got 4 different debt repayments (not counting mortgage). You need to pay them off before the kids saving accounts.

Do children who are old enough to have mobiles need childcare?

We have 1 child and 2 cars on finance but earn a similar amount. We save around 1K a month but our mortgage is only £340. We live comfortably and dont budget as such. Total outgoings are around £1.7 so we have around 1.3K disposable income.

I've got 4 dc and would be absolutely laughing on that income. Live a decent enough life on less than half that, but we don't piss our disposable income up the wall...

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@Pissinthepottyplease, I can't see four different debts other than the mortgage - I can only see one (a car repayment).

I agree with everyone else that you need to get a detailed understanding of where your money is spent over a year. I did this by making an Excel spreadsheet and trying to cover absolutely everything that I could think of - I probably update this a couple of times of a year. Then question whether every entry is necessary, and whether it can be done for less.

We're on a similar income, and our mortgage + overpayment is similar. We can generally save quite a bit per month, although this can be bumpy depending on what we've paid out that month.

I wouldn't buy another reasonably expensive car on finance - can you buy a cheaper one outright in the meantime?

As PP said, this is likely a result of spending decisions you’re making throughout the month. Track what your committed spends are (mortgage, bills, sky, insurance etc) then track your outgoings to see what you’ve been spending elsewhere. I also like to look at annual spends to make sure I’m not surprised by anything - some people literally divide these costs by 12 and put that aside every month, which is a good idea.

Once you’ve done that you can see if there are savings to be made - for example do you really need Sky or can you get what you need via Netflix and NowTV with specific Sky services for much cheaper? Have you looked at Gas/electric/broadband deals recently to see if you’re getting a good deal? There are really good comparison websites out there which make this easy.

Then on to the incidental spends - look at what you’re averaging for food in the month. Are you OK or are you falling victim to the “top up shop”; are you regularly buying coffees etc while out and about? Are you paying £££ for parking when you could park a little further away and walk? Could you pack a picnic for some outings to save always defaulting to a cafe?

Think as well about things like presents etc - do you have a budget for spending or do you sometimes end up spending £20 for a DC’s classmate? Decide how much you want to spend for things like that and stick to it.

It may be you decide you don’t want to cut back everywhere - and that’s fine! At least you’d be more conscious about where your money goes and more reflective about the impact on savings and future plans.

Are you paying childcare & do you have debt excl mortgage?

unfortunately life is expensive & a good salary doesn't always go as far as you expect.

We budget about 3k for all bills, mortgage, food, childcare over the year, activities etc & day to day living.
The rest goes into various savings including long term eg kids & short term eg holidays.

Personally with a mortgage of that size (ours is a bit more) & 2 dc I would aim for 5k a month minimum.

I think it also depemds on the house you have bills on a 5 bed detached could easily be £1k pm month a 3 bed flat more like £250. Maintanance on our house is 3-5k per year. When i was in a flat it was 1.5k

You need a bteakdown to see where you are spending

No other loans other than the one car finance.

No childcare at the moment.
Come September there will be some morning clubs for one but otherwise I work around school hours.

I budget £500 a month on food shops and tend to keep to that .
Fuel to around £150

Council tax seems expensive to me at £170 (it was £135 when we first moved here 5 years ago!)

We don’t have expensive tv package, just Netflix and basic sky.

Only 2 mobiles in the household and they are £30 each

Car insurance comes to £70 a month

What I do find is that every month there seems to be something, usually a birthday and this seems to swallow up loads.
I also think because we haven’t been going on holiday we may be spending more on day trips in the mindset that it is ok as it’s instead of holidays.

We’ve had 3 months in a row of family birthdays. (As in 3 of the 4 of our own households)
Abs later this month are 4 more family birthdays in my family (siblings and godchildren) so there’s gifts, meals etc and i think we haven’t yet had a month where that hasn’t happened

September we only have one sibling birthday and that’s potentially the month we will have the least outgoing

Why do birthdays swallow up loads? I can understand your immediate family being expensive, but do you spend loads on others? Can you cut back there?

Maintenance wise on the house - we don’t spend a lot. It’s a Victorian cottage. Tiny. It’s only just big enough for us and it’s one of the reasons I’m worried as we will need to move or extend to make space for the kids to have their own rooms eventually.

When we bought it we totally gutted and renewed everything so generally our only ongoing spending is if something breaks

what does all essential spends add up to?

It looks under 3k so that should still eave 1.6k

@blahblahblah321

Why do birthdays swallow up loads? I can understand your immediate family being expensive, but do you spend loads on others? Can you cut back there?

Possibly, I think I’m a lot more mindful of spending on siblings than DH is

DH is in my opinion dad too generous.
He loves treating anyone he loves.

In fact just writing that down reminds me that I know he likes to treat colleagues to nice bakery items or if he goes out it’s friends he often wants to pay

I’ve maybe answered where the problem is

However - if I have bought up with him in the past that his generosity is an issue to our future goals he says I am possibly too tight and that together we balance it out and we should be living for the heat and now

I am a planner, a prepper and a pessimist.
He is the opposite

@rottd

It looks under 3k so that should still eave 1.6k

Essentials on my spreadsheet come to about £2700-2800

including food?