Don’t know how I’m going to manage

[justpoppy]

My partner see I are separating and I’m driving myself mad trying to find a solution to this but I just can’t.

I have one son who is 16.

I work part time and get paid around £1200. i really can’t work more hours due to health issues.

i’ve put all my details into 4 benefits calculators and they all give me extremely different amounts so that’s not particularly helpful.

I don’t have a car or any credit card debt thankfully. I’m very fortunate to own my house and it’s mortgage free. I could sell and downsize but I’ve always seen the equity in my house as my retirement fund as my pension pot won’t pay out much.

I’ve cut out all luxuries, streaming services, takeaways, days out everything and nothing gives me anything left over at the end of the month. I do have a dog and his insurance, food aren’t cheap so I’m even considering rehoming him!

I’m literally thinking about it constantly trying to work out how to make it work. (One if the reasons i’m still awake!)

I just don’t know what the answer is. Any ideas?

You bring home £1200 a month and have no housing or car costs? I should think that would be plenty although clearly it isn’t and I have no idea what your other bills are. Is your partner your sons dad? Are you getting child support for him?

Would you like to share all your monthly outgoings so we could try and see where you could cut back/stop?

You could get a lodger as under the rent a room scheme a certain amount is tax free. I think £7500 per year.
you are likely to be eligible for some benefits. Council tax benefit is separate to all other benefits so worth applying for.
there is extra money for energy bill if you are on benefits so claim even if you only get a small amount.
1200 should cover food, dog, council ax and water. You can look back through previous bills to double check.

I know - it’s a decent wage and we have managed before but with the fuel costs increasing so much it doesn’t seem to work.

partner isn’t my sons dad. His Dad has never paid maintenance. Hasn’t even seen him in about 10 years.

Clothes/school uniform £50
council tax £123 (that includes the discount)
broadband £30
DS phone £52 (contracts up in September so that will be a saving)
Gas\electric £250 (estimate!)
my mobile £53 (on an apple plan so I may be able to give that back)
Ds bus fare to school (£50) could buy a bike
water £25
pet insurance £45
DS school dinners (£60)
Food shopping £350
tax credit paying back over overpayment £40
house insurance
DS pocket money £50
Train fare to work £80
save./emergency fund £200
Dogs flea/worm/vaccination plan £11
DS haircut £15
Tv licence £13

think that’s about it!

Yes we’ve had lodgers before - I was hoping not to this time but it might be necessary.

Cheap phone contract for you: save £40
chewp phone contract for son: save £40
cut sons hair at home: save £15
you’re saving 200 a month whilst being apparently penny pinched? Cut £100?
packed lunches: save £20
reduce food bill by careful meal planning: cut £100
buy second hand clothes: save £20
switch pet insurance to cheaper company; save £20

do all that and cut £355 to use that in other ways.

Your food costs are high for a 2 person household.

l those ideas are great thank you. I think I’m just panicking because it’s going to be a big lifestyle change for us. Partner is a high earner so takes care of all the bills while I buy food and house stuff. I’ve got out of the habit of looking at the prices of everything and buying the cheapest option. I’ve always been independent and knew where every penny went. I’m sure it’ll come back when we finally move back.

Your son can get a job at 16 so there is £50 saved!

Yea I’m working on that. He’s bloody lazy though. We live near a seaside city so there are loads of summer jobs around but he needs to get his but out and ask around.

Agree re your ds. If he can work even a few hours he can afford his own expensive phone, and any clothes above the basics, which is school uniform, underwear, basic jeans, joggers, tshirts (h&m, not designer).

Otherwise cut phone to minimum sim only ( around a tenner). Cut school lunches. We top up our dcs accounts at £20 pm. When it's gone it's gone, and they take packed lunches. The bike may well be worth the investment to save on bus fairs but you will need buy in from your son that he will use.

Definitely cut your food shop. I do 2 adults and 3 teens on £400. Less if I shop exclusively at aldi.

You may have already looked at switching your pet insurance. It can be difficult to find a better deal if your pet is ageing or has any ongoing conditions. Could you look at buying your Flea and worming stuff on line? We have used medicanimal before but currently buy our front line on Amazon using subscribe and save. This is around £28 for a 6 m supply and wormer is a few pounds. This could bring your spend down to £7 pm.

I would echo the pp who asked about your savings. What are you saving for? If this is a true 'rainy day' fund you may want to consider if that rainy day is today. Unless your job is at imminent risk, a couple of months of salary or even a few hundred pounds to replace a broken appliance should be sufficient. If your savings is covering shirt term expenses including birthdays, Christmases etc you may want to separate them out and start a pot for each. With 1/12 of the total cost saved every month.

Think about using the trial of You Need a Budget App to understand your True Expenses. They have loads of videos and articles you can access for free which will help with this.

You need to plan for when your DS leaves home as you will lose all top up benefit entitlement and your only income will be what you earn until you reach state pension age.

Possibly think again about downsizing and/or moving to a cheaper area. Or getting a lodger. But if you downsize, you should also save on utilities and council tax.

Otherwise you should be OK living fairly frugally on your earnings which are sufficient for day to day living. But you might struggle to fund large purchases eg home maintenance.

Look at your pension entitlement and whether it is worth topping it up if you can.

You need to cut that shopping bill down in my opinion. Look at it like a challenge, batch cook and freeze portions for the future. Makes soups and freeze for your lunches. You can do this but you need to relearn a few things.

are you eligible for any disability benefits if you can only work part time due to health issues?

Fifty quid a month on clothes and uniform seems a lot to me? Why are you spending so much? There is so many ways to reduce your outgoings i can’t fathom why you’d consider rehoming your poor dog.

I do 2 adults and 3 teens on £400

Yep- us too - sometimes spend less that £100 per week to feed 5 of us. Shop at Aldi.

Ridiculous amount on phone contracts - I have an old iphone 7 and it costs me £10/month for unlimited texts and have had free data (with EE)

Also why does your son need £50 a month in addition to £50 a month for school uniform.? I might be tight as a duck's arse but once kids are old enough to get a job ie 16 - no pocket money. Although I would buy then new clothes as necessary. But why £50 each month for school uniform? That adds up a lot over the months.

When you say your partner "takes care of all the bills", which ones? If he's living with you why isn't this a joint endeavour?

You've had some good advice on here @justpoppy

Your son is 16 so time to sit him down and tell him things are going to be tighter. Give him a date that the pocket money and mobile phone money stops. Help him do a basic CV and send him out to pop into local businesses. But if a lot of the work is seasonal he needs to act quickly!

I have teens and they actually quite enjoy going to their little jobs. Even just a few hours a week on minimum wage will give him £30 a week. And if he acts fast he may get more hours over the summer

He needs to understand that things have changed. Sounds like you've both got used to not worrying about money or how people on average incomes have to budget and think about what they spend.

As a family you will have enough money to cover the basics and some discretionary items, but you won't be able to spend as freely as you're used to and continue with such expensive options such as an above average grocery budget and those eye watering mobile phone costs.

You can cut these to an average of around £15 pm per phone by going SIM only for under £10 a month and buying a ~ £200 phone outright every 3 years or so and selling your old ones. The 'cost to change' for my last phone was about £20 as I got a really good Black Friday deal on a Motorola G7 and I sold my crappy old Huawei for £60. That was about 3 years ago and I'm only now thinking about upgrading.

If your DS wants the latest phone, trainers, gaming systems or whatever he's interested, he needs to work for it, rather than expect everything to be magically provided for him.

MSE has a free spreadsheet budget planner I'd really recommend you sit down and do. It lists the categories, so you won't miss any.

For example, pp are asking whether you need to save. We'll, what happens if the boiler breaks? Or how are you going to afford Christmas? Obviously, if you can't save, you can't, but don't forget that quickly.

The cheapest sim only deal at the moment is £5 for 5gb data, unlimited calls & texts, so that is a huge monthly saving for you both. That's with virgin i think.

I think your gas & electricity seems high too for a 2 person household. I know it has gone up lots recently, but check your account that you aren't building up excess credit. You should obviously be in credit, but there are stories of companies increasing dds way higher than necessary.

I don’t know how you could miss it, they are separating, it’s right there in thr first sentance, he pays today, tomorrow he will not, so he won’t pay for her and her son any more.

The money helper website has some really good tools.

You're paying over £100 a month on phones so you're going to get rid of your dog?!

You could make a few changes

Clothes/school uniform £50 - half that

Ds mobile - move to sim only deal in sept (£20)

my mobile £53 - move to sim only

DS school dinners (£60) - move to packed lunches

Food shopping £350 / this sounds really expensive

DS pocket money £50 - keep as is but he buys his own clothes etc out of it (except school stuff)

save./emergency fund £200 - use if you have to

As others have said, get a lodger