I don’t have enough money for food for the rest of the month

[Tiredasamf]

I know there’s lots of threads about this at the moment. But what the hell is going on. What is the world coming to. I’m stressing out!

we’ve lived quite comfortably for the last few years - not wealthy at all, working class family (total income of around £2,700 a month after tax) but have always been able to afford all bills, food, clothes etc for the kids and always done 1-2 days out a month, and been able to save a little.

with the rising costs of everything we are now in a situation where we’re struggling.

as of today, I don’t have enough money for the food shops for the rest of the month. Bills are all paid and there shouldn’t be any extra expenses this month. It’s just food shops and petrol left

we’re literally going to have to eat beans on toast or other things equally as cheap.

if it’s going to be like this every month I don’t know what we’ll do. How are we going to afford Christmas? No more days out, no more fun things, no treats, no new clothes (kids are young and grow so fast so that’s a necessity that we can’t even afford now)

It’s set to get worse too isn’t it. what the hell? What are you doing to save money or cut costs? Please give me all your advice

Have you got any points on loyalty cards you can spend on food.
Sell things on facebook.
Takes a while to build up but you get vouchers for surveys on yougov or playing games on Mistplay.
Check for relief posts at your local authority sometimes schools have very part time options or governors clerks is evening work and not many hours but extra money

Bearing in mind you don't earn up to your personal allowance, have you got your DH to sign up to the marriage allowance, which transfers some of your personal allowance to him? It doesn't make a huge amount of difference, but sometimes you can apply it for previous years and get a back payment too.

Do you get help for childcare through benefits or tax free childcare?
And do a full budget see where you can make savings.
Have you got food in house already that could keep you going for a little.

Do you have any savings that you can use to bridge the gap till pay day?

Meal plan, research your food shop, contact food banks, sell anything you don’t need or the kids have outgrown on Facebook (ideal time for selling toys), cancel any gym, clubs, hobbies, subscriptions, if you have any debt see if you can enter a payment plan, look for an evening/weekend job that fits around DH’s shifts as PP says lots of seasonal jobs atm.

I hear you OP things are much more challenging now. If everybody claims benefits and people are starting to leave as not longer viable to be here. It will probably even get worse as less taxes.

For now people in your situation would need to rethink your day to day. Work from home in anything that brings more income. It is not sustainable with one person working on your husbands salary. Even people getting more money are struggling to keep the same lifestyle. There are food recipes that are more budget friendly. I personally changed this and my shopping is only a few more pounds a week. I was wasting quite a bit before. Maybe see if worth revising.

You say you'll be eating beans on toast or things that are just as cheap, that's fine. How much money have you actually got left for your food shop or are you relying on what's left in the cupboards? Most supermarkets do a supercheap own brand, so you'll be able to have more variety than you think.

Soups are filling and nutritious, and can't get much cheaper: a couple of leeks and potatoes
You may not be able to afford meat etc. Next payday stock up on frozen veg, Tinned things that will keep and multivitamins for you all.

I too have suddenly found that money isn’t stretching like it did.
in the short term a community fridge or food bank is a good bet. That will get you immediately fed.

Next; Look for freebies/vouchers, the MSE email us great for this. Examples I’ve got from there:

switch your bank account- you get up to £200 cash.
join top cash back and do a tesco shop , gets around £20
join apps for free treats eg this week I joined Greggs so baby and I had a nice morning stroll around a tranquil cathedral whilst I drank my free hot chocolate and we shared a sausage roll. For next week I’ve got a free Mac Donald’s that I’ll pick up on the way back from the free baby group at the library. Yes greggs and Mac Donald’s sounds unhealthy but I buy fresh food and make everything including bread from scratch- treats are expensive so I look for free ones!
if you have Vodafone their app is great for giveaways. I won a Morrisons voucher recently and then they had £5 free petrol so last week I picked up DD some new trousers using the voucher, picked up some yellow label veg and bits and grabbed some free fuel to cover my trip there and back.

look for a local baby bank/free exchange. Ours is great and they do up to school age. Can request items from the bank or via a Facebook page. I have started getting a baby’s clothes and toys from there (he lives the jumperoo) and then handing back things he grown out of.

I scour the web for free days out. The national trust were recently doing a free visit so I’ve got that for half term, free gardening club at local Debbie’s has another day covered, I’m going to go to See Monster in Weston another day (£10 in petrol but free entry and I’ll take a flask of hot chocolate and a flask of warm pasta to eat on the beach= heaven for my kids!). You get the idea.

All the above is great so long as you gave your basic bills covered as it’s all about getting nice extras. If your income is no longer covering the basic bills it doesn’t really help as then you are into having to take more drastic action (evening job/benefits if eligible/cutting basic costs if at all possible).

We managed on a similar amount when I was a SAHM but that was some time ago.

We're mainly veggie so we didn't have expensive meat costs. Basics label tins like kidney beans or chickpeas made up a lot of our diet in chillies, curries and bean burgers. Lentils are good for cottage pies and bolognaise type sauces. Basics wholemeal sliced isn't exciting but it's fine for toast and sandwiches and basics tuna mashes easily for a sandwich filling or in a pasta sauce. Lots of frozen veg like peas, green beans and sweetcorn. Carrots are cheap, as are bananas. Even now about 15p each.

We had days out often with Tesco Clubcard vouchers but always took our own food. Buying drinks or food at a venue can massively increase the cost (and they don't always eat it). We were lucky that my DPs bought us National Trust membership so that was the basis of a lot. We usually went with friends too which made the picnics more fun. You get used to coffee from a flask rather than a latte eventually.

I think quite a few things used to be free, like the Science Museum or Art Gallery in Manchester. (They may ask for a donation which we do now but didn't always do then). Then you're just paying for your ticket on the (exciting) train or bus.

We never went to places like Alston Towers though. Back then it would have been well over £100. So DC had to wait to go with school and or friends much later in life.

Fortunately I've never been interested in having my nails done or other beauty treatments and I had my hair cut twice a year (pre grey!). And my clothes have always been a uniform of M&S jeans and a top / cardi.

I got a lot of eBay boden clothes for DC and either passed on to friends or resold. They really last(ed) well.

Finally holidays. We camped a lot with various friends which was great fun. But you need friends that camp, and a decent tent (£££) and kit. Very cheap holidays if you like camping and use it a lot. Or an expensive white elephant.

Sorry for the long post. I had given up a very well paid job to be a SAHM so had something to prove. What we didn't have was the crazy inflation and fuel bill increases that you have now so it is much harder.

With that income you can do it, with careful menu planning and switches. Life doesn't have to be bleak but you do need to be really switched on to what is an unnecessary extra.

Is there anyone with older children who can give you hand me downs, my children mostly wear hand me downs and must save us a fortune but we are lucky to have a few people with older boys who give to us.

Won't give immediate money but I am always looking out for little extras. So things like Topcashback when buying online. I have just got the house insurance through confused.com and that has given me a £20 reward to spend at lidl. There is a bank switch at the moment with nationwide that pays you £200. I have been buying quite a few clothes for kids at the moment through next sale. Do you have all loyalty cards for supermarkets? I have a tesco credit card so gathers clubcard points which are great for days out etc. And in general for food shop have cut back on brands and buying supermarket own.

Bearing in mind you don't earn up to your personal allowance, have you got your DH to sign up to the marriage allowance, which transfers some of your personal allowance to him? It doesn't make a huge amount of difference, but sometimes you can apply it for previous years and get a back payment too.

I was going to say that too. How come you only earn 600 after tax? I earn a similar amount and don't pay tax on it at all. Or was that just shorthand for 'take-home pay'?

Vinted is absolutely amazing for DC clothes bargains.

Once the DC have grown out of clothing, sell it on Vinted. Typically, things sell for very little, however you can save the cash in your Vinted account (or withdraw it if you’re desperate to put it toward food), and use as credit towards buying other things on Vinted to put towards Christmas.

I sell mine and DD’s stuff for usually £2-8 per item, then wait for my credit to start racking up, and once it has, it feels lovely to ‘shop for free’ on there.
search for items that are brand new with tags, so whatever you buy feels like a proper treat rather than second hand.
You can make offers on there too, no need to pay the full price.
most people are accepting offers on things at the moment, as most people are in the same boat, wanting to get even a few £ for things rather than having it just sitting in the wardrobe making nothing.

As well as kids stuff, you could get nice gifts on there - again brand new - to put towards Christmas gifts.

@Meltingsocks cross posted 🙂

Have a look to see how much universal credit would subsidise childcare if you did go back to work. The threshold is much higher than many realise.

I worked 6pm - 2am 4 nights a week in a call centre when my son was small, so we didn’t have to pay for childcare at all. It was tough but necessary as we needed the money at the time. Are there any jobs like that near you at all?

I do surveys,and generally make around £4 a day from them.It doesn't sound a lot,but really helps me.One of my favourites to use is qmee.You get paid as soon as you complete a survey,and can transfer it straight as cash to your bank account via PayPal.You can do surveys any hour of the day,whenever suits,and whenever you have a bit of time to yourself.That £4 or so has really really helped me out.
qm.ee/6TT34LY4LJMRW if that would be helpful to you,you get 50p straight away to start you off.Another good one is Superpayme.
superpay.me/?ref=Babybear as you never run out of surveys or ways to earn. Don't underestimate what you can do from home and how the pennies can add up x

You can withdraw as little as £1 each time to your bank account,and I have lost track of the number of times that I have done some surveys on a sat and Sun and transferred £1 here and £3 there,just to make sure a direct debit got paid or I had school dinner money in my account x

@Treesuphooray

look for a local baby bank/free exchange. Ours is great and they do up to school age

hmm do you think they'd exchange 2x3 year olds for 2x 6 month olds?

Recommend heading along to the 'Boost Your Income' threads on the MSE forum.

If you child turns 3 on Jan 24th you won’t actually get the free hours until the next term in April.
if you can increase your working potential, you can claim some childcare costs through UC or if earning too much through tax free childcare.

Get a part time job working the opposite to your husband, there are loads about at the moment and plenty of parents have to do this for income.

Hi....I was in a similar position as you recently....first thing I did was a full monthly budget to assess everything....if youve not done it yet it can be quite an eye opener....theres loads of stuff online to help....I used a free budget planner downloaded from here to get to the bottom of things....once you fully understand where your money is going you can make changes and prioritize the important stuff....hope thats helpful...x

How much do you put into a pension?

Or a savings account?

There was a big thread not that long ago, and the op "failed" to mention a huge wad of money she was putting into a pension.