Very high spending - where to cut down?

[AguaMolePedraDura]

NC for this so I can be frank. My spending is a mess - DH high earner and great with sharing as needed so it’s not leaving us broke but I’m just losing my mind every month at money seemingly vanishing. To compound the mess some of my expenses are actually work expenses that I claim back in arrears, so I battle to get a handle on my actual domestic spending. Hoping writing it down will help (and what's here is my actual spending, not work stuff).

My income: £1,700 pt work + £600 net rental income from property + £1,000 DH transfers to me for shared costs - £3,300.

Expenses in September:
£1,165.00 - childcare + holiday club for half term. I think there's another £84 for after school care for the month that I paid late
£551 - groceries (bigger shops at Ocado + Lidl, then about 20 tiny top-up shops)
£283 - car finance
£250 - credit card - mix of airbnb costs from during building works + £100 in food shooping + takeaway
£211 - loan repayment, taken out during building works
£150 - eating out (various small meals/coffees with kids or alone)
£145 - swimming lessons 1:1
£80 - one-off physio appointment
£20 overdraft interest
£283 - car finance

£100 - withdrawn at cashpoint. Can’t remember this at all, wonder if it was to buy something 2nd hand for the kids off Marketplace etc.
£60 transport (£23 fuel, £7 Uber, remainder on TfL buses/tube)
£22 - Entertainment (Netflix, Apple cloud storage, bookshop)
£13.00 - app subscription DD
£3.80 - charity subscription
£45 - car insurance
£95 - SumUp - no idea what this was substantively
£48 - critical illness insurance
£4.60 x2 - google cloud - no idea why x2
£36 - gift for friend following surgery
£3.60 - booking for Halloween activity
£20 - new bin

= £3,743.60.

Childcare is about to get marginally cheaper (by about £100 pm) but as I have toddler twins + older child that will be expensive for at least another year.

Groceries doesn't even reflect our total spend because DH tends to "pop in" (doom) to M&S and buy things, plus will get lunches out. But it already feels high, because I often have food home from work (not exactly, but imagine I work in a kitchen and on a weekly basis get £30ish of fresh produce or similar that is surplus to requirements). So should be lower really. I've no idea why it's so high and wonder whether groceries + meals out is the thing to clamp down on. We don't drink at all so groceries is only food + nappies + household things.

Obviously there are other expenses (mortgage, bills) - these are with DH so I haven't included them.

Where would you start?

Hang on, surely you aren’t covering all this out of your income?

Why haven’t you put DH’s income? Does he keep it all except the £1000 and mortgage/bill payments?

Because if so, that needs to change right away.

I would start by expecting shared finances to cover shared expenses.

What does your DH earn and what does he spend it on?

You need a FAMILY budget.

I suspect what the pp does that the joint expenses may need relooking at and your DH sending you more each month. Doing a budget by yourself isn’t going to help- you and DH need to do a full household budget and recalibrate everything.

You also listed £283 car finance twice…I’m assuming that was a typo and you are not paying exact same car finance for two cars.

What @minipie said. You say DH is a high earner - but he gives you a fixed amount each month regardless of that. He may as well be a low earner for all it benefits you! You can't possibly budget properly for shared expenses (childcare, food etc) like this.

Why haven’t you put DH’s income? Does he keep it all except the £1000 and mortgage/bill payments?

No, he pays for other things too (holidays, fuel, basically anything he is asked to). We’ve recently moved so we’re still trying to settle building bills + understand our actual normal expenses. He earns around £8,500 p/m and tends to receive an annual bonus. Mortgage is £3,500 pm approx.

You also listed £283 car finance twice…I’m assuming that was a typo and you are not paying exact same car finance for two cars.

yes, typo.

@eveoha if I wanted to boast there are easier ways to do it than spending 30 minutes writing out my expenses etc.

The problem is he's not giving you enough money, assuming it's a family decision for you to work pt?

Your income is lower due to this so you need more money from him or cut down on expenses which he sure is a co beneficiary of

That's what needs to change.

You need a family budget.

Pool your money.

End.

You spend a lot because you have a lot of money coming in so have adjusted your lifestyles to suit. You could easily cut the expenses by an awful lot but that would mean making sacrifices of what you have become accustomed to.

You could down size your home/ move to a cheaper property to reduce the mortgage payments.

You could buy a very cheap car and lose the finance.

you could get rid of Netflix

You could pay off your debt by asking DH to cover it so you don’t pay the loan, over draft interest or credit card

You could not eat out at all

You could ask DH for £500 extra per month

You could work FT

Are 1:1 swim lessons necessary?

Modern life is expensive if you opt for convenience, it gets more expensive the more you do.

With your joint income you don’t actually need to cut back.

If you want to cut back then as a pp said there are plenty of ways to do it, depends on priorities.

But you don’t need to. Your DH needs to share his earnings.

Even if you don't pool all your money, I think you should set up a joint current account and have all joint expenses (food, bills, childcare, cars, etc.) come out of there. Then it'll be obvious to both of you what your joint expenses are and how much your DH needs to contribute. Your work expenses and personal things can come out of your personal account.
Also the obvious avoidable thing to stop paying for if your DH has lots of money is overdraft fees. Get him to pay off the overdraft.

All your kids activities and childcare.

Get husband to pay half and you're minted.

And the swimming- group sessions would be way cheaper.

As per previous posters. You’re married. You start by pooling your money in a joint account.

£1,165.00 + £84
£551 - groceries
£250 - credit card + 100
£211 - loan replacement
£145 - swimming lessons
£13 - app for DD
£20 - new bin
£2534 SHARED COSTS.

What do his bills come to? You're paying £1500 so I'd expect his to come to £2k plus the 1k he pays you to make it equitable. He earns more than double you. So perhaps partly he needs to up what he pays you.

If we guess at mortgage £800, power £150, CT £200, house insurance £40, TV licence £20 that's £1210 plus £1000

So he pays £2210 to your £1500.

That's quite unbalanced.

£283 - car finance - your car and DH pays his own?
£45 - car insurance
£150 - eating out - assume DH gets his fair share?
£80 - one-off physio appointment - for you?
£60 transport - assume he pays his own
£3.80 charity
£48 - critical illness insurance - does he pay his own?
£36 - gift
£3.60 - Halloween activity

Assuming this is all yours and he pays his own, otherwise it needs to move up there.

£100 - withdrawn at cashpoint. Can’t remember this at all, wonder if it was to buy something 2nd hand for the kids off Marketplace etc.
£95 - SumUp - no idea what this was substantively
£4.60 x2 - google cloud - no idea why x2

Obv this is what you need to get a handle on. The stuff you spend without noticing.

You should both be putting something into savings on that joint income. You need to sit down and work out all your shared costs and split them better. Then look at whether your disposable income affords you the same life given you're part time to facilitate his share of three kids childcare too. Or look at going full time.

Lol her mortgage is £3500 not £800

Me and DH don't have a joint account but we each pay for various joint expenses.

It seems ridiculous that with a household income of nearly 11k/month you are going into your overdraft and paying £20 interest on it. Surely his income would cover the shortfall?

he pays for other things too (holidays, fuel, basically anything he is asked to).

He what? He doesn't just contribute fairly to the household, but pays for certain items if he is asked to?

That's your issue, way before juggling with details of your spending.

He's not sharing fairly
Your mortgage is huge
Food can be cut if your DC are that young

Main part of the problem is the OP is spending too much money and doesn't even seem to know what she's spending it on!

Why the heck are you paying overdraft fees? and how much is the loan and interest on the loan?

Your DH has £8,500 coming in each month, and you've got £2,300 coming in - fucking hell - that's £10,800 in one month!!

Sit down with a calculator after you've been through all the direct debits/bills for one month and work it out. It's surely not that hard.

The mortgage is 3500

Thanks @SleepingStandingUp , that is a helpful breakdown.

car finance - your car and DH pays his own?

No, it’s ours collectively. It ended up in my name because at the time we took the lease out DH had some other large ongoing expense in his name and we weren’t sure about his credit (can’t remember what the thing was), so the car came to me.

Pool. Your. Fucking. Money.