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£100 - withdrawn at cashpoint.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?

I cook from scratch too and we spend £100-£150 a week for two of us. We probably could get down to £60 with some very careful planning, basic meals and repetition but unless you're on the breadline, that's not what a normal diet costs.

We always total our joint income, take off bills/expenses, allocate some for saving and split the rest. It is the only fair way to do. You both know what is coming in, going out and how much you each have.

I know our combined income is high (hell, there are plenty of families for whom my solo income would represent a big uplift) so I feel like going into overdraft every month should happen when if we blow out at Christmas or go nuts in a high end store

Do you mean 'shouldn't'? That's my take from this thread. How on earth a family that has a monthly income of £10/11k needs to borrow money to pay for what should be minor ups and downs in spending.

Our income is about half yours, but we don't have to save for things like holidays, car insurance, Christmas etc, it's all just paid on credit card which introduces some delays/smoothing in expenses and it all just comes out of our current account each month.

But the big gap seems to be in what your DH isn't putting into the household pot, which suggests that he's spending/saving a lot that you're not seeing/accounting for.

As you're working PT to look after DC, all assets would be considered to be joint, should you divorce, so him building up savings in his own name might not be such a worry, but you really should top up your pension and have some savings in your own name so that things are more equal. It's also ludicrous that you're getting into debt so paying interest instead of earning it, when there is so much money coming into the household.

@ButterMyParsnip Then I'm genuinely puzzled. I shop in tesco.

This week suppers have been/will be

• homemade beef burgers in wholemeal rolls (2 each), ds with cheese, + salad
• breaded haddock with oven chips, peas & sweetcorn
• chicken fajhitas (2 each) with grilled tomatoes, mushrooms & salad
• Sweet peppers stuffed with parslied sausagemeat, garlic bread and french beans
• cheese & tomato omelettes & chips (quick evening, going out)
• pork kebabs with mustard mash and veg
• Friday - ds - pizza, me seafood risotto with fennel.

Snacks are cereal bars, assorted fruit. Breakfast is toast or porridge & fruit.

Are you saying that's not normal?

I think the issue @MintJulia is that some people see very expensive items as 'basics'.

Eggs can cost about 20 pence each for the mixed size free range. Or if you buy Burford Browns, they're about 60 p each.

Is your salad made from iceberg lettuce, carrots and cucumber, where you could make a huge bowl with leftovers for about £2, or is it heritage tomatoes, mixed leaves and organic cucumber, so about 3 times the price.

Waitrose charge anything between 60 p and £6 a kilo for fresh potatoes, depending on what you buy

Fish fresh from the counter at Waitrose or from the freezer at Tesco at a third of the price.

etc etc.

The meals these items make look the same or very similar, but the difference in cost can be enormous.

Thanks all. @MintJulia you’re my ideal here - proper meals that sound great cooked without mad spending.

I sat down with DH yesterday (I actually just showed him the thread). He did the same exercise with his spending. Food is vv high. It’s quite ridiculous - when you add in his top up shops and work lunches it’s north of £1,000 which I’m not happy with - and that’s not accounting for the significant quantities my work usually lands us with. So that needs change imo, it’s outrageous. We agreed a joint account for things, and I will get a separate personal credit card for work expenses. There may be more.

Yeah I think @BarbaraofSeville has hit the nail on the head there.

I do mostly buy basic veg but all the other bits add up and aren't always the cheapest option. We buy Burford brown eggs. Lots of things in our store cupboard are expensive and although we don't buy them every week, there are always a few things that need replacing.

We needed to replace our good olive oil for the first time in months £10.75, we also needed to replace the rose harissa for another dish £3ish, and we were out of grana pandano cheese £3ish

We had fajitas too and it includes extras like red onion pickled in lime juice, mayocrema (mayo, sour cream and lime), homemade salsa (orange, lime, pepper,chilli, garlic). They're extras that could be left off but they make the dish better so I'd rather spend the money.

Ah, so it's you who buys 'red onion pickled in lime juice' @ButterMyParsnip

I did wonder who on earth bought that. Isn't it just sliced red onion in lime juice? We have bottled lime juice permanently on the go (about 50 p in Aldi) and just make our own for pennies a time. Keeps in the fridge for a couple of weeks at least.

Off topic but @MintJulia ’s menu this week sounds amazing!

Your spending doesn’t look extravagant to me at all tbh. Agree, just pool everything with DH. Sounds like the reno has hit you hard and the mortgage payments are causing you both to feel the pinch - if all of that is a change to your usual circumstances then you both just need to regroup

You asked where to start? I would suggest you start by getting an overview / good understanding of your joint income, outgoings, assets and debts. You also need a clear understanding of insurance and pension contributions / how much pension you have each built up to date.

A snapshot of a month where your DH has paid for an expensive holiday is a smokescreen. You need Excel sheets with everything detailed month by month, with regular reviews, e.g. when he receives bonuses or either of you receive a pay increase.

My hunch is that he is not paying his fair share. Looking at your list I couldn’t see haircuts, personal expenditure on clothes, dentist, pension contributions, savings and investments. I see you listing costs, but his lunches (and lots of other things) are not detailed.

Drop the somewhat helpless dizzy parent child dynamic. If you were going into a business meeting you wouldn’t list the same item twice, take the same care with your personal finances. Likewise you need a set up that you don’t need to ask him for more money because you will have enough because he will be paying his fair share.

Oh no, I buy a red onion and lime. I just didn't list ingredients because they were more obvious. I'm not sure who buys the pre-made stuff either. Maybe someone who hates slicing onions 🤷🏻‍♀️

he earns 8500 per month and you’re worrying about money????????????

You have over £10k pm household income and you're paying overdraft interest...seriously?

How ridiculous.

Start paying yourself, firstly £300 extra off the credit card debt on every pay day. Then when CC is paid off into a savings account. Doubtful the loan can be paid early without penalty.

food costs are as you say high. Plan the 21 meals for the week, including extra milk and bread in the freezer and ditch the top ups. Top up shops are expensive, as you pop in for one item and come out with 10 and £30 lighter each time. 10 top up shops can easily cost £300

Doubtful the loan can be paid early without penalty

You usually can, the interest charged will be less than letting it run to term but whether its worth doing will depend on the rate. Before rates went up, you could get personal loans under 3% so if it's one of these the cost is lower than savings but you might want to pay it off to reduce monthly outgoings.

Top up shops aren't necessarily more expensive. We never do a regular weekly shop and are perfectly capable of buying milk and whatever is actually needed for the next couple of days without spending £30 on stuff we don't need and it means we get to look at the reduced counter regularly.

Your husband is financially abusive and depriving your family

HTH

Your last update seems sensible. You really do just need a joint budget as your fixed costs (mortgage and childcare) are high so even though you’re high earners you will still need to budget and work through what you want to save, pension contributions, how to manage cash flow for your expenses etc. but also importantly what your future financial goals are and how you will get their together. Eg do you want to retire early, would you rather prioritise holidays, do you want to consider private school etc.