Can't save- need ideas!

[7catsforthewin]

Hi there,

So a bit about our situation: we have a mortgage of £185k on a £400k house (worth more now).
Collectively my husband and I earn around £78k with me working part time. Have 2 kids aged 8 and 3 so £300 on nursery fees each month. We have pets so insurance, treatments etc amounts to £400 a month (two are very old!).
We have £10k in easy access savings account and children have £20k each in ISAs from inheritance but each month we just dip in and next month pay it back up!

I'm just not sure how we aren't able to save. We do two cheap UK holidays a year (one a long weekend). Food is extortionate especially feeding our two kids with multiple allergies.

Just feeling like a failure that we aren't able to save and so many of our peers go on multiple abroad holidays and seem to be able to save large amounts each month (we live in south east where many commute to London). I am thankful that my work means no after school or before school wrap around care is needed and we have no other debts apart from mortgage but I worry £10k can be wiped out very quickly.

Any tips???

Cat insurance is an absolute waste of money, particularly for more senior cats, and we've never insured ours. We just pay the vet bills when they happen. How much in the way of insurance premiums have you already paid, and how many times have you ever actually had to claim on that pet insurance?

I can pretty much guarantee that you will have paid far more in premiums than you've ever got back in claims.

I think you would spend £400 a month on medication if the tax payer didn't do it. Or would you just take to your bed and wait for death?

Your issue is the 400 a month spent on pets. 78k is not a high family income for a family of 4 and 400 a month on pets means sacrificing quite a lot of other stuff realistically

I'd agree with this. I wouldn't put senior pets through the discomfort of protracted treatments and medications that they wouldn't understand, it's far kinder and more dignified to PTS.
And with that stance, ive never paid for pet insurance. Small costs here and there we just cover, but if a pet was diagnosed with some awful chronic condition or seriously injured and needing complex surgery to even survive, we would PTS rather than put them through pain or indignity.

I don’t think any family saves when they had a kid in nursery. We certainly didn’t! Dh and I worked 70 hours a week and had enough for mortgage and bills, plus we had a lodger. No gym, one short uk holiday a year, no pets, one TV subscription, cheap phones.

It is totally unreasonable to expect to afford all this stuff. I expect some of your friends are in debt…

How much are your monthly mortgage repayments? I was talking to someone recently who only pays £450 per month mortgage - blew me away (ours is more than double that). Sometimes we compare ourselves to people who seem like us but actually have very different outgoings.

Edited to add: I use YNAB to manage our money and it's been a gamechanger for me. I allocate savings as soon as we get paid and they're gone from the account before I even notice.

Really really don't beat yourselves up because you have got savings, you may feel it isn't good enough but something like 50% of people don't have more than £1000 in savings - I think you'll be ahead of most people, having isas for the kids and 10k saved is 50k. Well done! So many are in debt or live hand to mouth. 50k is great. I understand what you're saying though, I'd write down what it all goes on, what could you cut, even if it's £10 a week could something go and then get one of those locked for a year accounts perhaps so that it's not in an easy access place?

Please don’t be badgered into cancelling your pets’ insurance. I can’t believe everyone’s answers are basically ‘kill your cats if they get sick or injured’. You can afford the insurance from your wages, you have £50k in savings and you won’t have neither the cats nor the childcare fees forever. I’d live off scraps before I let anything happen to my dog, and I can’t imagine a world where there’d be something I could fix but chose not to because I was too tight to spend money I could afford.

Allergy parent here. It sounds like there is scope to save money here. What snacks do they like? What allergy friendly foods are you finding particularly expensive?

exactly. It's nearly £5k a year.

If the £78k is your gross, rather than net income, then that's probably something like 8% of your entire income spent on pet insurance. That is insane. If you'd saved that for your DC instead that would be £100,000 by the time they're 21, enough to pay for uni fees or a very decent house deposit each.

And that's just insurance, dread to think how much you spend on food etc for seven of them. What do you do when you go away?

I can't see how having 7 is significantly more beneficial to your DS than having 1 or 2. At the end of the day if his special interest was dolphins or ferraris you wouldn't be able to just buy a few of them!

So, yes, I'd stop the insurance and put it in savings instead. If something happens to the cats you can decide then whether it's worth paying for treatment or not. Honestly, personally I'd try and rehome at least some of them but doubt you're willing to do that - but at least don't get anymore or replace them once one dies.

7 cats is a huge amount of cats, and spending £400 a month on them when you’re only on £78k a year and are struggling to save for yourselves and your DCs is insane. Cut cat spending to £100 a month and save £300.

Think very, very carefully before cancelling pet insurance. The insurance is exorbitant because vets fees are. You could find yourselves with a bill for thousands very easily and if your son loves them so much how are you going to feel putting one to sleep for cost reasons?

You've paid tens of thousands in insurance over the years and you're going to sacrifice the possibility of having it pay out when you might need it?

Because if you got sick there's an NHS and no one is going to put you to sleep to save the cost of treating you. If an animal gets sick they could be in line for vets fees of thousands.

Keep a receipt for everything that you buy as money just sneaks out to places.

go through your direct debits with a fine tooth comb. My husband was paying for mobile phone insurance for a phone he longer owned. It was £12 a month. Only small but adds up.

use cashback sites like Quidco to buy things like insurance if they are a good price.

having old pets can be expensive. Yes it would suck if they got poorly and no insurance but I put my old girl to sleep when she kept being sick after food. It was kinder.

Exactly this are they just going get more and more cats because the kid likes them I'm sure 2 would of been sufficient! I have 3 cats and feeding them isnt cheap either then there's cat litter etc its the cats or savings can't have both and cats can live 25 years +

Exactly what I thought.

I understand being ND but you shouldn't be getting him seven cats! Two would have sufficed.

Do a monthly budget and stick to it.
Strip back to basics I'm sure you are spending on stuff you didn't realise, food shopping is one area where you can save, shop in Lidi, stop buying branded items including clothes and toiletries, coffee pub visits, gym memberships etc. Cancel any subscriptions you don't t need. Only have 1 take out/meal out a month if you do go out.
I'd love £78k a, year to live on we have about half your income as a family of 4 it's so darn hard.

Also saying no to children is totally fine and develops character and resillience
My ND son would have loved a Shiba Inu dog but he's never having one as too expensive/hairy/tying and his brother is allergic!
Instead he walks one for a older lady

The one thing that's really helping me to save money is using cash. It might not be for everyone, but I feel much more accountable to myself if I can physically see what I'm spending. I also think much more if I spend cash rather than just tapping my phone or my card.
At the start of the month I get my weekly budget for all weeks, Sunday night I put next week's budget in my purse and removing the left overs from the current week.
What ever is left over is put into a box, all those amounts do add up. In the past I managed to save enough to buy an IPhone outright, but also use the money for "frivolities" like take aways.

Thank you for all the helpful responses.

I totally understand peoples opinions on the cats and all I can say is it brings our family so much happiness and trust me I have boundaries for our children. I was bought up with lots of animals (4 cats, 2 dogs and 2 hamsters for quite some time) and a lot of my happiest memories involve them. I think cancelling insurance and paying £400 a month into savings account makes sense as within a year its £4000+ and 3 years £12000+ which is good funds alone for pets let alone how much we would accumulate for 15+ years (youngest is 2)

Budgeting better food wise is definitely something I think will help. Meals are generally well planned and budgeted it's the top up snack shops that mount up. Need to be more conscious of these. Also gonna sell some kids bits on vinted.

Both children are same gender so youngest lives mainly in hand me downs and doesn't care atm.

They really only have 10K savings as the 20K for kids was an inheritance and neither they nor the children can touch it until they are 18 they are managing it for the kids it is not available even in a crisis

however you definitely can't afford to be adding to kids savings while your own savings are relatively low
10K is a decent emergency fund and more than most parents of young kids have; it's approx 2 months take home pay and probably 3 months bare bones budget ( ie mortgage council tax, food utilties and transport to work / nurserywith no clothes no gym no eating out, treats or holidays etc
roughly half UK could not fund a £1000 emergency, you have enough for most common emergencies boiler breaking down washing machine dying, car needing a new clutch or some other expensive repairs

I think the main problem is you are budgetting for fixed costs like mortgage gas electric phones broadband maybe holidays and christmas but not for all the incidentals like clothes treats coffee out takeaways presents for friends parties new tyres or brake pads for car, house and garden maintennace

I believe in paying into savings at beginning of month like it was a bill, also you could resolve that any payrise this year goes straight to savings just to build a better buffer, think what amount of savings at this time of life would make you feel more secure for example 20K emergency and enough to buy a new to you car if anything happened to current vehicle. What a good sum of savings is just now is vastly different to what is a good sum in 20-30 years as you approach retirement so don't panic but do try to live below your means every single month of the year

Well it’s £5k on animals… that would be a healthy yearly saving. however you want animals so will have to forgo the savings.

Allergies wise it's insane- egg, legumes, enumbers, courgette, melon... It's a long list between them but it is what it is.

Are these the allergies? If so then hold my beer! (Although I can’t drink it) 😂 It’s as expensive as you make it. Avoid rather than replicate. Free from food costs lots for really awful rubbish.

Also, go down to one holiday while you have nursery fees and elderly pets.

Go through your spending and cut right back for a bit.

what horrible comments about your pets - oh well if they ill just PTS!!!! Jesus - my pet insurance would be the last thing I cancelled - holidays are not a necessity