Please HELP

[mysonandi]

hi,
I'm new here, I found this as I was researching on the internet about money and costs of everything.

I'm a soon to be single mum of a 5-year-old boy. I'm going to stay with my son in the family home and dh will move out. I have been notorious with money over the years and I never had to think about it. Ex and I were discussing budgets -two households to run on one income until for a while -Im also looking for work but I don't know long it's going to take.

I own the house we live in, my parents had bought it for us so no rent/mortgage.

I am absolutely clueless as to what is reasonable expenses for an adult and a child per month including electricity/gas, food bills, clothes etc.

Can someone please help me??

Thank you

Without wanting to be unhelpful, no-one can really answer that as things like utilities/ council tax hugely depend on how big your house is, what appliances you use, and where you live.

You must have the old bills somewhere so why don't you just get them out, look through them and work it out on that basis. Also, presumably you;ve been to the supermarket in the last year. What do you spend? Divide by 3 and multiply by 2 and you've got your budget. Then put it all in an excel spreadsheet.

oh, I'm sorry if I haven't made myself clear. I can work our how much I spend now, I need to know how much is reasonable to ask, considering ex will now have to pay rent and seperate council tax plus bills. I obviously don't want either party to suffer.

I'm also trying to work out what i'm entitled to, I have found a couple of sites to do that, but ex isn't entitled to anything -no council tax discount, I'm getting the child benefit. I don't know if he qualifies for TC given that he'll be the NRP, I'm obviously not as not working.

So my question actually is how much do you think is reasonable to spend on an adult and a 5 year old who live rent/mortgage free.

I take your point about council tax, so let's exclude that.

there are figures held by money advice agencies which will tell you what is reasonable - try calling CAB or any other free money advice agency in your area. Also try calling the CSA to find out what he's legally obliged to contribute.

You can claim income support when you are a single parent so don't forget to take this into account - again a good local money advice agency will be able to tell you how much you'd be entitled to

your ex will be entitled to council tax discount if he is living alone, as will you (but if youre not working im guessing you'll get CT benefit anyway)

I dont understand what you want to know really?

thank you guys, I'll look into all that.

I suppose I wanted to know how much other people spend to bring up a child alone. As it is I spend about 120 -150 a week on groceries, which I know is unneccessary, plus cute little clothes for DS that he doesn't always need. And the extra pair of boots for me just because.

I used to be on a very high income before DS, so there are still some savings (ony about 2000 now, as I have been wasting money like it was water). I am now remorseful and wish I knew better.

Probably looking for average figures...

Apologies if I'm not making sense, it's my first time here...

thank you but I have been well established in my secotr in the past and will try to get back into the same proffession.