How much income do you need to support a family???

jellyhead

like lillibet we do fine on 1500 a month, 1547 now as he just got a payrise. our mortgage is only £450 but we're repaying his student loan and some other student debts and we just took out a 23k loan for a house extension as there's no room for the baby in our little shoebox so the majority of our outgoings are for mortgage, loan and old debts. i don't repay my student loans, we only have one car, we don't smoke, we have cheap broadband and only the basic TV package (can't afford movies, not interested in sport) and we both have cheap phones on virgin pay as you go. indulgences include £14.99 per month DVD rental and theme parks (the family hobby). holidays are caravan ones using tokens from the tabloids, days out are free using tokens from one of the tabloids (i forget which one, we don't buy them daily we just buy them when we want an offer but one of them gives a batch of free tickets for drayton manor, legoland, southport, american adventure and others) and tesco clubcard deals.

i do my shopping on a cashback credit card and repay it in full each month. must admit i don't spend as much as those who've posted on here, £400 for a family of 4 seems a lot to me, even if you buy disposable nappies.

up to you how much you want to spend. my sister complains of being skint but they have mobile phone contracts and the whole sky package and she would feel hard done by if she had to go without new clothes/shoes each week/month. i'm not a girly girl and don't feel the 'shopping' urge that many women feel. i can manage on a lot less than she can, it's all about priorities, her boyfriend earns more than my husband but she still needs to work.

also don't forget that the tax credits and child benefit. for 2 children it's £113 a month or £1356 a year and if your salary is under 56k a year you should get some tax credits. on my husband's salary of 24 and a bit we get £547.50 a year and an extra £547.50 for the baby's first year after which it drops back to the £547.50 a year we got with just one child.

kiwichick

jellyhead wrote:

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i do my shopping on a cashback credit card and repay it in full each month. must admit i don't spend as much as those who've posted on here, £400 for a family of 4 seems a lot to me, even if you buy disposable nappies.
up to you how much you want to spend.

Hiya,

I agree, £400is a lot for me to spend. I am knew to this though and in Sept we spent £543 for our groceries :eek: so I think I am getting better at cutting down. Last month was £412 so am hoping to get in under £400 this month.

Have got a slow cooker now so am cooking 3 or 4 meals at once in there and freezing, warming in microwave so no oven heating. No more crisps, sweets biccies for the kids. Likewise rubbish chicken nuggets etc, I now make all my own and though its a struggle they areslowly coming around to my way of thinking.

OH is the BIG problem, "Why do you need a shopping budget?" was his VERY unhelpful respsonse to my moneysaving efforts.

Hopefully when he sees that our overdraft is slowly reducing and that the CC has been paid off he will appreciate my efforts a little more.

I'm proud of myself in any case and feel a much better mum knowing my kids are learning this from me.

Heres hoping next months budgetwill be even less
Al.

jellyhead

congrats :-)

are you using vouchers to get money off your shopping? my asda will take ten percent as long as they stock the product on the voucher so i try to always have a fiver or so in vouchers when i go shopping. i've joined pampers and huggies, organix etc. so they send vouchers out from time to time and i make the most of zing magazine. i also 'buy' vouchers such as buying best mag when the coupons are worth more than the 70p cost of the mag (this week for example) and i buy vouchers off ebay sometimes, i am happy to pay 5 for 10 in vouchers, it still means i save 5. if i'm buying in boots and the machine offers me extra points on a total spend i will buy huggies pull up trial packs to make my purchase up to the value where i get the extra points, the trial packs are 99p and include a £1 voucher which i use in asda. there are also some packets of velvet toilet rolls at £1.68 with a £1 coupon on the front for your next purchase, buying those effectively makes your loo roll cost 68p.

this saves me up to ten percent on my shopping which is especially useful if i buy clothes (at the checkout, george counters don't take vouchers) and if you return the clothes you've still had the discount from the coupons but you get the full cost of the clothes refunded. sorry if this has gone off topic, most people don't know they can use coupons for things they haven't bought though, my mum throws magazines away without cutting out the coupons, most mags have a 30p comfort pure voucher in at the moment as they're advertising heavily. i bought prima baby this month for the free baby songs CD and the sendaway buggy book (99p postage though) and the mag had a 30p comfort coupon and a 75p corsodyl one. my baby loves the CD so it was worth buying the mag just for that. there are forms in there for joining organix and heinz tinytums too.

kiwichick

I do use coupons when I shop instore, butat the mo I am having Tesco deliver and getting either extra points or money off from evouchers. I have been saving my tesco points for a new bed at MFI in the new year sales. So far I have over £300 of deal tokens toward it. OH and I both suffer with backprtobsso thismeanswecan get a really good supportive bedwithout the earth for it.

Thanks for the Boots tips though, hadnt realised about the huggies. And themagstoo, which are usually the best.I have about £12 worthofdifferent coupons at themo in my purse so might shop instore toward the end of the month and use them.

Thanks,
Al.

ms_london

Tom_Saunders wrote:

We can all scrimp and save but life shouldn't be like that, thank christ for credit cards and overtime.

You should be able to live WITHIN your means though & spending on credit doesnt come into that.

I am debt free (as of today) (paid off £19,000)... now I dont have the worry hanging over me, for example, if I were to lose my job I know I would need X amount for my rent, bills, but not have to worry about another X for credit cards, store cards, loan, overdraft etc etc.

Life is too short, and life is more important that money, however, there is a balance. Like the new Ikea advert says "If you spend less, you can work less" (or along those lines...).

I totally agree and dont want to HAVE to work to LIVE.

jellyhead

woohoo! congratulations for today :-)

ms_london

jellyhead wrote:

woohoo! congratulations for today :-)

Thank you, its fab isnt it. Yippee!! Still on a budget this month until next payday, when the money will be mine, mine, mine :0) I'll probably save all of it though.....

Sarahsaver

When I was on income support I was happier with my lot than working as a teacher getting 23k a year. I got to see my kids, had time to think about meals, time to shop around. Everything was important because every penny mattered. And the ex husband who was bringing home nearly 20k hardly made any difference at all, that went mostly where he wanted it to.
Poor in money but rich because I have 3 beautiful clever children.

ms_london

Sarahsaver wrote:

When I was on income support I was happier with my lot than working as a teacher getting 23k a year. I got to see my kids, had time to think about meals, time to shop around. Everything was important because every penny mattered. And the ex husband who was bringing home nearly 20k hardly made any difference at all, that went mostly where he wanted it to.
Poor in money but rich because I have 3 beautiful clever children.

I completely agree with you Sarah (even though im single and have no kids) I agree with you on how things like that matter more than ££££, and earning so much a year. xx

skintchick

Just wanted to quote this from earlier:

My wife doesn't work (we dont have kids yet), our mortgage is £260pm, I earn just over £30k and we have a good standard of living. Mind you we don't bother going out much

£30k is loads! Surely you can go out on that kind of salary? I earn £20k, mortgage is £312.41, and OK I'm single but even so, and extra £10k a year has got to make a difference surely?

Sorry it's OT but it shocked me is all.