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

gingerdad

It is amazing the defference people can and do live on, in our case wife was earning twice the amount i was when she gave up work, and my salary has been up to our previous joint income, but now down again, due to wanting a life and not spening it in the car. We have a budget of 1700 a month, which includes various savings, if we cut out the lux and savings it comes down to about 1100, as a bear min, but we do have a low mortatage. (it should say we have two children 4 and 3)

We run the present box and also buy cards through the year, and it works wonders ,as DW has just worked out what we still need for christmas, and it's only 4 presents (mine and hers and the main ones for the kids) she has everything else.

My answer to the OP is you can survive on what you want to, and if its important you can survive on a lot less.

We are lucky I have a good job and wife now works part time (and is a teacher) so gets the holidays. and we have MIL who picks littlest one upfrom nursary till mum gets home an hour later.

And we know we have a nice lifestyle and will if we need to cut loads out. my only whish is we could survive with one car..... but as we both work 20 miles away it dosent work, i did work out i could use public transport to get to work but would cost me 8.00 each way a day and take nearly 2 and 1/2 hours (including waiting time as it would be at least 3 and possibly 4 buses) so gave up on that one. (we do live in a semi-rural area and the bus fare to the next village 1 mile away is 2.50 each way and they wonder why there's never any passengers on it)

GD

jellyhead

my son gets a range of presents at his parties and he really doesn't care if some people have only spent a pound or two, or even not given him anything (this happens sometimes). sometimes expensive looking presents are cheap, i have been thanked for giving geomag as gifts but it was really cheap in 'the works' - i didn't pay full price for it. the post office were selling barbie and sindy dolls for £2.99 and i bought those, they are branded dolls and nobody thought that i'd only paid £2.99 for them.

the only time my son was unhappy with a birthday gift was when he was given a doll! the mum thought my sons name was a girls name lol!

patchwork_cat

Hi
Jellyhead you mentioned a lot of coupons is their a thread on this forum that lists things like the toilet rolls with money offs inside if not then we could pool our hours spent trawling as MSE'rs.
I also think it is a matter of thought about pressies my 8 yr old daughter was only dissapointed with 1 pressie a body shop 60 ml bubble bath and 2 fruit soaps - she has chronic eczema and can't use anything like that.

thanks
Patch

jellyhead

these voucher sources are usually mentioned separately in the voucher section. i agree a thread would be a good idea but then the vouchers come and go so quickly, pampers etc. are long term ones but toilet rolls only short term. also lots of people post about printable vouchers but nowhere here takes them. worth starting a thread though :-)

HappySad

Sarahsaver wrote:

never say never!
Unless you have a lot of debt or a big mortgage you CAN live on less than 20k.
It takes a big leap for some for example to shop at Primark instead of M&S, or a charity shop instead of new stuff.
When I grew up mum would never set foot in a charity shop, although she was from a poor background she didnt want to be reminded I think, I partly became so frugal as a rebellion against her! Dad was a moneysaver in the true old style, so also I wanted to be like him.
Also if you are used to ready meals you may not think it is possible to cook every day. Don't make all the changes at once...but the day when someone says 'your kids are fantastic' or 'that meal was lovely' 'how do you do it' or 'you always look so stylish' when you are head to toe in primark/jumble/carboot bargains you will know why you did it all. It all pays off. My kids value the things which really matter in life and they are not very materialistic at all:)
We need to turn our culture back to being prided on how much we save rather than how much we spend! I saved about 200 quid yesterday by switching my utilities supplier.

Hi Everyone. Just about half way in reading all of this thread.

I agree with Sarahsaver. I started to buy a lot of my clothes from second hand shops about 4-5 years ago. I bought my everyday clothes and clothes for my job in the office. I used to get complements on my suits and tops and I did not tell them that I got them from a second hand shop. If you are looking for good quality you can get it from Primart, M&S or a second hand shop... If you want to sick to the labels then just get the labels from the second hand shops. I like shopping second hand because I buy an outfit/top because I like the look and fit and not because it is from a particular label.

Being less materialistic is good for all our soles.

It can be supprising how little we can live on. I used to havea good wage when I was working and now I have to manage on a lot less now that i am not working.. but somehow you manage. you look at every single thing you spend your money on and decide if you want to spend it on that any more.

Using MSE has really saved my loads of money and I am hope to save even more money.

HappySad

When it comes to presents cheap or expansive is all the same. What matters to us is if the person put some effort into choosing the present and thinking who they were buying the present for. If they got the present at a reduced price then all the better.

What matters to use more is the time we spend with someone rather than the present they buy. So as long as they come to the party/gathering with nothing but their clothes, then we are more than happy.

Heard on the news that 2/3 of all presents given are not wanted. Better to give a card with a great message promising a future "date" to spend some quality time together doing something that you both enjoy.

westernpromise

Savvy_Sue wrote:

You stock up on cheap presents at bargain prices, BOGOFF and 3 for 2 offers etc. Books are good - Red House and The Book People sell 'multipacks' sometimes.

In other words, you make it look as if you have spent more than you actually have!

That's an excellent strategy, my OH does the same. You can often get things like books and basic toddler jigsaw puzzles for 2 pounds or so.

Crayons and colouring books are always appreciated and are also inexpensive.

skintchick

It is not about how much you spend - presents should be thoughtful and appropriate rather than expensive, IMHO.

And on the clothes subject - I went to a wedding on Friday wearing a second-hand dress from EVIE (Peacocks) bought off eBay for £13.75 plus P&P, cream shoes off eBay that cost under a tenner but are leather with a lovely leather rose detail on the buckle, a cream pashmina (very old) and everyone said I looked fab! People asked where it was all from and looked shocked when I said eBay!!

I spent under £20 on the outfit - and will wear it again on Nov 19 when my cousin gets married. You don't HAVE to spend loads.

westernpromise

jellyhead wrote:

sometimes expensive looking presents are cheap

Absolutely...was in Toys R Us the other week shopping for the nephew and came across something called K-Nex, which is a sort of Lego-like thing for building rockets and spaceships and stuff with. It was a big heavy box and I guessed it had to cost 30 quid...took it to the till to get it scanned and it was 9.99! Needless to say I bought it.

I have since started looking at stuff and saying to myself: OK, without cheating by looking at the price, how much do I think this ought to cost?

So far I'm amazingly bad at guessing. I thought KNex would 3 times what it was and a model railway station would be a third of what it was. Children have still less idea so if it looks good to you it will look fine to them.

jellyhead

it probably was 30 or more at full price, i remember buying a small box of k'nex for a cousin once and it was expensive for what it was (but it was what he wanted, i could only afford a tiny box though). home and bargain sell branded toys etc. at a fraction of the original price too.

toys aside, having children needn't be expensive, it's as expensive as you want it to be. when i had spud 9 years ago there was nowhere here to buy cheap baby clothes but now there's an asda and tesco. formula hasn't gone up i don't think and disposable nappies seem to be a lot cheaper. i said somewhere on an old thread that i intended for the baby to only cost the amount i'd get in child benefit for him (and the baby element of tax credits £547 for the year for buying maternity and baby equipment needed). i wasn't expecting to buy formula or disposable nappies (my baby outgrew the washables within a few weeks, they were supposed to last until he was around a year old - ooops!) but even so i think it can be done on the child benefit. clothes needn't be too expensive and you can always look at the charity shops or ebay. i buy bundles of clothes from ebay for him and have never been dissappointed. a lot of equipment you can buy cheaply in ikea or from kiddicare.com