£200 a week family of 5?

sudored

2 adults 3 children aged 3,4,5.
after all bills are paid we are left with £200 for food petrol(£30) and general living a week.
my sister says thats a lot but we struggle, would anyone else struggle on that amount ?

property.advert

Perhaps you need to isolate your "general living" as that is presumably where you lose a lot of your £200 each week.

SOA required.

nickyhutch

sudored wrote: »

2 adults 3 children aged 3,4,5.
after all bills are paid we are left with £200 for food petrol(£30) and general living a week.
my sister says thats a lot but we struggle, would anyone else struggle on that amount ?

Depends what you include in "general living", really.

ian_h

After all your bills are paid just food/petrol and general living costs I agree with your sister thats a LOT, you should do a money diary for a couple of weeks and see where it all goes, then you can identify the areas where you can save - for example you can save a lot by switching supermarkets ( we now shop pretty much exclusively at aldi something i never dreamt i would say but the savings and the quality make it a no brainer) or downshifting and things like packed lunches all help too.

sudored

school dinners come out of bills account but thats £150 a month alone not out off the £200 a week.
anyone ever tried meal rotas? do they help keep food costs down?
clothing dont come out of £200 a week that's separate.

£200
food
toiletries
petrol £30

we have been shopping at netto for a few months but seem to be always eating same food.
i suppose a food rota would help with that

VfM4meplse

There are loads of great MSE ideas on the old-style money saving forum, take a look if you haven't already.

paulmcerlean

Whilst its not a huge amount to live on, considering the amount doesnt include some of the things you mentioned are paid for from a bills account, you should certainly be managing OK.

Lith

You also need to budget on food,

like tesco/adsa... maybe try going cheaper places?

pinkdalek

Use your supermarkets eg Asda/Morrisons/Tesco for your groceries, day to day food. I prefer Morrisons for food shopping, you get good offers but are not tempted to spend money on other items eg clothes!!!

Then consider shopping for your toiletries, washing liquids, cleaning stuff elsewhere -

Have you a B&M Bargains locally? Were I live we seem to have them all over and you can pick up lots of homeware stuff there very cheap.

Aldi/Lidl too offer good prices for your cleaning stuff and washing up powder etc.

Also try Bodycare/Grahams for your toiletries as I tend to notice they are cheaper still.

But the other thing to consider is are all these nearby, what you save in one hand is going to cost you in fuel travelling about. I'm fortunate to live in an area that has all these stores within easy access to each other.

michaels

Similar family we spend 100 per week on food/toiletries and shop in Sains/Tesco/Asda/Morisons/Ocado/Aldi/Lidl (probably about 3 of these each week) who ever has the best deal, buying things like formula/nappies/shower gel etc in bulk when they are bogof.

Biggest money wasters are impulse purchases (food on street rather than at home, drinks etc) so we try to avoid these - I always like to carry very little cash and always use a credit card as you feel silly buying a packet of crisps for 40p with a card whereas eating the same packet from a multipack from home only costs 10p.

jalaneme

sudored wrote: »

2 adults 3 children aged 3,4,5.
after all bills are paid we are left with £200 for food petrol(£30) and general living a week.
my sister says thats a lot but we struggle, would anyone else struggle on that amount ?

that is definitely not enough in this day and age, me and my partner have to spend over £200 a week in food just for the 2 of us, £200 for 2 adults and 3 children? you must be really struggling.