£200 a week family of 5?

scottishblondie

z1a wrote: »

We have 2 kids, 13 & 7 Y.O. and have about £550/week after bills, and we can't save on a weekly basis, struggle to save for hols etc.

I think you need to take a look at budgeting more strictly - if you spend £550 a week after bills that's £28600 a year, which is more than I even earn after tax etc! I'd suggest you start a spending diary, and fill out an honest statement of affairs to see where it is all going.

jennifernil

I am speechless!

We have about £30k annually after taxes. From that we pay £3k council tax and water, £1800 gas and electricity, telephone, TV, broadband, cover house insurance, caravan insurance, car running and insurance, clothes, gifts, repairs and replacements, food etc (and we eat well), save £200 pcm for our grandchildren, go on holiday for 3 months each year, for which we budget £6k, and still have about £8k left each year to save.

We live well and don't scrimp . What on earth do you spend £550 per week on????

z1a

After checking, I'm actually worse than I thought with money;

My weekly income = £547 net. Wifes weekly income = £201 net. + Family allowance £33 = A total of £781 / week = £3382 / month.
My monthly outgoings are;
Mortgage £345
Poll tax £115
Gas & Electric £150
Car ins. £48
House ins. £26
Travel ins. £8
Water £22
Cable / BB / phone £72
TV Licence £13
Mobiles £30

A total of £829 = £191/week.
leaving £590 out of which we spend about £120 on main shop, £45 on lotteries, and £40 petrol, which means we are still spending about £385 a week on incidental items!!:eek:
No debts either, apart from mortgage.
Definitely need to find out where it's going apart from the £100 + on fags, will work on that one first.

platterfish

z1a wrote: »

After checking, I'm actually worse than I thought with money;

My weekly income = £547 net. Wifes weekly income = £201 net. + Family allowance £33 = A total of £781 / week = £3382 / month.
My monthly outgoings are;
Mortgage £345
Poll tax £115
Gas & Electric £150
Car ins. £48
House ins. £26
Travel ins. £8
Water £22
Cable / BB / phone £72
TV Licence £13
Mobiles £30

A total of £829 = £191/week.
leaving £590 out of which we spend about £120 on main shop, £45 on lotteries, and £40 petrol, which means we are still spending about £385 a week on incidental items!!:eek:
No debts either, apart from mortgage.
Definitely need to find out where it's going apart from the £100 + on fags, will work on that one first.

You struggle on £40,584 a year for your family of 4? Wow. Definitley need to start budgeting, be strict with yourself.

DarnIt_3

I don't think £200 a week is a lot to feed and enterain a family of 5, let alone cover fuel.

A spending diary is a good idea though. Keep all your receipts that way you know that you exactly what you spent.

Spendless

sudored wrote: »

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

School dinners can be expensive if you have more than 1 child on them. It would cost me over £160 per month for 2 kids, that's my 3rd highest monthly bill,after mortgage and family grocery shoping. I put my youngest with a small apetite on packed lunches. I pick up items in place like Home Bargains. I also echo what someone else has said, head over to the old style board for tips on making your money stretch further. Also, meal plan based on what you have in your cupboards before you go shopping.

Petrol costs, is that purely to and from work? Can anything be changed here, walking, cycling?

MrandMrsB

z1a wrote: »

After checking, I'm actually worse than I thought with money;

My weekly income = £547 net. Wifes weekly income = £201 net. + Family allowance £33 = A total of £781 / week = £3382 / month.
My monthly outgoings are;
Mortgage £345
Poll tax £115
Gas & Electric £150
Car ins. £48
House ins. £26
Travel ins. £8
Water £22
Cable / BB / phone £72
TV Licence £13
Mobiles £30

A total of £829 = £191/week.
leaving £590 out of which we spend about £120 on main shop, £45 on lotteries, and £40 petrol, which means we are still spending about £385 a week on incidental items!!:eek:
No debts either, apart from mortgage.
Definitely need to find out where it's going apart from the £100 + on fags, will work on that one first.

If I were you I would stick some photos of starving children from so called 3rd world countries on the walls, that way you won't forget how fortunate you are!

Another idea is to give the lottery money away - that's enough to sponsor 8 children via World Vision, which would give you far more pleasure than gambling the money (honestly).......you will be able to watch them growing up via their letters / drawings. It would permanently improve the lives of each child and their communities (education, clean water, enough food, etc). Instead of using it to shorten your lives, again you could donate your "fag money" to charity. If you really do spend £145 a week (?) on fags and lottery (is this possible or is it a wind up?) that's enough money to sponsor 27 children!!

At present Mr B and I spend less than £200 a week on everything, and my pensioner neighbours spend £150 per week on everything - car, bills, food, presents for the grandchildren, donations to charity, maintaining their home - we live in lovely detached houses with land. We all have everything we could ever wish for, which means we never want holidays.

Best wishes,

Mrs B.

PS If you are still receiving poll tax bills somebody is conning you!!

z1a

"If I were you I would stick some photos of starving children from so called 3rd world countries on the walls, that way you won't forget how fortunate you are!"

I don't give a hoot about "3rd world" countries - they keep breeding - their problem not mine.

I don't mind giving to charities, but only in this country.

Jariya

I'm just a newbie here..hello all.

I live alone and my food bills are around £20 per week.
My bills used to be an awful lot more as I used to eat a fair few ready meals years ago - I stopped doing that around 8 years ago and even if I go and look at them I am stunned by how much they cost these days!

A couple of things I did were to switch straight away to smoking roll ups once I was struggling money wise as it saves a fortune. I couldn't even roll a cigarette at first..but I can now.I also smoke less now than I used to as it's not as convenient to stop and roll.
A friend of mine pre-rolls and puts then in an old cigarette packet so unless she offeres one you have no idea she's smoking a roll up.

I work quite long hours and when I get in I don't want to spend ages putting a meal together so I bought a slow cooker.
They come in varying sizes but I get around about 8 meals out of my small slow cooker.
It costs as much as a light bulb to run for the eight hours or so of cooking time and the meat turns out beautifully cooked and tender - you can buy cheaper cuts of meat as it cooks so well.

Allso, if I like a particular sauce or ready meal I buy one..just for the ingredients list. I've done this quite a few times now and I use the ingredients list as a recipe card.
I did have to make an 'investment' on buying spices (but you can get spices online in bulk cheaply)..once I had the spices I was set up to make the ready meal I liked myself.
I wing it a bit - and guess. The higher something is on the ingredients list the more of it you use and a lot of the things on teh ingredients list are not necessary for making something taste the same yourself so I just ignore when there's some technical name on the list.

I can make my own ready meal for about £1.50 max which would cost me £5 in a shop.

I do the same thing with packet sauces and jars of sauce that I like too.

Just a few ideas there maybe.

The £150 on school dinners does seem a lot as that's £2.50 per day per child - packed lunches would be cheaper.

Can anyone tell me (me being a newbie) where I find the old style forum that some have mentioned on here please?

Vaila

Jariya wrote: »

I'm just a newbie here..hello all.
Can anyone tell me (me being a newbie) where I find the old style forum that some have mentioned on here please?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=33