Is anyone elses OH taking part of their paid maternity leave?

Raspberry_beret

I make the total per month £1758 (with £12 / month for TV license rather than £36) so, especially with your child benefit, it should be doable? Your shopping bill does seem high so I'm sure you could get nappies, milk (if needed) etc in with that and have some spare for the odd bottle of wine or take away. Would the diesel go down if your OH wasn't working? £205 seems quite a lot!

Your figures are pretty similar to ours actually and I'm 27 wks pregnant with my first baby. DH has his own business so can't take time off, unfortunately!

ETA I'm not factoring tax credits in to our finances at all because the limit goes down soon (April 2012 poss?). I think if you are earning over 26K per household, you will get nothing (for one child). See:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/TaxCredits/DG_194914

Gillyx

Raspberry_beret wrote: »

ETA I'm not factoring tax credits in to our finances at all because the limit goes down soon (April 2012 poss?). I think if you are earning over 26K per household, you will get nothing (for one child). See:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/TaxCredits/DG_194914

Was just about to make this point, about the threshold going down next year.

I would say £300 is high for groceries, we spend about £200 and we eat quite well I'd say, fresh meat, veg, fruit etc. I'm not a whoopsie shopper either so could probably bring this down even further if I tried.

We do an internet shop once a fortnight and then pick up bread/milk when needed from the corner shop and fruit/veg from the greengrocers once a week.

I find doing my shop online stops me over spending and I'm more likely to take things out my basket when I can see the total right there. Me and OH don't drink (obviously for me ) so we don't spend money on alcohol.

2522laura

I'll monitor my grocery spend this month then and see what it actually somes in at, hopefully I have over budgeted!

I cant believe they are putting tax credits down to £26k thats bloody rediculous!! How do they expect people to manage when they have a mortgage or rent to pay, £26k a year is nothing to live on when you have a family. I thought £40k was a bit on the unfare side if they are trying to encourage people to go out to work.

Lotus-eater

2522laura wrote: »

I cant believe they are putting tax credits down to £26k thats bloody rediculous!! How do they expect people to manage when they have a mortgage or rent to pay, £26k a year is nothing to live on when you have a family. I thought £40k was a bit on the unfare side if they are trying to encourage people to go out to work.

Benefits are there to help people in need, not to help everyone who works. Getting benefits at 26k is crazy, getting them at 40k is insane.

Gillyx

I suppose they have to cut off somewhere, I believe the threshold is higher if you have more children though, well that's what I got from that link, which I suppose is fair.

MrsManda

2522laura wrote: »

I'll monitor my grocery spend this month then and see what it actually somes in at, hopefully I have over budgeted!

Have you missed something on your budget or is my maths appalling? It seems to add up to £1758 not £2066.

It may be worth looking at the MSE budget planner mentioned in this week's email
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning#tools

We put as much of our expenditure as possible on to the credit card (paid off in full each month) and download the CC and Bank statements into Microsoft Money each month so we can see exactly what we've spent and where.
- I find it practically impossible to estimate how much we spend on what on a monthly basis.

Another way of doing it is having a box somewhere easily accessible but where it won't get knocked and emptying your purse/wallet/pockets of recipts every day. Then you can sit down at the end of the month and go through your expenditure.

2522laura

I wondered how long it would take for someone to bring that up. It makes my blood boil when people make comments like that, £26k in one area of the Country might go far but not everywhere.

Put yourself in the position of someone looking to buy their first house with a child on the way or wanting to have children soon, you wouldnt even get a mortgage on a joint income of £26k a year (if you could find a property that cheap as it would equate to a loan of £97500 based on lending 3.75 x joint income - mind you that is before outgoings are taken in to consideration) so how exactly do you expect people to be able to afford to house themselves and bring up and family without a little help - I mean its not like you get a huge amount of money but it all helps.

We are lucky in that we sold our previous house for more than we bought our new one for (had no choice as I was earning less at the time even though I was working full time in my current position, plus cleaning after work 5 days a week and working behind the bar on fridays and saturdays) The house we live in now cost us £180k, which is fairly cheap for where we live but if we didnt already have a place together we would have no hope of housing ourselves - let alone having children.

You may have noticed that I said my OH has Crohns, I dont know if you know anything about it but it is a condition that will be with him for the rest of his life. Since being diagnosed at 14 he has had 5 ops, now has a J-pouch instead of a large intestine, has regular nerve injections where they have been damaged during his last lot of surgery and in a flare up can be off work sick for a month at a time, yet he continues to go to work and is not entitled to any kind of help. Things are not always as black and white as people seem to think.

2522laura

MrsManda wrote: »

Have you missed something on your budget or is my maths appalling? It seems to add up to £1758 not £2066.

Oh yes, I missed off the loan we have for the car, £286 a month :eek:

Lotus-eater

2522laura wrote: »

Things are not always as black and white as people seem to think.

No ones saying it's black and white, but the days of the benefits system propping up the UK economy is thankfully coming to an end.

Yes it's expensive to live, to buy a house and to rent, why do you think that is? Because benefits have propped up low wages! (and high wages) That's why.

We are going to have to adapt, rents and house prices are going to have to come down. Or no one will afford to live in them.

You are young, so you don't remember what it's not like to be completely propped up by the governments benefit system, well you're going to have to learn that it was a golden age and can't continue.

Amymo

Hey Laura, just wanted to thank you for sharing your budget, OH and I are in the same position as you re my earnings being higher and we're about the same age/stage in life etc so it gives me something to compare to, I've been burying my head in the sand a bit to be honest as I've been nervous about how we will afford for me to be off so this has given me the impetus to take another look tonight!