What is a realistic weekly budget for a family of four?

helpmepayit

Brilliant, thanks Tixy that's great advice. Going to sit with a pad and pen and go through everything! Going to look through last few bank statements and check receipts to see what rubbish I am actually picking up at the shops. I spend about £80 per month on petrol as I really only use the car to get to and from work three days per week. I will report back, thanks again x

Firewalker

Only you can work out what is a realistic budget for your family - it will be a combination of what you spend, what you would idealy wish to spend and what you can afford to spend.

To work this out you will have to:

1) Write down everything you spend for at least a month (ideally two months). This is easiest is you keep all receipts and enter those in a spreadsheet every evening.
2) Analyse the data by expenditure line (foodm petrol etc.)
3) Go deeper and see what do you spend within budget lines (food - how much goes on empty calories like sweets, crisps, coffees, pop etc.; how much you use you car and can you cut some journeys by walking, cycling etc. which has the added benefit of keeping you fit).
4) Decide what are you going to cut for what reasons.
5) Figuring out how to get the rest at the best possible price
6) See what other action you may need to take - we started cooking from scratch and as a result save a lot and eat more healthy food; we have a breadmaker and have really artesan bread for 1/3 of the cost and with no conservants)

It sounds like a bother but it does really help. And £1300 after paying the major bills is a lot of money - you can save half of this if you rationalise your spending (without compromising quality of life).

Firewalker

helpmepayit

Thanks Firewalker, that's all brilliant advice. My laptop has broken (one of many things in this house to have broken lately) will see if I can sort some sort of spreadsheet out on my tablet. We waste a lot of money on juice and sweets so that is going to be the first thing to get cut down on. We don't even eat the majority of sweets we buy OH ends up taking a tin full in to his work every few weeks. If I could throw another £600 to the debts every month on top of what we are paying we could be debt free in no time. Starting to trawl through tesco receipts just now and I really do buy the biggest load of rubbish! I have sold a few things on eBay this week so hoping my only spend tomorrow will be postage and milk :0) x

Learning2Budget

My budget has been fine tuned. I know roughly what i spend on exactly what e.g fuel 60p/m, clothes 25p/m Food budget is 400 but i break this into five weeks and then try n save a little by skimming off the food budget. Once i had my budget sorted, i then went onto the envelope method. As I've gotten better at this I've found i can leave the money in my account instead of having to pay everything in cash. But cash is easier than card cos once itz gone its gone. Good luck to you.x

helpmepayit

Thanks for your advice, HOpe to have my budget as fine tuned as yours very shortly. Will be sitting OH down and explaining the need to cut back and get rid of our debts once and for all. Your signature is very impressive, you have done really well paying things off xx

Learning2Budget

Just wish i had worked all this stuff out before we ran up debt. Hey ho. We live and learn.x

helpmepayit

Morning, think I may have came up with a brainwave (for once) at the moment both our wages and child benefits are being paid in to my Halifax account and we are just taking money out of that account and paying in to Barclays account (we have no money coming out of that account, we only put money in it to reduce the overdraft) I was thinking of getting my salary put in to Barclays account which would be £720 per month and trying to live off my OH wage and child benefit money which would leave us with just over £600 per month spending money for petrol and food. This should be achievable as I only use £60-£80 per month on petrol so the rest could go towards everyday expenses. I am hoping to have my Halifax overdraft cleared in the next few weeks as someone in my family recently passed away and has left me some money (approx £3000) this would leave me with my Barclays overdraft. What do you guys think? I could clear this overdraft within 7 months of I can stick to this plan x

FireWyrm

helpmepayit wrote: »

Morning, think I may have came up with a brainwave (for once) at the moment both our wages and child benefits are being paid in to my Halifax account and we are just taking money out of that account and paying in to Barclays account (we have no money coming out of that account, we only put money in it to reduce the overdraft) I was thinking of getting my salary put in to Barclays account which would be £720 per month and trying to live off my OH wage and child benefit money which would leave us with just over £600 per month spending money for petrol and food. This should be achievable as I only use £60-£80 per month on petrol so the rest could go towards everyday expenses. I am hoping to have my Halifax overdraft cleared in the next few weeks as someone in my family recently passed away and has left me some money (approx £3000) this would leave me with my Barclays overdraft. What do you guys think? I could clear this overdraft within 7 months of I can stick to this plan x

I think £600 a month is very do-able.

1) Budget £100 for petrol, if you dont use it, put the remainder into a sealed pot for Christmas.

2) That leaves £500 a month for food and 'sundries'. Look very very closely at what you buy - or better yet, post a receipt on here so we can see what a typical food shop is consuming. Most people can make massive savings by simply cooking most things to order and from scratch. Flour is incredibly cheap and I spend about £15 a month on it, that takes care of all bread, cakes, biscuits, tarts, quiches etc. Pasta and Rice should be bought in bulk from cash and carry(s) if possible. Fruit and Veg should be bought according to what you need it for weekly at most. This means nothing is wasted because it went bad. Dont buy BOGOFF and remember, its only a saving if its half price and you were intending to buy it anyway.

3) Meal plan
4) Stop nipping to the local shop for 'stuff'. You should make sure it's included in your normal monthly/weekly shop instead. There should be no nipping to the local for anything more than the odd pint of milk.

5) Make lunches and snacks - cut out the commercial coffees for instance. Most people dont think much of £3.49 a day, but that's the best part of £20 per week! :eek:

6) Did you really need that magazine/paper/chocolate/sweet, delete as apropriate?

7) Look for the 'no frills' shops. Aldi, Lidl etc. The 'choice' is much reduced but so is the final bill.

Just to put things in perspective...Friday was payday. I went to Aldi and spent £114 for the MONTH. That's it, no more until next payday. I have two adults and two children to feed out of that. I'll put about another £30 of fruit and veg onto that during the month. No need to 'nip' to the shop and no need to visit a supermarket again until next month. Both fridge/freezer/drystore cupboards are chock full of stock for the month.

Its very possible so dont let anyone tell you otherwise and cheap doesnt mean inferiour quality.

Heffi1

We did our weekly shop at Aldi this week, I usually just pop in their for the Bratwurst and Frikadellen as I used to live in Germany it is a thing we missed the most on coming back here to live. This week though I decided to see how we would get on with doing all the shop in there.

The total came to £56, we took a list and stuck to it, apart from some emmentaler cheese which I could not resist

I bought a small tub of their margarine as we usually use Flora, it is perfectly fine as a substitute and I will buy more, instead of nearly a pound for a tub, I paid 45p the bread rolls again we had not tried them, I have to say they were lovely, soft white bread rolls which I have used this week to bring in lunch for myself. My mum got one of their 'chunky soups' to try and she said it tasted just the same as a Heinz Big Soup the only difference is it was 46p a tin instead of nearly a pound !!

I say give it a try and you would be surprised at the savings you can make.

Learning2Budget

FireWyrm i am in awe!!! I so need to try harder with my shop. Although i am an atrocious baker i will try again at baking. £114 for the month is just incredible!!! Off to rewrite my shopping list. L2B.x