is my new budget doable?

zombie_mum

Hello all

I am new here and after abit of advice on if my budget is (a) possible and (b) maintainable.

In our household there is me, hubby and baby ruby age 1, we manage ok each week and we make it through but I think we could do better with what we have, we just dont save since my husband was made redundant from the army as our disposable income has dropped but I think we can still manage £145 savings a month, hubby just agrees, I think he just likes a easy life so leaves me to it.

So my husband earns £350 a week sometimes more but we will use this as a base figure. I have spread my d/d over the 7th, 14th, 21st & 28th of every month to insure I have a payday between each set. Btw eclectic is prepay. Any advice appreciated, thanks.

7th
Rent £115
Car insurance £60.03
Petrol £40.00
Electric £15
Food £35

14th
Rent £115
Water rates £34.99
Tv licence £14
Petrol £20
Food including toiletries £50
Gas £10
Electric £10
Home insurance £15.24

21st
Rent £115
Phone & Net £26.45
Mobile phones £20
Food £35
Gas £10
Electric £10

28th
Rent £115
Council tax £127.46
Food £30

pmduk

There's nothing on there to save for christmas and other seasonal event incl birthdays. Nor have you included a fund for car repairs/mot and road tax. But looks like a good start otherwise. Remember to keep a tally of what is actually spent in order to review these figures regularly.

grumbler

Why is the car insurance so expensive? No/small NCD? A big car?

Why are you paying £180ish p.a. for home insurance? My building&content costs me £96 before £71 TCB cashback, i.e. just £25 p.a.

"Phone & net" can be much cheaper too.

zombie_mum

Thanks.

Savings for xmas are already taken from hubbys wage, £20.00pw in to a savings mute arranged by his work place, we used to put it into a separate saver when he was in army but i never spend £1000 at xmas so remaining will be put into the account we used to use for christmas savings, as a birthday, washing machine breaking ect fund.

We do have a good savings so if anything went wrong we can access money but im trying to organise so we can stay on track every week. My main area of concern is the food budget, it looks tiny to me, I used to spend £250+ on food. Eeek, whe I look back at the money we spend I wince lol

Caf insurance is high as we have a Vauxhall insignia, but we wouldn't consider downsizing as love it, its fantastic for the long journeys we do plus we paid cash and its only 2years old so would lose a small fortune on it.

Phone line was the best deal I could find with talk packages to usa, Australia, Cyprus and germany as we call them regularly. If you can recommend another one id be very grateful.

grumbler

zombie_mum wrote: »

We do have a good savings so if anything went wrong we can access money but im trying to organise so we can stay on track every week.

If you have savings it makes no sense to waste money on paying for insurances monthly rather than yearly (I know, there are some exceptions).

And is the TV licence not £12ish p.m.?

Phone line was the best deal I could find with talk packages to use, Australia, Cyprus and germany as we call them regularly. If you can recommend another one id be very grateful.

Without a package calls to your countries cost no more than 0.5p/min, but of course this depends on how many minutes you use.

zombie_mum

The reason I pay monthly is I have never even thought about money, I was on a excellent wage before leaving to be a sahm, and hubby was in the army. great money plus low rent (£350 including water and council tax) makes for alot of disposable income, and we just got lazy i suppose. insurances are just rolling over, however come renewals I will be doing quotes and moving as I need to.

Tv licence is £12.18 pm iv just checked my bankstatment, (meant to look last night but forgot)

I ring those countries for 40mins to an hour every other week, they call me the alternates.

grumbler

If 40 minutes is in total, I don't see any point in paying for a package.

See Cheapest home phone & broadband

With such low income you really can't afford being lazy.

DCFC79

Maybe complete an SOA which can be found on the dfw board.

pmduk

Perhaps consider using Skype?