Budgeting for a normal healthy life..

lee111s

Smokes and takeaways need to stop immediatley if you're skint. Pretty much common sense.

Where do you shop? What do you eat? Home cooked or readymeal/froze stuff? Do you buy yellow sticker food and freeze it? Or do you just go shopping for tea every couple of nights?

Do you take packed lunch or spend £5+ each on food at work?

Get over to some of the money saving boards and see where you can cut costs.

Council tax seems high in relation to your rent? My 3 bed semi is only £128 a month.

You need to start a spending diary. To not know where £600+ goes per month is ludicrous.

Take packed lunches and leave your cards at home. If you don't have them you can spend money!

building_with_lego

A trick I saw on here and liked was this: once you've worked out your available spends fro the month divide that figure by five to get your weekly 'allowance'. The longest months are four and a half weeks so you'll have an amount of money left over each month, however small. This can go into one of your savings accounts.

Another thing which racks up the savings pretty quickly without you really noticing is to take the odd pence out of your main account and transfer it into savings; if you've £267.48 you move £0.48 or £2.48 across. I do this every day and saved over £300 last year just doing it this way.

pops5588

Slightly confused as you put 0 next to "Children in Household" but then said you're a SAHM.

I agree with a previous poster in that you can eat well for £50 a week, but I was basing that on it being just the two of you but am not unsure as to whether you have a child there or not.

OH and I pay £55 a month for Electricity and Gas and that just about covers us, but again if you have a child this may not be sufficient but what you're currently paying is scary!!

Smoking, having a pet etc. are all things that will eat into extra money you have.

Also agree that your council tax sounds high. We are in a 3 bed terraced and pay £137.

jemb

Pops OP didnt say they were a SAHM it was Gilly

lika_86

pops5588 wrote: »

Slightly confused as you put 0 next to "Children in Household" but then said you're a SAHM.

I think Gilly said that, not the OP.

pops5588

Ohhhh of course. Apologies, I have finally lost it!

So yes! Definitely cut down on heating if there is no kid in the house! Layers are the key

I have always found Asda's 3 for £10 offer on meat quite useful in terms of getting protein into our diet without spending a fortune on meat. Meat and cheese have always been the things that made our food shop costly. There's quite a few things in the offer so it's easy to vary it week by week.

jenhug

you should be able to reduce your food shopping by quite a large amount, we spend that on a family of 4.

mincepiemonster

I'm sorry but for that kind of income you should have a better quality of life - you should be going on holidays, having meals and nights out, indulging in new clothes once in a while and feeling reasonably comfortable whilst still being able to save etc. It's such a shame that the little bits and bobs here and there are adding up to such an extent that you can't "enjoy" the fruits of your hard work!

Gas, electric, mobile phone and car insurance all seem high. I'd suggest setting aside a weekend day and checking you've got the best deals.

Groceries are on the high side if there's the odd £10 here and there on top up shops too - I would suggest getting a store cupboard up and running and meal planning (doesn't have to be rigid, but at least an outline plan of your home-cooked meals for the week, or even just the staple ingredients for example I often put Chilli/Spag bol on mine as the basic ingredients are so similar)

I would suggest trying to save in 3 pots - longer term "life goal savings" which you don't dip into, an emergency pot, and a holiday/treats fund. Perhaps in the new year you could have a go at stopping smoking and put the cash into the holiday fund which will give it a nice boost? Even just that £15 a week will soon mount up!

Hermia

coinxoperated wrote: »

No contents insurance, which we should really have I suppose! I just never feel I have anything valuable enough to bother ensuring!

My friend was like you as he just lived in a studio flat and didn't have any fancy stuff. Everything got destroyed in a fire and the cost of just buying basic clothes, household items, toiletries etc really added up.

Laurajo_2

Have you tried setting yourself a weekly spend allowance?

You have £675 a month free, so withdraw £50 a week each for spends - including cigs and takeaways. On a four weekend month, this will leave you £275 spare to be put away. Draw the money out in cash and put the bank card away so you can't purchase things on it.

It works for me - I'm the worse 'fritterer' in the world and couldn't understand why I always had too much month left at the end of my money despite having a decent wage.