Need advice on setting up family budget and how to start saving!!

flubdub

Ok. Here's our income and expenditure. The only debts I have is a CCJ for an old credit card that was set at £5 a month, but I pay £7 to shift it quicker. And my overdraft is £2000 which I am hitting the limit of constantly.
We have four children. My partner works full time and I stay at home.

Income per month
Wages - £750 (on average. There is a £248 CSA debt taken from his wages each month. Please don't judge us on this. We paid by private agreement for YEARS but the CSA have disregarded this completely and now think we owe them ££££)
Tax credits - £1062.10
Child Benefit - £260.15
Housing benefit - £318.20
Council Tax Benefit - £64.41
Total = £2167.41

Outgoings
Rent - £460.10
Council Tax - £136
Car insurance - £49 it has JUST renewed and it was the cheapest I could find. I compare every year. I have no idea why its so high, but it is the same way every year.
Sky - £27
Broadband - £24.49 (there are only 3 providers for our area, and these are the cheapest. We joined them in October.
Orange - £27
Vodafone - £40 - no excuse for this I'm afraid! I just wanted a nice phone
TV licence - £12
Bike insurance - £11 (partner needs this to get to work. It's a moped, so costs pennies to run and he can't drive)
CCJ - £7
School dinners - £18.92 (two kids at school. They only have school dinner on a Friday because it's "pizza day". In sept, one of them will get free school meals every day)
Diesel - £50 approx
After school activities - £25

Now, the ones that really p*** me off. They are SO high and I don't know why. We moved into this house in October. It is meant to be an "Eco house" with solar panels, all insulated walls, energy saving light bulbs etc, but energy bills are so high! It's a water metre (which we have never had before) and it has taken some getting used to!

Water - £55
Gas and elec - £118!! I have just compared energy suppliers online, and we could switch and save, but only by £15 a month so not too much difference. All our appliances are A rated, but I do two loads of washing a day, all dried in the tumble dryer, which won't help. I'm going to give the kids a pep talk about not chucking clothes in the wash everytime they look at them!

Total = £1060.51

£1107 left over

I have just been through February's bank statements and we spent £527 on food!!

Really, I want to know if anyone has any idea on where to start saving the pennies. I really want to start actually saving money in a bank account. I have zero at the moment and it bothers me a lot.

GingerFurball_2

flubdub wrote: »

Gas and elec - £118!! I have just compared energy suppliers online, and we could switch and save, but only by £15 a month so not too much difference. All our appliances are A rated, but I do two loads of washing a day, all dried in the tumble dryer, which won't help. I'm going to give the kids a pep talk about not chucking clothes in the wash everytime they look at them!

£15 a month is £180 a year.

Smithers37

flubdub wrote: »

Outgoings

Rent - £460.10

Council Tax - £136

Car insurance - £49 it has JUST renewed and it was the cheapest I could find. I compare every year. I have no idea why its so high, but it is the same way every year.

Sky - £27
Broadband - £24.49 (there are only 3 providers for our area, and these are the cheapest. We joined them in October.
Orange - £27
Vodafone - £40 - no excuse for this I'm afraid! I just wanted a nice phone
TV licence - £12
Bike insurance - £11 (partner needs this to get to work. It's a moped, so costs pennies to run and he can't drive)
CCJ - £7
School dinners - £18.92 (two kids at school. They only have school dinner on a Friday because it's "pizza day". In sept, one of them will get free school meals every day)
Diesel - £50 approx
After school activities - £25

These aren't essential, maybe look at clearing the debt first before having these luxiries

Maybe you could re-assess these outgoings. For example, do your kids really need to have Pizza fridays? You could get a healthy lunch for a lot less money. I guess after school activities isn't that relatively expensive, however you could look at cheaper alternatives.

Also, how come you only have 3 providers in your area? That seems unusual.

Also, £500+ on food. Surely this could be looked at? Generally Pasta and Rice dishes can be a very cheap way to fill the week up with food. Also, try own brand foods - they can often be a 1/4 of the price but taste just as good.

Tumble dryers cost loads of electric. We have one in the garage however we only use it when in a rush to wash / dry something that we need that day. Otherwise, the clothes can dry out inside on a clothes horse or outside if it's dry.

I would also consider switching providers if it saves £15 a month.

Just my thoughts.

[Deleted User]

so you have listed everything and after buying food you have £580 left over surplus are you not able to save say £50 out of this?
you pay £18.92 for the kids to have a pizza on friday surely it would be cheaper to go to domino's buy one get one free as an after school treat?
2 loads of washing a day and a tumble dryer, sorry but that is plain stupid.
may i ask the age of the kids that produce this amount of washing? are they teen's

flubdub

Not sure id call the washing "stupid". My partner is a cheese maker. His clothes STINK and need washing every day. Trust me. No smell like it. I have 9 year old, 6 year old and 3 year old boys, who like to play football and get filthy. I also have a 10 month old baby. Babies - not known for their amazing table manners, like to cover themselves in food, sick and other exciting things!

JKSandy

As above, you have a surplus of £580. Where is all this going? You should handily be able to save when you still have over 25% of your income available.

Start putting a little of this away then slowly build it up, the more use to not having it you get the more you will be able to save.

mummyroysof3

I think there are some things there to look at cutting costs on but I would look at the food and other spending first. We are a family of 5 so know how much washing there can be but do my best to minimise it especially in winter as I hate using tumble dryer. Make a list of everything you spend for a few weeks and look at meal planning and cutting the food spend

getmore4less

be easier to see if you used one of the standard SOA

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

you need to document the debts and the costs of the OD.

Why not do a 2013 full 12month review of what you spent on things, clothes food, holiday car, everything...

Then do a plan for 2014 that incudes everything use the first 3 months as a guide for any changes since 2013.

Start a spending diary to find out where your money is going if you have none left there is a lot going missing.

You then need to look at each spend in detail and tackle them.

Mobiles OVIVO.
Washing start hanging stuff out not all of it needs tumbleing

Get a energy meter to find out where your using the power

Car insurance needs sorting, there is something either vehicle location history.

Where are the rest of the car costs? MOT, maintenance, tax
Where are the rest of the bike costs?

27col

You need to keep an accurate spending diary. It is a bit of a chore but also an eye opener as to where money is going.
You should closely examine every aspect of your spending, particularly the use of water. £55 a month on a meter seems a lot, I would have thought. getting an energy meter would also concentrate the mind as to what you are using.
I remember my brother saying to me once that he never had any money left to save at the end of the month. I told him that he needed to save at the beginning of the month and then spend what was left. He tried this and said that he wished I had suggested it earlier.
Changing energy suppliers will not save much money, but reducing energy usage certainly will. So go down the energy usage meter route asap.

innovate

getmore4less wrote: »

Where are the rest of the car costs? MOT, maintenance, tax
Where are the rest of the bike costs?

Absolutely. And shoes, clothes, holidays, family days out etc?

Defintely need to fill in an SOA and do proper budgeting.

rach_k

I'd definitely stop using the tumble dryer for everything. As well as costing a fair bit in electricity, it will shorten the life of clothes too. Do you have outdoor space or can you invest in some airers? I tend to hang everything up on hangers then hook them around the house in the warmest/breeziest spots when it's wet outside. If you wanted, you could give everything 20 minutes in the dryer to start them off and get them warm to help the air drying. You could also look at some wool dryer balls - they cut down my drying time by about 1/4 which would be a lot in your case! They paid for themselves quickly.

I think you're doing far too much washing too. Admittedly we're only a family of 4 but my daughter was in cloth nappies until recently and I still only did 6 loads per week and probably a lot of that was unnecessary really. Assuming at least some of your kids are old enough to take responsibility, I'd definitely get them to check what is actually dirty before putting it in the wash and get them to lay anything they're not sure about on a chair for you to check first. I'd get the kids some playing out clothes if they like getting dirty - nothing wrong with putting on a muddy pair of trousers if they're only going to get covered in more mud in 5 mins. For your husband, I'd get a sealed bucket/bag and put his work clothes in there then wash them all every 3 days or something. If they're something hardwearing like cotton, you could soak them before washing to help with any smells that seem set in the fabric.

For food, we spend £85/week (about £370/month) and we buy a lot of luxuries in there. Again, we're only a family of four but I'm quite sure if I watched what I was spending I could feed a family of 6 for that easily and it'd probably be healthier. That'd be a decent saving to start with.

Do the kids have to have a school lunch every Friday? Maybe you could change it to the last Friday of the month instead and make home made pizzas on the other weeks?