Living / surviving on JSA £72 pw

Meteor

Might be signing on soon.

(potential budget)

£25 Food
(inc. toiletries/Household)

£06 Water Rates
£12 Gas/Elec
£11 Pet Food
£03 Tv Lic
£03 Mobile Phone
£02 House Contents Insurance
£07 Telephone + Broadband
£03 Council Tax %

Any tips on making the £25 food etc. budget stretch?

No debts or savings

Mobile phone contract refresh phone paid off so could give notice but PAYG could work out dearer.

Broadband + Weekend calls still contracted for a couple more months.

Don't know where will find £ for fares beyond reasonable walking and stamps for applications.

moneyistooshorttomention

You are wise to be planning ahead like this.

What about housing costs? Will you have to cover any out of that money? (eg if the Council wont cover all your rent on the one hand OR do you still have a mortgage and there wouldn't be enough benefit to cover mortgage interest on the other hand).

Hopefully, you are in the position that you own your own home and the mortgage is paid off (in which case no possible housing money shortfall to take into account).

EDIT; Re transport costs, do you have a bike? If not, might it be an idea to ask on Freecycle and hope someone is getting rid of one.

Meteor

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You are wise to be planning ahead like this.

What about housing costs? Will you have to cover any out of that money? (eg if the Council wont cover all your rent on the one hand OR do you still have a mortgage and there wouldn't be enough benefit to cover mortgage interest on the other hand).

Hopefully, you are in the position that you own your own home and the mortgage is paid off (in which case no possible housing money shortfall to take into account).

EDIT; Re transport costs, do you have a bike? If not, might it be an idea to ask on Freecycle and hope someone is getting rid of one.

Social Housing (one bedroom) so should be ok there.

Council Tax is a worry as I believe nobody gets 100% relief anymore which will erode my £72

No bike.

GreyQueen

Meteor wrote: »

Might be signing on soon.

(potential budget)

£25 Food
(inc. toiletries/Household)

£06 Water Rates
£12 Gas/Elec
£11 Pet Food
£03 Tv Lic
£03 Mobile Phone
£02 House Contents Insurance
£07 Telephone + Broadband
£03 Council Tax %

Any tips on making the £25 food etc. budget stretch?

No debts or savings

Mobile phone contract refresh phone paid off so could give notice but PAYG could work out dearer.

Broadband + Weekend calls still contracted for a couple more months.

Don't know where will find £ for fares beyond reasonable walking and stamps for applications.

Hi Meteor, I'm in a one bed council flat and working. I've just calculated the difference between me on JSA at £72.40 with the rent and council tax paid and me working and paying them in full myself and I'm ahead of the JSA income level by £55.37 in work.

First off, if you are on rateable value for water and paying via your rent, and you are single, I would recommend you try to get on a water meter asap. If a meter can't be installed, there's a halfway house called 'assessed charges' which is a lot cheaper than rateable value.

Secondly, the £25 p.w. food/toiletries/cleaning materials looks pretty high to me, esp as you've split out your pet food from it.

In terms of cleaning, you can clean anything at home with washing up liquid (2 big bottles -750 ml - of Moaning Fresh brand for £1 at P0undland) and with Tossco Basics cream cleanser for 32p if memory serves. If you have a very greasy life, you may want to add a kilo of soda crystals to that, under £1, will last for months. Washing powder is cheap enough, and Liddly's Formil is very good and a neglible cost for a singleton household - use half the recommended amount, too.

The odd bottle of toilet cleaner at circa 80p can be bypassed by gloving up and using a scrubber in the pan. Dedicated gloves and scrubbers for the WC use, naturally. If you have none, get a pack of mircofibre cloths from the £ store, keep one for dishwashing, one for cleaning the bath and basin (won't need more than water on it) and one for damp dusting everywhere else.

Toiletries I keep very simple; soap, deodorant, toothpaste and floss (basic brands), ladies monthly supplies and that's about it. Most months I spend nothing on toiletries at all, some months it might be £2-£3 tops.

Just looked at my 2014 spreadsheet and my weekly spend which is food, cleaning products and consumables like TP was £9.83, in 2013 it was £15.17.

Firstly, try to benefit by bulk buying. Can you get a 25 kg sack of spuds, for example? Typical price £6 in most areas, will last you many months. Downbrand savagely; Sainsbugs value teabags (40 for about 30p) are excellent and Hasda's SmartPrice ones for about the same price are good, too. If you buy kitchen roll, stop immediately, it's a silly and wasteful habit. Ditto wipes for anything.

If you have access to supermarkets, note their closing times and be prepared to hit them up an hour or so before closing for YS bargains. 70 mins before Sunday's 5pm closure is especially productive in my experience of my Tosspots store. Can mostly get bread for 11p a loaf and often many other things at sweet prices.

Hie thee to the freezer stores like Icelandia and Farmious Foodius. FF is selling 2 tall cans of Princes pink salmon for £3. One of these cans, combined with cooked mashed potatoes, chopped parsley and one egg to bind will make 12 substantial fishcakes, two will be a filling meal. Freeze the rest. Icelandia sell big bags of frozen peas for silly money - I have an allotment and even I don't bother growing peas, they're so cheap to buy. Get 4 pinters of milk for 89p at Ice or Liddly, watch out a FF because they're 2 litres not 4 pints, and that's less volume, but you can get 2 x 2 litres for £1.60 there. FF sell 15 eggs for £1.

Have porridge for breakfast, costs pence, highly filling and nutritionists rave about the good things it does for you.

If you have a greengrocer or a market, look out for damaged produce or over-ripe bananas going cheap.

I don't bother with the buses in my city, unless you have a bus pass, they are extortionate. Do you have pushbike? If not, and you can ride one, ask around for an unwanted one. If you can't cadge a freebie, basic bikes can be had 2nd hand with change from a tenner, I've seen them change hands at a bootsale for a fiver. Add a hi-viz waistcoat (£land/ 99p Store) for safety and off you go.

Re stamps, a lot less relevent to jobseeking these days, lots of stuff can be done online. And you can even hand-deliver stuff if it's in your town or city. Dress nicely, rock up with a nicely-presented envelope, try charming the reception staff. Being the person who bothered to walk up might give you an edge over other applicants.

Best of all, Good Luck!

Owain_Moneysaver

Ask at Jobcentre if there's a jobseekers club that gives access to free printing/photopcopying and postage. There might be help available with travel to interviews too. In some areas you can get a bus or train pass or discount.

Try and remove a few £ from your food/household budget to try and build up a small pot of savings; even if it's £3 a week for 10 weeks that gets you £30, which is enough for an emergency clothing/shoes/etc purchase.

Local library is a cheap outing (some nowadays have a coffee machine which will be cheaper than a cafe) and colleges often have a fee waiver for benefits claimants so you could consider doing a course; there are usually some self-study courses you can do at your own time/pace eg ECDL

GreyQueen

Yes, I did the ECDL and a raft of RSA qualifications at evening classes for free when on benefits. Well worth investigating this possibility.

chella

supermarket reductions / yellow stickers will help a lot. I have lived on a tenner a week before now, by yellow sticker shopping. Bread and fruit for between 3p and 9p in Asdas. can involve a lot of walking to and fro stores but when needs must..


Free internet at the library, its warm there too. I used to do valued opinions, took a while to get to a tenner sometimes, but you get a £10 voucher online, I used to get Boots or M and S voucher. ( m and s do good ys food I still go there now, just hit and miss as to what and when)


oh and..... the deli counter lets you try before you buy, I haven't done that but know a few who had a small buffet going on in the 2 big stores sometimes.

Swipe

Cancel the TV licence and watch catch up content instead

savingqueen

Excellent post GQ.

Re food budget, there is tons of advice on here. Go to the Grocery Challenge - sticky at top of OS forum, big list of recipes and then keep scrolling to find very useful threads like eating for £7 a week and lastly external links to budget recipe sites like A girl called Jack. For specific food budget and cooking questions, just ask away on OS, people are very friendly and willing to help.

charlies-aunt

You can apply for a Discretionary Housing Payment to get some help with your Council Tax even if your rent is covered.

PasturesNew

Meteor wrote: »

Might be signing on soon.

(potential budget)

£25 Food - you can halve that, save £12
(inc. toiletries/Household)

£06 Water Rates - be careful and you can halve that, save £3
£12 Gas/Elec
£11 Pet Food - eat the dog?
£03 Tv Lic
£03 Mobile Phone
£02 House Contents Insurance
£07 Telephone + Broadband
£03 Council Tax %

Any tips on making the £25 food etc. budget stretch?

Looks like eating the dog's the quickest route to making the ends meet.