Is it possible to survive on £450 a month?

QueenBeruthiel

Helpful thread about cloth nappies:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5203860

Depends if you have a garden for drying. Save a fortune.

FireWyrm

I did cloth for all three of mine. Absolute doddle and a fraction of the cost. Disbosables are in excess of £2500 all told from birth to potty. A good set of cloth is about £250 and it will do for numbers two and three. Cant understand why more people don't do it.

faithcecilia

Well done for your forward planning, and massive congratulations on your pregnancy!

Learning to live on a lower income can be scary at first, and hard for quite a while, but I think if you start making the changes now you will have time to do it mare gradually so you wont be learning to shop very frugally at the same time as getting to know your baby

I find this very helpful for hints and tips https://www.facebook.com/fyf20quid?fref=ts

I don't currently need to be quite that frugal, but having learned to shop carefully it is nice now to have a little extra cash to spend on nice things, and I am sure you will too!

All the best and good luck with baby :j

Meatloaf1981

Hi Cookiee, my wife and I had out first child in January and I am at the beginning of a DMP so I do share your pain and worry about how much things will cost. Here's the reality: You will be given lots of things by lots of people. Clothes, nappies, creams, furniture, toys and the like for the mini-Cookiee. A good way to get additional help is to get a friend to host a baby shower a month before you're due. We're still using items given to us in December for our daughter (My little Meatette).

Secondly, Child Benefit does TEND to cover the weekly cost of having a baby if you choose to use formula milk instead of breastfeeding. We use formula as our Meatette was struggling to breastfeed after being born and we've used it ever since. This costs roughly £10 a week and then on top of that you have nappies, creams and other bits which we spend roughly another £10 on each week. Now we budget £50 a week for food on two adults and that gets us through. To manage on that budget, I'd recommend shopping in Aldi or Lidl but to start with we shopped in Asda as we got them to deliver to the door for the first couple of months (I got a cashback deal on Quidco that meant it's cost me £17 for the whole year to get a weekly delivery...)

Managing on £85 a week for food and baby bits should be absolutely fine but it's a good idea to over-budget for it if you can. I have petrol factored into my budget every month so it doesn't come under my "disposable" spending.

Hope that helps a little.

GwylimT

Childcare wasn't affordable for us so my wife and I both went part time, another benefit to this is you have two tax free allowances, so two people earning a combined income come out with more than one person earning that same income.

Have you both asked for part time or flexy hours?

lessonlearned

Congratulations on your pregnancy. And a massive well done on forwards planning.

Honestly £450 is plenty.

1. If you are at work all day, then definitely get your partner to do the cooking. He's got time to learn - he could be at cordon bleu levels by then;)

2. If you are walking to work and he has the car then you you shouldn't be using £25 per week in petrol.

3. Babies don't need as much as everyone seems to think they do. Most equipment, toys and clothes can be snapped up second hand.

Look at the OS board - there's lots of ideas tips and advice on there. Start reading some money management/living simply type books - from the library of course.

if you want to buy some look on Amazon ive just bought some for £0-01, plus postage of course.

Google simple living and or frugal living. There are loads of blogs and of course mums net for all things baby related .

Don't forget. Your local mother and baby groups (dads can go to, they are not just for mums - my OH used to take my son and that was 30 years ago when hands on dads were a lot rarer:rotfl:).

You will be fine and I take my hat off to you. So many couples fall back on the nursery option and then run themselves ragged with both of them trying to work full time and bring up children, often ending up no better off financially because their money is just getting gobbled up with childcare costs, running two cars and having to take so many short cuts with food and household expenses.

Once th dust settles and your OH gets the hang of things he might even have the time and the opportunity to start making some money on the side, even if it's just a bit if ebaying etc. he might even be able to,start a small business at some point.

All the best .........

rockm87

Hi!

Congratulations and yes I think that would be doable.

agree the old style boards are great.

There are great cheap recipes on 'A girl called jack'

I will always say if you want inspiration on cheaper living, and to get inspired about what's really important in life (hint - not big fancy cars or wasteful consumer toys) check out Mr Money Mustache - hubby may appreciate it too!

chasingfreedom

Yes you can easily afford to live on 450 a month. We are a family of 3 plus 2 step daughters for a few days a week and I only spend 150 a month on food. Formula is expensive is you are planning to use that but you will still manage. Clothes for babies/kids aren't too expensive and you just have to be clever and pick up stuff in the sales wherever you can. Currently you get 15 hours per week free childcare from age 2 so you'll only have 18 (or less) months after your maternity before that would kick in and you can start reviewing your position and hubby could maybe go back to work because the childcare isn't so expensive.


It is a juggling act and difficult to start with for sure but it's only hard until they start school, then its like having a payrise!!

torbrex

Start checking your local Freegle now for baby clothes, car seat, bedding etc.
Most Freegle sites will allow you to repeat Wanted adds once a month and you can check the board daily for offers or set up an auto-email for every 25 messages posted to the board.

I know on our board there are lots of Wanteds and Offers for baby stuff, as others have said, they grow so quickly which makes the turnaround quite high.

Tixy

I would do a detailed budget/statement of affairs.

I think in part it depends on what you have budgeted for

basic bills and debt

to arrive at the £450.

You mention

After all bills (mortgage, water, gas, electric etc)

Does basic bills include things like road tax, car servicing/mot etc? Have you factored in mobile phone costs? anything for presents/entertainment etc over the year?

Also remember that £450 a week is not £110 a week. Its closer to £100 (£103.93!).

Presumably you have counted your child benefit in to your figures? Have you checked out whether you would be entitled to any child tax credits and if so are they factored in?