Average monthly Income?

diamonds

Fuel? no car costs listed though familyms. One of the most expensive things after housing. Oversight I assume?

michelle2008

Your grocery bill is high. You could save a couple of hundred a month easily - and still eat good quality, fresh food. Hard to give specific advice without understanding you current shopping basket (or loaded trolley!), but have you tried meal planning, batch cooking etc?

Also, as others have said your mobiles are expensive. Are you out of contract, could you shop around?

Pocket money is important for your daughter - but what does she spend it on if you cover mobile, toiletries and clothes? Could she pay her phone out if pocket money?

Don't beat yourself up - you aren't letting her down at all. It sounds like she has a good lifestyle. I am sure she appreciates shay you do for her

Darksparkle

familyms wrote: »

Thank you for your reply - We don't have any debt, is Stoozing site just for information and advice/support?

It was so you could show your outgoings.

You say you have £1700 coming in each month and £646 out leaving you with £1054.

Other than £500 food shopping, where does the rest go?

There are ways you can cut back eg
Broadband
Mobiles
Netflix
Gym
Pocket Money (I would have said this was fine if she was paying her own mobile but it is high if you are paying that plus all toiletries).

diamonds

Darksparkle wrote: »

It was so you could show your outgoings.

You say you have £1700 coming in each month and £646 out leaving you with £1054.

Other than £500 food shopping, where does the rest go?


Pocket Money (I would have said this was fine if she was paying her own mobile but it is high if you are paying that plus all toiletries).

Wish I had £500 disposable :cool:

Car apart from fuel is missed, payment? insurance? maintaining?

Like most parents they default to giving more than they got, its a hard habit to break.

jamesd

familyms wrote: »

1x retired and on state pension, and me working part-time

I assume that you're both aged from 55 to 74. Are you both making pension contributions to a personal pension to get the free money that you can take out every year by doing this? Between the two of you there's at least £180 a year to be made after basic rate income tax. If either of you still has unused personal allowance the gain is higher, up to a maximum of £720 a year if £2700 of personal allowance is otherwise unused.

Since you're working you can do more than that, paying in up to your earned income, getting the tax relief then taking out the 25% tax free lump sum and some regular income. Long term you can only do this for up to £10k a year because the first time you take money beyond the 25% tax free lump sum your annual contribution limit is reduced to £10k even if you're earning more.

If you didn't know about this you still have a day to get it done this tax year and make some free money.

A good place to get a pension set up quickly with hand holding is Hargreaves Lansdown.

ViolaLass

If you don't have rent or mortgage to pay, do you need the life insurance?

£500 on food?!

familyms

Good morning everyone

Thank you for replies, Yes I do agree with many of the comments and £500 is extremely excessive for shopping, however what really is the average for a family of 3??, so we are in process of sorting that one out, as in past OH is always saying we'll go to shops No. Pocket money we actually give DD £40 a month and the rest is transferred to a savings account for college days. Mobile phones are with Virgin and we are in contract, which we do wish we could get out as do think they are expensive.

Car is fuel only, we usually pay for insurance as and when and do generally shop around for insurance, however perhaps we need to open an account and transfer £'s for insurances/car etc per month to cover it all?. I've cancelled the Gym as don't use it anymore, I do think we waste money, and need to sort things out, which is one of the reasons I posted onto this forum to get guidance and advice, as I thought are we really 'hard up' or are we just not managing finances efficiently, and thank you all for providing guidance. So prior to going to work, I'll be sitting down and writing up a long list of outgoings and organising things or at least attempt to

ViolaLass

familyms wrote: »

£500 is extremely excessive for shopping, however what really is the average for a family of 3??,

If I scale up what we spend, I get to £225 per month for three people.

[Deleted User]

ViolaLass wrote: »

If I scale up what we spend, I get to £225 per month for three people.

£1100-£1200 per month for us. Two adults, one teen, one toddler. And 3 cats. :-(

familyms

[quote=[Deleted User];70445414]£1100-£1200 per month for us. Two adults, one teen, one toddler. And 3 cats. :-([/QUOTE]

Hi Paulfoel - £1100-£1200 per month for food shopping?:eek:

£225 - Is that with meal planning or very good budgetting.

We do need to budget better in all areas, and stop just going out and spending for sake of it. DD will be getting sorted also, as she gets £40 pocket money and needs to realise to budget that for what she wants, as she is always buying 'starbucks'!!:eek:

So on average £1700 income is doable if we review our budget and be more efficient?

Thank you