Need to cut expenses for at least 3-4 months (long ramble, sorry)

kunekune

I should add that the current situation is MUCH better than 18 months ago. In NZ, we had a mortgage, credit card debt and were spending more than was coming in on a monthly basis. When we sold up we ended up with the equivalent of £10,000 to represent our live's work! Here, I am earning quite a bit more, childcare is costing us less, and we have increased that £10,000 to £18,000 over the last year, as well as furnishing a house virtually from scratch. I just want to make sure that things get better, it is so nice having no debt.

newlywed

kunekune wrote: »

Food is so embarrassingly high I am cringeing!!! I do cook from scratch most of the time, but tend to use expensive ingredients because I don't get in until 6, so (a) the children end up eating separately and (b) I often buy quick cooking meat such as duck breast. We got into these habits when living in NZ, where food is considerably cheaper. I have set myself a challenge to spend no more than £50 a week on food for the next month, and use up stocks. Takeaway is no more than once a week: we buy extra and have it for lunch the next day.

At least you can see where cut backs can be made - if you can stick to that budget then you may save £840 just in the first month - without any other cutbacks!!

I get home about 6 and so tend to do pork chops (quick under the grill), salmon, or at weekends I made chilli or curry, shep pie or lasagna and made double - doesn't take double the time - and then it goes in the freezer for another week - bung in oven or micowave to reheat and then do frozen veg to go with it

In fact after a productive weekend I currently have in my freezer a lasagna large enough to feed 4, chilli to feed 4, cooked chopped carrots (I did two large bags), chopped raw onion frozen in separate bags (saves a few mins each day).

Also, turkey breast pieces cook quickly and are fairly cheap.

catshark88

Hi there,

You may be surprised how little you notice a difference cutting back on the food budget. We used to wander round Tescos weekly, picking up what looked tasty and spending approx £180 each time. Now we meal plan, buy just what we need, take advantage of offers (particularly on nice wine) and are spending under £90 a week (inc nappies, formula etc). Our standard of food has actually risen as we are not eating ready meals and only have the ocassional take away and we are still eating nice food.

We had lunch out on Sat and it was lovely, way more of a treat than when we were eating out twice a week.

Good luck, you CAN do this!

kunekune

When we move we will have two fridge-freezers and an undercounter freezer (one ff provided, don't want to get rid of ours), which will be great for bulk cooking/storing special offers. I got two half-price whole ducks yesterday, and they are taking up a lot of room.

PS. It is probably very apt that my on-line name is that of a pig ...

redsquirrel80

It's only a little thing but Tesco were doing really good deals on duck recently, not sure if it's still on, but I got something like eight legs for £3 - I'm really sick of duck now mind you!! Anyway, good luck with it all, I'm sure with some cutbacks on food, clothes and entertainment for a couple of months you'll be fine

dancingfairy

SOA

Money coming in (net)

Salary 1 2200
Salary 2 2300
Child allowance 116
DLA 250

TOTAL 4868



Regular bills & rent

Electricity 70 - can you switch this? can you avoid leaving things on standby/charging/turn lights off etc?
Gas 50- Can you switch?
Telephone 50- can you get a better deal and combine with internet?
Water 16
Internet 16- combine with phone?
Petrol 200- can you get Nectar points/tesco points/find your cheapest garage?
Parking 100- can you do park and ride or anything? car share?
Council tax 90 -pay monthly over 12 months instead of 10?
Bus 60 -season ticket?
Rent 675
Childcare (average) 400 - use vouchers?
Cleaning 130 - is this the cleaner?

TOTAL 1857


Other expenditure

Supermarket shopping 840 - meal plan and use value/basics etc where possible
Other food shopping during week 200 - ditto
Alcohol and entertainment 400 - can you be creative and think of cheap entertainment- invite friends over/rent a dvd instead of cinema, etc?
Clothes and shoes for self (average) 100 - can you cut this down for a few months?
Clothes and shoes for children 100 -do they need all this?
Clothes and shoes for OH 50 - ditto
Household items 25
Books 100
Magazines 40 - can you subscribe to some and cut the rest?
Eating out 50 - reduce to once a forthnight/month?
Takeaways 40

TOTAL 1945

Karmacat

Hi kunekune

Welcome to the forum. I think you know what you need to do - as mentioned above, a slo cooker can really really help, as can a breadmaker. My sister is out 10 hours a day at work, and she values both incredibly highly. Just needs 5 mins extra organisation first thing in the morning.

floss2

Can I just ask what you have in provision for your children? I saw that you each have 3 x salary death in service benefit, but with a disabled child who needs even a low element of care, that amount may not be enough to keep him in the same level of care that you would provide as parents.

Check out Martin's articles, I know Tesco do points on their life insurance and I pay £13 for £100k on a 10yr term (aged 40 when taken out).

kunekune

We can def get better deal with phone/internet once we've moved. Ditto utilities. I might be wrong about petrol, Dh handles all that as I don't drive, but there isn't much way of reducing those costs - a half hour drive but because of the way the trains in Bradford works, he can't get from Bingley to Halifax by train in under an hour, and then that causes childcare problems. Council tax: that is high because we had been in the house for 6 months before we realised we had to pay it (immigrants), so we're paying a mix of current and arrears. The bus might be cheaper with a season ticket but I'm not sure because I'm a university lecturer so I can often travel off-peak and during vacations I work at home, so that isn't every week/month. Vouchers for after school care would be a good idea if DH got round to it! I think we need to cut back too much on clothes, etc, at the moment - if we can cut our expenses by 500 a month, that will be more than enough for the time being. So the main thing is food, but I thought I should be honest when I did the SOA so I included things that were OK like clothes and books.

kunekune

At the moment we don't have anything special set up for the children, as we don't have a mortgage and each of us earns enough to support the family in the event of disaster. My plan was to do something more solid once we have a mortgage again. But perhaps I need to think about this some more (I expect DD to self-fund at university).

The disability is intellectual, not physical, so the main costs associated with it are temporary - ie, pullups at the age of 8 will soon stop. He will need some extra support as an adult, I think, but the best thing we can do to prepare for that is make sure we are mortgage-free (and rent-free) when the time comes. We aren't claiming all the help we can get though: I haven't got round to asking for a carer assessment yet and direct payments, because we weren't eligible until we got DLA and most of my energy has been going on sorting out the Statement (it has taken a year ...). Shifting from one country to another is a bit of a pain.