How do people live off £317.72 Universal Credit?

8ofspades

If OP can switch mobile providers, iD mobile is working out well for me - their £5 package has unlimited texts, 500 mins and 1gb data which rolls over if you don't use it all - as long as you're not streaming music/video when out and about all the time you can get away with it.

Toiletries you really don't need much - shower gel can double up as shampoo, face wash is a con (my skin prefers warm water and a flannel), look out for offers and don't dismiss the cheap brands.
Cleaning supplies you could probably get away with a multi purpose spray, washing up liquid and a toilet cleaner. Oh and laundry detergent - but usually you can get away with using less than they suggest on the packet, buy a powder or liquid over tablets so you can experiment with amounts and use as little as possible. No need for fabric conditioner.

Voyager2002

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I absolutely agree, and what a miserable existence it must be, huddled up in layers of jumpers and blankets. I appreciate that if you can't afford to put the heating on you have no choice, but to chose it?

Each to their own, but I won't want to visit their house in the winter

Of course, the sensible thing to do is to put on a jumper and then adjust the heating so that you are comfortable. And taking a bit of exercise makes you feel comfortable at much lower temperatures. In practice, I find that living in a well-insulated house mean that even in winter I only rarely need to use the heating.

seven-day-weekend

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Of course, the sensible thing to do is to put on a jumper and then adjust the heating so that you are comfortable. And taking a bit of exercise makes you feel comfortable at much lower temperatures. In practice, I find that living in a well-insulated house mean that even in winter I only rarely need to use the heating.

Of course, one or two jumpers, not layers and blankets though!

Our little bungalow stays reasonably warm, despite being built in 1930, but it definitely needs heating in the winter, even with a jumper and sometimes my dressing gown on. I appreciate better insulated houses don't need as much heating.

zagfles

Everyone seems to be missing the obvious solution, that's not to live alone! Living alone has never been affordable for a single non-disabled person on minimum state benefits with no savings or other resources such as a mortgage they can draw down on as a temporary stop gap.

If you don't know anyone who wants to share, there's plenty of ads for house shares online, some won't take those on benefits but a lot will.

zagfles

ska_lover wrote: »

How many people are in your household OP / how many are you feeding?

Are you still following the thread?

Maybe we could come up with some budget meal ideas. (Old style thread is excellent for this)

The level of UC they quoted is for a single person with no children.

Muttleythefrog

nicetomeetyou wrote: »

Per month...

Utilities £32.50 per week - £130 month.
bus pass £10.00 per week - £40.00 month
mobile phone £2.50 per week - £10.00 month
tv licence £3.25 per week - £13.00 month

Leaves £31 a week for toiletries and food. How do people live on this amount...

I intended to pick the figures and take on ones I thought easy to save on. But actually they seem very reasonable... my utilities are very similar to that figure (with 2 of us in the household but we are very low users - for water actually about a half person household) even with half price water bills (for low income) and a solar system reducing electricity bills significantly. Then of course there is council tax (a portion of it for low income) and perhaps even contribution to rent. I think come big spend on replacing things like boiler or computing equipment I'd have difficulty. There's other costs like insurance chipping away at that £31 allocated to consumables.

I'm very frugal and I think I would survive but struggle on that... especially with food and gas/electricity costs rising as they have in recent years. I only spend about £5 per year on mobile but then I'm not very active..lol... nor do I have a bus pass... but mobiles and bus passes are probably pretty important to people actively seeking work... and dealing with job applications probably has associated costs too.

So I think your question is a fair one... probably with difficulty would be my answer.

calcotti

Only thing I would add to original OP post is that based on the weekly costs they have used they have underestimated the monthly cost as there are more than 4 weeks in a month (with the exception of February).

Weekly cost x 52 weeks / 12 = monthly cost is the DWP formula.

This gives
Utilities £32.50 per week - £140.83 month.
bus pass £10.00 per week - £43.33 month
mobile phone £2.50 per week - £10.83 month
tv licence £3.25 per week - £14.08 month

zagfles

calcotti wrote: »

Only thing I would add to original OP post is that based on the weekly costs they have used they have underestimated the monthly cost as there are more than 4 weeks in a month (with the exception of February).

Weekly cost x 52 weeks / 12 = monthly cost is the DWP formula.

This gives
Utilities £32.50 per week - £140.83 month.
bus pass £10.00 per week - £43.33 month
mobile phone £2.50 per week - £10.83 month
tv licence £3.25 per week - £14.08 month

They've obviously used monthly figures and converted back to weekly! For instance who pays weekly for a mobile, it'll be £10 a month. TV licence is £154.50 a year, ie £12.87 a month, utilities are invariably charged by the month (unless prepayment). So the monthly figures are probably correct, and the weekly figures too high.

K80_Black

I have done a weeks sample menu for a single person, with a budget of £30 for groceries. This is assuming they're starting with absolutely nothing in their cupboards, bar salt and pepper. Here's the spreadsheet:

https://ibb.co/cwXVDJF

As you can see, using the cheapest options, the entire menu comes in at £20.01 (Tesco prices) - using some brand names, options like brown rice and better quality meat it's £30.04 - This means you can pick and choose between them to leave money for toiletries, tea and coffee etc. There's also plenty of leftovers of dried goods like pasta and cereals, that can be used in the future bringing the costs down in the following weeks.


Any questions welcomed. Hope this is helpful.


Edit: I enjoyed making this so much I did a second week. By utilising the leftovers from the first week, I managed to budget for Steak with onion gravy and chips for one meal. I think this little exercise has proved it's certainly possible to eat for ~£25 a week (and eat well!)

https://ibb.co/d6LFdXk

SnuggleBuggles

K80 - really helpful. Thank you! :T