One income family of four - can we get ahead even after pay cuts?

joedenise

I couldn't get away with soup or sandwiches for dinner either but like you these are things we often have for lunch.  DH definitely wants a proper dinner in the evening although if we eat out at lunchtime I can sometimes get away with it!

I would have a word with the nursery and say you don't want them to make him a sandwich if he doesn't want what is on offer and that it undermines what you are doing at home.  As you say he won't go hungry with the snacks he has as well.

Baileys_Babe

I too would have a word that you don't want them making an alternative to the lunch you have prepared. Monkey is possibly being even more fussy at lunchtime as he isn't particularly hungry.
I do like that they do make an alternative for  all those children how don't come from such supportive homes.

Bluegreen143

Thanks ladies. I suppose in a way now I think about it, it’s not any different to him getting the choice with school dinners between a hot meal and the cold one. Just don’t like that they are going off and making him something special to order as that feels pandering to me.

Forgot to post this week’s mealplan:

F - pizza and salad bits
Sa - veggie lasagne
Su - roast chicken, roast potatoes, veg etc
M - chicken risotto
T - chicken & chickpea curry
W - falafel & hummus wraps 
T - HM fish fingers, veg, savoury rice 

Breakfast options - cereal, overnight oats/porridge, toast, milkshakes etc, with scrambled egg or bacon sandwiches at the weekend

Lunches - soup, sandwiches/toasties, pasta salads, baked potatoes, leftovers, beans/egg on toast

Snacks - home baking, toast, fruit/veg, cheese & crackers, hummus 

Spent £82.45 in total as follows:

Greek style yoghurt 500g
Salted butter x6
Beef brisket 850g
Whole chicken
Bacon x2
Mozzarella x2
Grana padano
Cheddar x2
Frozen peas
Frozen cod fillets
Pot noodle 
Raspberry jam
Wheat biscuit cereal 48pk

Rice snaps cereal 375g
Conchiglie pasta 1kg

Penne pasta 1kg
Spaghetti 1kg
Lasagne sheets

Arborio risotto rice 1kg

Carrots x4
Potatoes 2.5kg
Fresh coriander 
Garlic x4
Bag of peppers
Tinned chickpeas x4
Tinned black beans

Tinned cannellini beans x2
Breadsticks
Dried yeast
Granulated sugar 2kg
Oatcakes
Choc finger biscuit 8pk
Choc digestive biscuits 
Baked beans 
Porridge oats 1kg
Tinned tomatoes x8
Honey
Peanut butter x2
Cola x7
Passata x2
Tinned tuna x4
Plain cooking chocolate 
Tinned red kidney beans x2
Sliced bread
Mayonnaise 
Variety crisps 30pk
Garlic granules 
Tinned coconut milk 

Instant coffee x2
Whole wheat crackers 

Bluegreen143

Although I’ve been quiet, I’ve not been neglecting the finances - over the last fortnight I’ve spent a lot of time re-reading old/classic threads on the DFW and OS boards. 

 I keep sitting down with paper and pen and rejigging the budget using different ways of categorising expenses. Just doing this always helps me pick up on new ways of saving so it is worthwhile! 

 Last night I was looking at the 2008 “live on £4K challenge” on DFW. Not that I could do such an extreme challenge! Especially as £4K is even less to live off 12 years on. 

 The rules of the challenge were that you take out the essential, fixed costs of your home (mortgage/rent, council tax, water and necessary insurances eg home/life) and any essential costs for commuting. Then you live off £4K (+ your child benefit if you have kids) for all your other basic living expenses: eg gas/electricity, phone/internet/TV, non-commuting car/public transport/petrol costs, food, household supplies like cleaning stuff, socialising/fun money, clothes, Christmas/birthdays (though some seemed to save separately for this)

 And everything else you could use to repay debt, put in long term savings or save for having luxuries like holidays. It’s not the amount that made me pause but the way of categorising expenses. I have a habit of writing all bills - fixed or variable, necessary or luxury - in one long list and then moving on to budgeting with the remainder. I do occasionally review direct debits or switch suppliers but by and large I view bills as fixed. Whereas in reality many of them can be reduced or are for luxuries.

 I wrote out my budget differently as if I was doing that challenge and it did make me think about a few possible changes. If I was following the 4K + child benefit I’d end up with £485 a month which would be totally undoable by the way! But the principle was helpful.

 I came to four conclusions after looking at the figures

 1. My gas & elec supplier needs changed (they were £105 a month and going up to £123!) so I did that last night and new supplier says £93 a month.

 2. Instead of budgeting for annual luxury subscriptions (Amazon Prime £80, Disney + £50 and YNAB £75) I’m going to challenge myself to make enough through selling or other means to cover it outside my budget - if we don’t make enough, we won’t have them. I’m going to keep budgeting for Spotify though as it’s part of my phone bill plus we all use it loads as we like music and haven’t got CDs etc now.

 3. I’ve always thought the car was just about as cheap as public transport (we have no loan as paid cash). But actually it’s not. Red uses a work van for commuting so no costs there. I’ve calculated £70 for running costs (insurance, tax MOT/service, breakdown cover) which doesn’t include any major repairs - any work needing done that’s bigger than a new tyre comes out of the emergency fund. Average petrol costs in the last three months = £44. So that’s about £115 excluding repairs and parking (we spend a lot of time in the west end). A bus pass for Monkey & I (as he’s about to turn 5) is about £85. We would definitely get the occasional train or taxi too. But when you include parking costs and repairs (not to mention saving for a new car, which we aren’t at the moment) it means the bus is cheaper. Much more inconvenient though. I walk the morning nursery run (nearly an hour round trip) but drive the afternoon pick up, and there is only a bus every half hour that route. We like to go to different walks/parks/green spaces and meet friends across and outside the city many of which we couldn’t easily reach on public transport. Plus with Covid it feels safer and more reliable to use the car too. But an interesting and eye-opening exercise nonetheless. If we had a car loan too it would mean that the car was quite a bit pricier for what is really a luxury.

 4. I think if we are strict we could continue to bring the food budget down so I’ll keep working on that. Would love to work on £130 a fortnight next month (so averaged over the year £280 a month).

Bluegreen143

Meant to post the revised budget:

INCOME
Red’s salary (after what he keeps in his account - usually £250/300) - £1,750

Child benefit - £140 every four weeks - but I’m now putting this directly into the Christmas/birthdays fund. This also pays for seasonal events eg I’ve booked family tickets for a (regulated & with social distancing) Halloween/bonfire night light show this year as it looks like trick or treating & organised fireworks displays are both cancelled). 

HOUSING COSTS £635 
Mortgage... £421
Council tax inc water... £153
Life ins... £50
Home ins... £12

OTHER BILLS £225
Gas & electricity... £93
Internet... £23
TV license... £14
Car running costs (ins, tax, breakdown cover, MOT fee etc)... £70
Nursery snack fund... £25

SPENDING 
My personal spends and phone bill (inc Spotify sub): £100

HOUSEHOLD SPENDING £550
Food £300
Household supplies £60
Petrol £60
Clothes £50
Fun £50
Misc £30

Could maybe bring this down a bit - anything left in here I’d sweep to savings at the end of the month. 

SAVINGS £240
(this is a minimum - hopefully could increase this with extra earnings or by spending less)

MIL debt payment £100 (balance £1,000)
Emergencies (balance about £470) £35
Home projects £35
Holiday £35
New car £35

Red has been furloughed again for two weeks but it should be OK financially as UC will then top up the salary. 

Bluegreen143

Final thoughts. While Red is on furlough my mum has asked him to do some work building her a seating area. These things are win win really. She will pay him but less than a professional would charge (as he’s happy to help family out) so she gets a discount in effect. He loves the chance to do a big build and it scratches his “project itch” without me having to fund it 😉 and the money would be super helpful right now. My mum has suggested paying us £400 after materials. Red thinks it’s more involved than she had initially said (about 10 day’s work he thinks) so he may ask her to up it to £500, but he may not out of social awkwardness 😂 either way it builds family goodwill and helps us both out so I don’t mind too much. He wants to buy a chiminea out of the earnings then says I can have the rest to budget - I’m hoping I will have at least £250-300 to play with and plan to pay this straight off the debt we owe MIL. 

Bluegreen143

Nice day today. Very sunny. We should really have gone to the beach as we wanted to try and go again but we weren’t organised in advance and we can only really do these things going first thing (as we find Bambi is tired & really ready for her nap in the car home in the afternoon so we can’t stay out too late after lunch). We didn’t even go for a local walk! However we had a very lovely, chilled out day pottering in the garden, reading in the sun, pushing the children on the swings etc. And actually it was nice we hadn’t gone out as one of Red’s brothers dropped by unexpectedly with his other half so we would have missed them otherwise. 

Have started rereading Your Money or Your Life which I first read many years ago just after graduating from university. One of those books I think everyone ought to read and I wish I hadn’t slightly forgotten about it in the intervening years! 

Red won’t read it himself but I’ve been drip feeding him some quotes and discussion points from it. I might see if I can add the audio book cheaply (it’s a kindle edition I own and often it’s just a couple of £ for the audio track on top once you have the kindle version) as he is sometimes amenable if I suggest an audiobook for driving in the van - I got him to listen to Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work that way (another classic I highly recommend) and we sometimes listen to chapters of that together at the start of a date night and do an exercise or two from the book. One thing I do love about Red is unlike many men he’s not afraid of deep conversations, emotions and talking about our values/hopes/dreams.

I think if he got past his initial reluctance to read/scepticism of alternative lifestyles he would get a lot from Your Money or Your Life. He certainly has some slightly expensive bad habits - beer, vaping, junk food, “frittering” in the supermarket mainly - but on the whole he doesn’t have expensive tastes and is VERY on board with YMOYL’s central message of working to live not living to work... not buying your way out of problems... working less so you can do things yourself rather than paying others to do them for you... I asked him about his happiness/life satisfaction on a 1-5 scale which is one of the exercises in the book. He reckons he’s “at least a 4, sometimes a 5” and I feel quite similarly. Very cheering to hear out loud that he’s feeling so good though 🙂 What’s striking and sad is that the average surveyed American is apparently a 2.7/8 on the scale, regardless of their income level.

Baileys_Babe

Thanks for the reminder about YMOYL, it is a book I have been meaning to read for years, but never getting around to. I have just popped on to the library website and placed a hold which will be available in a few days

Bluegreen143

Ooooh hope you enjoy @Baileys_Babe! I’m still annoyed that our libraries are so behind - only 5 I think reopened in the city (out of about 35!) with very reduced opening hours and you can’t order books online anymore. Just have to go and only have access to the books in the one you’re in 😡 and neither of my closest ones is open yet and I’d need to pay for parking to go to the next one along. I know it’s a minor thing but I think the libraries along with the swimming pools I’ve missed the most over these last six months (after seeing family and friends of course). I can live without bars, restaurants, softplays, theatres (though I do miss these) but the loss of the libraries and pools is getting me down. You can still search for books online, just not reserve them so it’s a bit torturous finding the ones I want are there but in a closed branch so are out of reach 😭

Today made a loaf, apple muffins, chicken & mushroom soup (with the carcass from yesterday’s roast), chicken risotto for dinner (also with leftover chicken). Have enough chicken left to do chicken & chickpea curry for dinner tomorrow as planned. 

Really need to get some housework done tomorrow, bathrooms and floors.

Two week mealplan working well so far in that we’ve stuck to it the last four nights and not needed to buy any shopping yet.

Do however need petrol. Eight days til payday so definitely won’t be able to do without it. Think Red might fill up with some of the money my mum sent him though as he needs to do some trips in the car for building her garden seating area. 

Baileys_Babe

🤞 that Red fills the car up.

They have only opened a handful of libraries around here as well on very restricted open hours. They are doing this thing where you answer a questionnaire and then they choose books they think you would like, which I think I would find frustrating. I haven't used it as between the elibrary collection and the books I have cluttering up the place (mostly passed on from my parents), I have a huge range and volume of reading material. Ds has been borrowing audio books from the online collection for us to listen to as a family. Currently, it is Diana Wynne Jones, every now and then he revisits A.A.Milne