Please check my budget (£2,823pm) or share yours so I can get some ideas where I'm going wrong.

jonnygee2

You must have some sort of generation then (which would be silly not to mention). £1 a day will but cover standing charges and background use. 

I think you need to change provider if your standing charges are £1 a day! What is 'background usage'?.

Last month we used 161 kwh at 12.39p / hour, and another £5.65 in standing charges, total just over £25. No solar panels or generation involved.

ffacoffipawb

jonnygee2 said:

You must have some sort of generation then (which would be silly not to mention). £1 a day will but cover standing charges and background use. 

I think you need to change provider if your standing charges are £1 a day! What is 'background usage'?.

Last month we used 161 kwh at 12.39p / hour, and another £5.65 in standing charges, total just over £25. No solar panels or generation involved.

How are you only using less than 6KwH a day? It seems very low. We use about 25KwH a day at 14p per KwH = £3.50 per day. Nothing out of the ordinary apart from two boys with a PS4 each which are used for about 12 hours a day each.

Retired_Minky

Thanks. My replies in italics below
jonnygee2 said:

I don't necessarily think your spending is huge when you consider your mortgage and bills, and the fact you seem to be supporting three other adults, if I've understood that correctly. I don't suppose the others could contribute more somehow? 

Still, some suggestions below.

1. Energy - £150   Are you on an economy 7 plan to charge your car overnight? If not can you set one up? In a house of 3 adults our electricity bill is just £25. 
2. Yes. I pay cheaper rate overnight to charge the car. Although I'm not travelling as much now so will contact the energy company for a discount
   

1. Misc £75  

1. Groceries - £800 Could be lower, maybe £150 each / month would be a better starting point. Get the dependants to work out how to reduce the budget if possible, don't put it on yourself, get them to find new things to cook and cheaper ways to eat.
2. Based on other feedback I'm going to try £400 per month and see how I go. 

Irregular Spend (proportional amount moved to separate account monthly):

1. Birthday presents - £35

1. Christmas presents - £34- In total you have over £900 in birthday/Christmas presents budgeted per year! That's huge. Maybe people would be happy with much smaller gifts? 
2. Thanks. There are a lot of people I buy for. Immediate family is £50 per gift. The rest are £20 - £30 approx (e.g. nieces, nephews). I'd love to cut this but I think the extended family would be upset as they also spend the same amount on gifts. Not sure how I'd approach this one really without an "incident".
   

1. Home and garden - £80 Also a lot. Anything that can be replaced by DIY? Plants from seeds etc? Again, put the dependants on it if possible.
2. This one is a bit high as we're saving for replacement sofa's as the current set is on the way out. Once I've got this bought I'd look to reduce the budget. My SO grows some veg in the garden from seed and occasionally buys the odd plant so we don't spend too much on the garden. 

1. Window cleaner - £12 - get the 'adult dependants' to do it if they aren't working? They just need a ladder.
2. I laughed when I saw this. The adult dependants won't do this but they do help out in other ways round the house. Thanks for the suggestion though. Did make me chuckle.
   

1. Clothes - £50 - £600 a year also seems high, even for four adults. Maybe downgrade to H&M? Even charity shops? Should really be able to cover most people with £70 - £100 a year.
2. I agree this needs to be reduced. Does £20 a month seem reasonable (i.e. £240 a year). I hardly buy cloths myself and when I do it's mainly Primark. This is mostly my SO. I don't think I could get them down to £100 per year. This budget used to be £100 per month. I only reduced it to £50 this year. I might be sleeping alone if I cut it too much.  

1. 
   

Replies above

LittleVoice

Thank you for starting this thread.  I've been struck by the variety of opinions about the annual £600 allocated to clothing (when you say that this is half what it had been previously).

I'd thought it was for one person.  I spent £522 last year just for myself - but I suppose I had to buy new things (eg first winter coat in 20 years and because I'd gone down at least two dress sizes).  Marks & Spencer or Debenhams in the sales were probably the most frequent destinations and I found Sainsbury's clothing worth looking at. 

Coachman12 would also have expected more than £50/month for one (at least for his wife).

jonnygee2 on the other hand thought £70/year for 4 adults was achievable.

jonnygee2

I agree this needs to be reduced. Does £20 a month seem reasonable (i.e. £240 a year). I hardly buy cloths myself and when I do it's mainly Primark. This is mostly my SO. I don't think I could get them down to £100 per year. This budget used to be £100 per month. I only reduced it to £50 this year. I might be sleeping alone if I cut it too much.  

£20 a month is £240 a year, I tsounds reasonable to me, actually I was suggesting £70 a year each so slightly more than this. But please manke sure to keep a roof over your head :-D.

jonnygee2

How are you only using less than 6KwH a day? It seems very low. 

I feel my electricity usage is getting a little off topic for the thread! I didn't even think it was low but apparently it is. We have a small eco7 water heater that does the water overnight (I averaged the price above), an induction cooker, a kettle? Heavy laptop use and some lights, not much else. I guess I could break it down further but that's a summary of the main things that use the electricity. 

newlywed

I wouldn’t try to halve your grocery budget in one hit, do it in a couple of stages. Otherwise you might meet moans And resistance that won’t help. Maybe try and cut it £200 the first month, then another £100 the next etc and see if anyone has noticed or not?

greyteam1959

Re the grocery budget.
Stop buying brand names.
Shop at Aldi or Lidl.
You could save over 30% easily.

Retired_Minky

LittleVoice said:

Thank you for starting this thread.  I've been struck by the variety of opinions about the annual £600 allocated to clothing (when you say that this is half what it had been previously).

I'd thought it was for one person.  I spent £522 last year just for myself - but I suppose I had to buy new things (eg first winter coat in 20 years and because I'd gone down at least two dress sizes).  Marks & Spencer or Debenhams in the sales were probably the most frequent destinations and I found Sainsbury's clothing worth looking at. 

Coachman12 would also have expected more than £50/month for one (at least for his wife).

jonnygee2 on the other hand thought £70/year for 4 adults was achievable.

Yes. Big difference on the clothing budget. My SO has about 90% of the wardrobe space at home. I might not get away with trying to reduce this one. 

Retired_Minky

newlywed said:

I wouldn’t try to halve your grocery budget in one hit, do it in a couple of stages. Otherwise you might meet moans And resistance that won’t help. Maybe try and cut it £200 the first month, then another £100 the next etc and see if anyone has noticed or not?

Thanks. I've taken this on board and agreed with the SO to go for £500 this month and then down to £400 next month. Seems like a good plan.