How does everyone do it? Household Budget Review

Hammerhead17

Bluebell1000 said:

You've got a really good income, and it looks like you are used to spending accordingly. That's fine, of course - the key thing is you spend less than you earn! If you want to do something else with your income though, some of those categories are going to have to shift, so you could maybe sit down and look at your priorities.

As an example, my husband and I have £30 a month each for personal spends. Our entertainment and holiday budget is £120 a month, which also includes Disney plus (no TV licence). Our food budget (not including pet food) is £200 a month for 2 adults 2 children. We have one car, and it's an electric car via salary sacrifice through work, which costs nothing in fuel at the moment with solar panels, and maybe £10 a month in winter. As part of the package all servicing etc is included. We have a Lebara SIM only contract for just under £4 a month each. Gifts are £40 a month for everyone. So yes, your childcare is a lot, but you could shave a bit of various categories if you wanted to. 

Thanks Bluebell100!

I have been thinking the food shopping is quite high but not been able to get it down (although I haven't put much time into that since going back to work) - it does cover formula and nappies so hopefully that will be a bit easier to reduce now my kid is moving onto blue milk. I'm impressed at £200 per month for 4 of you! Would it be ok to ask what your shopping lists generally include?

theoretica

University saving - does it need to be done now?  Perhaps evening out expenses over time by stopping that now and putting more in once nursery fees etc have been grown out of would be worth considering. 

A lot of it comes down to personal choices - holidays, personal spending money, presents, cars, house, hobbies. Do you distribute your priorities equally or set some much lower so others can be higher?  If you list your spending in order you seem to be highly prioritising personal spending and cars and medium on lots of other categories (presents, holidays, food)  does that match your wishes?

warby68

The nursery years are tough but finite. Once your childcare reduces, there is the money for a bigger mortgage payment.

Meantime you might want to start saving towards the associated costs. Lots of your categories could be pruned a little to start the ball rolling and without much pain. 

You've a good income and a matching lifestyle even with nursery fees so it really is about your personal choices. It  isn't unusual to have to cut back at key points such as having children or buying homes and remember nothing has to be forever. I think you could easily squeeze £500 a month savings if you put your mind to it. Everyone's priorities are different, I'd keep the cleaner for instance, its an amazing morale booster when you're at busy career stages with young children and gives extremely good value for what it costs. I'd gently prune groceries, social, presents, tv packages and probably hold uni saving until after nursery. 

We managed cars by only having one on finance at once and keeping them a bit longer. It meant having deposits and loans/hp rather than PCPs but you could work towards that. 

Of course, that is also doing everything debt free as well (apart from mortgage and cars). When you compare yourselves with others you really don't know how their lifestyles are being funded.

Spendless

Hammerhead17 said:

Bluebell1000 said:

You've got a really good income, and it looks like you are used to spending accordingly. That's fine, of course - the key thing is you spend less than you earn! If you want to do something else with your income though, some of those categories are going to have to shift, so you could maybe sit down and look at your priorities.

As an example, my husband and I have £30 a month each for personal spends. Our entertainment and holiday budget is £120 a month, which also includes Disney plus (no TV licence). Our food budget (not including pet food) is £200 a month for 2 adults 2 children. We have one car, and it's an electric car via salary sacrifice through work, which costs nothing in fuel at the moment with solar panels, and maybe £10 a month in winter. As part of the package all servicing etc is included. We have a Lebara SIM only contract for just under £4 a month each. Gifts are £40 a month for everyone. So yes, your childcare is a lot, but you could shave a bit of various categories if you wanted to. 

Thanks Bluebell100!

I have been thinking the food shopping is quite high but not been able to get it down (although I haven't put much time into that since going back to work) - it does cover formula and nappies so hopefully that will be a bit easier to reduce now my kid is moving onto blue milk. I'm impressed at £200 per month for 4 of you! Would it be ok to ask what your shopping lists generally include?

What's blue milk? If child is 12 months they can move on to cows milk if that's what you mean? 

tooldle

I’d definitely loose one of the cars and possibly both. You are paying nearly £10k a year for cars! For context I pay £360 for my bus pass.
How many miles are you covering? Start with working out the true cost per mile before looking at alternatives. 

thorsoak

What among the personal spends are "wants" and what are "needs"?    

TBagpuss

Depending on what is included, the  personal spends of £600 a month plus a £150 social budget seem quite high and re perhaps the obvious places to make some savings. If you were to reduce those and put the difference into either savings or overpaying on your mortgage you could start to make a bit of a difference.

Nursery fees are a huge chunk at present and once the children are in school you should see a drop, even if you still pay for childcare after school. 
 
Obvious small savings - cancel the subscriptions for TV and once your current contracts end, keep your phones and switch to a cheaper sim-only contract. I currently pay £8 a moth, for instance. 

Having car finances is expensive - you may do better to get a less expensive second hard car next time and try to save up so you can buy rather than leasing or getting finance. consider whether you need to run two cars and/or if you could have a main, family car and get something cheaper and older as the second car .

I think most people would consider having a cleaner to be a luxury, but it's a fairly low cost looking at your budget as a whole, so you could chose to keep the cleaner and cut down elsewhere - for instance in your social budget. 

Food / Groceries - if you want to save, look a which supermarket you are using, and what products - buying own brand rather than named bands, buying tin bulk where practical can help cut the costs, also - make sure that you are making a list and planning meals, as this helps cut down both on food waste and impulse buys. 

If you want more detailed input you could try posting on the debt free board - I appreciate you aren't struggling with debt but that board covers budgeting as well 

Sg28

Even after taking into account the high cost of child care with an income that high and a mortgage that low you are seriously overspending. (Not that its outside your budget however.) 

The things that stand out are:

The cleaner, £60. I assume your flat isnt so big that its not managable to clean yourselves?

2x car finance, £494 probably not something you can get out of now but why not spend a few k on older models instead?

Social budget and personal spending £750, what are you spending £187.50 a week on?!

Thats £1304 that I would certainly be looking at reducing dramatically. 

Bluebell1000

Hammerhead17 said:

Bluebell1000 said:

You've got a really good income, and it looks like you are used to spending accordingly. That's fine, of course - the key thing is you spend less than you earn! If you want to do something else with your income though, some of those categories are going to have to shift, so you could maybe sit down and look at your priorities.

As an example, my husband and I have £30 a month each for personal spends. Our entertainment and holiday budget is £120 a month, which also includes Disney plus (no TV licence). Our food budget (not including pet food) is £200 a month for 2 adults 2 children. We have one car, and it's an electric car via salary sacrifice through work, which costs nothing in fuel at the moment with solar panels, and maybe £10 a month in winter. As part of the package all servicing etc is included. We have a Lebara SIM only contract for just under £4 a month each. Gifts are £40 a month for everyone. So yes, your childcare is a lot, but you could shave a bit of various categories if you wanted to. 

Thanks Bluebell100!

I have been thinking the food shopping is quite high but not been able to get it down (although I haven't put much time into that since going back to work) - it does cover formula and nappies so hopefully that will be a bit easier to reduce now my kid is moving onto blue milk. I'm impressed at £200 per month for 4 of you! Would it be ok to ask what your shopping lists generally include?

We cook everything from scratch, which is a pain sometimes but my husband can't eat rapeseed oil, so we have to be careful about shop bought products. Today we're doing a homemade mushroom and blue cheese* pie, with mash. Tomorrow will be a cheesy rice and chorizo bake. We'll use the other half pack of chorizo as pizza topping for a couple of pizzas. We tend to have several meat free days each week, and batch cook so that we cook 2-3 days worth of food; freeze one days worth and eat the other later in the week. Our main expense is fruit and veg, but we tend to buy cheaper options (i.e. berries are a special treat), and we don't buy meat substitutes, although my son has just started getting really excited about eating tofu. 
We also try to shop when there are likely to be a few discount items, and although we do meal plan, sometimes I might pick up e.g. a 10p stir fry veg pack, so we eat that instead.

No nappies or formula though, I know that can really add up!

*We found 2 packs of blue cheese discounted in the Co-op!

thara1996

Heya. 

This is my advice based on what I’ve done in order to save money over the years. For example I borrow free reading material and stamps instead of buying them. And I always take advantage of current offers on food and white wine. When it comes to the cinema or theatre, I inquire about discounts when booking a seat. Good luck. They may or may not tell you. Search your cupboards. Keep tabs on leftover food. 

Alternatively I bring my own food and drink to share with others. You can either take a entire box of sweets to eat at a play in question here or buy white wine and popcorn only on a budget. Same thing applies to the movies. Sandwiches are easy to make at home as are eggs on bread. Do your own research to practice the skill of looking at information online. 

Some things can be obtained on the cheap however. I never like to buy celebration flowers online, never have. In terms of shopping I compare the range of prices at different local food shops. I prefer to make my own flowers. I now purchase my fresh fruit and vegetables at a weekly farmers market on a Saturday afternoon once a month to use. 

I frequently go and pay a timed visit all the town charity stores to look at the type of finds there. You can re use things. Every little helps in the end. Seriously. Never swear. It is not worth the initial effort. Far from it. For finding childcare I did my research. I knew what I could and couldn’t afford each month on top of that. I asked around in addition. I cast the net wide and have decent results. 

Get the correct facts.