Living on Less

pandaonmyshoulder

I am always looking to save a few £ and I see some of you folks are living on say £4000 or £8000 per year as a challenge. But my question is how do you arrive at the figure and so how can I work out how much my family could/should live on as a challenge?

We are a family of 6 - 2 adults, 3 teenagers and an 8 year old oh and a cat and dog (dog has bad skin and usually costs more for work and meds than the rest of the family:mad: )

mouseymousey99

Hello Panda, Did you see Martin on the TV a few weeks ago? The basis of the programme was going down from know labels to stores own versions, and saving around a third on your shopping. If you would like to show us what you normally buy on a shopping trip most of the people on here can explain how to cook your own version and how to make things go further. I'm sure someone who can explain this a lot better than me will be along soon.
Best wishes & Happy Christmas Mx

champys

How you arrive at the figure? First you need to establish what the figure is now, then you can set goals about reducing it. Try to start keeping a spending diary - you will find lots of advice on this if you do a search on this site. There are also helpful outside websites like http://www.spendingdiary.com/
This will help you finding out how much you are actually living on. Ideas on how to bring it down can be found in almost every single post on this board... wishing you lots of good luck. Let us know how you get on!

pandaonmyshoulder

I was thinking more of trying to find out what we'd get on benefits and maybe trying to stick to that amount each week

Pink.

Hi pandaonmyshoulder,

I agree with champys...The best thing you can do is work out your budget and then once you've worked out if/where you are overspending you can look at ways to cut back. Martin's Budget Planner is a great free tool. You can find it here

I've just read your last post. If you are trying to find out what benefits you are entitled to you would get more help on the Benefits board. Let me know if you want your thread moved over there.

Pink

Hardup_Hester

Hi
Hubby & I live on just over £8000 a year because that's what I earn, we have a lodger at the moment so do have some extra coming in.