Food bill to rise by £750 per year

affordmylife

Wow purpleivy your dd will be a busy and very interesting young woman. Well done you and her.

I have also lost major income in the last few months. DS left school/college/home so lost child benefit and maintenance from his father. approx £200 per month. Then at christmas I gave up my second job as not enough hours in the day to fit it all in - £300 per month lost. Then last week DS2's father lost his job so maintenance stopped for him too - £125 per month gone until he gets another job. So in the last six months I have lost over £600 per month in income.

I have taken on more hours on my remaining job plus DS2 father will begin maintenance again once he starts working and has said he will try to pay what he has missed too (good dad). So its not all bad.

But it does show what can be done if you have to cut back. And we definitely have cut back.

LJM

ive found this site so helpful in saving money through different areas that i am now basically cooking from scratch,making own claening products,recycling so i dont actually buy anything unnecessary anymore.if we want munchies we make them,clothing is handed to us through family or i use ebay and charity shops.im not saying were skint but living within our means,which is allowing us to save a bit of cash.so to answer question if i hadnt of found this site then yes i would be worried but atm were not

ceridwen

From Observer article:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2243786,00.html

taplady

Ceriwden that was a very interesting article!:T fancy spending !150 plus a week on food though!:eek: that would feed most people here for 2 weeks to a month!

LilMissEmmylou

taplady - id say my mum would easily spend betwee £100 - £150 a week on food shopping for 4 of them. baffles me! However there was a stage when OH and I where spending between £75 and £100 a week just on the 2 of us!!!! i know *hangs head in shame*

sammy_kaye18

As a young family (myself at 23, bf at 28, our son whos 3, 3 terrapins and the dog whos 6) I have to say im worried by the increases in prices.

Granted we seem to have done ok over winter without too much change - our gas for 3 months was £75 and our electric for 3 months was £103 which i think is pretty bleeding good and that was without too much modification being done. (basically i only put fleeces ont eh chairs and wore an extra jumper so think ill make more modifications this year. For instance im sat here now in pjs and a fleece - its bloody freezing but theres only me and the dog in the house so i dont see them point in putting the heating on.

Also our food budget for a month is about £100 and this is basically all we can afford with bfs debts so the new food budgets are worrying me a bit but i know we'll manage with the help of MSE. The terrapins get a special food which costs me about £4 but that does them the month, the dog gets his which is a value mixer and value dog food mixed together and occassionally a tin if they are dented in wilkos and reduced to 29p each so i get him a couple. so he costs me no more than about £5 to feed (hes a small dog btw!) then we have about a £10 on other items (laundry powder, washing up liquid, shampoo (which is a bonus as i have to use baby shampoo for allergies) and depderant) then we have £80 on food.

Im already saving vouchers, doing surveys, pigsback and just joined the earn vouchers site to try adn get soem more help with it - i do bake alot form home, cook from scratch, use friendly cleaners, meal plan, stick to a budget, looking to grow my own veg this year, bake my own bread by hand and in general use the markets as much as i can - also buy discounted goods form the coop i work in - im nto sure how much more i can cut out??

taplady

Sammy_Kaye - I always follow your posts with interest as I think you are an inspiration to us all in how you manage on a tight budget!:T