How much should / could I be living on?

lanod2407

What a question??!!

A while back work was in short supply and we (family of 6) cut large slices of monthly spend to keep the books balanced.
Income has improved, but life is still tight - whose isn't? Looking at our spend at the moment we can see that we’ve cut a lot of spend over the past year, but think that we’re still spending more than the average family of 6. MABS may be a possible resource to get a good benchmark, but they’re swamped with people who are in financial trouble and I’d not like to take their time when I’m not actually in trouble right now (long may it last!). An Eddie Hobbs type resource may be good – but probably a tad expensive.
So – back to my question …….. I’m looking for a contact / recommendation / resource / organisation who can (a) benchmark us versus a comparable average family to see if I’m in line with the norm, and (b) advise on further possible savings that we can make.

RangeR

lanod2407 wrote: »

So – back to my question …….. I’m looking for a contact / recommendation / resource / organisation who can (a) benchmark us versus a comparable average family to see if I’m in line with the norm, and (b) advise on further possible savings that we can make.

Simple question... Why?

Every family / person / circumstance is different. but what your asking follows the same path for everyone.

1. Analyse your outgoings, PER ITEM [Utilities, home phone / mobile, Broadband, UPC, Sky, etc]
2. Analyse which services / products you can sacrifice or scale down on [downgrade from top Sky package to bottom package, downgrade your broadband from 50Mbps to 10 Mbps, use your mobile less or downgrade it's package] .
3. Analyse where you can substitute cheaper product rather than more expensive [no more lynx shower gel for a fiver. Get the 79c no name that does the same job]
4. Cut down on the pub. Invite your mates around for a few bevvies in the house over a movie or poker night etc.
5. instead of driving to the corner shop, walk. Instead of driving the kids to school, get THEM to walk. Saves a bundle on petrol.
6. Use VoIP for talking rather than the phone. Much cheaper, but you have to have broadband.
7. When washing clothes or dishes [if using machine] always wash full loads and never part loads. Save water, cleaning product and electricity..


If I think of more I'll post them but ion a nutshell, if things are tight, unimportant things have to go. Important things have to be scaled down. Scaled down to as much as needed or comfortable with. Again, each family is different. There is no norm. The only norm is that the entire country [except a tiny minority] will be screwed for generations. It's time for all to buckle up and prepare.

RedXIV

yup OP, pretty much "how long is a piece of string".

As said above, if you're worried, look at a months bank statements and follow the money trail.

lanod2407

Thanks for the replies - we've gone through the cuts, downgrades, etc. and took over 25% out of the monthly spend. We also know down to the € how much money goes out each month (really simple excel template), and where it goes.
But - we're just dumbfounded by how much we spend every month without "living it large", so we're looking for an expert to take a look at the books and tell us if we're in the ball-park or totally off the scale.

Does anyone else wonder at their monthly outgoings?
Do people KNOW how much their monthly spend is?

RedXIV

Off the top of my head OP, my household of 4, 5 in Oct, spend about 2.1K a month. Does that help?

MissFlitworth

askaboutmoney have a money makeover forum where you post up what you spend in a month and people go through it for you

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/forumdisplay.php?f=62

Might be a good place to track down someone who does it professionally as well

EL_Loco

firstly, fair play on getting your ship in order and cutting costs.

2ndly, how's your electricity/energy costs?

that rte program on electricity usage etc was a real eye opener. turn off everything at night and other tips like that seemed to make a huge difference to the household budgets.

maybe just pulse the heating in the evenings to put a bit of warmth into the house, after that, extra jumpers.

one I do myself, it's only a small thing but sure they all add up: I've a measuring cup beside the kettle, so if I'm doing tea for 3, fill the cup 3 times and empty the water into the kettle. you only boil what you need. apparently boiling a full kettle is one of those things that people do all the time and it's very wasteful.

lanod2407

I'm so far away from that it's scary.

- Mortgage 1150
- Private health 200
- Critical Illness 250 (self employed)
- Life Assurances - 350
- 2 cars on the road - 1160 - work travel ~1000 km per week, inc 1 car loan 350 pm.
- Sky - 68 (going to 44 as of next week)
- Electricity - 125
- Oil - ~120
- Food - ~1000
- credit card interest 30
-

There's so much more - kids pocket money, personal spend, clothes, music lessons, school grinds, school full-stop!, food at work, ........... you get the picture

dudara

Moved to Banking & Insurance & Pensions as we really don't have a Personal Finance forum

dudara

the groutch

lanod2407 wrote: »

- Mortgage 1150
- Private health 200
- Critical Illness 250 (self employed)
- Life Assurances - 350
- 2 cars on the road - 1160 - work travel ~1000 km per week, inc 1 car loan 350 pm.
- Sky - 68 (going to 44 as of next week)
- Electricity - 125
- Oil - ~120
- Food - ~1000
- credit card interest 30
-

There's so much more - kids pocket money, personal spend, clothes, music lessons, school grinds, school full-stop!, food at work, ........... you get the picture

there's still alot of things that you could work on.


is there any way you can cut down the health insurances, life assurances etc? I know your self employed, but could you go for lower level cover until things are straightened out?

is it possible to arrange your schedules in such a way to get by on one car?

is the credit card necessary? could you use Laser instead? could you borrow off a relative to clear the credit card debt and save long term on interest?

where can you save on the weekly shopping (changing to own brands, buying in bulk, buying what's on offer rather than being brand loyal)

the other things mentioned like grinds and music lessons aren't really necessities


hate to be blunt, but it sounds like you got caught up in the boom, and might need to make some serious lifestyle changes

newmug

lanod2407 wrote: »

I'm so far away from that it's scary.

- Mortgage 1150
- Private health 200
- Critical Illness 250 (self employed)
- Life Assurances - 350
- 2 cars on the road - 1160 - work travel ~1000 km per week, inc 1 car loan 350 pm.
- Sky - 68 (going to 44 as of next week)
- Electricity - 125
- Oil - ~120
- Food - ~1000
- credit card interest 30
-

There's so much more - kids pocket money, personal spend, clothes, music lessons, school grinds, school full-stop!, food at work, ........... you get the picture

Straight away I'd obliterate Sky from my house. Erase the memory that it was ever there. It is the most vile, pointless, worthless thing to have. I'd cut out telly completely, but if you really want to watch somehing, at least get a free-to-air dish or use something like freesat etc.

Secondly, get rid of the second car. At 350 pm, it sounds like you bought a '07 or '08 Volvo or something. There is absolutely ZERO excuse for wasting money on plush cars. A '93 Golf for 350 full stop would do you if you need a run-around.

Thirdly, pocket money? Seriously? Whatever about investing in your childs education, but pocket money? No way!


I grew up in the 80's. We had no car for a lot of it, no telly, no central heating, no dinners most days, and this was in a time when we also has NO DEBT! If you owe money, you should be living like I did in the 80's to pay it off first, then worry about quality-of-life stuff.

Jim2007

newmug wrote: »

Thirdly, pocket money? Seriously? Whatever about investing in your childs education, but pocket money? No way!

I would strongly disagree! The best way to learn about managing money is to have some to manage. If they blow it, they blow it and learn something from it.

Here in Switzerland the norm is 1CHF per school year, so my daughter who 9 gets 4CHF per week. A few months back she blew it all on some games of chance at a local fair and as result she had to go without her weekly comic and Sunday afternoon ice cream - it has never happened since, now she takes out the money for the comic and ice cream, before she spends anything else.

My son on the other hand is a great man for second hand items - He is 13 years old and he never buys anything new if he can get a good second hand alternative. He is also a great man for flogging everything he does not need on EBay!

At the end of each year to encourage savings we double any pocket money they have saved during the year.

These are Swiss traditions and seeing how well the Swiss manage money I think this is were the skills are learned.

Jim

Jim2007

RangeR wrote: »

Simple question... Why?

It is always a good idea to have some kind of benchmark figures in mind so you can measure yourself.

For instance here is Switzerland, people have a rule of thumb that they should not pay more than about 20% of their monthly income in mortgage repayments or rent. Very often when discussing mortgages you'll hear comments like, "it's a bit expensive, it's costing me 23%" or "I'm lucky it is only costing 17%" and so on.

I wonder would such concepts have helped save a few Irish people from financial ruin during the boom.....

Jim.

f9710145

Your food bill of €1000 per month is very high to me. There are 4 of us (2 ads + 2 hungry boys) and we spend €400 per month on household/grocery. And we don't go without. You should have a look at the money matters board on rollercoaster.ie - there are a few threads on 'what do you spend' and 'anyone good with money' that go into some detail on day to day household expenses, great tips on cutting down the grocery bill.

oldyouth

€1,000 a month on food is the one that jumps out at me there. 2 adults and 2 'starving' teenage boys here could never get through that much. I'd look at where I'm shopping and whether I'm buying food in the most economical sizes. Probably a lot of stuff there thrown out for being passed use by dates

yellowlabrador

You can definitely cut down on food by going back to the old fashioned way. A fixed menu of fresh ingredients and using all leftovers.Make the five a day mainly vegetables, buy only things that are in season. Make your own jams with blackberries, blackcurrants etc. If you have a garden, grow your own. Packed lunches also save money. The children can have a fixed amount for treats every week, and that can replace the pocket money. Get rid of the tv, no more sky, no more licence and more family time.