Budgeting for your family

yellow hen

I'm going yo postvthis here because it's probably relevant to so many people here.

I'm planning on taking a career break for a year and I'm a bit daunted by surviving on a reduced income so I thought I'd ask....how do you reduce your household expenses? First up I know i need to meal plan and do a weekly shop so I'm not constantly in and out of the shops. Or to avail of free kids event such as music or stories in the library or community centre rather than block paying for these. What else can you think off?

Neyite

Meal planning made a big difference to our finances. Buying and preparing in bulk and freezing some helped. Then packed lunches, homemade coffees in a travel mug can really cut down the day to day expenses. I shop mostly in Lidl and get a handful of things then from Dunnes or Supervalu that Lidl don't stock.

Look at everything you spend. All the bills and providers and see if you can switch to save money.

It's amazing when you really examine your outgoings, what you can cut back on.

The other thing we did was, we took out a small loan to cover the 16 extra weeks of maternity leave. I'd been getting statutory pay up till then and while it was tight, it was manageable on that plus his full time salary. So we got a loan to keep that budget going and it was so so worth the extra 4 months I got with the baby. So it might be an idea as a back up plan.

Neyite

In terms of activities, little kids don't need much more than some puddles and wellies. Walks in the woods, going to the seaside to stomp in the waves, picnics in the park, playgrounds and all that they enjoy just as much as an expensive days out.

Invest in rain gear for them (and for you!). I got our fella some of these with a matching jacket. It's perfect because if it's cold you can layer inside with tops and tights under trousers, and if it's mild then just their ordinary day wear. And when you are done splashing around you peel them off, chuck them in the boot and have a clean car.

yellow hen

Thanks neyite. The kids have that wet gear and it is brilliant. They get out in all weathers now. They have clothes for the next 2 years courtesy of sales and hand me downs. It's really day to day shopping that kills me. I need to be more disciplined. I'm in no doubt at all that this is the right thing to do for our family. I also have 6 months to plan for the leave which means I can save a bit more over those 6 months.

Cakerbaker

I make sure to use the €10 off €50 (and other combinations) the supermarkets send out. Tesco take them from Lidl, ALDI, dunnes and SuperValu too. If my weekly shopping list isn’t going to reach the amount I need, I stock up on dry or canned goods like pasta, rice or tinned tomatoes that I know I’ll use to bring me up to the threshold.

Lidl and ALDI are great. Although I do end up having to get a few more bits in tesco as they just don’t have everything I need (and I often have the resist the random temptation of the middle aisle!!!). Dealz is great for certain products, they have branded cleaning products a lot cheaper than the supermarkets. Though the own brand cleaning products are good too and cheaper.

If you’re out of contract with your energy providers, shop around or ring your current provider and tell them your thinking of leaving. There’s usually savings to be had.

fits

I have just finished a 13 month break where I didn’t even get statutory maternity pay. We managed pretty well in the one salary. We did all shopping in ALDI. Planned for upcoming expenses like car tax and insurance. Almost all baby gear was borrowed or given to us and I sold on anything we bought that had value. We took low cost holidays by going to a family members holiday home in the west. I shopped around for electricity and broadband and health insurance. Got rid of tv. I bought no clothes. Luckily we have very reasonable rent though and no loans. Loans are the killer. I try to avoid credit at all costs if I can.

The Mulk

We did a 3 year break when our 2 were small.
Biggest saving we made was becoming a 1 car family. I commuted to work on a taxsaver pass. The car was used sparingly during the week and at weekends.
Pay close attention to tax credits etc, make sure your partner gets all yours for the year.
I set up equalizer payments for gas and electric. No more big bills.(I still have this going)
Make sure you sign up with your local Intreo office too, you need to keep your PRSI stamps up to date.
Recently we've got rid of Sky and use the Free to Air service, over €60 a month saving.
During the career break, we took a 6 month mortgage holiday, it meant we could take a family holiday with the added cash. Now we're both back working we've increased our payments so will knock more than those 6 months off the term.
Enjoy it.

maxsmum

We take out 300 quid cash a week and use that for everything except bills abd mortgage. The cards stay at home. Works out pretty well. Weekly shop in Lidl and use Aldi formula nappies and wipes which saves probably 50% overall compared to Aptamil and Pampers.

shesty

Food is a big thing alright.meal plan is important.I actually shop online with supervalu and it is working out cheaply (not quite as cheap as lidl or aldi I would say but not bad) It removes the temptation of impulse buying as you have a list and stick to it, and they send you coupons very regularly.They do deals on nappies etc quite regularly too, and their own brand stuff is good quality-pasta, rice, chopped tomatoes, OJ and the like.
Learn to bake if you don't already.You'll save loads on biscuits and treats that way.We do the monthly equaliser payments too on gas and electricity, they are fantastic for making sure of your budget for the year.
You would be amazed at how little you can survive on in some ways,it's getting your head past that thing of feeling you need to buy stuff all the time is the biggest challenge.Once you accept that you and the kids don't need stuff everytime you walk into a shop, it becomes quite easy (assuming you don't already do that!!!).You actually start to realise that we all have way too much stuff for no real reason.Shop ahead of time for clothes in sales, there are regular sales throughout the year everywhere and keep.an eye on online sites for codes etc.
Do try to put a bit aside for a treat like a meal out or takeaway or something, every month though.You do have to be able to enjoy other things in life a bit too.

purpleisafruit

Might seem obvious but keep a running total as you're doing your shopping. It might take a little longer to get around but when you know your budget and you get close to the figure, you're less likely to throw in the tenner worth of biscuits/chocolate/crisps etc at the end.
If you've got a sky package, ring them up and tell them you're looking to leave. They'll generally offer you a cheaper deal.

Cakerbaker

Check smaller shops too, they can often be cheaper or as cheap as the supermarkets and have nicer quality products. My local butcher does €5 Friday’s and I can get things like really nice mince and chicken breasts for less than what they cost in even Lidl or ALDI.

Neyite

I forgot - we got rid of our cable package.

We went with a very basic Eir package and got an android TV box off amazon, plus Netflix and I can't really say that I've missed it at all.

The Mulk

Neyite wrote: »

I forgot - we got rid of our cable package.

We went with a very basic Eir package and got an android TV box off amazon, plus Netflix and I can't really say that I've missed it at all.

I installed a free to air system (I had existing Sky dish).I put up an aerial
I have all Irish channels and UK main ones BBC, UTV, CH4 etc, can record too.
No bills.

CheerLouth

Plus one for doing the grocery shop online! Totally removes the temptation to buy rubbish. I still make a list and stick to it. Tesco do a lot of 3 for 10euro on meat and fish which I find very good value. As someone else mentioned, Tesco take it's competitors vouchers. They also allow you to save all of your points for Christmas which I find really handy. It means that in November, they send you out vouchers for your points for the whole year - this year I got 60euro in vouchers off them.

I buy my meat in my local butchers - they do good deals, especially Fiver Friday deals. I buy most of the kids clothes in the sales or online. I put money on the Electric Ireland a/c every week so I don't have to pay a bill every two months. I also do shoe clubs for the kids shoes.

tickingclock

The biggest thing I do is stay out of shops I like. I meal plan and shop in the discounters. Without doubt though if i stay out of the shops I don't spend. So even if I see sale signs I stear clear!! This avoids any impulse spending. In January I didn't go into any shop except a food shop and I managed to save €150 for a summer holiday.

mirrorwall14

Excel sheet. List every single monthly set outgoing on one page e.g. phone bill, Internet, savings, life insurance etc. Total this.

Then on another sheet list out all the annual payments e.g. house insurance, car tax, gas boiler service etc. Add this and divide by 12. This is what you need to set aside monthly to be able to deal with those bills

Finally start a day to day expenditure sheet. Set the weekly amount for shopping, childcare if paid weekly, a small miscellaneous amount e.g. 10e for coffee etc a week. (Stick to this!!). Total this.

Add the three totals. That’s the absolute minimum you need each month excluding things like clothes, gp visits and unplanned incidentals.

Then start adjusting. If that total isn’t under the money coming in you need to start cutting

Cakerbaker

Me again!

When meal planning / doing your shopping list check what’s on offer in the supermarkets / the ALDI super 6. I try to base my meals around what’s on offer and our fruit most weeks is what’s on offer. It helps that we’ll all pretty much eat anything!

pwurple

Track it all. It is the same in work, if you shine a light on it, you will find the savings. I find using debit cards or card it cards helps with that, you can grab all your transactions later from online banking.

We started doing that when the kids were born... totaling things up, like food, activities etc.

Knock off whatever you need in orde to live within budget. Go for the easy wins, the biggest savings are to be made on the biggest costs.


Also, give yourself a target. So, if you bring in... i dunno , 500 euro a week after tax from your job, then try to make savings that come up to that target, and beat it.

In our case, our three big expenditures were
Childcare
Mortgage
Cars (fuel, tax, insurance, servicing combined)

Childcare will go when you drop the job.

Housing We moved our mortgage to get a better rate. House prices have gone up, so out LTV has come down. That was a hassle to do, took 2 months and loads of paperwork, but the saving is 200 euro a month, so well worth it for us.

Car... we took a big of a gamble ... we still needed two cars. So , just over three years ago we went for an electric car. This was actually a great success financially, better than anything else. Fuel, tax and servicing costs were almost completely wiped out. Saved us 250 a month. You can get very reasonable second hand ones now.


Smaller things then...
We switched to night saver electricity. Run all the appliances like washing machine at night.

We put up a canopy on the side of the house with a clothes line under it. Clothes still dry in light rain / drizzle. Saves on tumble drying.

We don’t have cable tv, we share Netflix with family.

Food. We started growing veg in the back garden. I can report that while it is great fun, and the kids love it, it really doesn’t save a whole pile of money unless you are growing something expensive like asparagus or strawberries and even then it is not much. Spuds are so cheap here, you can’’t grow them in small amounts cheaper than the big farmers.
+1 on the Tesco shop. No junk food gets in, you see all the deals, plus, you don’t drag kids around a supermarket for an hour , you can do it when they are in bed. That means more fun for you all. And, you can track the Bajesus out of it if you want too. More data to trend!

Clothes. I learned to sew from YouTube. Got my grannies old sewing machine. I can repair and adjust clothes for the kids , and us. I never made a piece of clothes from scratch, I think that would be too expensive anyway... but for repairs and making clothes last from one child to the next, dropping and raising hems, tightening and loosing waistbands to its fits them right, basic sewing is very handy. This is a bit craft-nerdy, but I made a few pennant strings from things they had grown out of and were too damaged for charity bin. Very handy for birthday parties instead of balloons, or their bedrooms, or for decorating a tree for picnics outside etc.



Most of That prep was for one of to be be able to give up work. My husband has “retired” recently, so will see how it goes!

shesty

Just reading some of these made me realise other stuff we do.Online shopping is handy because it keeps the running total for you on the corner of the screen.You are alerted to any bargains as you pick things, so like 2 for 1 on fruit etc.
Our paychecks work in such a way that we have one coming in each week.We had to do a detailed spreadsheet and make sure our direct debits were spread in such a way that they didn't all go out in one week.That worked for us, other people might prefer to put a bit aside each week and have them all go out at the same time.Once done, we now keep a weekly speadsheet track of spending vs income, that way we know what's coming.It is extremely handy.Bit of work to set it up but easy to maintain.Having a big household calendar to mark upcoming events in helps a lot in this as you can plan.
If you are out with the kids bring your own snacks etc as this saves buying food when they (or you) get hungry.

yellow hen

Thanks for all the good suggestions. I've realised we're not doing that bad as it stands but I really need to get a handle on our tv and broadband costs. Saving monthly for large bills would also be helpful.

Cakerbaker

I heard a woman talking about budgeting on the radio the other day. She made a few interesting points. 1 was to add up all the annual bills / charges, divide by 12 and save that much every month. Also include annual expenses like Christmas and holidays if you’re planning on taking one.

Another was to save for specific things rather than have a general saving account. So for example have a holiday account, a new car account, a household emergency account and put what you can afford into each every month. The logic being that it’s easy to spend money on an unnecessary treat if it’s just going into a general savings account but you’ll be more likely to think twice about it if there’s a purpose to the savings.

She also suggested tracking spending by using a debit card and no cash for a few weeks if you’ve no idea where your money goes as this will all you to see exactly what you’re spending and on what.

shesty

That's interesting, I was going to suggest closing down any unnecessary accounts or credit cards to reduce fees and charges.I amn't sure on how effective that is though, we have a couple of savings accounts still.Are the same charges levied on savings accounts?
I definitely think one credit card for the shole family is absolutely enough and it should live at home, just be used for paying car tax, insurance etc(which you then budget to save for and pay off in one go) but I am not sure on reducing all savings accounts down to just 1!

pwurple

shesty wrote: »

That's interesting, I was going to suggest closing down any unnecessary accounts or credit cards to reduce fees and charges.I amn't sure on how effective that is though, we have a couple of savings accounts still.Are the same charges levied on savings accounts?
I definitely think one credit card for the shole family is absolutely enough and it should live at home, just be used for paying car tax, insurance etc(which you then budget to save for and pay off in one go) but I am not sure on reducing all savings accounts down to just 1!

Definitely disagree with this.
Sure, if you are carrying a balance, or have some sort of spending problem, then get rid of them. Cards should never go into debt obviously if you are budgeting. Pay them off every month, no interest applies and some give you cashback on spends. 
But unless you fall into that "Problem spender" group, a card is a very useful tool for tracking and trending spending.

I heartily disagree on keeping them at home. It's too difficult to track cash spending accurately. You've only guesswork then to rely on then instead of a black and white record of spends on fuel / clothes / coffee / groceries. People underestimate what they spend, forgetting about little things.

Another handy thing to set up is a limit on your card that matches your budget. So, say your monthly spending target is 1500. Cap your card at that (or a hundred euro above), and track it online every week. Your card will be declined if you go over it. You can set up warning texts as well that alert you if you are getting near a limit.

shesty

No sorry, I mean just have one family credit card and leave that at home, I'm assuming debit cards are in use all the time.

I rarely carry cash myself.

Sleepy

The savings from moving to a cheap (under €150) linux based freesat box instead of Sky / Virgin TV subscription are huge and, honestly, aside from a few of the kids channels which were easily replaced with alternatives (the FTA kids channels, Netflix and torrents) we really haven't found ourselves missing them. Especially now that virtually all the major channels have decent OnDemand features on their websites.

Sky Sports alone can be so expensive that it actually makes financial sense to pop to the local to watch a match or two a week and enjoy a pint per half of the match than to keep up the subscription!

jester77

Cakerbaker wrote: »

I heard a woman talking about budgeting on the radio the other day. She made a few interesting points. 1 was to add up all the annual bills / charges, divide by 12 and save that much every month. Also include annual expenses like Christmas and holidays if you’re planning on taking one.

Another was to save for specific things rather than have a general saving account. So for example have a holiday account, a new car account, a household emergency account and put what you can afford into each every month. The logic being that it’s easy to spend money on an unnecessary treat if it’s just going into a general savings account but you’ll be more likely to think twice about it if there’s a purpose to the savings.

She also suggested tracking spending by using a debit card and no cash for a few weeks if you’ve no idea where your money goes as this will all you to see exactly what you’re spending and on what.

This is exactly how I budget, also known as envelope budgeting. I have a spreadsheet with tables for monthly, quarterly, biannual, annual and biennial bills. And then a spreadsheet for calculations, breaking down each sheet into their monthly equivalent and when they are next due and what my running balance should currently be. I then transfer over what is needed each month and I never have to worry about any bills coming in. There is no maintenance on the sheet except to update it when a service increases/decreases their price, and just to update the date of when the next bill is due after paying the current one.

I also avoid cash at all costs, makes budgeting a lot easier.

Cakerbaker

shesty wrote: »

That's interesting, I was going to suggest closing down any unnecessary accounts or credit cards to reduce fees and charges.I amn't sure on how effective that is though, we have a couple of savings accounts still.Are the same charges levied on savings accounts?!

Actually she didn’t mention account fees, and I when she was talking about using a debit card to track expenditure I did think that it would make every transaction 10/20cent more expensive unless you have an account that doesn’t charge fees.

fits

I see the new post office bank account allows you to move money to ‘wallets’ for different purposes. Rather than having separate accounts. I’m thinking of opening an account for this feature alone.