overtime just to cover living costs

Currently after bills/food etc I have roughly £300 left over each month that usually goes into savings on a salary of £20k a year (no overtime) Its going to cut into the chunk I left over but should still be alright for the time being at least.
 
@Gammawolf You seem to be in a good position.

We're not as frugal as you but with 2 kids rather than 1, we still clock up over £300 per month for food. That said we go to the butchers and we're keen not to compromise on food for the kids. However we don't drink or smoke so that's one thing we don't spend money on, and pretty much just drink water! Bulk buying and cooking can really help save cash, I've estimated saving £30 per month by doing that on average. Kids enjoy preparing the food too as we make it a bit of a group activity. Takes an hour or so a week and everyone is invested in it. We do have a large chest freezer though so it does help.

That said we do pay for childcare for the youngest for a few days as we get some free hours and it gives us some time back whilst the eldest is at school.

We still go out with the 2 kids a lot because we feel it's important. And we're not really "online people" (I realise it's slightly contradictory posting on a forum!) So we do spend a lot of time with friends out and about. That said we'll make sandwiches/picnic etc... If we're out for the day to try and save some cash.

We've knocked a lot of unnecessary spending and frivolous spending. And definitely being more mindful of electricity and gas usage. Kids classes and extra curricular activities I think are too important to cancel. Everything revolves around maximising the kid's experiences.

It sounds as though with £1k "spare" you're in a very comfortable position, and can save some cash for retirement and holidays and rainy day fund too.

So you're clearly doing something well. :)
 
Someone ere use it :cool:
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Freefaller said:
@Gammawolfsnip
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Its financially comfortable yes, but as i'm sure you've experienced its not without effort and certainly doesn't come free on a plate! I realise circa 1k surplus (it's actually a bunch more when reviewing the figures properly) is rather meaningless so to put some numbers on it, our average monthly outgoings for 2021 was £1875 (This figure isn't essential cost of living, it includes all costs plus the "unnecessary" costs). Bear in mind this is to also run a 4 bed, 150sqm house. It's rather too big for us now that my parents have both passed early last year. I bought this house due to my mother having dementia so my parents lived with me and my father looked after her. But I am still burdened with inflated costs given our family size (more heating, higher council tax, more stuff to fix as it ages etc).

As you can see we're not on mega money like some may be, but you could run our outgoings off of a single average wage. Now thats not to say we don't dip into that surplus. Like you said experiences are important and thats why my wife takes our 2 year old out to places and meeting other kids, doing activities etc (no doubt cost of this will increase as they age!). In fact they just came back from 5 weeks in Japan meeting my wifes side family. I have no issues spending £2 - £3K for that as its important but on the same note its not necessary so we will as quickly cut it if we can't pay the mortgage, buy food, pay energy. I think a lot of people include too much when they talk about the "cost of living". To me its bare minimum to survive and earn the money required to survive. The finances are organised accordingly, saving to buy things outright instead of contracts. That leaves us financially flexible so if other costs go up we are committed to very little monthlys. You can just either keep that car a little longer, keep the phone longer, don't go on that holiday this year, suffer an extra year or two with broken flag stones etc in case of a money squeeze.
 
ozaudio said:
i was talking about this recently and i think i worked out i would need to do yearly around 35 - 40 hours overtime just to cover all recent living costs going up ( energy been biggest ), and thats before the council ramp up there tax... i dont have to or need to do the overtime i was just getting annoyed at the fact i can either do it or take what seems a decent pay cut. is everybody else just sucking up the costs or will you be putting in overtime to take up the costs?
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Is that about 40 mins a week. Or 7 or 8 mins a day... Id suck up the overtime.
 
azazl187 said:
Common sense. There are more people out there with kids and continue to have them that do not have jobs and don't intend on having one than people that had kids and lost jobs and genuinely want to find another one
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Well who can argue with that well argued point...

Your initial post was not about people having kids and not interested in finding a job:

azazl187 said:
I think we can mostly discount child coats. You should only have a kid if you have a steady and decent income to back it up. Call me old fashioned but having a kid and not having a job is financial suicide
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If you had started with the "having kids with no interest in being able to financially support them is financial suicide" then I would have never challenged you on it but what you had written did not imply that. It implied anyone with kids and no job was "financial suicide" and did not differentiate between those unwilling to work and those unfortunately unable to find work but trying.
 
azazl187 said:
Common sense. There are more people out there with kids and continue to have them that do not have jobs and don't intend on having one than people that had kids and lost jobs and genuinely want to find another one
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So no actual figures, just citing 'common sense'? :D
 
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