Sticking to a budget

I watch a lady on YouTube who genuinely manages on a budget of around, say, £10 a week on food.
She shows her menu, always cooks from scratch, and has an allotment that has been her mainstay in providing a good deal of her food.

However, she now needs to move and probably won't have an allotment any more as her arthritis is getting too hard to manage.

I think guidance is extremely useful particularly for someone just starting out.

I’ve just looked at the banks guidance and what it actually says is

50% essentials

30% wants

20% savings.

I’ve obviously added the other stuff over the years without realising it.

For those who like to plough their own financial furrow fine - plough ahead, but for others a little bit of guidance goes a long way for future stability and financial confidence.

Allotments have to be paid for and so do seeds, bulbs and fertiliser.
If anyone has the time and the inclination of course, it must help, tho carrots for instance cost about only 40p or less for a bag in some shops.
I manage on a strict budget for the two of us, it works but we don’t smoke (£16 a pack!) or vape or drink much alcohol.
Making essential shopping lists helps and not getting carried away in supermarkets.

Allotments help hugely Oreo. Most are very cheap, my dad (aged 94) pays £20 per year for his. Fruit trees and bushes cost very little in upkeep and supply enough for the freezer to feed them for the whole year, and there are vegetables growing all year round, and stored and frozen too. It saves at least £10 per week I’d say. You don’t even have to buy seeds if you save them from one year to the next, but most allotment societies also do very cheap deals on both seeds and fertilisers, plus you can make your own for free.. If you have the time and energy it’s really beneficial - lots of younger people are getting into it now too, for the same reason I imagine.

Yes, it’s def a time thing isn’t it? I both work and have childcare to do, plus cleaning and shopping and helping Mum with hers.
If fully retired and you can get, and live near an allotments it’s worth applying for.

Casdon

I do like generic guidelines for budget management, because I think far too many people over-extend themselves and get into unmanageable debt because they don’t think of the future. Therefore things they have to save up for but which are inevitable cause a crisis, and they have to borrow more money. These days far too much is available on ‘buy now pay later’ schemes. It’s helpful to know how much the bank recommends you should put aside for those eventualities, particularly for young people and those who are struggling with debt.
Having said that, I don’t worry too much about dipping into my savings for bigger purchases, because that’s what they are for. I’d be worried too though if it was necessary to use them routinely because once they are gone it must be incredibly stressful to have no funds to fall back on.

That's all very well if people really do have surplus, having taken care of essentials. I'm afraid I don't, so I have to budget differently. I've already cut things down to the bone. At the beginning of each month, I compare my income with essentials and earmark that money. Each month is slightly different, eg birthdays, car expenses, other major travel, etc.

I don't have any beauty treatments, but I do pay for a decent haircut every so often. That's the one thing which can be postponed from one month to the next.

I now have very few savings, so I look to my wardrobe, loft and bookcase to see if there's anything I can sell on eBay or Vinted. Currently, I'm saving for a car service and am putting aside money I receive from selling books and recycled print cartridges (I scrounge them from friends).

I just about manage by paying for everything on credit card and paying it off at the end of the month, which gives me a couple of weeks of "free credit". Diabetes means I have to eat reasonably well and plan my food, but I find that quite easy to budget for. I rarely pay for any vegetables (although I never know what I'm going to get every week). Wherever possible, I eat salad rather than veggies which need to be cooked, to save fuel. I also batch cook/freeze, so there are some weeks when I hardly buy any food. My absolute maximum for food and cleaning materials, etc is £150 a month.

I buy clothes in charity shops and/or in sales and regularly re-sell clothes I haven't worn for a while or which I bought for an occasion and will never wear again. Most of my clothes have some kind of recognisable label, so they're easy to sell and I guess most people have no idea how little I spend on them. (It made me smile when some poster on GN claimed to be able to tell poor people from the clothes and shoes they wear ). She probably also posts about people who can't be poor because they wear designer clothes . My smartphone is years old and reaching the end of its life, so some serious research is going to be needed about replacing it. Any long-term savings I ever manage go into my "car fund". I'm hoping my current car will last a couple more years and that I'll be able to afford one more car before I become incapable of driving safely/pop my clogs.

Generic guidelines are no good when they bear no relation to your familys size, circumstances or income.

The only way to budget is to sit down and work out what your money is being spent on currently and then work from basics, rent/mortgage, utilities, food upwards.

The actions anyone needs to take to control spending will vary from person to person. I was advising someone elderly with a developing debt problem and suggested that instead of just buying what she wanted and paying by debit card, she worked out a weekly spending limit and took out the cash once a week (this was before COVID). It worked a treat, she was out of debt in six months - but that would not work for everybody.

I’m not sure the concept of generic has been understood by some? Of course they don’t fit you individually. These guidelines are aimed at helping people start to budget who haven’t before, and give broad principles, not the detail of the finances of those of us who have been around the block a few times and already know how to do it. Just because they don’t fit your circumstances doesn’t mean that a tool to help people start budgeting better is a bad thing - that’s like saying others don’t need to learn the alphabet because I can read already.

We make a list and stick to it, never go shopping on an empty stomach, have a fresh fish delivery weekly/fortnightly, and buy meat from a local butcher.
We might pay a few pence more for the fish and meat but at least we can be confident that both are fresh - if you think supermarket frozen fish works out cheaper, that's your choice but do look at the point of origin and where it was packed.
A few months ago I picked up a pack of frozen cod in the supermarket - it was caught in the North Sea.............and packed in CHINA! I rest my case.

Whitewavemark2

I think guidance is extremely useful particularly for someone just starting out.

I’ve just looked at the banks guidance and what it actually says is

50% essentials

30% wants

20% savings.

I’ve obviously added the other stuff over the years without realising it.

For those who like to plough their own financial furrow fine - plough ahead, but for others a little bit of guidance goes a long way for future stability and financial confidence.

I do a money class at Church, for young people who need a bit of help knowing how to put their finances right.

I advise 60% musts, 20% wants, 10% savings, 10% tithe.

Seems to be a good mix, regardless age, income, family size.

Casdon

I’m not sure the concept of generic has been understood by some? Of course they don’t fit you individually. These guidelines are aimed at helping people start to budget who haven’t before, and give broad principles, not the detail of the finances of those of us who have been around the block a few times and already know how to do it. Just because they don’t fit your circumstances doesn’t mean that a tool to help people start budgeting better is a bad thing - that’s like saying others don’t need to learn the alphabet because I can read already.

🙂 yes. I started this yonks ago setting up separate accounts for the 30-20 -10+% and bank transfers made automatically every month. The current account sees to my essentials. It is all done without any thinking on my part. Of course with a young family it needed a lot of discipline which I found difficult at times. But I treated it as a guidance not tablets of stone.

Petrol has shot up in price too. I used to pay £25 every five weeks to get to work. I’m retired now and use the car for local trips. My petrol for around six weeks is now around £40 for quite a small car

I'm not sure which country you were in abroad, but I'm surprised you find the UK so expensive in comparison. France is much dearer for food, (chicken breast x 2 for 5 euros, half that price in Tesco or Sainsburys). Everything has gone up everywhere.
I know our DD2, DH + 3 hungry children struggles a bit. She has just bought a second freezer and uses the toogoodtogo App to stock up. She now batch cooks more and freezes. So despite the initial outlay, the new freezer is a godsend and saving money.

Oreo

Yes, it’s def a time thing isn’t it? I both work and have childcare to do, plus cleaning and shopping and helping Mum with hers.
If fully retired and you can get, and live near an allotments it’s worth applying for.

Yes,the lady I war h wouldn't be able to manage without her allotment, and she has said recently that its damn hard work.

It's the difference between her managing or not.

She made a cheap tomato soup, from basics she had bought, and one that used her allotment grows, and the allotment version was about 40p cheaper, I think.

I hope once your OAP and his pension kick in later on things may feel a bit easier. But it is worrying to think how others who don't have those sources of support are coping. Wishing you all the best going forward and hope the budgetary steps you're taking start making a positive impact. Stay strong!

I still do not see how these generic schemes can help the young man, in the papers recently whose basic costs accounted for 75% of his income.

When we got married and started budgetting we started by writing down all our fixed expenditure: mortgage, basic bills etc and worked from there. I have no idea proportionately how this divided up, but I can assure you that the amount available for our 'wants' was microscopically small.

Harris27

I’m retiring in eighteen months and now starting to realise I will have to cut back. Sad that we’ve worked all our lives and will have to be careful in retirement. Wish I’d done a private pension earlier. But I want time with my husband and if we have to tighten our belts we will.

I started to live on less with a view to retirement....and started to save the other money...then you have a bigger lump sum for retirement ....and its not such a transition, to live on less...I'm semi retired now but still do this ...obviously we still go on holidays and trips...but the day to day stuff we live very frugally now and just save the rest

In my case budgeting began with my family of origin. My parents had to budget carefully on a very restricted income. I was always aware how careful they were from necessity. When I began work, just on a Saturday, I was advised to divide my income into three. A third for my keep, a third to save and a third for ‘wants’. As you can imagine pay for a Saturday in Woolworths in 1965 was minimal, no matter, the habit was set. It carried on into full time work and as life changed with many adjustments along the way. Sometimes with one income and a young family we could save nothing, but we tried. Now? Still budget, sadly can save little but can manage on relatively low retirement pension income. We have a financial cushion from former budgeting for large expenditure, that’s good enough now.

I am surprised that the OP finds food expensive when returning to live in the UK. Various travels showed us that food here was relatively inexpensive and if one visits a supermarket in the States, well, you will be speechless. Only a few years ago I found food there to be exorbitant and can't imagine how a low-income family manages. We were told that it is in fact cheaper for a family to go out to a restaurant to eat than to cook fresh at home.

We have had the builders in last week and had to clear some rooms which was a great chance to weed through loads of paperwork. I came across some credit card bills: in 1992, the food bill for three of us came to £225 a month. I may have also paid cash for some things but this bill also included shopping for my mother.

Petrol was £15.00 to fill a large tank (now almost £80.00); a meal, I believe for two in a pizza restaurant was £12.63 (now c.£75.00). We ate in a top-notch restaurant (birthday meal) and the bill was £75 (I daren't look but probably in the region of at least £500 for three courses). Two theatre tickets only £26.00 (now £145.)

Obviously salaries have risen too as have pensions but we in the UK have extremely poor pensions compared to the continent. France: £1,567; Spain: £2,714; Switzerland: £2,194. The UK's £885 looks paltry, doesn't it?! There are countries whose pension do not even break even regarding the cost of living but the UK pension is still small compared to similar, long established countries.

I seem to have strayed from the OP but my point was that everything has increased and in 32 years, that was of course to be expected but pensions need to be increased further here as many have no option but to sail close to the wind. Sticking to a budget could be the only way to enable these people to survive each month.

Candelle Good pensions require, even state pensions, require high contribution rates and generally social security charges in countries like Germany and France are higher in the UK

Also taxes have to be paid up front at the beginning of the tax year, which is why you so often have to waita long time for tradesmen to under take work. They like to know they have a full order book for the year before paying taxes.

As MOnica pointed out taxes have to be paid at the start of the year, electricity is very expensive also you have to pay health insurance. We both had private pensions and MOH worked but from what our friends who still live there everything is going up. I think my OAP which I get later in the year wouldn't of been something that we could of used towards holidays etc but would of just gone into living. Its a big topic on ex pat forums the price of cauliflower 4 euro a piece and we were surrounded by them growing in the fields.

But French cauliflowers are a joy to behold, none of he miserable lttle ones you see in British supermarkets. In season, when we are in France we always return home with a magnificent cauliflower from our local supermarket. All the curds white, no slight mottling in colour and the knowledge that its food miles are almost in walking distance.

Me too, I always bring back a Brittany cauliflower or two. They have far more taste. Having said that I am preparing a beautiful one I bought on Thursday in Cornwall for lunch today. It's just as round and white, and tastes perfect, for half the price.

I bought a £1.50 box of fruit & veg from Lidls I wanted to make leek & potato soup and the box had these, also came a bag of big onions, bananas and oranges which I didn't hold much hope for but all of it was good as if I bought it off the shelf ! Will certainly look out for them again, some have weird combinations so you have to use your imagination !

Joseann yes I lived in Brittany and the cauliflowers are lovely but never cheap ! they aren't too bad here in Fife we use them in curries really tasty.