How do you manage on one income

For us is is all paperbased. Sit down and put your figures in a spreadsheet. All income that is due that is fixed (we dont put any variable ones in example bonuses or tax refunds etc).

Then write down all your outgoings. Literally everything you can think of. If you need help let me know and I can show you what we have. From clothes for kids to you to your partner, from wofs to everything.

Then start budgeting. Put in all the proposed figures and start with the fixed ones that you cant change. For instance rent or mortgage and rates and taxes.

Cellphone: hubby is free but I only pay $6 for the best mate plan. So nothing else there.

If your figures is more than your incomings then start cutting where you can.

Then after that follow it strictly. If need be draw the cash and put in different envelopes and use it for the different things. Put money for the irregular things in a total different account if need be or even with a different bank.

And then put figures in the spreadsheet as you go and transfer or spent money.

The best for our family is that we do this together. For us it doesnt really work if just one pays and the other one doesnt know what is going on. Both of us have access to the spreadsheet and update etc and we can see what we have left or if we overspent to spend less in a different area. (and savings is our first actual expense and we pay that every month first)

we are on one income and have been since 2004. all our bills are paid automatically as soon as hubbys wages come in, which for us is monthly.. i shop and put gas in the car and then we live on whats left! sometimes not very successfully! we only have one car and my husband catches the train to work and back. we dont do hp's and try and get our bread and milk as cheap as possible - but without searching the countryside for it lol! i have internet banking so i can always keep an eye on the money and pay bills. i am currently thinking of getting rid of the land line as we hardly use that. Oh and we shop for gifts all year round, so if i see a bargain and have the money we get it so we always have a stash of presents.

there are quite a few good threads on here about making your own household cleaners and budgeting and cutting back so have a look and a browse there too.

Wow SMoody thanks so much for all that info! I didnt even think of the stuff like WOF's (what else is there? we have the usual things such as bills, petrol, grocery budget etc) DP sat down last night and got to work on a spreadsheet with all out outgoings etc (not pretty ) and we started writing a list of things we can do to cut costs, DP lives about a 45-55 min drive from work, so we are probably gonna move a bit closer to keep the petrol costs down, I'll let you know how we get on and see if we're on the right track
Hmm jazzy that's weird they cut yours too? DP went on excel last night and put in all his wages from the last financial year and it was no way what they said? Going to have to call them back and see what's going on!
Yea Bizzy we are thinking of getting rid of our land line too, we hardly ever use it, but I think we have a contract, literally about 2 weeks after we set it up vodafone came out with that naked broadband
And thanks i'll look into the homemade cleaners, I was actually thinking about that yesterday so that would be good. oooh for cloth nappies i've only ever tried itti bittis but have been looking at pockets and on trademe (but scared to buy them incase they're not that good), what ones do you have?

There are some good tools on this site: http://www.familybudgeting.org.nz/tools.html

I would start with the budget worksheet.

nicandtyler i mainly have pockets, got a happy heiny you can have - how big is your boy? i have some fitted ones too i think but may be too small.

We have been on 1 income for 2 yrs now. Prior to that I had dropped down to PT work after DS1 was born.

We have no CC, loans or HP's they have all been paid off.

I budget $1200 a fortnight for bills. $400 for food which has been well over most times. I could save heaps if we tightened our budget.

We could save more if we cut down or out sky. Our BB is high user so we could downgrade that but I could not give up the phone & we wouldn't save much anyway.

I do the budget & pay everything. We do talk about what we want etc but at the end of the day I run it

I find it really weird that you guys have to fight about income. Every time I've adjusted DH's income they have just accepted whatever figure I give them without any issue what so ever

seems like a few of us have had problems with them? they must be calculating it wrong, they are saying he's earning 10-15k over what he actually is grrr so frustrating, its not like I was getting a lot from them anyway, Esmesmum thats so bad they calculated yours at double what it actually is! im gonna have to call them and have a go - been very stressed out ocer this stupid government

I've had massive problems approx every 6 weeks with IRD saying DF earned $245,000 per year so my WFF would be cut completely...   

I would just ring them and say um I WISH and give them another serve and it would be adjusted...but man it is stressful as anything. I requested they keep a record of every time I rang and I did this as well-incl who I spoke to etc- and it was eventually sorted out in the new financial year. It was actually the fault of his ex employer who was a dodgy bugger and is being investigated (slowly) for tax evasion....but in the meantime his dodginess affected our income badly

But as how to survive on one income...well I would def class us as a low one income family and it doens't seem too much of a bother. We haev very tight weeks but I try to put away what I can when I can to use as a buffer for those weeks. We use TM alot for buying and selling. We don't eat meat. We gorw our own veges- or a lot of them. We almost never go out. Ever. We use cloth nappies exclusively (except very recently we use one eco sposie at night while Clodagh's rash is clearing up). Um... I walk alot or used to when I was less pg lol. Make most of our dinners from scratch. Make alot of our home cleaners. etc etc.

I think that about this time of year they look at your WFF and estimate how much you will earn in the next few months until the end of the financial year. They base it on the last 3mths or something like that. So if your DH worked a little bit more over the last few months or whatever they will assume that he will continue to earn that amount for the rest of the year. Thats what they told me last year when I rang about how much we had earnt so far. Could be the reason for the miscalculations