That is so tight. Look at your food budget: can you reduce waste, buy in bulk, make other savings; try to reduce use of the second car; cut the school banking to the minimum.

Work out your regular expenditures and put away a little every pay day to cover them. Eg rent of $500 a month, $250 out of each pay. Power bill of $300 every 3 months, $50 a fortnight.

We have a set of small drawers. I’ve labelled each one with our regular bills and allocate an amount from each pay to each drawer. It’s often easier to cope when things are broken down into smaller options or amounts. Take away that huge mountain and break it up into anthills, it’s easier to deal with

Make a budget for weekly bills and don’t over spend and cut out expenses you cannot afford and buy food on specials and in bulk! Best of luck it sounds very hard.

I’m surprise how people have said stop school banking, each week I put $2 in my kids account, if they have coins we put that in too. if I’m stable with money, I put a lil extra in. ive now been taking my kids to the library, taking them to parks, they have a bike or scooter? get them to use it. as for food, I’m still learning here as I have $300 for the week family of 4 with 2 animals and I seem to run out of money on the 1st day of pay day so I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong here!!!!! one is never go shopping with your mother or anyone who has more money then you and are able to spend whatever they like.

Car pool and try to limit running around in the car for little trips. Write down lists of things to do and places you need to pick things up, then try and organise to get there in the most efficient way. There are a lot of other great ideas on this thread.

Shop at Aldi, stick to a shopping list

I cook in bulk cheap dinner ideas also look for clearance items usually evenings allot of markdowns on meat ect

yeah that is tight. how have you been? budget and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Try to write down a budget plan and stick to it. Also keep your receipts for everything and at the end of the month go over what you have spent. That way you can see what you may b able to cut down on. Good luck.

to get a little extra money, there are survey sites like my survey, mint surveys etc that send out gift cards

inventory your bills and check what services you might not need (like you may be able to lower your paytv package or get rid of it). Check if you can change anything over the cheaper plans (internet, phone etc). Looks at ways to reduce the biggest bills (water and electricity usually). Then look at your groceries – do you throw food away (money in the bin). Can you make meals from leftovers instead of throwing them out etc

I would look at a cheaper preschool and would make my own breads and bicuits, also buy a couple of laying hens for your eggs and grow your own vegetables

I would stop the kids banking, only fuel 1 car and buy cheaper cuts of meats

wow seem like a big task