Instagram mammies give practical lessons in family budgeting

Inflation, stagflation, fiscal tightening – householders may not know exactly what these things mean, but you know how they feel. When your wages stop covering your bills, something’s got to give.

As interest rate-setters and politicians mull strategies, families under the cosh are seeking help. And when they need to know how to feed a family of five, it’s not Christine Lagarde they are asking. Enter the frugal Irish Mammy, now rebooted and on Instagram. In straitened times, those sharing household budgeting tips on social media platforms are seeing their followers rocket. Lifting the veil on how much her household spends, her allure to followers is finding out exactly how she makes ends meet. Of course, if you are taking financial tips from social media, it’s important to do your own research before deciding who to follow.

From how to organise a budget wedding to feeding hulking teenage sons, we talk to three of the most popular Irish household finance Instagrammers about their inflation-busting tips. They may not all have a degree in economics, but they can tell you how to stretch a fiver. Battle-scarred in the financial crash, they have learned lessons the hard way. Some have become so popular that they are earning money through sponsorships and coaching others.

Caz Mooney @IrishBudgeting

If you want hardcore advice on how to budget, ask a woman who bought her wedding dress second-hand on eBay. “To be honest, we didn’t have the money and we just didn’t want to have a big loan in our lives,” says Caz Mooney of her 2011 wedding. The zeitgeist of that time of recession is back, she says. She started her Instagram page just six months ago and describes herself as “an Irish budgeting mum of three”. Her followers have grown to more than 70,000.

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“I just think I hit it at the right time, which is unfortunate really in a way, but it is such a difficult time for so many people right now. I just think a lot of people relate to my situation.”

Mooney, her husband and their three children, aged 12, 10 and one, live on a single income. After taking maternity leave, the high cost of childcare prevented her from returning to work. Moving from two incomes to one, the couple struggled financially and use careful household budgeting to get by. “We would be classed, I suppose, as the working poor and we kind of feel we are caught in the middle a bit financially, and I suppose we are just trying to navigate that,” says Mooney.

“I think it is very lonely when you are struggling with money and it looks like everyone around you is doing fine and they are able to go on holidays and they are able to renovate their house and they are driving a nice car. I think it’s important for people to realise they are not the only ones struggling right now,” she says. Her Instagram page shares her personal experience of household budgeting, paying down consumer debt and making affordable family meals.

With food prices in Ireland now the second most expensive in the euro zone, according to the Central Statistics Office, it’s no wonder that her content on meal planning is what her followers engage with most. “I do these meals feeding five people for €5 and they have really gone down well. I think that tells you a lot about the situation in the country right now,” says Mooney.

If you want to stop overspending, her top tip is to practice “cash stuffing”. When your salary hits your account, leave money to service fixed expenses such as the mortgage and bills, but for your variable expenses such as food, clothing or nights out, take out cash.

“It just means that if you are doing a food shop and you go in with €100, you can’t spend more than €100. It makes you think twice,” says Mooney. “I think taking out cash helps you put the value back in your money.”

Ann-Marie Gaynor @IrishBudgetingMammy

“Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses, they are probably broke.” That’s money lesson number one from Ann-Marie Gaynor. Having survived job loss, credit card debt, divorce and a battle to keep her home after the financial crisis a decade ago, she won her budgeting stripes the hard way.

The difference between the last crisis and the current cost-of-living squeeze is the number of jobs, she says. “If the jobs keep coming, that’s okay. It’s when we lose jobs that it kind of falls apart.”

That’s what happened to her. When government funding for her work was pulled, she became unemployed. She was pregnant at the time and already had children. The work of her then-husband, a builder, dried up too.

As a single parent on benefits, Gaynor re-trained as a psychiatric nurse with a particular interest in financial wellbeing. She eventually cleared her debts and credits the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (Mabs) with helping her to get back on track. She has been a guest speaker at Mabs events. She started the Irish Budgeting Mammy Instagram account so that her experience could be of service to others.

“In Ireland, we don’t talk about money. I talk so openly because I don’t want anyone else to feel too afraid to talk about it if they are in trouble,” she says. More than 40,000 people now follow her page, where she promises to show “a real family budget”.

Living on a budget is easier if you can ignore everyone else, says Gaynor.

“Many want others to believe they can afford more than their income allows. But if your neighbour has a BMW, the likelihood is they have it on finance, which in my eyes means they can’t actually afford it,” she writes in her blog. If your neighbour has to work really long hours in a job they dislike to afford these things, that is their trade-off. Find your own balance, she advises. “Budgeting starts with your own home, your family and your own set of values.”

Living with her four children aged from two to 17 years and her partner, food is a big expense. Households have no control over European Central Bank interest rates and inflation, but they can have some agency in their weekly shop. This is the content in which Gaynor’s followers take most interest.

“When I went back to college and money was really tight, I started doing meal plans, shopping lists, doing a stocktake of my kitchen presses and my freezer to know what I had,” says Gaynor. “The system I use is to do a big shop once a month to get your rice and pasta and things like that, and after that, I top up for your fresh stuff.”

A food shop of €450 a month has had to increase to €600 a month. “I have two teenage boys now who are men really, they are nearly 6ft.”

Inflation means her old shopping list from two years ago is now costing up to €30 more, with no extra food in the cupboard. Batch cooking and freezing meals means she is less likely to splash out on a takeaway on busy days. She always sets aside some money for fun, however. “If you don’t, you are more likely to go into debt again.”

She uses a small supermarket trolley so there isn’t room for extra items. She always shops in the same supermarket and her shopping list is ordered to match the supermarket layout. She never brings the kids. “I call it the ‘supermarket sweep’: just get what’s on the list and go.”

Those managing household budgets are revisiting the domestic economy lessons their mothers and grandmothers lived by decades ago, says Gaynor. “We are back doing that because it worked.”

Kel Galavan @mrssmartmoneyhq

Kel Galavan learned lessons in the financial crash too. She was newly married with a new house and young kids when the crisis hit. “We went from being this start-off couple to six figures of debt and holding on to jobs with our fingertips,” says Galavan. “We got through it but I remember thinking, I’m never going to allow my family to be that vulnerable again.”

Budgeting herself out of debt, she threw herself into work. Life became “all about the money” and making sure her family had reserves, she says.

In 2018, Galavan left a full-time job to spend more time with her kids. To keep her household functioning, her family’s remaining income had to work hard. She began a “no-spend year” in 2019, reducing her family’s annual outgoings by more than €27,000.

“What I realised is that it was all about healthy habits and understanding the power of €2, €5 and €10 and how it adds up,” says Galavan. Penning a book, Mindful Money, she trained to become a qualified financial adviser and now offers financial coaching.

She believes in the power of “no-spend days” and being mindful about spending. “Just slow down and take a breath and think more about where the money is going,” she advises.

The overwhelming mood among her online community right now is fear and anxiety, she says. “They don’t understand exactly what’s going on. They see prices rising and bills coming in and they don’t know how to get it under control. It gets overwhelming.”

Doing a money audit can bring some control, says Galavan. “Get three highlighter pens and go down through your bank statement. If it is the mortgage or a bill that you have to pay, they are green and they are fine.”

Purchases where you could have thought about it a bit more or got a cheaper deal are orange. If the item is a forgotten subscription or purchase and you have no idea what it is, that is red. “Focus on getting rid of the reds first,” she says.

Creating a sinking fund will help soften the blow of big-ticket expenses such as insurance, says Galavan. If a provider doesn’t allow you to spread the cost without paying more, try putting small amounts away often to help at renewal time. “That can smooth things out so that there is not such a big dent in your cash flow,” she says. Some banks offer online savings jars or vaults that can be labelled for different purposes.

Ireland is likely to be grappling with the cost-of-living crisis for some time, she thinks. “I think we are in for a really rough time over the next while, I really do. I think it’s going to be very, very tough.”