Hypno's spending diary for June.....

hypno06

The bus cost really is not anything I am concerned about - it works out, on a 10 trip ticket, about £1.05 each way, compared with £1.80 full price, and the children pay about 75p each way.....

Generally we don't need to do a return, or two trips, because we get a lift home. Even if we did need a return, the 10 trip ticket would still work out cheaper than any day ticket or day return etc.

We only use the bus to go to or from work, and for the children to go training if they need to be there before we finish work. We don't use it for shopping, etc because I do any mystery shops, shopping etc on my way home from work if needed, when I will generally have the car.

As for the college bus, at £5 that is a complete rip off, but no other way of doing it as it is a local bus service that have the contract, and so other saver tickets don't cover it, but as I say, I am in negotiation to get that paid for by the school/local authority.

More important to be targetted is incidental spending while the children are training......today for example, I had a coffee and a bit of cake (very yummy) but of course that was £1.80 that I could have avoided. And I have given the children £2 each for lunch - they are helping out with the youngsters until 2, so need something to eat. DS has taken some of last nights leftovers to reheat in the microwave there, but there is not enough to make a proper meal so he will get chips or something too.

So, by the time I pick them up, that will be £5.80 gone.......that needs more work on than the occasional bus fare!

Karmacat

We're all going crazy about the bus fares, aren't we? :rotfl: we want to help!

Cake ... well, even if you don't do home made, buying in a supermarket is cheaper. Its always planning, isn' t it? I know that when I'm out of the house for long periods, 12 hours or so, I rarely take enough food for myself, let alone two kids - yesterday, for example, I knew I was leaving the house at 11.30 in the morning, and had no clue about when I was getting back, but I didn't take so much as a handful of dried fruit. Thats really not good enough. I spent £1.85 on a big cup of tea, £2.10 on a lovely cheese salad roll, and £1.19 on some teacakes in M&S (*some* of which I still have ). So I feel the pain too. Planning, yes, but we [STRIKE]can't[/STRIKE] don't always.

mineallmine

I second that Karmacat. My biggest expense is getting drinks whilst out. If I'm organised I bring a bottle of water. If not, I may have a stash of water bottles in the car if I'm lucky. Waitrose are selling 6 small bottles of Evian for £1.20 ish - that's what you pay for one when out!

When I go out on days out with a friend, she has a "food bag", a small bag. Which contains all sorts wrapped in foil. From sarnies, to a bit of cake, to a scotch egg or pork pie cut into quarters.

My sister always used the fill her hubbies flask with hot water the night before, so by morning she'd refill it with piping hot tea.

I just did a dig around the Old Style boards and found these (and other links) which may be helpful:
http://www.netmums.com/food/Lunchbox_Ideas.101/

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=256155&highlight=cheap+packed+lunches

hypno06

OK, so another ski weekend.....spends are as follows;

Saturday at ski club - coffee, cake and lunches - £5.80
Sunday racing - Tesco for crisps/sandwiches/pies for packed lunch, plus a couple of other essentials....£8.34
Sweets for the journey £1.17 - not essential
Cans of drink/water when there (we took a flask of coffee and 6 bottles of drink, but it was v hot so we drank far more than we took) - £5.60
Additional food - £2.50
Coffee on the way home to keep me awake while driving £1.29

Bread & Milk - £3.53

Petrol & Oil for car - £82.55 (have half a tank of fuel and half a bottle of oil left)

Birthday present for DD (she is 15 this week) - £10.75 but that is all she needs because she is going to China.

I reckon the sweets were completely unavoidable and the drinks and aditional food could have been reduced by half had we bought them in the supermarket not at the race. Yesterday's £5.80 was completely avoidable so I will declare £11.02 of the weekend's spending as being completely avoidable......not too bad really - shows I have made an effort!

So, total spends for the weekend - £121.53

total spends for June - £590.42 (this does include all petrol/oil though)

Of which £128.30 completely avoidable.

hypno06

A no spend day here, so totals remain the same.....

Total spent today - £0.00 :j
Total spent for June - £590.42

of which £128.30 completely avoidable :rolleyes:

mineallmine

Well done on your NSD. :beer:

If my maths is right, your avoidable stuff is about 21% of your total spend per month (so far).

Over a year, your avoidable spend (based on £128.30 a month thus far) would be around £1,539 a year!

Goes off to think about their own avoidable spending...:o

Verbatim

Well done on the no spend day.

chevalier

I am sure this has been covered before,but I take it there is no grants available for the national training, or for expenses or something, either through the lottery fund or olympic sport, or something? I am sure you have investigated this, but just to raise it again.
chev

hypno06

We get the grant that is available chev - this year it bought one new pair of skis for DS, a pair of boots for DD, and 16 sessions of training - so it does all help, but still leaves 95% to find :rotfl:

hypno06

Ok, spending for yesterday does not look good, but there was not a huge amount I could do about most of it:

OH bike repairs to get it through MOT plus the MOT itself - £160
Tesco weekly grocery shop - £57.73
coffee and sandwich at lunch - £4.25

Of course, the lunch spending was completely unavoidable - I had even taken sandwiches in with me, but it was one of "those" days and I needed to get out of the office for a bit, and so spent money. Not good, but it could have been worse, my retail therapy could have involved spending on shoes, clothes or a massage, (oh I wish!).

So spending for Tuesday - £221.98
Total spending for June - £812.40

of which £132.55 completely unavoidable.