I want to break free........

gilligansyle

Hi BP

you are really getting the hang of this. With the grocery shopping, at least if you meal plan you can make what you have go further. I have a recipe for chilli con carne which only uses 250g mince, and seems to last forever.

Keep it up.

BADPENNY_2

Hi,

Little boots- thanks for popping by, we didn't make it to the cinema as OH fell asleep after his tea! We had planned on seeing Tru Grit thou which was OH's choice, I wanted to see Just go with it but OH flat out refused so thats another chick flick I will have to rent on DVd!

Gilliansyle - I love chilli but OH dosn't like anything too spicy but I suppose I could addapt it. In tescos on Saturday I spotted a new LLoyd Grossman flavor sauce which was Chilli and I could of sworn that the sighn said 2 for £2. So I put 2 in my trolly. When I got home and checked my bill they had charged me £2.09 EACH. fUMING is not the word. From now on I will do as my mum tells me and check my bill before I leave the store.

My loan money has come through so we are all set to get started on the kitchen. Now I am starting to worry that we will employ a cowboy builder or somthing terrible is going to go wrong. We had settled on a building company that we thought where good and had got 4 different quotes as you are supposed to. 2 quotes where way too high and 2 where around what we thought they should be so we picked the more expensive of the 2 as the company seemed a bit more reputable. We looked at the federation of master builders website on sunday evening and couldn't find them on the listing (they have the logo on their website) so oh phoned the FMB yesterday and the woman said they (the builders) had not renewed their membership. Now I don't know what to do. Have I been watching to many episodes of cowboy builders/homes from hell!

Good things - I have lost another 6lbs that takes me now to 10st 2lbs and a size 10-12! I was saying to OH on Sunday though how funny it is that now I am almost at my target weight and i've lost nearly 2 stone I am still not happy with my body. I know I am slimmer and fitter than i've ever been but when I look in the mirror I still see a overwight person. I wish I could change my mindset. He didn't understand what I was talking about but because it has happened over a long period off time it hasn't been as noticeable if you know what I mean.

Off now to browse through some diarys and have some breakfast!

BADPENNY_2

Just been doing a bit of thinking about my grocery shopping. I know its way over what it should be and I think I use it now as my retail therapy. I can justify food shopping as its a nesssity. I got my calculator out and worked out that spending £250 a month on food its costing me £3250 (i get paid 13 times a year):eek:. If I could just half this it would be £1625. Thats a holiday! Or a pretty hefty overpayment on our debts! Maybe this is the incentive I need to cut this back.

Sun_Addict

Hi BP

Still following your diary and still impressed with how well you've been doing. I wish I could spend less on food. I spend about £300 per month for 3 adults and 2 cats and looking at other people's grocery budgets that seems pretty high. However, it's so hard when everyone eats something different - I'm vegi, OH loves his meat and DD just seems to get through loads of food full stop. I really need to start looking into this seriously.

I know where you're coming from regarding your weight. I lost 16lbs with WeightWatchers 9 years ago and have stayed at goal weight or slightly over/under ever since. I still struggle to get it in my mind I'm slim enough - I'm a small size 8 but very tiny boned. Never satisfied!

Well done so far and keep going!

BADPENNY_2

Hi Sunaddict, Good to hear from you! I have decided that next month i'm going to try and run my cupboards /freezer down a bit and be a bit more inventive. I reckon all my cash is tied up in food! My dad always says that people buy too much food and should just buy as you use, he has never understood the need for a weekly visit to the supermarket, I would love to be able to stay away from Tesco but it has a hold on me at the moment.!

Day off today, I have cleaned house and now feel so much better. Made a carrot cake (my speciality) it's very nice (i allowed myself a small slice just to check it was ok). Had a play round with next month's budget, things are going to be especially tight over the next 12 months with the new kitchen loan so i'm going to have to be more strict with budget as I want to continue making overpayments.

Today turned out to be a NSD. Payday is in 10 days and I have £40 personal spending money left over, definatly enough.

BADPENNY_2

Hi,

Off work today, not feeling quite right so decided to take a day off. I must stress at this point this is somthing that I never do, I can't remember the last time I called in sick as I don't like to let people down but today I just couldn't go in. OH suffers from insonmia and we where both awake for most of the night and it has really taken it out off me. He seems to have real problems getting to sleep and its not uncommen for him to scrape by on 4hrs a night on a regular basis, naturally I worry about him a lot as I just don't think its healthy to exsist on this amount.

Today I have a list of builders to contact and also chase up a plumber for a quote on a new boiler. I think the cost off renovating the kitchen and that there seems so much to do and the fact we have had to lend more money is worrying OH. I mentioned last night that things where going to be tight for the next 12 months untill our Halifax loan ends in Mar12 when we will be £408 a month better off but he just worrys about everything constantly and finds it all a bit overwhelming to be honest. I think with regards to money and finance I need to keep the info on a need to know only basis and as long as everything is getting paid don't tell him too much, he dosn't even really know the true amount of our combined debts as he can't cope with it.
It's my job at the moment to keep things together and I will continue to try and do as much as I can to get our cc's paid off. Today I'm going to try and set some milestone targets to try and give us something to aim for.

Right i'm going to have some breakfast, read some diarys for motivation and then get started on my phonecalls.

BADPENNY_2

Just got my Opus statement and had a quick glance at the apr and it has shot up to 30.5%:eek:. when did that happen? This will be one of my 1st milestones that I need to achieve I think.

Been doing a little bit of thinking regarding the dreaded food shopping bill and next time i'm tempted to go shopping i'm going to be really disaplined and just take my allocated amount of cash for that week and no more and definatly no cards, that way i will have no choice but to only buy what I need.
Before i even hit the supermarket this will force me to check the cupboards and meal plan around whats in there 1st then with my list i will do a strict budget on what I can spend for each item so for example if I had a list of the following it would look something like this

Bread x 2 budgeted amount £2
milk x 2 budgeted amount £2
eggs x12 budgeted amount £2
juice budgeted amount £1.50
washing up liquid budgeted amount £1
washing powder budgeted amount £3
coffee budgeted amount £2.50
contingancie for use on any special offers Budgeted amount £5.

So therefor I would only take £19/20 out of my shopping purse to get the above items and then it would challenge me to try and find the best value product for my budget availible and then I really wouldn't be able to exceed this as I would have no way of paying for it. Any surplus change out of budget will go into a pot tp be paid off a cc at end of month. Sounds like a good plan but 1st I need to run these cupboards down, I reckon I should only need top ups for the next 2 weeks.

I've made some progress with builders and now have 3 coming out to quote for the job over the next few days and have also had a quote back today for replacing the boiler which was less than we thought it would be.

Hate this time of the month just before payday when nothing is happening! Might get ahead this afternoon and start on our budget for Mar. Pretty sure we have a lot of car expenses this month, MOT and service and also car tax. Good job we have no council tax/water to pay.

Cup_Cake

Hi Badpenny,

I'm the same with the food shopping. Instead of clothes shopping I food shop.
I shop as and when its needed so more oppertunity for me to spend more than I need to. I just make sure I write a list and don't buy anything that isn't on the list.
I like your idea of only taking the amount of money needed though, I might give that a go.

Good luck, Cup_Cake xx

LittleBoots

Sounds like you are in the right frame of mind to slash your grocery budget
Just be careful of all the 'offers' I hate seeing all these 241s etc where the supermarket has severely marked the price up so youre not actually saving anything, and its probably something you dont need!

BADPENNY_2

Definatly need to watch out for those 241's sometimes when you check your bill you've only saved about 10p and bought something you wouldn't of done otherwise. Did a quick audit of kitchen cupboards whilst doing the tea and I think we've got enough evening meals for 16 nights could possibly stretch this to 20 if we had beans on toast the odd night although I don't think OH will be too impresed with that suggestion. I think if I am disaplined next month I should get away with£150 next month. I've set up a little notebook in kitchen to jot things down as we run out as part of the problem is not knowing if we need something and buying it incase we run out then getting home and finding 2 in the cupboard!

I can do this (i think!)
had to just spend £10 to top up my phone which I begrudge doing, I hate mobile phones but I can't continue to ingnore peoples texts as I have no credit!