Pensions Planning: The NUMBER

Stubod

..interesting that when I checked our annual expenditure over the last few 20 odd years it has largely remained static with an actual spend of around £24k...

westv

Bravepants said:

Car Insurance	£4.75	£20.58	£247.00
The AA	£3.00	£13.00	£156.00
TV Licence	£3.24	£14.04	£168.48
Coal	£2.69	£11.67	£140.00
House Insurance	£2.31	£10.00	£120.00
Sky HD	£2.31	£10.00	£120.00
Mobile 4G	£2.46	£10.66	£127.92
Window Cleaner	£2.00	£8.67	£104.00
Canary Security Cameras	£1.52	£6.60	£79.20
Ring Camera (Front) Plan	£0.48	£2.08	£24.99
Heating Servicing	£0.77	£3.33	£40.00
NowTV - TV	£2.07	£8.99	£107.88
Carbonite Backup	£2.19	£9.47	£113.64
Chimney Sweep	£0.96	£4.17	£50.00

Chimney sweep? How very Mary Poppins! 

michaels

Stubod said:

..interesting that when I checked our annual expenditure over the last few 20 odd years it has largely remained static with an actual spend of around £24k...

Is that inflation adjusted or in nominal terms.  If nominal that sounds pretty impressive given the increase seen in areas like council tax and utilities.

Bravepants

westv said:

Bravepants said:

Car Insurance	£4.75	£20.58	£247.00
The AA	£3.00	£13.00	£156.00
TV Licence	£3.24	£14.04	£168.48
Coal	£2.69	£11.67	£140.00
House Insurance	£2.31	£10.00	£120.00
Sky HD	£2.31	£10.00	£120.00
Mobile 4G	£2.46	£10.66	£127.92
Window Cleaner	£2.00	£8.67	£104.00
Canary Security Cameras	£1.52	£6.60	£79.20
Ring Camera (Front) Plan	£0.48	£2.08	£24.99
Heating Servicing	£0.77	£3.33	£40.00
NowTV - TV	£2.07	£8.99	£107.88
Carbonite Backup	£2.19	£9.47	£113.64
Chimney Sweep	£0.96	£4.17	£50.00

Chimney sweep? How very Mary Poppins! 

Cor blimey gov'nor and naoow mistake...

It's actually a small Rob Roy we keep under the apples and pears.

It's on there as a reminder to myself to get the chimney liner swept every year, we have a multi-fuel stove and the liner's 10-year warranty is dependent on it being swept.

savingmore

If you think my supermarket bill is low you need to go on the frugal threads, and youtube frugal ones, many are doing £100 month challenge right now!  we shop in Aldi’s once a month for supplies, then stock up in sainsburys local for milk, bread, veg, fruit etc.
alcohol, don’t spend £50 a month.  DH has four beers a week, buys Aldi one at .89 a go, or a pack of guinness if it’s on special offer, makes it last.   If I have wine at weekend, it would a couple of glasses, so a bottle lasts 2-3 weekends.   (certainly didn’t use to, but do now).  also don’t drink in january, or november, just to keep things in balance.  in fairness whiskey given for birthday and xmas pressies, so didn’t include it.  DH has Porridge for breakfast, i don’t eat eat breakfast, just DH.  We probably get one chicken a week, does 3 meals, we make curries, chillis, stews, pasta, have a wide variety of main meals. i eat salad with a protein for lunch, hubby tends to have sandwiches.  we have lots of fruit and veg, tend to eat in season, or what’s reasonable in shops.  snacks we make our own popcorn.  eat dark chocolate as treats, but actually like sainsburys cheap bars, as slightly creamy.  we make everything from scratch, make own bread, or have have a pitta bread for lunch, .35p for six, so not exactly expensive.  Drink tea and ground coffee, french press.  Meal planning and shopping from a list really has made a big difference, and we waste nothing.  when veg start to go off, or wilt a bit, make a big pot of veg soup.  love soups for lunch too, and willuse any meat carcasses to make broth, or get bones from butcher.  use supermarket own toiletries, and buy things like that on special offer and stock up, so things that don’t have sell by date, i may buy six months supply.  this helps reduce cost.  I don’t find it difficult to do this.   

Bravepants

AlwaysLearnin said:

Bravepants said:
[Snip] 

We want to get rid of the SKY HD subscription, we only use it for the terrestrial stations, but I need to find a decent Free Sat setup.

[Snip] 

@Bravepants - We were in a similar situation and went for a Humax freesat recorder and have been very happy with it. We found a 'new-open box' one locally on gumtree. We also got an accessory to plug in to it to use the cabled magic eye network that we already had set up for sky, in case relevant.  Can find names/models if you wanted more info

Ah, yes I had been looking at Humax, they actually seem the most sensible option.

westv

With the availability of so many free "catch up" services, I am surprised they still sell tv recorders.

jimi_man

Sea_Shell said:

jimi_man said:

savingmore said:

This is one f my favourite threads.  I am quite surprised at the amount some are spending in supermarkets, wouldn’t know what to spend to get near £1000 a month.  Dh and i have had a budget of £250 a month for supermarket shopping, that includes toiletries, cleaning supplies, occasional cards, tv paper, flowers, alcohol.  we just reduced this to £150 this month, eating really well.  i meal plan and buy what i need, but we are not deprived.  my husband likes a beer every night and whiskey (not every night).  i drink wine, usually at weekends. would really be interested to know what others are spending money on!

I think we’d be more interested in your breakdown. £150 a month for two is astonishing. That’s £2.50 a day per person, for breakfast, lunch dinner, any snacks, alcohol and cleaning products. Maybe there is something we are missing out on? 

Well that is exactly what we spent in February, a straight 4 week month.     All from Aldi, no branded products.

A typical day would be, for us 2, breakfast (equiv. Weetabix or Bran flakes with milk)   Porridge if its cold!!
mid-morning snack - Yogurt or cereal bar or fruit or brioche or toast and jam 
Lunch (main meals) - Chilli Con Carne,  20% mince (drained), packet mix, plus tinned tomato and kidney beans, with brown rice (makes 4 portions to 2 go in the freezer)
or Salmon fillet with Pasta and Tomato pesto.   We also had 32 day matured sirloin steak and chips too!
Afternoon snack - Fruit or popcorn or crisps  (or all 3 on a running day....munchies)
Tea - sandwiches (seeded batch) or wraps, with either ham, chicken or cheese etc
During the day we drink tea or instant coffee, sometimes hot chocolate, or herbal tea or diet lemonade.
A "biscuit barrel" pack for with a cup of tea. (nice, custard creams bourbons and shortcake)
One bottle of wine a week, shared.  or maybe a couple of beers or cider.

Household wise, we usually put on about 4-5 washes a week (light, dark, bedding, towels), and clean every room at least once a week.    So Kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, toilet gel, bleach and polish.

Toiletries are just the usual's, but again all Aldi (other than my toothpaste, as I do like OralB pro-expert)

So, there you have it...that's us, typically.     


However, although this has been a cheap month, we're nearer £210 a month usually.  Some meals would already be in the freezer etc.  Toiletries not bought every week etc.

Thank you, that's very interesting. 

Bravepants

westv said:

With the availability of so many free "catch up" services, I am surprised they still sell tv recorders.

I've had that internal discussion with myself too. One thing my GF and I have found is that when we watch live TV, or something recorded, we are more likely to see adverts for other BBC or ITV shows that we're interested in. Saying that we have all the major services (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Now TV) and of course we have access to ITV Hub and iPlayer. I wonder if our hanging on to the Sky box is a case of FOMO! I guess a change of habit is required!

eastcorkram

westv said:

With the availability of so many free "catch up" services, I am surprised they still sell tv recorders.

I know what you mean. We've had the virgin V6 box for years, and the old TiVo one before , probably going back over ten years. Neither of them have ever been used to record anything.
But back in the 1980s, when working nights, I used to set the old VHS to record loads of stuff.