Hello where does a newbie OS start?

ana123_2

Hello everyone - I am new to this board and Old style saving and would love to hear your advice on cutting my supermarket bills. I have a husband and three children ages 15, 10 and 18 months and work from home looking after my youngest and trying to start up my own business. My OH works full time but has just had an overtime ban imposed. It was hard enough to manage before so some serious cutbacks need to be made!.
I bought Martins book a few months ago and have cut back on my other bills as much as possible but am really interested in what you are all doing on this board.

I have added up my Tesco spends over the last three months and averaged over the month it comes to £463 pm. Some of you seem to be doing so much better than me - can you tell me how to start please?
How much do you think I could cut this by?

TIA

Andrea

brokenwings

you need to take baby steps so as not to feel overwhelmed but i would say that you can get down to 250 fairly easily - perhaps someone who has a similar sized family can be more informative than me though

good luck and know that if you read through various threads on this forum you WILL be able to do it

brokenwings

just a thought -
could you write down your next shopping list as it stands? that way we could make a few suggestions for initial changes

Churchmouse

I'm sure there'll be loads of experienced old hands along with sound proper advice very soon!:D

I'd just like to say as a very newbie myself, take it as slowly as you can afford to, else there is a danger it gets tedious, hard and seems unobtainable.

You are not other people, and your family are not other families. You all have to be able to live with the changes to be made. Perhaps your family will take to it like ducks to water, then just ignore everything I've just said!! But otherwise just be content to cut your spending down, using the tips you'll be given, and don't put yourself in competition with anyone else. Just because someone else can manage on £10 a week doesn't mean that you or I can, unless we really have to:eek:

Anway, enough from me, good luck and I certainly think you'll be able to make substantial savings with the help you'll get here.

rainbowkanga

Hi

I've three children too and both dh and I work from home so are around for lunches during the day. I would echo the advice about babysteps. I was spending similar amounts to you and have cut back easily to £70 a week. That includes having an organic fruit and veg box delivered. I'm sure I oculd cut back further but don't particularly need to at the moment and am happy with the sort of things we buy.

I get my main shopping from aldi. Then a couple of times a month go to waitorse and sainsburys and buy any reduced organic meat. I have a breadmaker and make my own bread and pizza dough. I normally menu plan though have to admit that has gone out of the window in the hot weather. That amount includes cleaning stuff - though don't spend masses on that. There are loads more tips on here if you want to cut back further but certainly shaving £30-40 off a week has seemed pretty painless - and I've stuck to that budget from November last year...

hth

ana123_2

We did a shopping last week at Tescos ( Monday ) I think for over £100 I could get the receipt and write it all down if you like ( or scan it if it's possible to add an attachment to a message) On Sunday we were running short of stuff for packed luches and went to Aldi where we managed to spend another £50!

I like the idea of having a fruit and veg box delivered but I thought they were expensive? My middle son is practically a vegetarian and I think the baby is a fruit bat as we get through tons of fruit each week. I tend to cook meals from scratch ( usually) and don't buy much processed food but sometimes this backfires if I don't have time to cook and we end up getting a takeaway.( I am ashamed to admit this as I disapprove wholeheartedly of fast food.)
I also like the idea of making my own bread, I have done before but it never seems to last long - do you have to bake every day?

Lucie_2

hi ana123 :wave:
Churchmouse has got a very sensible head on. Don't get too bogged down in what everyone else is doing & only do the bits that work for you. In our house for example we eat so little bread that it wouldn't be worth getting a bread maker. However it might work for you. If you get one with an overnight timer there is always fresh bread for the morning. Putting the ingredients in before you go to bed just becomes part of your night time routine, like brushing your teeth.
I find planning is the best way to cut down on waste food as well as control spending. If you involve the family in the meal planning then they are more likely to "buy into it" and support you. Get everyone to write down their 5 favourite meals (OK, maybe not the baby LOL) & start from there. You say that you don't buy much processed stuff anyway, so it shouldn't be too difficult for you - others have had a nightmare weaning their kids off shop bought nuggets & onto homemade!
When I started working from home (I only do 1 or 2 days per week) I really struggled with lunches. Now I try to plan an extra portion of what we had the night before, so I can heat it up for lunch.
Good luck with it all & keep asking the questions.

mirakl

ana123 wrote:

I also like the idea of making my own bread, I have done before but it never seems to last long - do you have to bake every day?

No, a worthwhile investment is a bread bag from Lakeland which preserves home baked bread for a few days.

The best start is to seriously look at brand named products you're buying, do they need to be "brand"?

If the baby is a fruitbat, your local greengrocer is sometimes a lot cheaper, plus try and only buy in season fruit and veg as much as possible. It's tastier and so much cheaper.

Do you buy a lot of cleaning products? If you do, search the forum for alternatives since vinegar, bicarb and lemon juice are often just as good as a £5 spray full of chemicals.

Hope this isn't patronising, but it's hard to know where you're at

katieowl_2

ana123 wrote:

I also like the idea of making my own bread, I have done before but it never seems to last long - do you have to bake every day?

When I was attempting to make all our bread (sigh - in the days before DS hoovered up all the food in the kitchen every time he passes through).....
I used to do three loaves at a time (a whole 1.5K bag of flour) sometimes even two batches at a time. We would eat one and I would slice and freeze the other two (or five even) Saving bought bread bags was a good way of doing it. Slicing it before it went in the freezer meant you could pull out just enough for toast in the morning, if you forgot to defrost a whole loaf. Sandwiches made with frozen bread were defrosted by lunchtime anyway.

I wouldn't get into the box scheme thing, if you are trying to save money, unless you are certain you can use it all. When we did have one delivered A) there was never enough for family of five (even in the BIG box) of even the basics like potatoes and some weeks it all needed using PDQ.

I only buy "Basics" for most of our supermarket purchases, cornflakes, butter, bacon, tinned tomatoes, loo paper etc, and for what it is worth I can share the benefit of my recent research with you......there is no difference in price between Sainsbury and Tesco in these ranges, and very little difference with the same products in Lidl. An exercise well worth performing with the stuff you personally buy if you have access to more than one supermarket. I would have said that my Sainsbury's bills were dearer, but maybe that's because we prefer their wine I was surprised that Lidl's washing powder was dearer than Sainsbury or Tesco Basics - but their dishwasher powder is much cheaper. I can now do an informed shop!

Hope this helps.

Regards

Kate

squeaky

There are all sorts of threads listed in the Getting Started section of the MEGA Index sticky at the top of the Old Style forum. It's a lot to read but it should give you some general ideas and an overview to work with.

As has been said before by posters already, take baby steps. Pick one or perhaps two things that you feel you can easily do and that will be helpful and just do those for a while until you're ready to add something else.

rainbowkanga

Think it depends on your shopping and cooking habits whether a box works. I have a medium box delivered with £7 of veg and £4 fruit. There are plenty of potates for a family of five because we never eat more than 2 or 3 meals with potates as we eat rice, pasta and cous cous more. I also get 5-6 bits of other veg which topped up with frozen veg lasts all week - again because one or two of our meals will be a spag bol or casserole with chopped toms/tinned veg in. I do top the fruit up becaseu my 2 year old eats loads but fruit is so cheap at aldi and very tasty. We all eat at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day (obviously taking into account dried/frozen/tinned as well as the fresh).

For me it has been a money saver - its locally sourced so environmentally friendly and it stops me visiting the supermarket becasue we've run out of fruit and veg. Its not one of the big companies though, its a local chap, they do seem a bit more expensive...

As for bread - I make 12 rolls using hte dough setting most nights (5 out of 7 probably) - the kids take them in their packed lunch, we all have a roll for breakfast and they are extremely tasty. Its not a hard habit when you get into it...

The big thing I cut down on first was processed food - I have always cooked main meals from scratch but cakes/biscuits/lunchbox treats - I decided I would only make them from scratch as a healthier option. I also stopped buying crisps and also switched to aldi rather than brands...

With my little one as well I used washable nappies though just lately have been using aldi disposables whcih aare as good as huggies/pampers...