Roxies £3K diary - help!

Spendless

RoxieW wrote: »

Well that was embarrassing :mad: did the weekly tesco shop and got to the till - well the sub total kept going higher and higher . In the end I thought I didn't have enough cash on me. It came to £135 and I was coppering up and turning out my pockets. Literally. I was sooo embarrassed. OH says I should budget better but yet he put un the trolly a 15 crate of beer, 2 tubs of Ben and Jerry and some toiletries for him. My mistake was picking up some special offer lamb and thinking it was £6 when it was £6 per kg. It was actually 15. I also bought some baking ingredients as that's my new plan - bake for treats instead of buying them.
On the bright side though there is enough dinners for the next fortnight and I have enough baking ingredients to last a while I hope?! So hopefully next week will be a cheap shop.

oops! I almost made the same mistake recently when I thought a gammon joint was £3 not £3 per kg. Fortunately I realised long before i got to the till.
I guess you have to go supermarket shopping with OH in tow cos he drives? I read this thread earlier and was going to suggest to you that you get a price for including you on the car insurance. it won't ness go up. My hubby has a company car and I have my own, my DH wasn't on my car insurance and then we came across odd times when it would have been handy so I asked them to quote me for putting him on as well, fearing the worst as he had points for a speeding fine at the time and it was cheaper.:eek::eek: Something to do with I was considered less likely to have an accident as a married with husband on the policy too, than if was a sole driver (I don't get it either- but never mind - a cheaper policy is all that interested me!)

I was also going to suggest you baked things or had frozen stuff (like sausage rolls you can put in oven) for the picnics you go on. Do you need to invest in a travel mug too? I picked some up for 50p each this week at a large tescos.

RoxieW

Hi spends
Tbh I have a bit of a fear of driving. I haven't drove since I past my test. I know I have to bite the bullet one day but don't think it'll be any day soon tbh. I may suggest next time that hubby takes the boys to the lark while I do a shop as there is one near to the supermarket. Those new scan and shop things are good as they add it up as you are going along but you have to pay with card, not cash so they're not an option at the moment.
Yes I'm planning on baking a lot but tbh I'm not at all sure that it's cheaper. For example, the muffins we made yesterday used a tub of cream cheese, a tub of butter and a tub of peanut butter ( healthy I know lol) so that was £3 straight away before u add in the other ingredients. I would guess it cost about £5 for 12. Not bad for a treat but considering the boys would probably be just as happy with a pack of kitkats for £1. In fact, that is something that I'm struggling with. I don't feel we are eating as well on a budget. I would normally make home maid pies, quiches, sausage rolls etc but it just seems much cheaper to buy ready made. The quality isn't quite as good but at the moment it's all about cost and I'm finding hen I'm shopping I'm putting a lot more ' ready meal' type dinners in the trolley which is not ideal for me tbh as I've always prided myself in cooking hearty homemade meals for my growing brood of boys lol. I had a look through my cook book yesterday when I did my menu plan but the recipes work out too expensive, any suggestions for low cost homemade meals gratefully received. And low cost baking recipes.
I do have a travel mug but I find the contents go cold very quickly. Plus it only holds 1cup lol. I may have to invest in a proper flask.
Made another £20 on eBay on toilletries still left from gift sets I got last Xmas and a game that we bought Todd for his bday and he never plays on. I think the lesson I'm learning here is to be more selective about what we are buying. If its not something I'm sure is wanted 100% then don't buy it just as a filler gift to bump up there gift piles at Xmas. As they get older I'm going to have to get used to there not being the same big stacks of gifts on Xmas morning so may as well start now
Lovely night last night, although the boys played the babysitter up so they are in their room on punishment today. Just about to give them a real dressing down as it spoils the night when the bsitter is txing me every 5 mins and I can't relax and enjoy myself the same.
Had planned to take them out this afternoon but I haven't decided whether they will be going or not yet. I want to go as it's a charity event my friend has organized but we shall see.
Hope everyone is having a nice wend.

RoxieW

And another £30 on ebay So thats all my listings finished and in total I've made approx £200 just by decluttering and getting rid of stuff that we just dont want. Most of it would have gone charity shop, given away or just stayed gathering dust unused. Well chuffed. Will have another hunt through the house next week. If hubbys not careful hell end up on there too.

casperlarue

RoxieW wrote: »

OH says I should budget better but yet he put un the trolly a 15 crate of beer, 2 tubs of Ben and Jerry and some toiletries for him.

Hi Roxie, I have been following your thread and your diary and you seem to be doing so well budgeting, entertaining your boys and working....and then I read this bit above......grrrrr I'm cross with your OH on your behalf! Did you add up and tell him how much his little additions to the trolley were? If they weren't in your weekly budget he needs to know.

You mentioned in another post about him lending out some money without mentioning it to you, by his actions he still seems very blase about the whole money saving thing.

Well done you, you are doing a fab job :T

On the meal planning question, will your boys eat pasta? I have a recipe for a really easy pasta in tomato sauce dish, cooked all in one pot. Served with loads of grated cheese and black pepper its yummy and filling. I'll let you have the recipe if it's any good for you.

RoxieW

Hi Caspar - yes that is my OH to a T unfortunately. He thinks we can have it both ways. He doesnt seem to understand that cutting down means changing lifestyle, not just magically trimming off cash but nothings changed. I did add up the cost (£30) of the extras he'd put in the trolley but he will just say - 'so i cant have beer now' or words to that effect. he doesnt seem to grasp that a £100 shopping budget is very tight for us as it is. I cant trim it down to £70 to accomodate the extras so the bill will be more. He's a work in progress but he would prob say the same about me lol. I was annoyed about the money lent to a friend because just the night before it seemed we'd had a good talk about sharing the money responsibility and making decisions together.

Oh yes id love the recipe please.

Does anyone know anything about reclaiming bank charges? Have never bothered to date but are people still able to do it or not now?

Thanks

LittleMoog

Hi Roxie,
I'm really glad things are going more smoothly at home. Now that you're working on a more equal footing, would it be worth revisiting your budget to check £200 is a reasonable figure for you? I would add up all your regular spends for the boys, and then set separate food and entertainment budgets with what's left. Have you set aside a set amount per month to repay the overdraft, or are you just trying to keep as much as possible in the account each month? For me, I'd find it easier to transfer a set amount into a different account on payday each month, and then transfer the whole 3k back once it was saved up.

On cooking on a reduced grocery budget, DH and I spend £200 a month for the 2 of us, and we eat really well. The key for us is to use cheaper things to bulk out meals, so 1 packet of mince makes 8 portions of spag bol, chilli etc instead of 4; by adding things like lentils and grated carrot. Check out the Old Style moneysaving board for loads of help and ideas, including Weezl's thread on feeding a family of 4 on £150 a month. You don't have to adopt all the ideas, but it's likely you could easily cut out enough to make those treats come in budget!
If you post the sorts of meals you like to make, i'll send you any receipes I have!

casperlarue

Ok here goes:

Finely slice 1 onion into a large pan with some olive oil and a bit of butter. Add 1 clove of garlic (or 2 if you want to be smelly!), chopped, and gently heat until softened.

Add 1 tin of plum tomatoes, break them up gently with a wooden spoon. Add 1 tin of water and bring up to boiling.

Add pasta of your choice-long spaghetti or pasta twirls or whatever you like to use. Simmer until pasta is cooked, stirring from time to time as the pasta can stick at the bottom of the pan.

Serve with loads of grated cheese and black pepper......yum!

This recipe will serve 2 adults and 2 young children, just vary the amount of pasta to suit. I use this as a quick and easy standby meal, or when I can't be bothered to try and cook fancy!!

LittleMoog

http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/index.html
This is the website set up by some of the OS regulars, it has a whole month of healthy cheap meal plans.

RoxieW

Hello ladies thanks for those recipes and I will check out the OS threads tomorrow.
Jules I have thought about this and I think I'm happy to carry on with the £200 budget. Anything additional to that - clothes for the boys, nights and days out etc we will discuss and decide together. That way I won't get into the situation again where I'm shouldering all the blame if we overspend - which we hopefully won't lol.
Next month I'm having my pocket money reinstated which we both have £50 each per month. And I also think I am having the bank cards returned. But I'm still going to carry in with the £200 per week in cash as it has really changed my outlook.
The penny dropped today how much my thinking has changed with regards to money as went to the charity day and spent £15 on really not very much - a drink each for us, raffle ticket, go on the bouncy castle - and whereas normally I would class that as a cheap day out I came away feeling that I'd spent a fortune !

Settling down now with Fridays big brother

vasseur

Re money saving on meals, a couple of suggestions...

Cook things like shepherds pie, lasagne, bolognese sauce where you can make loads and freeze extra portions for another time. Buy some cheap foil baking trays from the £1 shop.

Bulk out mince with porridge oats - if you don't tell anyone they won't even notice the difference. Substitute some of the meat with vegetables/pulses.

Buy cheap cuts of meat like brisket that you can put in the slow cooker. Far tastier anyway IMO