Changing our lives....

Sessie

Hey all,

New to posting but have been lurking for quite a while now and am really impressed with everyone's ideas and dedication to sorting out their finances.

Whilst we don't have HUGE debts, we are just finding that things are becoming tighter and I've been inspired by so much I've read here that I think will help ease the pressure on our family.

Basic details are: I am married with twins - a boy and a girl who turned 2 recently, the result of 2 private IVF attempts (oh they TELL you everyone gets at least one free go on the NHS, utter rubbish!).

Hubby works full time (with quite a lot of overtime) and I work part time. My parents look after the children when I'm at work so we have no childcare costs which is great.

So we have £5k on the credit card, which was for the second IVF - we are paying more than the minimum payment every month but it just doesn't seem to be going down. We NEVER use the card for anything else, we just got it for the IVF and have not once been tempted to use it for anything else.

Apart from our mortgage that's pretty much it - I owe my mum £130 as she paid a rather large unexpected dentist's bill for me - but that will be repaid at the end of August. That's really where we come in...

I was hit by that dentist bill and realised that, despite being 40 we have NO savings, nothing to fall back on if something goes wrong. When it was just the two of us that was OK but now? We have the children and a responsibility to be able to feed, clothe and keep a roof over their heads no matter what. We had just been living month to month and kind of hoping that everything would be OK. Also, we weren't exactly "careful" when we shopped - we bought brands, we impulse bought, we bought things we already had in because we didn't check first... and then when we got to the till, wondered how the shop had come to £250 every fortnight! :eek:

I realised that we have to become WAY more savvy - and so I've been almost LIVING on these forums collecting ideas, recipes and inspiration from all of you.

I will be back in the next few days (children permitting! They are on the go from dawn til dusk and a lot of nights I'm too tired to get online!) with details of the first few things I've been doing to try to rein in our spending and start to take more responsibility and create a backup account and also just generally start living a more sensible and frugal life. That's not to say we were living it up before, just... we were living for today... which isn't great in the long run when you end up paying for it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

I hope this is the right place for this diary, like I say we're not drowning in debt but we are starting to find it difficult to meet our outgoings each month now we have the children and don't have two full time incomes any more. This is more of a "prevention" act on my part than a "recovery", but I'd much rather be here, having faced it NOW... than in the recovery a year down the line.

x

Sessie

So, back again...

Okay so I have done the following so far, mainly ideas picked up from these forums:

(1) Done a thorough check of all my food cupboards, fridge and freezer and noted all I have in. Looked through some recipes where I have a lot of the ingredients already and just really needed fresh vegetables and such, and done a couple of batch cooks so we have meals ready in the freezer. I'd say I actually had about 70% of the ingredients needed already, so I probably spent about £30 at the local grocers and we now have meals for the four of us for about the next three weeks (evening meals that is!).

That's really amazed me. I can't believe how often I've looked in the cupboards and said, "We've got nothing in!" when in fact, we have more than enough.

We were due to go shopping this past weekend but actually didn't go as we now have enough food to last us. Of course, I'll need fresh things like milk and bread etc... but I went to Farm Foods as there's one on my way home from work and got the two 4ltr milks for £1.50 and the two Hovis loaves for £1 deals (amazing bargains!) and will be doing this every Tuesday as I finish at lunchtime.

(2) When I went to the supermarket just to get the fresh things for my batch cooks, I took a list of EXACTLY how much of each thing I needed to make my recipes and I bought ONLY those things. Oh I SAW all the offers and flashy "buy me now" signs but I turned the other cheek! (It was hard but I felt quite smug when I left!).

(3) I stopped buying magazines about a month ago - I used to spend a good £12 a week on trashy mags (I know! It scared ME when I worked it out!!) .. and I don't even know why! I'd sit reading them and think, "I don't even know who half these people are... and do I CARE one jot about Jordan?" but I still bought them for some reason! I do miss mags like Easy Living and Prima as I got a lot of good reading and information from them but... now I found this site ... I get it all from here :T.

Carrying on from that, I stopped buying books - that was my personal biggest problem - the supermarkets have such good deals on them I'd nearly always buy a couple whenever we went shopping. I am a voracious reader so they wouldn't ever go to waste and I always pass them on to my sisters and mum, but I have about 50 books upstairs that I haven't even started yet so the deal is I don't buy any more until I have at least read all of those. Hopefully by then I will have got out of the habit and only buy them now and again. I can always ask for ones I'd really like for birthday and/or Christmas.

(4) Looked out of the kitchen window as I was washing up and saw we have a HUGE blackberry bush growing over the fence from the railway line behind the house. Went out with a bowl and picked for about 40 minutes and made six crumbles which are also in the freezer! How have I never seen that before now??!

(5) Have set myself an intial target of having three NSDs a week, being the days I am not at work - Weds, Thu and Friday (I work Fri evening and every other Saturday, along with Monday and Tuesday). Have managed Weds and Thu this week and can't think of anything I NEED (as opposed to WANT!) tomorrow. Was considering not taking ANY money out if/when I go out but I can see that becoming a problem in an emergency so will maybe take £5 in cash but no cards (only have a debit card anyway).

(6) Made myself two sealed jars - one labelled SILVER and one labelled COPPER. They are on obvious display in the kitchen to remind me to empty my purse and hubby's trouser pockets often. The "empty" date is 31/12/2010 - then we can start the New Year with a nice chunk to put in our savings account (which will be opened by then!).

There are other things in the pipeline.. waiting to get an appt with a Financial Advisor to talk over whether we can get a better mortgage deal, house insurance, car insurance etc... I want to get a day when my parents can take the children and I can have a good look around these forums and the comparison sites for gas, electric, phone, broadband etc.. and see what savings I can make there...

Am also in talks with my sisters to set a date for us all to have a car boot day to see what we can get rid of and make a little on. This will be the start of The Great De-Clutter which is also long overdue! Once I've started that (and that's a Work In Progress on paper at the mo, listing all that needs to be done) we can look at moving house as we'll be all savvy about mortgages etc... and hopefully have a bit of cash behind us together with more disposable income.

So I have lots on as you can see! Also, now you can see why I called my topic Changing Our Lives ... as small step by small step, area by area it really is!!

x

girlracer

Hi i am not going to much help advice wise, but ou will get lots of lovely people on here, happy to share there experiences and give you some great advice if you need it
just want to wish you the best of luck with everything really and i shall subscribe so i can come back and see how you are getting on

all the best
nicola
xx

gettingthereslowly

Hi Sessie,

Just wanted to say well done for what you have acheived so far :T

I'll be following you with interest hoping to pick up a few tips. Still haven't got the hang of batch cooking but sure i will soon.

CITDFW

just wanted to say hi! im also fairly new in diaryland. look forward to reading your updates!

gettingthereslowly

Hi Sessie ,

Hows it going today?

I've taken your lead and today looked to see what I have in cupboards / freezer etc and have now done my meal plan for next week :j

Next challenge is to stick to it :cool:

Will pop back later to catch up with you xx

Sessie

Very quick update before I start my evening shift....

DO NOT... repeat... DO NOT attempt to do a two week batch cook with twin two year olds in the same house.

It's.... er... somewhat difficult!!

I shall be asking my parents to take them away one day next week so I can actually get done what I planned today!! I did get SOME things made but not what I planned. Still, better than nothing...

Back later, after work, for a further update!

Oh, Pickle (and anyone else!), there's apple and blackberry crumble or just plain apple. The crumble is made with oats too so it's crispy, wholemeal goodness!!

*points to the kitchen side*

Help yourselves!!

x

life_in_termoil

Hi Sessy,

didnt want to read and run. Well done in achieving what you have already and I have subscribed to your diary so I can see how your doing.

Im new to all this too, I have debt but seemed to be "misplacing" over £500 a month. Ive managed to keep a spending diary and have stuck to a meal plan, it is surprising how many meals you can make when you have a rummage through the fridge and freezer!!

Good luck with your venture

Life in termoil x

gettingthereslowly

You'll have to put your crumble recipe on! Never made it and would love to try.

Sessie

Back again, work over for tonight.

Currently eating the fruits of my labours in the kitchen earlier - macaroni cheese (mucho herbs and chopped aubergine ahoy!), corned beef hash and blackberry crumble to follow. Mmmm...

Didn't QUIIIITE manage a NSD today but only blew it by 60p - lured by an EVIL Snickers bar in the work vending machine. Spent half the day cooking and forgot to actually eat lunch so was starving when I got to work! Snickers tided me over until now.

Today I made:

Enough macaroni cheese and veg to feed the children for at LEAST five meals (ie; 10 portions for them) and probably four portions for hubby and me.

The crumbles appear to have been "nibbled" whilst left to cool when I was at work. Husband and mother both STRENUOUSLY deny such a thing so it must have been the cats eh?! Hmm.... still, there's enough for another two days for all 4 of us.

Corned beef hash - SO simple!! Cook diced potato, fry onion and diced corned beef in dash of oil, mash all together and add a little gravy depending how thick you like the consistency. Kids LOVE it.

The only things I had to buy for all the above were aubergines and wholemeal flour and porridge oats (see recipe for crumble below) and we have meals to last us DAYS now based on what was already in the house :j.

Got a letter today from our ISA provider advising us there's a "significant chance" the ISA may not cover the whole mortgage when it matures (or whatever the word is!) so we have to look at what we can do to make sure it does. We do have quite a bit of equity in the house - we bought at a good time - but still, will have to put this on the list to speak to the Financial Advisor about.

I reckon I've saved about £100 this week, as I've started putting all the ideas from this site and the forums into practice. I don't expect this to be every week, I've made a lot of changes - such as downbranding (don't need Johnson's talc, just need talc, don't need brand chopped tomatoes, get Value! Tomatoes are tomatoes!), having NSDs, only buying what was on my list when I went to the shop and we didn't do our usual big shop as we didn't need to because of cooking with what was already in - so am feeling quite proud today!

Before the crumble recipe, one final tip I learned: (wish I'd read this before Easter but still, Halloween is coming....)

After Easter (Halloween, Xmas... whatever the nearest holiday/festival is...) buy up all the dirt cheap chocolate eggs/sweets the shops want to clear and freeze them. Then, either take them to work, keep them in the car or just know you have something in when you get a sweet craving. Saves you "popping in the shop for a paper" and coming out with the Daily Mail, two Twixes and a packet of Haribo!. Darn it, had I read that tip earlier, my NSD would have been intact today! Grrr...

So, as requested, crumble recipe below. I'd add a little more sugar to the fruit, I found it a bit "tart" for my liking, but once I'd put a bit more in, t'was delicious! Works well with Carnation cream or ice cream.

Hope you all have a good weekend, doubtless I'll be back with more random ramblings soon, I'm becoming an absolute MSE forums addict!

APPLE (Blackberry/whatever's in season) CRUMBLE

Serves a family of 4 with leftovers (HA! Leftovers???!)

Fruit:

8 cooking apples, peeled and chopped
Juice of half a lemon (I got a bottle of lemon juice for 49p as I'll be making it again and again over winter)
1 tablespoon of soft brown sugar
Sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg (I put about a level teaspoon of each in as we like it!)

Topping:

100g/3.5 oz porridge oats
100g/3.5 oz plain flour
100g/3.5 oz soft brown sugar
15g/0.5 oz plain wholemeal flour
Another sprinkle of cinnamon
120g/4oz unsalted butter, cubed

Method:

(1) Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas mark 6

(2) Combine chopped apple, lemon juice, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a lightly greased deep baking dish (approx 20x20cm, 8x8 in)

(3) Combine all dry ingredients and rub in the butter cubes using your hands or a fork (hands works best for me - run them under the cold tap first and dry thoroughly for best results).

(4) Sprinkle topping over fruit and bake for 35 mins or until fruit is bubbling and top is browned.

Simples!!

x

gettingthereslowly

Thanks for the recipe - sounds yummy nom nom

Havent had corned beef hash for years. I always end up adding veg and then making it into a corned beef pie. That never last very long though.

Hope you have a good weekend x