Learning to Live on Less!

White_Iris

LianneH wrote: »

I had an equally ridiculous bill in from RAC, think mine was in the region of £150!! I checked out Auto Aid (noted on MSE website as cheapest) the main diff with Auto aid is that you need to pay for the recovery on site and then reclaim it later. i didn't see this as a prob since i always have a credit card and pay in full. also not a prob as the quote was only approx £30!! I called RAC and they said they couldnt beat this quote as it wasn't "like for like" but they could offer me £60 quote and send me £30 M&S vouchers!! In the end i stayed with RAC but would have changed had they not "matched" Auto aid. hth! x

CarolynCh wrote: »

Have you tried getting a quote from AA as a new customer (use your name if currently in OH name)? It's often cheaper. Also, TopCashBack are advertising up to £50 cashback with AA UK breakdown cover at the moment.

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll try all of them! I'm certainly not paying full price for breakdown cover if I can get it cheaper or with cashback elsewhere.

White_Iris

Well, our family trip away was lovely and much cheaper than expected - in the end we only spent £40 on the credit card instead of the £100+ I feared, so I've been able to pay that off straight away. I'm feeling really positive about our finances this month, as I haven't left any of it to DH :rotfl:

As a result we both have spending money (and DH still has some of his left 'gasp'), both cars are filled with fuel and there is still money left in the petrol envelope (DH has started cycling to work and I rarely use the car during the week, so hopefully we shouldn't need to top-up until close to the end of the month). I've also cracked menu planning and so the grocery budget is looking healthy (plus I've remember to get some cash out to use for milk/bread runs to the corner shop - they have a £5 card limit so we've often had to spend more than we needed to buy a few pints of milk :mad:).

I also got an unexpected and un-budgetted tax credit payment. They said they would stop in April but I didn't check the dates - the payments stop on the 5th and I was due a payment on the 4th :j. It's only £40 but it'll be useful to either top-up the savings or use as a bit of holiday fun-money if we decide to have a day out over Easter.

Going to have a think about my April mini-resolutions now and I'll post them later.

White_Iris

April mini resolutions...

• Increase emergency savings to £375
• Increase personal savings to £175
• Process eBay stockpile ready for listing -

a) adults clothes
b) boys clothes
c) girls clothes
d) toys and household misc.

• Start daily walks following 2-mile loop around village

I've gone easy on myself this month as the first two weeks are the Easter holidays (and we're already nearly one week in), so I won't be able to get as much done as usual. I've also set my financial targets quite low as I'm not going to be listing much on eBay this month, in fact I've just done 11 re-lists and I think that'll probably be it.


I've been quite efficient with my time since we got back from holiday though. Since Tuesday evening I've managed to defrost the big freezer and the little one in the fridge, descale the kettle, do a big 2-week shop and work through the laundry mountain...phew! I've got quite a big to-do list for next week - mostly sorting and organising - hopefully I'll get through most of it.

White_Iris

Busy few days, we got more done than I expected because the weather was grim and we didn't meet with friends at the park as planned.

I've managed to weigh, iron and photograph a small mountain of clothes (although I still have another 7 or 8 bundles to go!) ready to go on eBay. I decided not to list anything over the four free listing days - still need a bit of a break and I don't want to end up miscalculating postage costs if I don't post them until after the price rise.

I haven't managed to sort out any of the toys or household bits for eBay yet as they're all in the attic - our next cleaning target! We have cleaned and organised DHs shed, the garage and the understairs cupboard though. We've thrown away or recycled a fair bit and earmarked some things to be given away, so the decluttering is still going strong. I can't quite understand where it all comes from. I'm sure we're cleaning out the same places over and over again and yet still finding more stuff to get rid of!

Menu-planning and grocery budget are going well. I've got back in to thrifty cooking - I've currently got a big batch of chili in the slow cooker, which I've bulked out with dried lentils and I intend to do the same with a bolognaise tomorrow In fact the budget for the month is going quite well considering it's the holidays. Taking all responsibility away from DH and making sure I get a bit of spending money too has worked brilliantly - we should be able to get to the end of the month with the money running out (hopefully)!

We've had another estate agent round and I've got a few more coming over the next few days, as our current agent just isn't getting people in the door - 2 viewings in a year!!:eek: Unfortunately I think they're all going to say the same...drop the price which we just can't afford to do. I think we're going to end up taking it off the market completely and focussing on getting rid of our debt for the next year, then when we have a financial buffer each month (and don't have to pay for loans and credit cards) rent the place out for a few more years. Once the market starts to rise, even a little bit, we can hopefully sell and walk away with a bit of profit.

So DH has gone in to school today to catch up on some marking and I've also given him a big list of people to phone, to get balances on loans, try to balance transfer the creit card and haggle with the AA. It's almost impossible to get enough quiet time to make all those telephone calls at home but hopefully he can make some progress with it today.

LianneH

White_Iris wrote: »

Menu-planning and grocery budget are going well. I've got back in to thrifty cooking - I've currently got a big batch of chili in the slow cooker, which I've bulked out with dried lentils and I intend to do the same with a bolognaise tomorrow In fact the budget for the month is going quite well considering it's the holidays. Taking all responsibility away from DH and making sure I get a bit of spending money too has worked brilliantly - we should be able to get to the end of the month with the money running out (hopefully)!

how did you set out to tackle the menu planning? I am rubbish at cooking and to be honest I would rather stick pins in my eyes than spend time in the kitchen!! any ideas for baby steps?

White_Iris

LianneH wrote: »

how did you set out to tackle the menu planning? I am rubbish at cooking and to be honest I would rather stick pins in my eyes than spend time in the kitchen!! any ideas for baby steps?

I had this enormous mental block when it came to meal planning for ages...I understood the concept but just couldn't seem to put it in to practice.

Then, a few weeks ago, I realised we had lots of ingredients but I had no idea what meals they could make! Added to that we only had about £40 to cover 2 weeks of grocery shopping :eek: I made a list of everything we had in the cupboards, fridge and freezer and just started to make up meals, crossing out ingredients as I went along. It was surprisingly simple and as I did it I made a shopping list of things I needed to complete each meal.

I've done the same again this month - looked at what we've got in, thought about what meals I can make from it and I also listed the meals that I like to cook (easy ones!) and the children will eat. Then I made a shopping list based on what was needed for those meals.

White_Iris

As the 0% deal is running out on our credit card soon, we contacted our 'empty' card provider to see if they would increase the balance by about £1000, so we could transfer it over. They said no, so I checked out the deals on here and a few minutes later we had balance transferred to a Virgin card. Surprisingly easy but what was even more surprising was the credit limit they gave DH, despite the fact he already has 2 credit cards and two loans. He now has three cards with a combined limit of £21,500:eek: I though the days of that kind of lending were well and truly over...apparently not! Once the money is moved around, we're going to cancel at least one card and if we do decide to keep one (for emergencies :cool:), it'll have a drastically reduced credit limit of £500/£1000 max.

White_Iris

Well we did manage to clear the attic and there actually wan't as much in there as DH led me to believe, it's just full of badly piled empty boxes (waiting for that elusive moving day). I have managed to list some bits on Freecycle, scanned or remaining CDs on to Music Magpie and sorted a few bits for eBay. I also have quite a big pile of toys for the twins when they are a bit older (and less likely to use them as dog toys and get them all munched up!), which I need to clean, sort, re-box and store away again.

I'm glad we did it, as I don't like having anonymous piles of things hidden away. If I can see everything we have then I know I can either de-clutter, use-up or tidy away but if it's hidden I start to feel a bit anxious about the big pile of stuff I have no control over (OCD anyone?).

I'm also 35p away from cashing out my OnePoll earnings and do you think I'm getting any surveys? :mad:

lucielle

Well done on the decluttering.
L

White_Iris

lucielle wrote: »

Well done on the decluttering.
L

Thanks! Sometimes it feels like a never-ending task but when I think about everything we have got rid of over the last year, I'm amazed we hoarded it all in the first place! Where did we keep it all?!