Lulabelle's MFW Diary

lulabelle1

After spending a little bit of time on Caths thread, I've decided to pay some attention to our supermarket spending.

We have all spends lists, but being totally honest, I haven't actually gone through and added up how much we've actually spent at the supermarket for a very long time.

What I do know is that we spend too much.

We're already doing the obvious things such as:
Aldi first and then Tesco
Keep away from brands wherever possible
cook from scratch
packed lunches and cooking lunch at home - no lunches out

HOWEVER, I think we're spending around £150 per week.

This includes:
food
things for packed lunches
any alcohol
cleaning products
toiletries
any birthday presents/cards that may need to be bought for kids parties etc
any house bits that we may pick up
cat food
etc etc......

BUT
I'm sure we can still make some savings.

We don't plan on changing the types of meals we eat as we like to make sure that we have, where possible, a nice balanced, healthy, nutritious meal on the table every night for dinner.

But, I reckon there must be some things that we can cut back on. Plus, with Winter now here (ish) we can make lots of stews and soups etc - portioning and freezing which makes a big difference.

So, I've gone through and detailed all supermarket spends so far for October. Once the end of the month is here I shall pop the total on here and set a goal to beat it the following month and so on and so forth.

It'll be "interesting"

edinburgher

I think part of the problem is that you are covering far too many categories with your supermarket spend. It might be an idea to split out food/toiletries/presents etc. and focus on one at a time. Otherwise it is death by a thousand cuts and you may find yourself frustrated trying to stem the flow

lulabelle1

edinburgher wrote: »

I think part of the problem is that you are covering far too many categories with your supermarket spend. It might be an idea to split out food/toiletries/presents etc. and focus on one at a time. Otherwise it is death by a thousand cuts and you may find yourself frustrated trying to stem the flow

Quite possibly Ed, but to a point the supermarket spends are what they are and whether they're lumped together or split out, I can't see that it makes any difference except I'm saving myself hours of adding up all of the items in each category? I don't want to get to the point where I'm trying to save £1 per month on cleaning products as at the end of the day, if you need kitchen cleaner then you need kitchen cleaner :rotfl:

It might not seem like it (with me being known as Mrs Spendy) but we're honestly really quite tight with just about everything we buy (at the supermarket, lol)!

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Our supermarket spending is high, but like you it includes tights, birthday cards, and occasional gifts. And of course, the real killer, wine! So I could never say how much is actually food unless I went through every receipt and I can't face it.

lulabelle1

Secret_Saving_Squirrel wrote: »

Our supermarket spending is high, but like you it includes tights, birthday cards, and occasional gifts. And of course, the real killer, wine! So I could never say how much is actually food unless I went through every receipt and I can't face it.

Oh good (sorry) - I'm pleased that I'm not the only one. I can't face going through each and every receipt and listing it all to calculate it either... life's too short.

I shall try harder though! :T

lulabelle1

Did the meals list last night with DH in prep for the food shopping tomorrow. I've requested that he doesn't buy a few bits and pieces that he usually would, let the savings commence!!

Also - we're having a few meals that can be batch cooked, portioned and popped in the freezer which will help with both time and money saving!

Cancelled the cleaner for this week and also for next week with it being school holidays - so just ran around with my feather duster this morning before I started work. Planning to enlist the help of the boys when they're back from school to help me clean their bathroom.

(I've had a cleaner on and off for years - ever since I started travelling with work. If I'm away all week, I'd rather spend my weekends with the family, since I haven't seen them at all as appose to cleaning). HOWEVER, I'm actually considering whether we could potentially knock this on the head. The place is spotless currently and whilst I like to keep the place clean, a little bit of dust here and there never did anyone any harm.

lulabelle1

Harvest Festival at the village church this morning where DS2 goes to school - lots of singing, very cute!

Paid today, so shuffling done - although there wasn't that much there to shuffle with this month! Sigh......

TGIF!!!!

Molillie

Great, hope he likes it, even though the designer is an adult now, he makes it clear it was to help when he went to "big school" it also takes away some of the feeling that everyone else knows what to do when it shows that others go through the same problems.

lulabelle1

Lovely weekend despite the persistent rain on Saturday.
Typically it is now glorious sunshine and I am working. DS2 at a football holiday club and DS1 eagerly awaiting his friends arrival who is coming round for a sleep over.

Limited spends over the weekend.......35p on a tin of Mr S beans as we'd forgotten to get them with the weekly shop. No coffees out/lunches/takeaways or fresh flowers this weekend! DH was training all weekend and took pack up with him.

Watched Eat Well for less yesterday and feeling positively virtuous in comparison to the family this week!

DH and I have agreed a budget for £30 each on Christmas presents. We usually spend way more than that, so its a great step towards being sensible this year.

I've also committed myself to NOT buying the boys extra cr*p just so that they have more to open. I've already started managing their expectations in regards to not having lots to open and that they should try and think carefully about what they might like to have. Hopefully I don't zap the magic out of Christmas!

edinburgher

[Rant]

Christmas is getting silly in parts of our family. Thoughtful gifts are wonderful to receive and generosity is a lovely trait, but there can be too much of a good thing.

On Mrs E's side of the family, Christmas morning is a bombsite. Literally no room to move due to the amount of gifts on the floor. In addition to generous and appreciated presents, there are now huge quantities of unwanted tat (bubble bath, plasticky stuff and not particularly nice chocolates). To compound matters, Mrs E's Mum has decided that her adult children have now reverted to childhood and has now started buying them 'stockings' (think the adult version of the cheap and cheerful junk that you can safely buy kids when they're young).

The end effect of all this 'generosity' is a frantic round of people swapping unsuitable presents, increased donations to charity shops and twinges of guilt as you bin the 20th item of hand crafted 'art' received in the last 3 years

Without meaning to sound like total gits, we would far rather they reined it in a bit and saved their money. They are far from poor, but we know that Mrs E's Mum is worrying about her retirement in a few years.

[/Rant]