Got to get a grip of this...

E2006

Did a really big shop today! £56 in Ald& (came to £49 with the money off vouchers). Then £5+ in Mr A and £5+ in Home B, so £60 in total - almost double what I usually spend. We meal planned for 10+ days rather than a week. Bought double fruit and milk so it will last, and loads of household stuff inc washing powder, bleech, surface cleaner, floor cleaner etc and some nappies and wipes for the stocks. The plan is not to have to go shopping again until after my due date (by which time hopefully little one will have made an appearance) because I really dont have the energy for shopping at the minute and cant send DH because left to his own devices he will come back with all kinds (even with a list!!).

E2006

NSD's Monday and yesterday. Low spend today on bread for DS's packed lunches and a small milk for DS too (he has whole whereas DH and I have semi). Other than that we havent needed anything from the shops. Ive eaten left over's for lunches every day this week and the boys have had their packed lunches.

Ive just made some flapjacks using things I already had in - smells yummy and Im sure it wont last long!

Yesterday I transferred my small cc to my empty Santander cc as they emailed me with a promotion of 0% until January next year. I decided to go for it because the cc is linked to my main accounts and as I do all of my banking online, its much easier to sweep accross any extra little PAD's and keep an eye on the balance - as well as every payment reducing the balance rather than some of it being swallowed up by interest. Finances feel a lot neater now

Ive been lurking a lot on the savings board and am really inspired by how much people manage to save. When Im working we have the means to put quite a bit away, but we do use some of it for hols and Christmas etc and over the last couple of yars we've used it to do works to the house so dont have the savings pot we could have had. Once we have the £2000 mat savings pulled together, my aim is to spend as little of that as possible. Whatevers left at the end of my maternity leave will form our emergency fund - which I will make back up to £2000 if we have used any. After that we are starting on an ISA.
Although theres a strong possibility I wont be able to save anything whilst on maternity leave, Im not ruling out being able to put a little extra aside. Im thinking this will probably come from any grocery budget surpless, but thats dependent on getting the grocery budget right!

E2006

We've had another huge spend this week on the grocery budget, but Ive bought some extra bits to what we would usually buy on our weekly spends including 2 pairs of school trousers for DS, crib sheets ready for baby, money for a school trip for DS, a gift for DS from the baby and mothers day cards and gift wrap as well as the bigger grocery shop. I have enough food in stocks to last until pretty much the end of next week. I will need a few little bits like milk, bread and a little fruit but it should be a low spend. I dont need petrol just yet, but will need to buy the 2 mothers day pressies ready for Sunday. We will take sandwiches out with us again tomorrow for lunch so wont spend any money there, and will likely take DS to the park again after swimming so a NSD apart from the groceries.

Ive just rang up and closed the small cc so will take great pleasure in cutting that up and binning it! I feel like we are getting such a better handle on our finances, and its all to do with having some savings in the bank, because whilst we have that money we will never have to use credit cards again. Its a lovely feeling and I can honestly say we will never willingly get into debt again!

E2006

Well the spends budget has turned red! The first 2 weeks included some HUGE spends!! Thankfully we have some money still in the acc that will get us to payday but I really want to get into the habit of stiking to budget. TBH the budget was very tight this month because I wanted to put away more than I really had the means to with this month being my first lower than average wage on maternity leave. Next month I need to make sure we have enough to last us the month comfortably (hopefully with a little over which can be swept over to the savings at the end of the month) rather than saving the lions share at the outset and having to dip back in to the savings when we spend whats left over too soon.

I felt a bit like the money police at the weekend. The weather was rubbish and DH was coming up with suggestions of what we should do. Everything he suggested involved having to spend money, and I kept saying no to his ideas. I feel awful because he works really hard all week (we both do when Im at work) and he never asks for anything for himself - but as I said to him, Ive just started maternity leave and we need to hold tight onto the purse strings so the money lasts us as long as possible! Anyway, we ended up going to an indoor soft play area whuch cost £4 to get DS into (not bad because some of them are £6, and some even more :eek:. DH and I had a cuppa while in there which was under £3, so not a huge spend, but not a free day out either. Wish the nice weather would hurry up and arrive so we can have some nice freebie days out!!

Anyway, NSD today and hoping to get to Friday before spending again as we have enough in for meals for the rest of the week.

E2006

I was hoping to make it to tomorrow before shopping again, but Ive been today. My fridge and cupboards were bare - it was really things for packed lunches that I didnt have. DS is on a school trip tomorrow and I always like to give him something a bit more special than his usual packed lunch, but in any event, I didnt really have much at all to put in for him even if it was a normal day. DH had to take some money to buy a sandwich today too as although I had bread, I had no ham or cheese for filling and didnt have time this morning to make egg mayo for him (he leaves for work at 7am).

So Ive been to A*di and stocked up on yogurts, bread for the freezer, cheese, and some other freezer foods and cupboard foods (tins of soup/pasta sauces etc). Ive bought some tinned ham for times like this morning when theres nothing else, and Ive bought lots of snacky foods likes crisps, biscuits, crackers and crumpets etc. Im now overdue for baby, and I figured that now, with the meals I have frozen already, we have enough to last us at least a week, breakfast lunches and dinner (other than possibly having to send DH out to get milk and fruit).

Payday next Thursday and Im hoping that other than petrol we dont need to soend any more money! Cant wait to top up the accounts again!!

E2006

I havent posted in ages - little one arrived 10 days late on 22nd March, but I was really poorly afterwards and spent 3 weeks in hospital. Im still not recovered yet but Im home at least and getting better every day. As a consequense the budgeting has completely gone out of the window. DH had to manage as best he could while I was in hospital (read lots of takeaways and trips to mcdonalds) as well as petrol to come to hospital daily and £6 per day parking at the hospital :eek:. Our maternity savings have took a bit of a whack since then (DH struggling with shopping - popping to the shop daily etc coupled with me now earning the lower maternity pay) but now that Im able to go shopping and cook myself again, we are going to try to get things back on track and get back to budgeting and meal planning. Im also going to try to squirrell some of the grocery budget away to top up the savings account a bit more - I figure that its still there if we need it! DH has been off work looking after me and little one since I had her (thankfully on full pay) but he will be going back in 2 weeks so whilst that means more petrol costs, it also means we are likely to spend less during the week as we wont be going out and about like we are at the minute.

So its a rubber chicken week this week, and pay day in 8 days :T

E2006

Well DH ended up having 2 extra weeks off work, but has finally gone back today. Its nice to have some normality back, although health wise I have a way to go yet. It should be easier to hold on to the purse strings now that DH is occupied all day, no coffee shops, or lunches out anymore. We're doing well sticking to our meal plans, but could probably do a bit better so think I will start posting on the OS board again to keep me on track.

I've worked out that If we stick completely to the budget I can save £100 per month. Not a huge amount, but I'd be pretty chuffed if I managed to add to the savings whilst on maternity leave! To do this we need to go back to the old 'housekeeping' system. I withdraw the weeks grocery, petrol and misc budget out of the bank on a Friday, and we don't withdraw anything else or use the debit card at all during the week. If the money is gone by midweek, then we have to manage with whatever we have in until the next Friday when the next lot of housekeeping can be withdrawn.

Ah well, time for the school run now...first one on my own with DS and baby without DH to help.....

mrsd1984

Thanks for this thread. We are in a similar situation. Got one 0% cc at just over £3000 and have finance for sofa, carpets and furniture. That's all on 0% too. I'm pregnant and due in 40 days :eek: but I've started my maternity 4 weeks earlier than expected because I've been ill and even a 30 minute walk around the supermarket leaves me washed out for the day. We managed to save our butts off when I was working full time though so have savings behind us which will enable me to be off with baby until next Easter. But it seems every penny that comes in with us now goes straight back out.

We are budgeting £150 for food (going to try and reduce it next month to £120) and plan all our meals in advance. I'm trying to do a big shop once a month (using a money off coupon for a bigger shop) and then topping up with bread, milk, fruit and veg weekly then. I find that's when we spend too much.

As I am off our petrol usage has really gone down. Filled up a week ago and still got 3/4 tank of petrol left. Hoping to be able to budget £100 a month for that when I'm on maternity leave and still have some pennies left over. I've started baking a lot more because it seems cheaper and have been looking up cereal bar recipes this morning. I eat loads of them and home made will be healthier and hopefully cheaper.

Trying to find other ways of making money as well. Selling Things etc. though, we only moved last February and I threw loads of things away instead of cluttering up our new home (first mortgage ). I know wish I still had these things to sell!!

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that you have motivated me further, and you are not alone. I think there are so many people in similar situations unfortunately. I hope you feel 100% better soon after the birth x

E2006

Hi Mrsd, thanks for reading. Good luck for upcoming baby d! Hope you will be feeling better soon. I had a bad pregnancy this tie round, and also couldn't walk very far at all - I guess with the illness afterwards too, pregnancy just didn't agree with me this time round. You take it easy while you can!
With DS1, I didn't earn much and we wiped out our savings buying all the things we needed - not even particularly expensive items either! Thanks to my inability to part with things, we still had a lot of that stored in the loft when little one came along meaning we spent very little this time round. My friends and I also pass a lot of things between us. My best friend has a little boy who is 5 months older than dd so she passes things she has finished with, and I give her things dd is not ready for yet but that I have kept from ds (baby walker etc). I have also lost count of the bags of clothes we have been given and I'm certainly not too proud to take them this time round!

On another note, a few weeks ago I filled out a PPI reclaim form with Halifax. I wasn't sure if we even had had PPI, but we had a mortgage with them 11 years ago and it was our first mortgage meaning we didn't really have a clue what we were signing up for. Anyway, yesterday we received a letter offering us just over £650 So chuffed!

Payday on Friday and I need to see how much I can put into the savings account. We've used a little recently and I want to replace it if possible. If we need it its still there, but Ive been reading the £7 meal plan post on the OS board for some inspiration on being a bit more frugal and if they can eat for a week for £7 (albeit not that healthily) then I can certainly cut down our spends to around £40 or so (that includes baby milk, nappies and wipes so quite tight!). Ah well its a challenge :cool:

E2006

I've been avidly reading the OS boards - threads like fiscal fast (older thread), £7 meal plans, the not buy anything for 6mths thread and I'm more and more convinced that we can massively reduce our weekly spends. At the minute we always fail to even come in on budget but I fear we have slipped back into wasting money unnecessarily since LO arrived, like buying things for convenience (picking bits up in Mr A when I can get them somewhere else cheaper just because I'm already in there etc), and slipping back into buying a takeaway weekly rather than maybe once a month as a treat (usually on a Friday when we're just too shattered to stand and cook!) as well as buying sandwiches etc out and about on a Saturday rather than taking food with us (used to do this all of the time then just buy a coffee somewhere as a treat). This month I'm approaching the budget slightly differently than I've planned to. I'm going to draw out DH's petrol money in one go and he can keep that handy somewhere. It saves him pestering me for money at the last minute before he needs to leave for work, because it would be far too simple to say the night before that he needs it

Im also going to have a grocery purse and a treats purse. Now Ive tried this before but took the full months grocery money out in one go and found ourselves dipping into it for other things, like school costs for DS etc, so the money went really quickly. This time, I'm just going to start with £100 in there and try to make it last as long as possible with minimal spending. There's now a separate account for other expenses and as we will also have the treat purse, there shouldn't be any reason to dip in to it. Im trying this to get by on spending a lot less this month than usual as Ive put a lot more that usual from my wages into the savings acc. Its there if I need it later, but Im really hoping we can get through without using it if possible!

Got to pop to the shops this morning so will update how much Ive spent after that.