Productive Day Today!

watermelon88

Now that I have joined this forum, it has spurred me on to start saving money anywhere I can!

The first thing I did this morning was to download Microsoft Money, to help me sort out my budget.

Usually I do it with a pen and paper, which I am still going to do, I just wanted MS Money to help me work it all out faster and have a backup of my budget.

I usually round everything up to the nearest whole £, well now I have changed it so that I do everything right down to the penny, I was surprised at how much extra money this free'd up!

My next challenge is to create a meal plan and try to get our food budget down as much as possible.

With my new budget plan we will actually be able to save money every month, so we can save up for things we need!

I just need to force myself to stick to the budget plan now!

thriftwizard

Good for you! I've never really hacked the computer/money thing but I really ought to try, now I have some time free to do it in.

watermelon88

I've nailed down a meal plan and a basic shopping list that's slightly under budget :-D leaving a few £'s for any cleaning supplies we may need once a month or so :-D

I just need to make sure I stick to all these survey sites etc otherwise i'll never make any money on them lol.

Linda32

Thats brilliant, meal plans really do work, but do make sure you work with what you already have before you go out and buy more. :money:

watermelon88

We have a back log of rice & pasta that i'll add to home made soup probably.

I tend to keep some stuff in the cupboards for "emergencies" like if we dont get paid on time or run out of food or something lol

[Deleted User]

A good idea, but it is money sitting there not being utilised.I too have a stock cupboard and I am at the moment trying to work my way through some of it .I have found that if I have a list by the kettle in the kitchen than if I am running short of something then I'll stick it on the list but I now only shop once a week and have found that I have saved even more that way.Tomorrow morning is my shopping morning I shall be up at the shops early before it gets too busy On my list at the moment I have fruit ,veg milk ,bread and some flour for baking and I also need some marmalade.and fresh coffee apart from that I don't need anything else at the moment and have enought to get me through for another week from the freezer.If I'm running short of something I'll change my menu to use up something I already have rather than go to the shop for the '£5.00 loaf 'Thats when you go to buy a loaf and buy other things as well as you get tempted.
By all means have a small store cupboard but try to keep it smallish as you did buy the food to eat and not store I keep a few tins of stuff as standby tuna,sweetcorn,sardines,salmon.tomatos,with these you can always make a quick meal with pasta or rice if you hit a lean time .But too much stuff is just wasted cash.Trust me I used to be the ultimate food hoarder having grown up with rationing and a 'just in case cupboard'

diluvsdiscounts

JackieO wrote: »

By all means have a small store cupboard but try to keep it smallish as you did buy the food to eat and not store I keep a few tins of stuff as standby tuna,sweetcorn,sardines,salmon.tomatos,with these you can always make a quick meal with pasta or rice if you hit a lean time .But too much stuff is just wasted cash.Trust me I used to be the ultimate food hoarder having grown up with rationing and a 'just in case cupboard'

Sorry JackieO but I disagree. I buy items that are on offer when they are on offer IYSWIM.
When Coffee has an offer on I may buy 4 or 6 jars,then for a few weeks I don't need to buy coffee so the next week if toilet rolls have an offer on I will buy those,dog food the next week etc.
When Tesco had their pasta at 15p I bought bags and bags because I would normally spend £1 on a bag so it was a massive saving.
I know what your saying about having all your money in the cupboard rather than the bank but if you shop savvy I think it saves a fortune.
That's just my opinion any how.:)

fuddle

I'm now a firm believer on a hefty store cupboard but I do agree with JackieO about buying food to use it. The way to make sure everything is used is to have a working store, by that I mean make sure you use everything by rotating stocks... use the stuff thats been there the longest, new tuff add it to the back.

I have a menu plan for the month. That's 31 different meals. Meals that are typically OS and cooked from scratch (apart from pasta bake which is my only jar food) I only have in store the ingredients for those meals, plus extra like cleaning, cereals, coffee/tea, toiletries.

I also buy in my milk and bread for the month and freeze it in the garage. Milk is no different defrosted IMO. Bread is ok too. I buy in the meat I need for those meals and freeze that too.

That leaves shopping trips for only fruit and veg. I only need to visit one area in the shop and it's normally at the front of the store so no being seduced by oddities that are on offer.

I too have a list that when I remove something from store, or use up some ham, cheese butter etc, I write it on the list and replace straight away that week, normally from Aldi as I'm least likely to shop offers etc.

I'm learning to be disciplined about it. I will save me money in the ling run. I say will as it's took me a while to get the stocks up to scratch but I'm there now and the weekly shopping bill has reduced from £50+ to a couple of £8 for fruit and veg (going from last week) It's hard mental work, working it all out but it's so worth it. And because my store is not massive (as in the variety of stuff I need) I know pretty much what I need in there and if I see any offers I can snap up the basics.

FWIW my grandma did something similar but her meals consisted of weekly meal plan. Sunday dinner on Sunday, Wednesday was always mince and dumplings, Friday was battered fritters.

Hope to help, and hope you can see some savings kick into place soon. It's a nice content feeling to be organised.

[Deleted User]

Fuddle we could be sisters I think I also like a bargain as do most people but it is so easy to end up as I once did with cupboards stuffed full of stuff .The worst cupboard I used to think was the one under the sink with so many different bottle of cleaning stuff.I once turned out my cupboard and found four bottles of washing up liquid,six of bleach three toilet duck type cleaners and God knows how many different bottles of Mr muscle/Cillit bang type of things that I had seen on offer and thought I'll have that.I have now got things down to a reasonable level but i thought I could probably have set up a cleaning buisness with the amount I had under there.I live quite near to a Wilkinsons and often they do have really good special offers but now I try to only buy stuff as I run out if it.I was at my Dds onnce and she said have you got some Jeyes fluid for the drains and I said I'm not sure ,but probably .She replied I bet you have Mum you have more cleaning stuff that Tescos.She was right I had three tins in my stash and at almost £4.00 a tin thats £12.00 sitting only being used ocassionally!
So I do stock takes at least once a month and rotate the stuff I have

debbiedebt

Like JackieO I try not to overstock but when I'm getting low I do an online search to find the cheapest.

Meal planning and staying away from the shops works for me and saves me an absolute fortune. If I don't go shopping I can usually rustle up a meal/cake etc.

About 6 times a year I do Approved Foods and a big supermarket home delivery and then just buy mostly fresh goods for my meal plans.

watermelon88

I bought the rice & pasta because I had a bigger food budget one time and wanted to stock up in case the next food budget was too small (if we need extra for a bill it comes out of food budget).

Now we're sick of the sight of Rice and Pasta so it's not been getting used. I'm going to start using it up though as it's taking up cupboard space.

The rice was intended to be used in a craft project that hasn't materialised yet lol. So I may just cook it up in a meal :-D