Natty's Kicking her Mortgage in the Pants Diary

ammonite

Go through your cupboards and freezer and write a list of what you have in there. Then sit down and try and work out what meals you can make with the stuff you have in there. That will help you to work out what you need. I.e. if you have stuff for lasagne but no lasagne sheets then write lasagne sheets on your shopping list or enough for a roast dinner but no potatoes, write potatoes on your list. Then...stick to your list!

I did this from April onwards (check out the food board for the freezer challenge thread, it gets quite addictive!) and reduced my weekly food bills from £50 to £20. Of course, I occasionally spend £50 or have months (like the last one) which are more expensive as I ran my freezer and cupboards down to nothing and had to restock but that is like one £50 shop per 2-3months and £20 per week the rest of the time. (I knew it was serious and I'd taken it too far when OH offered to go shopping ).

It really helped me and groceries are one area we can actually save in.

I also started trying things from the Value ranges, I'll try it once and if I hate it I won't get it again but staples such as biscuits are just as nice from the Value range as branded/supermarket normal range. However, nothing will cut it like Heinz Spaghetti Hoops so I won't even compromise on them! I've been really surprised each month by how much spare cash we have just from reducing groceries alone.

Edit: I see the wise Tilly beat me to posting :P Yes I too batch cook - it is way easier having meals cooked and ready to go from the freezer and a lot less waste too as we don't have much fresh veg in the house (I have frozen veg) - I only buy fresh if I know I'm doing a big batch...that way I know it won't be wasted.

nattypants

Thank you AJ, Tilly and Ammonite for the fast replies, and excellent advice:money:

I absolutely agree that honest spending, meal-planning / batch-cooking and freezer / cupboard stock take is the way to go.

I really am p*ssed off with myself for spending daftly - month on month no less! However I am looking forward to my October Challenge starting with the 'stock check'

But first.....off to the food boards!

Thank you for your support and good wishes

NP:D

nattypants

I found the below on the Old Style Board = October Shopping Challenge thread, and thought I would copy into my diary to read daily, thus helping me retain focus.
I think on Tilly's diary I once read that if you stick to something for 30 days, it becomes a habit.
I hope the below becomes my new habit;)
NP:D

I have said this before, but for all the newbies to the challenge;

For the first month I took a guess at the budget but I really had no idea how much I was spending.

I found the best thing is to have a guess the first month but SAVE ALL OF YOUR RECEIPTS (and yes, that does include the ones from the local shop when you run out of milk ), then at the end of the month add them all up and have a look if you were on budget, if not, it doesn't matter because your budget was a guess. For the next month you can use the total of your receipts and take a bit off to get a realistic budget, just shave off as much as you think you can, it could be £1 a week or £20 a week.

If you are currently spending £200 a month don't suddenly drop it to £100 - you'll never do it but if you cut £20 a month off for a few months you'll get there eventually without feeling you're missing out on anything.

You might think you've done everything you can in the first month but someone always comes up with a new idea and, if you try it you often find you save a bit more (unless you are SarahSaver who is an expert at this and could only save more if she turned her back garden into a paddy field and lived on rice ) In the first month I thought, I'm planning meals, I couldn't possibly save any more, but then I started double cooking and freezing, and making soup instead of buying it in tins.

I've been doing this since Feb but only saved ALL of my receipts last month, it has given me a much better idea of where it is all going. Budget for next month is £80 for 2 of us, I'll start on 30/4. I could probably save more, by eating different foods but I can afford to live on £80, I have saved a lot of money since Feb. and I don't waste food or money any more. So I'm happy with my budget.
By request, here is Spiggles wonderful helpful post

Quote:
We all have different budgets that suit our households. The most important thing to remember is that you set yours according to your needs and finances. It can take time to get to where you want to be too so don't knock yourself out if you go over in the first few months. We are here to support each other and it is not a competition.

I thought it might help to outline where we've come from and the top tips I've learned.

When we started in March 2010 we had spent in excess of £600 in the previous month. This had to stop, (there's only me and him and our two beautiful black cats) something which thankfully my OH completely agreed with so I have been lucky that he has been on board from the start. He gave me his debit card voluntarily and I still keep hold of it until he needs to get something for the home. At the same time we set up a system of pocket money (pm) at £15 each per week which doesn't count towards the GC and which we can each spend as we wish with no comebacks or complaints. OH predominantly uses his pm on his beer and I ferret mine away mostly.

The next step was to set up my own spreadsheet which is absolutely simple onto which I put all spends so that I have a continuous running total for the month and for the year. We initially set our budget at £280 per month and brought it down to £240 where it resides for most of the year it is occasionally increased to allow for extras e.g. Christmas to £260.

The important 'tools' we found greatly helped and continue to do so now are:

Stocktake cupboards, fridge, freezer - make lists and ensure that the older products get used up first. You'll be amazed at what you find squirrelled away and it will help with your shopping list as you'll realise that you don't actually need so much.

Before you go shopping check staples - running out of milk, bread, butter, etc often leads to going into a shop for one thing and coming out £20 lighter. Always check these and if they'll run out tomorrow buy them the same time as getting other things.

Always make a shopping list and stick to it - the supermarkets (sm) try every which way to get us to spend so having a list and strong resolve is the only way to beat them.

Keep every receipt - and then note it down on your spreadsheet/spend diary so that you always know where you are.

When tempted, ask yourself do you NEED it or just WANT it - now this advice goes with two things. Firstly, the things you see in store when shopping that APPEAR to be bargains - if you hadn't planned spending the money then its not a bargain. Secondly, the sm send us loads of vouchers for £X off a spend of £XX - if you had no NEED to spend £XX then have you SAVED anything???

Use my supermarket to compare prices (limited to four of the biggies) - The site may be used to actually do an online shop at whichever of the big four offers the best value or, if you have the time and sm availability, to make up lists for visiting each of the stores so that you can purchase all you need at different stores thus getting the best possible value. (I'd add, do a 'shop' virtually on this site and take the list you create on it with you, whichever one you shop at, it will help keep target prices in your head and allow you to spot bargains. MrM is not included but you can do a virtual list on their website so you know what you're going to be spending.)

Always have a list - this is just as important when shopping online as shopping on foot.

Use Approved Foods online (with a list!) - if you don't mind out of date things (ood) or you can search for only in date items. The only drawback is storing the goods as far as I can tell. Oh, and watch the delivery as it's done on a scaled charge for weight so keep an eye on it. You can of course do an AF order with friends, family, colleagues or like minded neighbours. Other GCers use Big Br*nds 4 Less too.

Invest in a breadmaker - we have saved so much by making our own bread. The prices in the shops are extortionate for bread these days. There's loads of advice on this thread and others in the forum on this.

Use the recipe lists - always posted at the front of a new thread. There are fantastic, tasty, healthy and economical recipes to use on them and there are a number of other threads on the forum such as Weezl's that will help you to eat well on a budget.

Shop locally - the local greengrocer (or preferably market but I don't have one ) is usually cheaper as an option for fruit and veg (f&v) than the sm. Often the prices may look the same but when you look at the quantity for the same price the greengrocer will be cheaper. The same goes for the local butcher. Often you will have far more variety of meat available, advice on how to cook a particular meat can be offered and there is (for me at least) no comparison in terms of quality. We buy our huge FR eggs there and I'm yet to find an equivalent FR egg in a sm at the same or lower price. Obvioulsy if you have your own chicks/know someone who has chicks you can get them even cheaper again.

Grow your own - it's quite simple to grow some f&v at home even if it's only in pots on the patio. There are also supportive threads on the forum for this.

Cook your own - making meals at home from ingredients is far more economical, often tastes better than shop bought and is probably far better healthwise.

Meal Plan - this is something that others can advise on as we don't do it. I have a tremendous capacity for eating the same food over many days but presented in slightly different form. For example, we could buy £7 worth of brisket from the butchers and eat it as pot roast for a couple of days, sliced for sarnies, sliced with a salad, chucked into a casserole or shredded up and fried as crispy beef.

Don't waste food - either only make what you need or use any leftovers for other meals/creations or freeze it for another day.

Withdraw the cash you want to spend - and keep it in a separate purse. This can be particularly effective as you have the money in front of you reducing rather than spending with plastic which is so easy to lose track of. Very useful when you first start out.

Don't go to the shops to browse - this can only lead to pain and hardship!!!

Keep posting and reading the thread - there really is no better supportive, wise and inspirational place to be! I think I saw that somebody mentioned forgetting to read/post. I get around this by using the Advanced button to post, below the window where your text is displayed you will see Additional Options. In the Thread Subscription box use the dropdown to select either instant email notification (this is what I use) or daily email notification before you submit your latest post. Then you will get an email into your inbox from which you can click to the thread to see what others are saying.

Always remember the sm is not your friend - it wants to profit from you and take as much of your money as it can coerce out of you!

So, there you go as a starting point. Others on here will offer tremendous advice on meal planning. And don't forget, the only silly question is the one you didn't ask!

See you all later,
Spigs

HelenDaveKids

Feel suitably humbled. I'm really organised about nearly everything but never know what Im going to cook that night. I cant motivate myself but clearly need to address as my shopping is always at least £100 a week.

chocoholic_chick

You know what, we've all made mistakes and mis managed our budgets at times. The important thing is you're now doing something about it. You can't change the past so don't dwell on it but you can learn from it and make changes for the future. If you read your diary from the beginning you can see how far you've come already in a short space of time, so please don't be too hard on yourself. There will be ups and downs along the way, but as I've read many times on here it's a marathon not a sprint so just keep thinking of the long term goal but remember to enjoy yourself getting there too :money:

ammonite

HelenDaveKids wrote: »

Feel suitably humbled. I'm really organised about nearly everything but never know what Im going to cook that night. I cant motivate myself but clearly need to address as my shopping is always at least £100 a week.

I was lucky enough to find this site when I was a student (didn't post until recently though) so I've been with Quidco etc. for ages and am lucky enough to start trying to be MFW when we have only had our house a couple of years. However, only last week I had to seek advice from the utilities board because I didn't have a clue which deal to go with and found out that super-savvy-me has being paying way over the odds for Gas for at least 2 years. What I'm trying to say is...we all have stuff to learn even those of us who've been using the site for years and years so don't beat yourself up. As choccy says...marathon not a sprint.

lulabelle1

Good luck with the food budget..... This is something that I still really struggle with. I have always menu planned, batch cooked, utilised my freezer, wrote a list (and pretty much stuck to it), HOWEVER - we still spend around £100 - £120 per week - this is for a family of 4 and includes cleaning products, toiletries, loo rolls, washing liquid - pretty much everything that you get in the supermarket.

Oh, and we go to Aldi every week too - we buy everything in there that we can (if they sell it in Aldi then we buy it) and then just pick up the final bits in Tesco.

I used to stress about it, but apart from living on beans on toast every day, I've no idea how I can reduce my spends in this area.

The funny thing is - outside of the MSW world, all of our friends/family are super impressed with us when it comes to our food shopping - they think we are really disciplined and admire (actually they laugh) at our menu plans and shopping lists - but inside the MSE world, we're pretty useless compared to everyone else!

SomersetSaver

nattypants wrote: »

The good news is, the light bulb is well and truly stadium bright, and from October it is cash only all the way as my debit card spends have been absolutely shocking and I have wasted money on what could have, and should have been mortgage O/Ps:(

Hi, I don't know if it would help but I use a budgeting app called EEBA (Easy Envelope budgeting app I guess!) - go to www.eebacanhelp.com. It's very simple, but then I'm quite a simple soul!

It's like having little envelopes of money, against which you can record each and every little spend - and it's the little ones (cup of coffee here, a flapjack there lol) that really add up I find.

So for example I "fill up" my envelopes with how much I can spend each month. Every time I spend anything (most things are on a card for me, rather than cash) I just enter that against the envelope and it gives you your new running total.
For spending money, I have one envelope called Spends and one called Wallet. When I take money out of the bank (once a week usually), I record it against Spends envelope (i.e. less £10) and then transfer it to the wallet envelope. Then when I buy anything I record it against Wallet (i.e. £1.20 coffee) and it shows a running total. Therefore whatever is showing as the running balance in the "wallet" envelope should be what you have in your purse. And if it doesn't, you know you've forgotten to record something and need to try and remember what it is!

Where I need cash for say the bus, I withdraw cash separately for that and put it in one of the little plastic money bags from the bank to keep it separate from my "normal" spending money. Any bus fare spend then gets recorded in the Travel wallet.

I've maybe made it sound over-complicated but hope it makes sense!
SS

PS Am loving your diary so will try to spend less time lurking and more time actively commenting!!

ajmoney

Maybe for those of us who are [STRIKE]hopeless[/STRIKE] learning to budget for food/meal plan/batch cook/not throw food away we should each post on our threads each week. Those who seem to have it sussed are doing so...although I need to get DH on board for it to really be successful. I have a food inventory and try and meal plan but have not got as far as batch cooking (apart from when I am going away to make sure DH has meals in the freezer) and reusing food.

Heffi1

I am quite a good cook, but I am basically lazy with it, I used to cook everything from scratch when the kids were smaller and I would batch cook and freeze, but as they grew and I worked longer hours I became a lazy cook, and I know I wasted lots and lots of money on food. Shopping when I was hungry was the worst as I would put in lots of fresh bread etc. then it would go stale as we could never eat that much!!

I have gone back to my cooking from scratch days and freezing again and it is saving me loads of money, I usually cook on a Friday night and get it all in the freezer the next morning, then get the slow cooker on for Saturday so there is something for tea. It has saved me some money again and I feel better for doing it, I just needed to give myself a kick up the rear and do it instead of plonking myself down in front of the TV.

Also as I am single I don't go out anywhere near as much as I once did and so I find it fills in an evening nicely, usually my son chips in and we chatter on while coming up with new recipes, I have at least 38 cook books and don't use half of them, so we took some time to mark out our favourite recipes and we are working through them, by the time we get to the end we can start again and not feel we are eating the same old thing all the time (although I would eat chicken every day!)