My 1st Diary - SOA Done, Snowballing Ready

ecoverbee

amr547 wrote: »

I'd be mega interested to see how you get your grocery budget so low? We seem to spend an absolute fortune.

We try and go with value stuff from Tesco and we start to use B&M bargains. We have found that some of the value products are tastier and much better than some of the brand names. However sometimes the cheaper ones are just plain nasty and then we have to go up a little bit. I use to love Heinz beans but now love the Oaktree beans from Tesco which are something like £0.35.

We try to stay away from meat as its quite expensive so we use quorn instead.

nicp60

amr547 wrote: »

I'd be mega interested to see how you get your grocery budget so low? We seem to spend an absolute fortune.

I menu plan before shopping each month (and when I'm not hungry!!!) and basically work out 25 main meals for 2. I generally do a shop every fortnight and shop in the offers. This month's challenge is to feed us for a month from M&S (it's a long story!) on £120. I bulk out mains with pasta/potatoes and veg and side dishes like garlic bread. I'm quite lucky that hubster is very fussy but is happy to eat pretty much the same thing most nights and for lunches too. If he liked 'stuff in sauce', casseroles or anything remotely soupy I'd feed us for less! I might keep a diary for the next month to see how I go with the M&S challenge.

patman99

If you can clear your debts in under 40 months, you should aim to save the same amount over the following 40 months. This would enable you to either pay-off your mortgage or by another 5 stake in your home for cash.

amr547

nicp60 wrote: »

I menu plan before shopping each month (and when I'm not hungry!!!) and basically work out 25 main meals for 2. I generally do a shop every fortnight and shop in the offers. This month's challenge is to feed us for a month from M&S (it's a long story!) on £120. I bulk out mains with pasta/potatoes and veg and side dishes like garlic bread. I'm quite lucky that hubster is very fussy but is happy to eat pretty much the same thing most nights and for lunches too. If he liked 'stuff in sauce', casseroles or anything remotely soupy I'd feed us for less! I might keep a diary for the next month to see how I go with the M&S challenge.

We spend probably around £200-£250 a month on food for the two of us Would love to get it down but never have any idea what to make!

ecoverbee

Listed 11 items on eBay last night, got few bids already and lots of watches. Got anothe 10 or so more to list probably tonight hopefully.

Also decided that £40 per week for weekly shop is probably not the best way to do it so going to switch to fortnightly shop so will need to plan 2 weeks but we feel we should be able to make it work better and also get some decent meats. We are eating 5 small meals a day so weekly it's muh harder, we should also be able to bulk but a few items like wash powder and cat food.

Will be checking out the food forum for more ideas aswell.

ecoverbee

Just logged into my water account at Severn Trent and it appears I'm in credit by £180 so I changed the direct debit and now pay £8.02 less per month.

Nice little extra towards the snowball.

specialkaye

Have a quick look at what both you and your wife are actually using on the mobiles, tarrifs can be quite generous but if youre under using then there can be room to drop a tarriff and get if half price for 3 months or something. Same with broadband/cable. Get ringing round and see what you can haggle . This can work especially well if they are up for renewal anytime.

with regards to spending have you looked at doing cash back sites? They can seriously add up over the year.

Also see if yours or your wife work have a benefit scheme (such as 'everybody benefits') that can give you good deals on high street vouchers such as paying 90%ish of the value.

If you aren't doing that many miles on the car maybe you could ring the insurer and give some more details and see if it can be reduced a little (not even sure if this is possible)

Hope this give you some idea *subscribes*

Igamogam

ecoverbee wrote: »

Will be checking out the food forum for more ideas aswell.

Check out Approved Foods - online discout food shop - good for bulk buy of stuff like pasta rice etc :0

ecoverbee

thanks for the suggestions.

I'm locked in at £12 per month for iPhone but my wife is locked in at £35 and cant get out for another 4-5 months. We will definitely try and get that down when we can.

I've used the I'm leaving you technique and always get better deals, Sky gave us 6 months half price, we have TV, Internet and phone with them. When it comes up again I will be phoning them again to get better deals.

I used the £8.02 I saved today and used it on the PAD challenge, nearly paid £30 off debt in just over 2 weeks since I started.

Thanks
andy

ecoverbee

Today I spent £10 from my PayPal account I had to use some for eBay postage, purchased some bread and spent (wasted) £2 on a cone of chips at the firework display probably got about 10 chips but really enjoyed the fireworks so probably shouldn't be so mardy about the chips.

Added the change to my spare change pot which was £3.91 so least the whole £10 wasn't wasted.

Keeping track of all the small amounts really builds up fast, nearly £35 towards debt so far. Can't believe how much it adds up and would have probably been wasted.

Thanks for reading really enjoying writing about my journey everyday.
Andy