January's Big Financial Freeze!!!

MinnyMoo

Fairy3 I'm loving your signature so I've updated mine too in the same stylee.

mayfair1985

Just a few quick questions if I may?

I've got a load of eBay items finishing tomorrow. Even though I listed them before, can that go to the 155?

Also, where can I put my survey vouchers? Or am I being cheeky

his_missus

Hi all!

Here's my figures for Jan:

- 25 NSDs should be fine
- £35 xmas money has been put aside should I find a coat in the sales, not looking likely though.
-£30 put aside to buy birthday pressies (mum, dad, BIL this month)
- Hubby has company van so no need to budget for petrol
- Plan to spend £40 a wk on groceries (includes 4 cats) so £160 for January
-£5 on toiletries max. Why do people never buy you essentials for xmas, just fancy smellies?;)
-£10 put away just in case my bessie mate's want to get together this month, she's cancelled past 2 months due to illness:(

- Also hope to pay off £500 of debt by the end of Jan.:)

PurpleJay

Hi Everyone - wow what a lot of people joining up!

I have been plotting over lunch

Hubby and I are having an alchol free January with the possible exception of a party on 19th. I have no other nights out planned this month. This should help with both the diet and the budget

One of my new years resolutions is to meet a friend for coffee at least once a month so this will also be a spend day.

I usually food shop once a week. I am planning to try out lidl/aldi this month. We have bread and a paper ordered from a local shop on a Saturday but for the purpose of this challenge I will count it with my grocery shop spend provided I don't buy anything else, otherwise I will never manage my NSD target. I am planning to top up by making my own bread. Time to dust off the bread maker

I am starting the month with a full tank of fuel and quite a bit of food in the house. I am hoping to stick to my £220 food budget. This is £20 less than last month but last month I also had a £30 voucher which I didn't include in this total and went over. There was a couple of bottles of Baileys purchased though and Christmas goodies and we are fairly well stocked up with food so I should do it.

I will use up my cous cous stock by the end of Jan and vow to do something with some of the dried mung beans!

My main grocery shopping will consist of cat food, cat biscuits and litter (we have 3 kitties, 2 old ladies and 1 kitten (approx 6 months) who moved in with us in November and now has her feet firmly under the table). Baked beans and tinned tomatoes (we get through heaps of these), loo rolls, fresh fruit and veg, cereal, pasta, milk, yoghurt, cheese (got to use up the xmas cheese first), apple juice and biscuits (for M) and possibly some quorn products (need to check what we have).

Have done a rough weekly meal plan which will be loosly based around:-

pasta x 2
gravy dinner x 2
jacket potatoes x1
rice x 1
Misc x 1

Pasta is usually with a tomato and veg sauce, sometimes I do a stir through sauce (basically veg and cheese - sometimes pesto), or veggie bolognaise.

Rice is usually with chilli, curry or as risotto. Might have a crack at paella. I sometimes use value savoury rice and mix in a bit of fried veg and extra flavouring.

Gravy dinner is usually veg, potatoes, gravy and yorkshire pud with either sausage or some type of quorn. M sometimes has fish fingers with his. Sometimes they (and the cats) have chicken but not every week.

Jackets usually come with cheese and beans or leftover chilli or curry. And salad if we have some.

The Misc catagory includes pizza, leftovers (or more rice), soup, chips with something or other. This is usually on Wed when I go to Slimming World and eat late. More often than not hubby and M will have pizza. I usually have soup, leftovers or savoury rice.

Weekday lunches for me will consist of cous cous/savoury rice and salad, leftovers, soup, for hubby, mostly sandwiches/soup, M has school meals.

Weekend lunches will be soup, 'things' (egg, beans, spag, cheese) on toast, fry up, hot dogs, leftovers, sandwiches.

I struggle to stick to a meal plan for each day but will try to do it for the week before I go shopping and then pick and choose each day from that list.

I went over my fuel budget in Dec but tbh it was a guess. I have adjusted Jan budget accordingly but will try to use my gears better and generally drive in a more fuel efficient way.

Other new years resolutions include reducing waste/packing on things we buy.

I am also budgeting to take the little kittie to be vacinated and spayed this month seeing as she is staying

Anyway, better get back to work. Happy new year one and all!!

Emzilla

Afternoon

I hope everyone's raring to go?

I've sorted out my budget as per my signature.

I am allowing for £30 of planned spends. They are a meal out with my friend for her birthday a week today (£25 max hopefully) and £5 for parking at the hospital on Friday (although that could be more - it's so expensive ). I did make £40 the other day though from selling my dining table and chairs (I've converted my 'dining area' into a home office), so I don't feel bad about the meal out.

I hope you all have a good New Year's Eve - I'm spending it with my mum as she's on her own. Means it's a free night too.

Emz xx

Marylea

beckyboo1980 wrote: »

Hi Everyone!
Have been watching the forums and especially these threadsfor a little while now and the time has come to dive in with heart and soul.
Our debt (will try and work out how to put in signature in a mo!) stretches back over 15 years from when my husband first became ill with testicular cancer. A year unable to work, with a newborn baby and me just enrolled in university resulted in us living off credit cards for over a year. Since then we have just never managed to properly get back on our feet. We go through a good time when the debt appears to be reducing and under control and then something else happens which knocks us completely off course. However - NO MORE!!!!
This time last year I gave birth to our gorgeous twin baby boys. They have just made our family complete, but double the joy also means double the expense!!! On top of that, we are now 2 adults, 4 children, a dog, a cat and 2 guinea pigs living in a tiny 3 bedroomed cottage. Although we don't want to (and could never afford to!) move, we desperately need to convert our loft (giving us 2 extra bedrooms and a 2nd toilet!!!). However, i refuse to even think about doing this until debt is payed off and we are more financially stable.
Hence, I think this could be the perfect challenge for us. I have had to go back to work full-time:(, as even though I only earn a couple of hundred pounds after paying childcare for 3 children, its a couple of hundred pounds we can't do without. Also, once they are back in pre-school, childcare will be less and I will be keeping more of my wages - I just can't risk not having a contract (primary teaching contracts are like gold dust in Devon!!!) Husband and I both earn a reasonable decent wage so should be able to tackle this in theory.
Please be gentle. I have been lurking trying to take in all the dos, don'ts and etiquite - just let me know if I do something wrong!!!
Feeling very motivated and keen this morning. Have done a spreadsheet of debts. Have a notebook for EVERYTHING we spend and am just about to recycle some jars into budgeting jars for cash (food/fuel etc...)
Good luck to everyone else and even more so to me!!!! Going to need it!!!!
XXX:hello:

YALZER Beckyboo!, you have a lot on your plate, but you are now in the right place, I lurked in december and everyone is really supportive and hopefully you'll pick up some great ideas.

I have found meal planning and batch cooking useful, mainly to stop me from buying lunches and food at work, I did got carried away yesterday and hit my January food budget hard, but I hav enough meat in my freezer now to feed the 5,000, should they turn up!.....My other tip, is to go to supermarkets within an hour of them closing, you can often pick up reduced items.

Good Luck and keep us updated.

Marylea

PurpleJay wrote: »

Hi Everyone - wow what a lot of people joining up!

I have been plotting over lunch

Hubby and I are having an alchol free January with the possible exception of a party on 19th. I have no other nights out planned this month. This should help with both the diet and the budget

One of my new years resolutions is to meet a friend for coffee at least once a month so this will also be a spend day.

I usually food shop once a week. I am planning to try out lidl/aldi this month. We have bread and a paper ordered from a local shop on a Saturday but for the purpose of this challenge I will count it with my grocery shop spend provided I don't buy anything else, otherwise I will never manage my NSD target. I am planning to top up by making my own bread. Time to dust off the bread maker

I am starting the month with a full tank of fuel and quite a bit of food in the house. I am hoping to stick to my £220 food budget. This is £20 less than last month but last month I also had a £30 voucher which I didn't include in this total and went over. There was a couple of bottles of Baileys purchased though and Christmas goodies and we are fairly well stocked up with food so I should do it.

I will use up my cous cous stock by the end of Jan and vow to do something with some of the dried mung beans!

My main grocery shopping will consist of cat food, cat biscuits and litter (we have 3 kitties, 2 old ladies and 1 kitten (approx 6 months) who moved in with us in November and now has her feet firmly under the table). Baked beans and tinned tomatoes (we get through heaps of these), loo rolls, fresh fruit and veg, cereal, pasta, milk, yoghurt, cheese (got to use up the xmas cheese first), apple juice and biscuits (for M) and possibly some quorn products (need to check what we have).

Have done a rough weekly meal plan which will be loosly based around:-

pasta x 2
gravy dinner x 2
jacket potatoes x1
rice x 1
Misc x 1

Pasta is usually with a tomato and veg sauce, sometimes I do a stir through sauce (basically veg and cheese - sometimes pesto), or veggie bolognaise.

Rice is usually with chilli, curry or as risotto. Might have a crack at paella. I sometimes use value savoury rice and mix in a bit of fried veg and extra flavouring.

Gravy dinner is usually veg, potatoes, gravy and yorkshire pud with either sausage or some type of quorn. M sometimes has fish fingers with his. Sometimes they (and the cats) have chicken but not every week.

Jackets usually come with cheese and beans or leftover chilli or curry. And salad if we have some.

The Misc catagory includes pizza, leftovers (or more rice), soup, chips with something or other. This is usually on Wed when I go to Slimming World and eat late. More often than not hubby and M will have pizza. I usually have soup, leftovers or savoury rice.

Weekday lunches for me will consist of cous cous/savoury rice and salad, leftovers, soup, for hubby, mostly sandwiches/soup, M has school meals.

Weekend lunches will be soup, 'things' (egg, beans, spag, cheese) on toast, fry up, hot dogs, leftovers, sandwiches.

I struggle to stick to a meal plan for each day but will try to do it for the week before I go shopping and then pick and choose each day from that list.

I went over my fuel budget in Dec but tbh it was a guess. I have adjusted Jan budget accordingly but will try to use my gears better and generally drive in a more fuel efficient way.

Other new years resolutions include reducing waste/packing on things we buy.

I am also budgeting to take the little kittie to be vacinated and spayed this month seeing as she is staying

Anyway, better get back to work. Happy new year one and all!!

Hi Purple Jay
Looks like you are ready and motivated for January, congrats on the new kittie, I do believe cats chose their human companions and will just move in if they think they like what's on offer.......get to vets quickly though, as you might find she will start to multiply, a friend of mine was chosen by a stray cat...and as soon as she got her paws under the table, it became obvious why she was looking for somewhere warm and safe, along came 4 little ones!

My treat day is Thursday, straight after Slimming World Meeting!, a big doorstep sandwich!

Talking of making bread, keep an eye on Approved Food, they often have bread mixes quite cheap (I have a cupboard full........but slimming world restricts my bread intake somewhat)

I'm with you on the saying no to packaging.........why o why must everything be in a bag?.......Some shops even look a little offended or put out when you say uyou don't need a bag!

Onwards we go, pounds to be lost!

gien

I followed December's challenge and posted a coupke of times and I'd like to officially sign up for January. We have very little money really for this month (until the 26th) and we'll have to be super frugal and use a delayed debit card (it is in fact a credit card but the bank DDs the balance at the end of the month). This us less than ideal as it just knocks the debt on but I reckon with a few super frugal months we should get back on an even keel.
I feel a bit sick thinking about it so have put off doing figures but that is tomorrow's job.
I'm away at the monent and get back on the 2nd so that's really when it's back to normal for me.

I'm looking forward to getting out if this mess really as I am fed up of feeling broke and worried!

wannabee_in_credit

I'm really pleased we don't start until tomorrow. I've spent a small fortune today, mainly food and fuel but there have been a few other bits and bobs as well.
I've kept my Christmas money for joining slimming world. It was meant to be today but this week, the class has been moved to Thursday. I'm not counting it as a spend day as I've budgeted and kept the money ready from today.
Quite looking forward to it actually. It's always nice to get things back under control after a blow out (food and £). I do have to say though, this is my third Christmas that I didn't do on credit, and that really does feel good

Doris65_2

Hi all
Well I have been through freezers fridge and pantry, listed all food and spent some time putting a meal plan together for the month, Im hoping that my total extra spend on food will be £100(5 people,) so Im going for £80!!!!! Think Ive got the 5 spend days worked out as each Friday, and will mean petrol and and shopping(food) will need to be done on that day, the only extra spend days will be if I have to top up on petrol-new car so not sure on what the mpg will be and i have a 100 mile a day commute( I work full time), this challenge is really making me look at what we spend our money on, The fact that I need to buy no meat at all to get through the month tells me that my grocery shop needs looking at, and the last 2 days I've been writing down all my spends-all of them! very annoyed with myself, So I'm going to give this challenge a head on charge, see if I can make some new money saving habits, and have some cash left at the end of the month!!!

Happy New Year to you all

Dx