keeping them debts at bay, budgets and tantrums

Yummy_Mummy_Sofia

Ok I'm relatively new to the forum. Have been lurking a while and only started posting in the last week.

A few nice MSE ppl suggested that eventhough me and hubby are not really in any massive debt as such I could still participate on this board as we're starting to really really feel the pinch more than we ever had.

Had a serious mad panic the other day when I re evaluated the budget ect and realised how much more everything has gone up by again. Yet as usual the wages have stayed the same (well slightly less). We're still in the green on the planner at the moment and have roughly £150 left over each month after all bills ect. However at the rate were going wont be long before we are at break even point and the bills outweigh our earnings :eek::eek:.
To put in to perspective how much our outgoings have increased by, 18months ago we had £300+ left at end of the month. A few things have contributed to this, but the biggest has been childcare. My mother use to help us out a day a week but was unable to do this any longer so we now use nursery everyday I work. On top of that the TC were cut for couples earning over £26000 a year in April, and we fall just above that line by about £200.

Some basic info to get started. I'm a 28year old mummy to my DD and currently have another on the way (managed that whilst on the coil :eek:, so to say was not part of the plan is an understatement!). Live with my yummy scrummy hubby in our mortgaged home. I work part time, but will soon start maternity. lucky that I will get better than average maternity benefit, but am taking the whole year this time and 3months of it is completely unpaid.
Taking the year as childcare for both kids will be more than I earn a month, so me and hubby decided after a long chat staying home for the maximum avail was poss financially the best option for us.

The only debt we have other than mortgage, which I do see as a debt but one thing at a time I guess
1) a sofa, it's on a 0% deal for the whole term and we pay £31 a month. Had a while ow before things got this tight
2) hubby has a small personal loan of £1000 which is currently costing £37.97 a month.
I do want us to overpay on these if poss so they are gone and not an additional monthly outgoing. However we also need to save 3months worth of the mortgage (£1300) for when I will bring in £0.
We have a savings pot of £3500, but obviously as this is our only cushion we want to stay well clear of that if poss. Also the fact we've not been able to add anything to it in months and months says a lot really :o

So basically I've started this diary in the hope I can bring down the spending, focus our minds on the challenge ahead and most importantly KEEP out of DEBT.

Working on a proper SOA at the mo and will post that up soon.

Mags30

Happy New Diary

Yummy_Mummy_Sofia

Kept for SOA, when I eventually put up

Yummy_Mummy_Sofia

Ok so my mealplan for the week is set in stone, and ready to go

6th sausage casserole, mash
7th leftovers of above
8th beans on toast
9th poached eggs on toat, or omelette (depending on my mood)
10th bacon and potato casserole
11th ribs, duck pancake kit, HM Chinese style beef noodles with curry sauce (DD not with us, all in freezer ready )
12th leftover bacon potato casserole from 10th.

Plan on spending nothing else on getting food in this week. Got plenty in the cupboard and freezer and all the above is already in. Not sure how well I'm going to manage as I'm a sucker for just popping to the shops for 1thing and spending £20+ before I've even noticed what I'm doing :eek:

Was due a hair trim today but to be honest my hair hasn't really grown out of shape that much, so have re-arranged to 2weeks time. Thought was rather pointless spending the £18 they charge when I can manage a little longer. Am debating growing the shorter style out to be honest. It needs regular chops to keep looking ok and like I say it's £18 a go :eek:. So think I'm going to tell the hairdresser next time to tidy it up to something I can grow out more and more. Also when the new baby arrives I won't have time to go every 6-8weeks for a trim, be ankle deep in feeds and nappies lol

Yummy_Mummy_Sofia

Yummy_Mummy_Sofia wrote: »

Ok so my mealplan for the week is set in stone, and ready to go

6th sausage casserole, mashchange of plan tonight, after being busy busy all day changed to sausage and cheesy tats. Had all in so not to bad
7th leftovers of above
8th beans on toast
9th poached eggs on toat, or omelette (depending on my mood)
10th bacon and potato casserole
11th ribs, duck pancake kit, HM Chinese style beef noodles with curry sauce (DD not with us, all in freezer ready )
12th leftover bacon potato casserole from 10th.

Plan on spending nothing else on getting food in this week. Got plenty in the cupboard and freezer and all the above is already in. Not sure how well I'm going to manage as I'm a sucker for just popping to the shops for 1thing and spending £20+ before I've even noticed what I'm doing :eek: also slight change in the plan with this, have started to meal plan for the rest of this month. So basically have done a shopping list if things needed and will be getting that tomorrow on way home from work. Should then be able to click the whole months meal plan as done. Trying to make life a little easier, and stop me needing to just pop to shops ect

liltdiddylilt

Hello there

Happy New Diary!! I've been wanting to start one myself, but it seemed a bit pointless when I could pay off my debt with savings (it's 0% I'm just going to leave it!). I'm glad someone else has! maybe I will now...

I am also a terrible person for going to the shop for milk & coming out with half a dozen items I didn't need & more often than not, no milk :eek:... Thought I'd share with you the thing that appears to have stopped it... Sticking to no spend days like glue!! :rotfl:I managed 23 NSD's in December, utterly unheard of & saved me a blinking fortune!!! I overbought milk & bread, wrote exact lists of things I needed and followed them to the letter & it saved me well over £200 across the month, including on presents etc that were not needed. :T

I'll be subscribing. Congratulations on the miracle baby by the way! No complications with the coil?! Have you come to terms with it all yet? My OH took 7+ months before he even started to look vaguely happy about it as my DD wasn't planned. Neither of us would be without her now but you have another child, you already know

Yummy_Mummy_Sofia

Hi Liltdiddylilt, and thanks for the post.

No complications as coil decided to migrate and was not correctly in place (this happened very late on, bout 18mnths or more after fitting). Only realised when I discovered I was pregnant! I'm over the shock of it all now, but did find it all very hard to accept/adjust/believe at the start. Hubby was complete opposite, was over the moon as he wanted another in anycase; I however wanted to wait till DD was nearer school age. Given how expensive childcare is ect. Did find out what we are having this time so I could fully bond before baby arrived. The knowing has helped me feel its all very real.

Glad your hubby came round in the end. I'm a strong believer that men don't really bond till baby arrives. And to be fair to them must be rather hard. We feel baby move have all the physical affects that make it all feel real ect. They get to just see baby on screen twice in the 40week period, must be hard to imagine that as a little person who you will instantly care for and bond with.

I've just started to do the same with milk and bread. Keeping a large stock in freezer in the hope I don't need to pop out ect. Xfingers we can help each other to kurb spends :-). Would be interested in reading your diary, and I'm sure we can't be the only ones not in much debt as such but wanting to ensure it doesn't get worse.

How old is your LO now??

YMS
X

Pinky15

Thought I would pop by and say Hi!
I too am trying to crack on with the meal planning, unfortunately we are not very adventurous and I am a rubbish cook - not a good combination eh?
How long till baby comes?

Yummy_Mummy_Sofia

Pinky15 wrote: »

Thought I would pop by and say Hi!
I too am trying to crack on with the meal planning, unfortunately we are not very adventurous and I am a rubbish cook - not a good combination eh?
How long till baby comes?

Hi :hello:

Roughly 9ish weeks, well if baby vacates on time lol.

Must admit I've got heaps and heaps of cooking books and always end up cooking the same tried and tested recipes .

I'm now working on next months plan and trying to vary the meals a bit so we don't get bored if the same things. I've also booked am online shop (not due till end of month, can add and amend as time goes on ect) used hubby's details so we get £12 off our 1st shop again, with collected nectar points also managed to get nearly £30 off the total cost. Works out that we've had 2whole chickens, 3x beef mince and 3x pork mince for free basically :j

In other news, had a very low spend weekend and just pottered getting the jobs we've been putting off done. Things still very tight this month, but xfingers if we just get through this month it will set us up well for rest of the year. Gosh must say January is a looooong month.....

Got a few birthday presents to get this month so again more expense. I'm sure over the year we've got at least 1-2birthdays each months, with a few months having upto 4 :eek:. And they are just relatives that we can't not get for, especially as they are all so good with our DD. may have to get creative with cheaper gifts that have more of a personal touch/feeling.

So given how tight we are this month don't see we will save anything again . Will set a target for next month and try our best to hit that; once I'm settled on the figure will post up the target.

Yummy_Mummy_Sofia

Ok so been a bit missing in action recently. We're still plodding along with our meal planning and trying to stick to our budget.

I've been looking at a SOA and basically most of the DD's we have for various things were locked in to certain contract lengths. This was done at the time to give best prices ect. However when they are due for renewal I can see a lot of play for negotiations with the companies.

So home phone 12month contract is due up April, will speak with them as the other provider I can get in our area is offering a better deal.
Mobile contracts will be over half way through the term in August, and as I'm going to be home my usage will drop. So will ring and request a tariff change (apparently you can do this once during the lifetime of your contract). Hoping to make a saving on that also.

The electric has just been due for a tariff renewal, and I price compared to get the best avail. But as we are not on mains gas a lot of the cheaper tariffs are duel fuel. Anyhow basically that is going to stay the same, no saving but no extra cost either. Now currently we pay £44 a month for just electricity, I think this is too high. Basically am going to look at ways we can reduce the bill and usage, thus reducing our cost. Slow cooker whenever poss. If I use oven fill it full and freeze things that are cooked ect.

We're also on a water meter and found the usage on that creeping up over the last 2years. We're not as conscious about the usage as we once were. Resulting in a £6 a month increase:eek:. Now with another baby on the way and more washing going to be an issue need to think more about what were doing. I'm terrible for having nice hot baths rather than a shower. That needs to change!

Food bill is a working progress, and as we're now doing packed lunch everyday to work again were effectively buying all meals on the budget. We use to get lunches from our small pocket moneys ect,but as this has been cut down again we are economising and doing at home. This month so far we've spent £160 on the whole shopping (including toiletries and washing powders ect), its not great for 3ppl given I thought we were rather stocked on food. Turns out the stock was bulging with some things, but lacking in other areas and we needed to buy stuff. Lesson learned and now will think a bit more logical.

So I'm going to meal plan a month ahead from now on, including batch cooking all the meals. will do a mix of online shopping (stops me impulse buying, and I'm getting big to push trolly around ect); and buying the bulk of my meat from a market as they offer brilliant deals on large quantities. Eg I can get a 5kg bag of chicken breasts for £20, a large side of ham again £20ish. It means keeping on top of stock rotation; one month will be the meat buying next will be dried and tin food buying. Only the fresh will be done on a real time basis. I'm aiming to keep the groceries, toiletries, nappies and cleaning products in on a budget if £100-£150 a month. Is this realistic for 2adults and 2kids!? Well I'm going to try my hardest to manage it

Very long post again, but as you can tell been running a lot of things through my mind and carrying them through to actions

liltdiddylilt

Hello Sofia!!

I am so sorry I have literally only just seen your reply to my post.

Well done on keeping going. My spends have kind of gotten away from me over the last week & a half, with going back to work :eek:

I am back 3 days per week (Wed-Fri) and it is exhausting!! I only get about an hour with DD in the evenings before she is ready for bed. She is 9 months, was 9 months exactly on the 9th this month, bless her.

Not long for you now. Hope everything is still going well & glad there were no complications

I am amazed by the savings you can make on meat on the market. Why is there no proper market near me?!?! Haha! I do all mine online, which at the moment means a lot of free meat as Mr A's replace items with stupid alternatives that cannot be used in a meal. Salmon fillets exchanged for smoked salmon slices? Hmmm... that makes a lovely stir fry :mad: - still, at least they give the money back no quibbles & you get to keep the stuff!!!

Keep on running your thoughts off on here. I have still yet to create a diary. I actually got halfway through making one then had to go for hours and my laptop died :mad: hahaha!! According to the budget planner we did yesterday we should have £5k left over each year if we stick to our current budgets

Hope you are feeling ok. It's still all too raw for me, the last few months of my pregnancy were hell... Take care!!!