HELP! Have cut back all I can but am still over-spending!

Kantankrus_Mare

I think that s & s needs an avatar just like mine

Have just read through the whole thread ( whilst earning swagbucks at the same time ) and cant believe the sanctimonious attitude of some contributors.

OP has taken on board everything that has been suggested and put some things that sit well with her into action.

Im not a debt free wannabe or old styler (well i cook from scratch but not to extreme) but will subscribe to watch progress and wish OP all the best.

hereigoagain22

Hi OP

Just a quick message, I haven't time to read all the replies.

Have you thought of meal planning and online shopping?

I shop for 2 adults (myself and my Mum) and 2 children and spend an absolute maximum of £350 per month. We eat well, a home cooked meal 6 days of the week and a pizza or ready meal the rest of the week. I sometimes batch cook when I have time. We also have plenty left over for a bottle of wine once a fortnight, sweets/treats a few times a week and even a can of coke each once or twice a week. I also buy baby food and wipes which are expensive. This also includes cleaning, toilet rolls, toiletries (razors, shampoos etc. all included) I literally cannot get my head around £650 per month. This week's meal plan was -

Pasta & HM (homemade) sauce
HM garlic chicken, HM wedges + salad
Gordon Ramsay Tomato Meatballs, Spaghetti + Garlic Bread
Pizza (frozen)
Chicken Curry + Rice (was meant to be omelettes but found some chicken breasts in the freezer, buy the spices once a year and you can adapt to make any type of curry you want, I'm lazy and use the slow cooker now)
Chicken Roast (whole chicken, roast potatoes + roasted veggies, yorkshire puddings etc.)
Chicken and Rice Soup from leftover chicken

For snacks we've had crackers, toast + nutella/peanut butter, fresh fruit (grapes, strawberries, bananas, clementines), jaffa cakes, cookies, muffins and cupcakes as a treat. I also bought a large frozen bolognese for emergencies, a bottle of diluten juice. All meat and fruit is fresh. For breakfast we have a choice of 4 or 5 cereals, weetibix, homemade pancakes/muffins, toast etc. I buy these on offer and replace whatever we need each week (just one box of cereal this week). Lunches are toasties/soup/leftovers/sandwiches/pasta/baked potatoes etc. Nothing fancy.

The above shop came to £44.89 (I split it between Tesco and Iceland) but at least £10 of that was wasted on snacks etc. we didn't really need. I had to top up with bread and milk today for an extra £5. I didn't need any washing powder etc. this week though.

Make your own entertainment! Do you have a Wii or anything? My sister is money saving too so we meet up a few times a week and do free or cheap things - treasure hunts/obstacle courses in the house, salt-dough animals, baking cookies or cakes (and eating them lol) long walks, going to the park etc.

1litre of Tesco value fresh orange is about 79p, it tastes as good as the expensive stuff to me and it's in a plastic bottle! We drink that or water and my DD likes diluten orange/blackcurrant)


I'll be back tomorrow with some more tips as I'm really needing to get to bed and could go on forever. xx

satchmo1

Hi,

I've just read through the whole thread, and all I can say to the brow-beaters is.... stop beating OP up, there are so many on MSE that have a flicker of a light-bulb moment, before finally seeing the inevitable light.

OP, a couple of things that others haven't mentioned, if I may?

Your payment for your computer security should be in your business accounts, as without it your business asset is at risk.

Are you putting some electricity costs against your business? A percentage are allowed.

Revisit your budget and see what else can be classed as a business expense.

In respect of meal planning, I involved my kids in it so that they felt their preferences were being taken into account.

I would offer a cautionary tale of contents insurance. We had an electrical fault on the newly installed immersion heater which caused a fire. Fortunately I was in at the time, so it wasn't a whole house fire. It did mean 80% of the house had to be repainted, the hall/stairs/landing carpet had to be replaced. A few years later, we had an extensive problem with leaking pipes buried under the concrete hall floor. The leak had been going on for months before it surfaced. Months of running a dehumidifier. Carpets, floors, skirting boards replaced. Without insurance, we would have had to foot bills of around £10k. I'm not trying to scare you, but when your budget is more under control please do look at insurance costs.

aneres

Hi op you are doing great!

I don't know how much people expected you to change in 3 days.

Keep up the good work.

Loving all the light hearted comments, I'm currently drinking 3 4 £12 wine from Sainsbobs, taken from my weekly spending budget.

bast

https://www.curryfrenzy.com
O/P best site I have ever used for curries takes time but so authentic. Best places to buy spices are the Asian markets but I am aware that not all places have Asian Markets. Asda and Tesco usually stock a good deal on spice in their special sections World foods.
I think you are mad not getting contents insurance but that is entirely up to you.
Well done on the cutting down, enjoy your odd bottle of good wine we all need to live. One thing I would say is I hate cheap plonk urgh... but Asda are doing Claro Carnmerre (sp) red for two for seven pounds yes it is Chilean but very nice and good value. At the moment I am not drinking as have been overspending on the booze and it is dear.
Continue saving for your children I totally agree, and having two at 23 and 24 life gets more expensive for them.
Please do go and see your dad, life is short and often full of regrets that is one regret I would hate for you to have. Well done and I don`t think you are a troll, really gets my goat (ha ha) when members jump on the must be a troll wagon!!! But there are some wonderful, helpful people on this site... Good luck..

PS: I used to get hay fever from the age of 11 to the point my life was unbearable of a summer, now at 49 it has stopped, occasionally during July I get a bit of a sniffle but nothing like it was ... So I do think it stops, unfortunately you have to well old before it does lol x

nearlyrich

bast wrote: »

www.curryfrenzy.com
O/P best site I have ever used for curries takes time but so authentic. Best places to buy spices are the Asian markets but I am aware that not all places have Asian Markets. Asda and Tesco usually stock a good deal on spice in their special sections World foods.
I think you are mad not getting contents insurance but that is entirely up to you.
Well done on the cutting down, enjoy your odd bottle of good wine we all need to live. One thing I would say is I hate cheap plonk urgh... but Asda are doing Claro Carnmerre (sp) red for two for seven pounds yes it is Chilean but very nice and good value. At the moment I am not drinking as have been overspending on the booze and it is dear.
Continue saving for your children I totally agree, and having two at 23 and 24 life gets more expensive for them.
Please do go and see your dad, life is short and often full of regrets that is one regret I would hate for you to have. Well done and I don`t think you are a troll, really gets my goat (ha ha) when members jump on the must be a troll wagon!!! But there are some wonderful, helpful people on this site... Good luck..

PS: I used to get hay fever from the age of 11 to the point my life was unbearable of a summer, now at 49 it has stopped, occasionally during July I get a bit of a sniffle but nothing like it was ... So I do think it stops, unfortunately you have to well old before it does lol x

On the advice of the hairy bikers I went to Wing Yip chinese supermarket when I was leaving Manchester the other day, I got a kilo of frozen pepped garlic for £1.99 I have thrown mouldy fresh garlic away too often...definitly going there again..much cheaper than Tesco for spices...;)

gardenlady_2

I just wanted to add my vote to the homemade wine- we use a kit called Beaverdale. We buy it from the internet and if you buy 2 at once postage is free. It honestly is really good- it tastes like a £5-£6 bottle so nothing fancy, but it works out at £1.10 a bottle. It is really easy to make, and we store the bottles in the shed. They are not in there long though as we do like a glass of wine...

Good luck with it all. It is so hard at first having to economise, sometimes I get really annoyed with it. My partner has been made redundant and our income has halved- we used to eat organic, had nice wine etc. I have found Waitrose Essentials to be my saviour though- I can't afford organic anymore, but Waitrose are high on animal wealfare and not screwing farmers on price (or so they say...) so I feel I can shop cheaply without totally compromising my principles! Waitrose also deliver free if you spend over £50- which is our weekly budget for food for 2. We often laugh about it- we have less money than we have ever had and we've started shopping at Waitrose!

bouncydog1

S & S - they often have good wine offers in the Co-op. We're quite fussy on wine - I will only drink Marlborough sauvignons which are usually c£9 per bottle - so I only buy the offer ones. They often have different regions on offer so well worth going to have a look.

I totally agree with you on saving for your children - we saved all of the family allowance for our DD for years - it meant that she has a nice nest egg towards her house deposit.

Ignore the "holier than thou's" - I'm quite sure that if they laid themselves bare like you had the courage to do we could all give them a good battering over certain points that we didn't agree with.

Good luck on your journey - you have made good progress already!

365days

Noticed you are in North Wilts, I'm west.

There is a very strong geocaching community round and abouts. It's free and fun. If you've never heard of it here's a link. Kids love it!
http://www.geocaching.com/

ScrimpingandSaving

ooh thanks for the geocaching link - that sounds like fun! Will definitely do that!

Ok so did my weekly shop today and it came to ...... <drum roll> ...... just over £60. I got all my fruit and veg in Aldi, cooked ham, bread, tinned food, milk, cheese, etc. What I couldn't get I then drove to Asda for (fortunately both are less than half a mile of each other). Because it was Monday, Asda had marked down a load of stuff from the weekend so I got half price minced beef (didn't look too horsey), half price sausages and half price turkey steaks.

Oh I forgot to say, I found a rioja in Aldi. It was still £5.99 so not much of a saving there.

My shopping should now last me until next Monday. The only thing I forgot was the bloody margarine.

I have decided not to do an online shop as you can't do that in Aldi and as the 2 supermarkets are so close together I'll set aside my Monday morning to focus on the shopping.

I'm signed up to Foodonthetable which is an American site but it allows me to create a shopping list, browse through recipes and add my own so it's pretty handy.

I reckon we can halve our grocery shop so that should save us £300 per month. As that is around the amount we go over, this means that we should break even every month.

From April we can switch our mortgage so we might save another £50 a month there by opting for a variable rate. I'll stop paying for anti-virus (no point in claiming it for tax relief as I don't earn enough to pay tax) and we'll try to make other cutbacks and savings as we go along so you never know, we might even be able to start saving a little at the end of every month too. That would be awesome.

As for insurance. Well I've made my position clear. I don't want to give around £15-£20 a month to some greedy, immoral insurance company. We have saved thousands by not having insurance and should the worst ever happen - well we are covered by buildings insurance and we do have ISAs (as do the children) which can be used to replace items. I would far rather do that than give my money to a scheme that simply makes insurance companies rich. I know the risks and I have calculated them. I work from home so I'm in all day. We are non smokers. Electrics were tested when we moved in 2 years ago and we have had a dodgy charger trip the electrics before now - everything went off immediately. The boiler is quite new and has also been checked. Yes we still might get unlucky but I'm happy that the risk is minimal so I'm willing to take it.

You could also say that we are mad not to have any pensions and for me, that is more of a concern than insurance as I don't want to retire in poverty. That's why I'm determined to cut back now so that I can keep saving a little each month that will go towards a pension. Hopefully my hubby will get a workplace pension soon, if he still has a job. All the management have gone so it does look likely that they are planning to close down this depot too. We will have to wait and see.

When I have more time I'll browse through the boards to see where else I can start to make savings. I am aware now that every pound saved all adds up at the end of the month.

I'm still not going to make my own wine though, sorry, I think that's a step too far! Having lived in France for a while we both have developed tastes and there is no way a homemade wine can emulate a Bordeaux Superior. We reckon we are compromising by having a rioja!