Mrs McB's countdown to adventures with chooks (and Rock Gods)

Pippilongstocking

Budget update.

TRG has proposed a household budget of £165 (monthly) for the 'wee hoose' from June 1st-August 30th

A review to be had after the first quarter to see where we are having never lived together for a good 8 years.

Household budget is for food, toiletries, pet food and incidental household spends.

All other bills will be allocated from a different account and once all average spends are allocated the budgets rejigged accordingly.

Its our first go at this and we're often not far off £100 (ish) here for food etc but not with all of us often together.

DS is also home for the summer, so he might lob something into the pot but for now £165 is the proposed starting figure

How much do you guys use for a monthly budget?
Does this sound kinda fair?
All the household expenses will be covered by TRG in the wee hoose.
I'll take care of the university folks and their financials and am not expected to pay any contribution to rent/mortgage initially.
:A

I think its managable even with the small amount of money I know I've got coming in, but we both know that we'll need to look at it and review once we're settled so a 3 month trial has been proposed and agreed on by us both.

Cheery_Daff

sounds sensible to me we allocate £100 for food but extra bits end up extra, but i don't reckon we go anywhere near £165 and you're muh better at budgeting than i am!! yay for cheery rock god pals good plan to revise after 3 months, and you must promise to tell him if it doesn't work out enough! xx

oh! and i see you've been in heels again - another interview?? or just generally dressing up?? xx

Greying_Pilgrim

starnac wrote: »

*wanders off imagining TRG coming out of his house holding up a red briefcase on such an important day*

Hilarious! Well done starnac - that *picture* just made me laugh out loud

Pippi - if it's any help, we're on £160 a month here. £80 for food, £40 for non food and £40 for social spends. There's only me & DP, no pets and we're veggie. Non-food is for stuff like soap, washing powder, razor blades, washing up liquid, TV guide, deodorant, haircut (me - I [STRIKE]mangle[/STRIKE] manicure DP's *flowing* locks :rotfl:), social spends covers any alcohol, birthday/celebration cards, postage stamps, stationery, holiday treats, library book reservations (just gone up in price!) etc. 'Food' is obviously self-explanatory, but as I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm beginning to find £80 a bit of a squeeze, but then I'm not in the soopermercados at the right *discounting* times, and we're too far away from them to weave YS hunting into an evening's walk for example.

Just what we do Don't know if it's any help

Greying

mooomin

I wander between £150 and £200 per month for food and other household gubbins (loo roll, cat stuff, cleaning products)

I try £150 every so often but find it a chore. I know I can eat frugally, I just don't always enjoy it I'm sure you'll manage just fine.

EssexHebridean

We budget £150 a month but almost NEVER spend all of it...in fact often only half of it. But toiletries don't come from there - we each buy our own bits. Cleaning stuff does though, and cat food used to. having said that cats are generally rather cheaper to keep than woofles. I reckon allowing for the fact that DS will no doubt (knowing what he's like) expect to give you a bit of keep money while he's there, so that'll help cover the extra needed for his food etc, you'll do fine on that.

As for the petrol money thing - we'll argue about that when we see you!

cazmanian_minx

*shuffles in to confess to a £350 a month household budget*

Mr Minx doesn't do MSE cooking and that does include a bottle of whisky a week, which knocks £80-£100 off. Hoping it's going to go down a bit now - he's been asked to help a friend out with some estate management, so he'll be able to shoot his own venison from now on!

Pippilongstocking

Morning all!

Hey wowser thanks for the replies. Really interesting stuff and we're all quite different with our priorities and homes aren't we - which is ace.

Mrs Minx - I hear ya gal - TRG is not a fan of MSE style cooking either (on the whole, altough he's slowly coming round) so that budget is for me to do the 'normal stuff' with - he eats alot of fish (expensive) and meat (v expensive as he wants the best cuts) so he will 'top up' the budget with treats of fish (last fishmongers bill was over 45, although some of it is still in the freezer). If it makes you feel better I was up nearer £600/month for grub when I first started on MSE..........(and shamefully I have the receipts to prove it)

I am a bit worried about the 'honeymoon' period of grub as we're both scoffers and very prone to spend on food and some. So we'll have to keep an eye on that and find a balance. He's a big one for eating out too - but he normally pays for it as he's a kind sort.

Shooting your own venison though - yum. Thanks for posting.

EH - thanks for replying - TRG being a rock god type isn't much for toiletries or hair products as you'd imagine - so they get lobbed in the household spends Dug fud is prob about the same as cat food as dogs are a bit less picky (aside the bonios) - I'm afraid I'm not as good as you and go to the limit everymonth! But we're really bad at scoffing. TRG pays for meals at work too - but not my budget......and i know you're good at filling up the snap boxes like dear greying.

Thanks dearie

Mooomin - sounds a bit like you're on our page too - at 150 I'd be freaked - 165 (no idea where that figure came from) makes me feel a bit less nervous.

Thanks for replying!

Cheery - you're own very rock god and you are also veggie so I'm sure you'll better at the spends than I am!! Interesting to hear how you do it too.

Be assured should my budget need revised I will be standing with a list, the receipts and my hand out.

Whilst I'm many things - I'm not spending my PLANT MONEY and Garden book money, on grub not when I'm going to have a right bonnie garden.

He will be thoroughly reviewed each month and a full post match analysis at the end (which I'm sure he'll enjoy )

Greying - I thought you were on about that and nice to hear how you break it down. I cut mine and TRG's hair (I know I'm a heathen but the 'hair magic moon dust to hide the sparkles' is normally bought out of my own budget for my locks......) and the social spends for us aren't in this budget so maybe that helps a bit with us being carnivores. I also read earlier this week that you thought the food spends were getting sqeaky at £80 - we won't be at the supermarketadoo's either once shifted as the nearest will be a good 7 miles away from the wee hoose. I'm hoping to grow alot too as we ARE moving to the Scottish Riveria after all. You also do a great line in feeding yourselves 3x squares a day (with lunch taken away to work) so we'll see how that pans out when we're moved. TRG eats at work, but that might change a bit when I'm here as he's eating there and having a snack at home at night time......

Thank you so much as well for your reply. Really interesting isn't it. We're all so different but yet quite similar in other ways.

Ah, the diversity of lifes rich tapestry.

Mucho appreciate the replies...............

Pippilongstocking

Fanfare.........................

-960 Captain card
-1285 Lucifer card


-2795 Total debts including penguin face
-2245 Total Credit card debts.

One of the cards is under 1000


Does a happy dance.

mooomin

Hurrah for being under £1000 on that card

starnac

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

Fanfare.........................

-960 Captain card
-1285 Lucifer card


-2795 Total debts including penguin face
-2245 Total Credit card debts.

One of the cards is under 1000


Does a happy dance.

You'll be under £2k before you know it :T

We allocate £200 but very rarely spend all of it unless we are having a particularly lazy month Out of that we feed the 4 of us, lunches for DH and DD, DS takes either a tin of pasta shapes, spaghetti hoops or beans to nursery twice a week (it's what they ask for?) I eat mostly at home and George (the tortoise) eats either home grown or foraged foods so he's a good one.

That includes toiletries, cleaning stuff and nappies. We go through a lot of toilet roll as we have a 2 year old who thinks he is an Andrex puppy *rolley eyes smilie* and nappies are quite expensive too so we try to buy them on offer.