Changing digs and coming out of my cave... for a wee while atleast :)

elantan

Cheers KC i sure will

well sat down today with the finances ... we have been documenting what we have spent down to the last penny this month ... £269.01 on food ( not including take away ) £30.95 on take away ... For us thats not too bad actually and £15 on alcohol, we have decided not to have any alcohol for the month of February ( having half a bottle of wine is taking me a week to recover from now that I am up at 5 am for work and 6.30 am for uni.

We really need to get the shopping bill down, i speak to some people and for two what we spend is very little, but then i see others saying I could feed a family of four for £150 a month and thats all healthy food, its one of those bills i just cant really get on top of tbh

Mortgage payments came to 40% of income, if i were to add insurances and endowments etc it would have been 50% of income, which in a way indicates that we should be able to save this money once mortgage free ( i know that wont happen)

I also noted that even if we dont pay one penny extra to the mortgage from now on we will be mortgage free before the 100 month challenge is finished, I seem to remember noting this before as it rung a bell with me, but just reiterating it to myself was nice, we are not even half way through this challenge and yet I can already see positives that are coming from it

edited to add: just had a very quick peak at that site KC ... i'm lost lol ... will have a nosey and learn though ... thanks

gallygirl

elantan wrote: »

Mortgage payments came to 40% of income, if i were to add insurances and endowments etc it would have been 50% of income, which in a way indicates that we should be able to save this money once mortgage free ( i know that wont happen)

Don't be so defeatist El . 'Pay yourself first' - divert it to savings by SO on the same date your mortgage and insurances go out and then you won't have it to spend .

elantan

Oh dont get me wrong GG i fully intend on doing that ... of that there is no doubt, i have early retirement to budget for ... but i highly doubt i will save as much as i am spending just now, I know for instance that we will want to start going on long haul holidays again ( oh i dont know maybe to visit an mse'r that's moving away ) and i know we want to get a new kitchen etc.

So when i state i know that wont happen that is what i am referring to...

I cant see us ever going back to our old ways now, we have learned so much along the way that it would be stupid of us to not carry those lessons forward

edinburgher

Only shop at L1dl, you'll easily trim that supermarket spend to £200 or so including booze.

amycool

I think shopping at the cheaper supermarkets is doubly good. Obviously most things are cheaper than at the big stores, but there's also far less choice so you tend to spend less time there. Just don't get tempted by the "middle aisles". :-) I definitely didn't need that steam cleaner last week.

elantan

The problem we have had with Lidle and Aldo is that there are none near us, and they dont sell everything we buy, when i do get the chance ( ie go and visit son) i do pop in and top up what i need or buy things that might do but cant justify spending the diesel to go to a shop to save a small amount ( we tend to go shopping weekly with small top ups)

Its so frustrating, i go to farmfoods to buy toilet rolls etc and Asna for the veg, but not any meat from there, i will tend to go to the butchers for meat, i pick up sausage from the butchers that is on the way to aunties house ( i visit her weekly) as i like their sausage, but will tend to buy the rest of my butcher meat from my local butchers, we dont eat much fish, but when i do buy it ( for Mr el as i am allergic) i buy that from the fishmongers as well.

elantan

amycool wrote: »

I think shopping at the cheaper supermarkets is doubly good. Obviously most things are cheaper than at the big stores, but there's also far less choice so you tend to spend less time there. Just don't get tempted by the "middle aisles". :-) I definitely didn't need that steam cleaner last week.

like you i skirt the outside of the store, i tend to buy fresh veg from there, i will on occasion buy deordrant etc for Mr el ( i am allergic to some) but he tends to use the cheapest, other than that i cant really think of other things we buy, cheese and milk and Mr el eats bread, this month we did buy a jar of branston as well but got that for £1 and brown sauce £1 as well.

Yesterdays big purchase was, coconut flour, almond flour, 7 kg of chicken ( 4 of which was tikka) cream and spices, onion paratha oh and i got an extra hot bombay mix, that came to £59.95

Maybe i need to keep a note of every single th ing i buy instead of how much money we spend ? so that i can look at it more in depth ..hmmm

elantan

Thanks everyone for your input i do appreciate it as i want to get to the bottom of this situation so everyone asking me questions helps me work it out, and i am remembering things like branston and brown sauce etc that i dont normally buy

edinburgher

7Kg of chicken? Are you feeding the Trex out of Jurassic Park? :eek:

elantan

Lol I cut it into 250g bags and freeze it, that will feed us 28 meals so roughly 2-2.5 months worth.

I know that then makes us think well El wont have to buy chicken next month or the month after, and that is correct, next month it will be 3Kg of steak mince or something instead, i tend to once a year buy 10kg of coconut oil which cost me £125 last year so that hasnt came up yet... I bulk buy a lot of things to save me going shopping for them every week ... we like certain chicken tikka from a shop 15 miles away for example, but cant justify driving 30 miles every week for chicken so we get 2 months supply at a time, if that makes sense