I am struggling to cope with budgeting

dingdongsaving

It'll get easier once you've tracked for a month.

Meal planning is what got me totally on track after a few months of thinking I was planning meals as I walked around the shop.

I now always go to the shop armed with a list for breakfast food top ups, lunch box food/drinks, fruit/yoghurts for snacks and the things needed to make each meal I've planned (always try to plan 1 day to the next re-building leftovers into something totally new)...and that's it food-wise. The only other things are cleaning products and family toiletries as needed, although I do try to buy these on offer. 1/2 price hand soap, 1/2 price tooth paste, b1g1f shower gel etc. so I never pay full price for them.

We feed a family of 3, 2 large dogs, a cat and guinea pig all from our grocery budget and (although we allow £400) £50 is dog/cat/guinea food and we're usually about £50 under budget...so £300 a month is easy to stick to for us.

Meal plan from last couple of weeks as an idea:
Roast turkey/cran sauce/gravy/roast spuds/veg/yorkies
Turkey curry/naans/rice
Beef lasagne/chips/salad
Salmon/rice/veg
Pizza/salad
Fish fingers/chips/beans/bread and butter
Spag bol/garlic bread/veggies
Jacket potatoes/chili/cheese/sour cream
Steak/onions/jacket potatoes/salad
Chicken fajitas/refried beans/sour cream
Mexican beef 'lasagne' (made with tortillas)/rice
Breakfast for dinner - pancakes, sausage, mushrooms, eggs, tomatoes
Beef and onion pie/mash/veg
Tomato soup/grilled cheese sarnies

Scatter in some tasty sweet treats (my son wouldn't let it be any other way!) for pudding/snacks...peach crumble, crumbled chocolate and ice cream, chocolate mousse and chocolate flakes, sponge cake (Whatever type we fancy...vanilla, choc, sultana, cherry, ginger) and custard or ice cream etc etc.

Just plan around what you like from take aways/restaurants and get on some recipe sites looking for tasty ways to make them cheaply.

Our downfall used to be take aways and eating out, and to be honest now we only eat out for special occasions and the food isn't usually as tasty, satisfying or tailored to our specific tastes as our home cooked food and it re-confirms that we love eating at home even more.

Don't let it get you down - think of the savings!

**Also, if the budget you have set is 'affordable' for you and you find you can go under them by any amount (that might be by £10 1 month or £60 another) - consider putting every penny of that into a saving account/ISA. That's what we've started doing and it's amazing how much money you can save by watching your budget. (It's also nice knowing it's there for months where money isn't rolling in as it sounds like your partner works varied amounts or for when more expensive months come up like birthdays/December).

BMG

maman wrote: »

It certainly won't help your budget if you're wasting food!:rotfl:

Seriously though, you can do this with a bit of practice.

If the £40 of cleaning is having someone in as you're unwell then that's not something you can save on. If it's for cleaning materials then it's way too high. I'd be hard pressed to spend £40 on toiletries either (and I am clean, honest;)).

I shop for two of us and can easily do it for £200 a month and that's includes cleaning materials, laundry and everyday toiletries (so not treats from a cosmetics counter). All I buy on top of that is alcohol. Take-aways are great as is eating out but perhaps something you should save up for.

Where do you shop? What's wrong with the food you're having? How is it different from what you had before? What do you like to eat?

I'm sure we can help.:)

I don't throw away any food. If I don't like the look of it, I feed it OH and I either have toast or nothing


We never used to have proper dinners as I don't like vegetables of any description. We always lived on pizza, chips, burgers etc I am happy with 2 slices of bread and butter and a large packet of crips

Broomstick

It's hard to know how to help without understanding a bit more but I realise that you may not want to go public about the reasons for some of these spends.

Do you have mobility difficulties that are ongoing of are you recovering from injury and things will eventually get better ie can you plan to keep the second car this year but cope without it when you are more mobile in the future? Have you got friends that could come and visit you as well as you going out to keep life as normal as possible socially without having to spend money on the car?

I can see that someone very easily could spend £40 a month on toiletries if these included additional personal care-type products and a similar amount on cleaning/laundry if you had extra needs related to medical conditions but, if this is where the money is going, I wonder whether someone at your doctors could find out if you can get these things on prescription.

You say you don't eat/like veg but if you are eating pizza and chips you are also eating tomatoes, onions and herbs and potatoes (at a minimum) - all vegetable. That is the basis for a good cheap home-made tomato soup! If you add a grilled cheese sandwich and a pudding that is a perfectly good and cheap warming supper. Similarly, it's easy to bake a potato and add a filling like mashed tuna, sweetcorn, a little bit of chopped onion and mayonnaise.

Might it be possible to set yourself a challenge once a week to try something new in terms of veggies. If you could find things you like then that will widen out your meal choices too. Making meat-based stews will be cheaper if you can pad them out with carrots and other root veg. Sometimes different ways of cooking veggies can make them seem vastly nicer. It's easy to chop a load of root veg (parsnips and sweet potato are particular favourites in our house) into chunks, toss them in some olive oil and herbs, and shove it in the oven to bake - very tasty and not at all like the usual image of soggy school lunch veg of my youth!

B x

sonastin

BMG wrote: »

We never used to have proper dinners as I don't like vegetables of any description. We always lived on pizza, chips, burgers etc I am happy with 2 slices of bread and butter and a large packet of crips

If your diet isn't balanced, it generally has an impact on your frame of mind, your general well-being and how you handle other stuff that life throws at you. I can sympathise with disliking vegetables; my mother detests them in pretty much all forms and raised me to believe that veggies were a necessary evil. I was in my twenties before I realised that I actually enjoy them. Do you eat fruit? That'll be an important source of vitamins and minerals if you'd rather avoid veg. There's also loads of tips on this site for hiding vegetables in dinners - usually aimed at hiding them from children/fussy partners - that you could try. My mum uses those sorts of tricks to force herself to eat vegetables.. yes she knows that they are there but they're less noticable and therefore more palatable.

You're unlikely to feel at your best and therefore ready to tackle the world if all you're eating is toast and crisps.

kb_soma

Hi BMG,

This year, I have really thought about my budget. I started by collecting ALL of our receipts. I don't know if you'd be able to do something like this?

I have included in my household budget cleaning, pets, food, health (medicines etc.), drinks.

By adding these up and looking at how much we are spending, I can see where we need to make cuts.

For example, can you switch to value brands rather than branded items, shop somewhere like Aldi?

Something that I did yesterday was to 'stock check' all of the food that I have in the freezer and cupboards, there's a lot of stuff in there that I buy on a regular basis and don't use. Maybe you could work a meal plan with what you have already.

Also, do this with the cleaning stuff and toiletries that you already have in the house, you may be buying things that you already have opened at home.

If you are stuck for cooking budget meals, take a look on http://agirlcalledjack.com/category/recipes-food-etc/ for Jack's recipes.

Also, if you can, cook in bulk eg. if you get a large pack of mince beef, try to make a bolognese and split it over a few boxes and freeze the sauce.

I have started to keep a diary for my spending and find that having to write things down when I buy things really does make me think whether or not I need them.

I have also started leaving my purse at home so that I can't just pop into the supermarket a few times a week, sometimes spending up to £15 a time. I am also trying to do one big shop, rather than itty bitty ones.

The main thing is to not overwhelm yourself by trying to do everything at once.

LameWolf

Hi there, BMG I have a suggestion re meal planning - well, it's what works for me, anyway.:o

I have lupus, so my health is poor most days, and absolutely flippin' awful on some; I meal plan a few days ahead at a time, but with a view to swapping to meals over if I'm not well enough to cope on a given day. I have it all down on a spreadsheet; the plan is done in red for "can be changed if necessary" and changed to blue for "this is set in stone and cannot be changed"; I also keep a record of the last few weeks' meals (changed to black) so that we don't have the same thing too often.

If I know I have something happening that will sap my strength, I will plan to make something that will do two days' dinners the day before (eg Shepherd Spy or Lasagne). Here's a sample from my sheet - as you can see, I need to sit DH down and do a bit more forward planning soon.;) I also have a column with notes, which I find useful. NB - I copied this from my spreadsheet, and the columns don't copy properly, but it should be obvious what I'm trying to illustrate.:o

Friday 10 Jan
Nut loaf with sweet'n'sour rice
NB: Last of the nut loaf!

Saturday 11 Jan
Cheese on toast with baked beans
NB: Short of eggs!!

Sunday 12 Jan
Toad in the Hole



Monday 13 Jan
Pasta in cheese sauce


Tuesday 14 Jan
Pizza
Need bread machine fetched down

Wednesday 15 Jan
Quorn fillets in white wine sauce and chips


Thursday 16 Jan
Tagliatelle with tomato and hot dogs
Collect meds from town

Friday 17 Jan




Saturday 18 Jan
Soup of some sort (?onion)



Sunday 19 Jan


Woburn Farmers Market

Regarding veggies - I used to dislike a lot of them when I lived with my parents (which was a problem as I'm vegetarian) then I realised my mother was cooking them to oblivion; I actually like most things if it's only lightly cooked (apart from beetroot, which I won't have in the house - ugh!!):D Anyways, it's just a thought.:o

I am worried that you're making do with bread'n'butter and crisps. That sounds to me as if you don't love yourself enough to feed yourself properly.

CH27

Withdraw your weekly grocery budget in cash & use only that.
Spending cash really makes me think before buying & keeps me within my budget.

Prothet_of_Doom

There are 2 things I would say.

1) put your actual expenditure (or predicted) into the Budget planner.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/redir/e5897875
2) This budget planner misses the point on cash flow. On a spreadsheet create 52 weeks of cashflow forecast in columns.
In the first column create a list downwards of all the bills you will expect to pay in the year.
and a list of money coming in
In the last row add up how much you should have left at the end of each week.
Because your husband's income varies, you should only put in an estimate but as some as you know the fact, throw that in instead.

It won't help you make the money go further, but it will focus the mind on keeping to it.

BMG

Thanks for all you replies.


I will try and answer all the questions brought up. Apologies if I miss any.

• My health condition is never going to get better, I am afraid only worse. Some days I feel okay and can drive the car but other days I can not leave the house unless someone can take me somewhere
• All my friends either live over 50 miles away or the local ones work full time/shifts and have young children
• I was forced to eat vegetables and fruit when I was living at home. As soon as I left home, I stopped eating them and still don't really touch them apart from the toppings on pizza. I still won't touch fruit
• The cleaning items that are bought are any that OH wants as he does all the cleaning

Maybe I am just lazy and not bothered about myself. I always ensure OH gets a cooked meal most days if I am well enough to cook.

dingdongsaving

As your car is a necessity to keep you out and about when you're up to it I'd def. start with working on containing the budgets that you can control and cut back on as you experiment.

If the 'budgets' you've planned on are affordable for you I'd def. plan on saving every penny you come in under each month to help you save for tougher months when unexpected costs come up or your partner doesn't bring as much money home.

Start by recording every spend and track how much you spend on food, cleaning products & toiletries...that's where you'll be able to save money.

Just think, if you can half your cleaning/smellies budget and go under by £10 on groceries you'll have 'saved' 50 quid in 1 month!