Journey to debt free-dom

bindi_soup

Oh yes - spoken to Orange as well. My pay as you go contract should only be 8 a month, but as don't have home phone needed to call 08 numbers which has racked it up. I've added a bolt on - 5.83 a month which 200 minutes of 08 numbers. Should cover it, and keep Bill the same.

Willowpop

Bindi, have a look (if you've not already) at the site saynoto0870.com
They have alternative numbers to 'most' 08 numbers …certainly for big companies. I don't remember the last time that I called an 08 number because I look for a different one here.
It might be worth a look if there are certain ones you call a lot and see if you can find a land line for them, which might save you the money getting that bolt on.

Keep up the good work though, love reading all the stuff you've done and getting ideas.:)

bindi_soup

Menu

Monday (tonight) - going to use 4 chicken thighs and 4 chicken drumsticks from freezer. Honey mustard soy marinade, serve with grilled vine tomatoes, quinoa.
Tuesday - grilled jerk seasoned pork steaks, corn on cobs, with savoury rice (stir fried spring onions & kidney beans)
Wednesday - salmon fillets, with new potatoes and asparagus/greens
Thursday - salmon & rocket tagliatelle, pack salmon trimmings, 1/2 bag rocket, lemon juice, creme fraiche (+maybe prawns)
Friday - home made chicken curry - chicken thighs, spices fried off, onions, 2 tinned tomatoes, cauliflower, serve with rice & mini naan
Saturday - pizza
Sunday - go shopping.

Lunches:
Tuesday -1/4 bag rocket each, with leftover chicken, Tom's and quinoa
Wednesday - rice salad (from Tuesday night), add tinned sweetcorn and a chopped pepper), with boiled egg. Apple banana choc bar left from weekend
Thursday - home made mushroom pasties (fry onion in butter, chop mushrooms, add to onion, add creme fraische, with leftover potatoes. Apple banana choc bar
Friday - leftover curry + naan

Shopping list:
Vine tomatoes
Bag rice
Spring onions
Corn on cobs
Salmon fillets
New potatoes
Asparagus/greens
Chicken thighs
2 tin Tom's
3 onions
Cauliflower
4 mini naan
Salmon trimmings
Bag rocket
Creme fraiche
Some cheeky prawns? Check price
2 pizzas
Tin sweetcorn
Red pepper
Apple's
Bananas
Eggs
Sheet puff pasty
Mushrooms
2 pt milk OH, 1pt me work, 1 pt for home
Cereal OH
Squash

Well... it's tasty and healthy. Used stuff from cupboard/freezer - maybe could be cheaper though.
29 items, if assume average of £1 an item, should be in under budget. Off to aldi now! Don't need any cleaning or toiletries this week - all going to plan I won't go shopping until Sunday.

bindi_soup

Good call willowpop - didn't know about that! Hmmm. Wonder if there's an app for that...

joedenise

bindi soup - Why don't you save your empty 2pt and 1pt milk bottles and reuse by buying a 4 pints which will only cost you £1 from most SMs! Much cheaper than buying smaller bottles.

Not clear from your list but assume cauliflower is a fresh one? Would be cheaper to buy frozen; same with most other veg.

Denise

ViolaLass

Some of your meals sound rather fancy for someone trying to cut back - meat every night, for a start.

Whenever OH and I need to get control of the food budget, we'll do a few days of basic meals, which for us is invariably pasta with tomato sauce, spiced up with herbs from our garden.

I'm not saying you should eat exactly the same as us or the same every night but you seem to be getting a lot of ingredients and you could cut down. Don't buy pizzas, go veggie for some meals, buy frozen veg instead of tinned and so on...

toontastic

My only suggestion is your budget. Someone on here a while back introduced me to Dave Ramsey who does his debt repayment different in that he pays off smallest debt first. I don't necessarily agree with that (but if it works for you.....) but I do love the way he does a budget. Rather than working out a budget by just putting the usual direct debits in a list and then saying I'll throw anything left at debts actually write the whole list out so you spend every single penny of your pay on everything you want to buy. I then use an envelope system and hold everything in cash. So for example I do the usual list of insurance, tv, water, mortgage etc then I put set amounts budgeted for in your case clothes shopping and give that an amount. All your spending money put in batches so if it's for going to pictures give than an amount, going out drinking give that an amount. Don't forget to also put amounts that you want to give to your debts, not just min payment give the debt your going to pay off first the extra as well.

By the end of the budget you should have zero showing as money left as you should have allocated a pot for every single penny. That way you can't overspend because when you go out you have all the cash ready and you can only spend what you need. If you for some reason want to give yourself an extra £10 for clothes shopping thats fine, but you have to remove that from another of your pots.

I used to find keeping a spending diary a pain and would never keep to my budgets. Using this type of budget and the envelope system I'm finding myself saving money on my weekly shop because I know my limit and thats giving me more money to throw at debts.

Do a search for zero based budgeting if you want more info on that type of budget. You can also check out Dave Ramsey like I said but he's American and doesn't cater for Brits at all but his budgeting idea I like alot.

toontastic

bindi_soup wrote: »

Oh yes - spoken to Orange as well. My pay as you go contract should only be 8 a month, but as don't have home phone needed to call 08 numbers which has racked it up. I've added a bolt on - 5.83 a month which 200 minutes of 08 numbers. Should cover it, and keep Bill the same.

Check out giffgaff worked out cheaper for me than all the other companies.

bindi_soup

Toontastic - I will look into this, sounds really interesting. For the first time I've drawn out 200 for groceries, and just took cash (no card) with me so I HAD to stick to budget. And my shopping list! If it works for that, it would in theory work for everything else - I'd be nervous of leaving 0 in my account though (just in case something unexpected took me over and . I got charged.

I've just been to aldi - omg...! total came to 32.69. Including some stuff that wasn't on my list original list. (Minimilk lollies £1, courgettes for tonight so can save tommys for salad tomorrow, only mixed peppers available but will go great in my curry. And some fish fingers because I was hungry . But saved on other things, like got frozen breaded cod instead of salmon, so not too sad. The fruit and veg is ridiculously cheap, looks nice quality too. Very pleasantly surprised.
2 adults for a full week, I'm really happy with that - much less than im used to.

What does everyone else manage out of interest?

Violalass - the OH only eats veggies under duress, if I were just to serve up a big plate of meat every night he'd be quite happy with that! I tried sneaking a veggie meal in a few weeks ago, didn't go down well... could try experimenting once a week though, see if anything passes muster! Jacket spuds and beans for a start. You're right, the menu could be simplified even further - and if that only came to £32, I could throw some cheap options in there and cut it down further.

Will see how I get on this week, if I don't have to go shopping til Sunday I'll be a happy bunny

ViolaLass

bindi_soup wrote: »

Violalass - the OH only eats veggies under duress, if I were just to serve up a big plate of meat every night he'd be quite happy with that! I tried sneaking a veggie meal in a few weeks ago, didn't go down well... could try experimenting once a week though, see if anything passes muster! Jacket spuds and beans for a start. You're right, the menu could be simplified even further - and if that only came to £32, I could throw some cheap options in there and cut it down further.

Your OH needs to appreciate the financial necessities of your situation. I would love to have stilton and other cheeses every month but I just don't, because we can't afford it. There are plenty of other areas you could cut down on though e.g. not getting bagged salad or ready-made pastry. These items are expensive!

Perhaps your OH could suggest cheaper meals that they would be prepared to have sometimes? For example, I'm happy to have pasta and basic tomato sauce to save money or bread and leftovers but OH would rather have cereal. The saving is probably the same, we just have different meals (but can still eat together). In fact, having one meal a week be leftovers is a great way of making sure nothing gets wasted.