A New Start

Legacy_user

Well this is a complete new beginning for me. My OH and I have just moved in together. This is the first time I have lived with a man, so lots of adjusting for me! He's moved into mine and I've always been pretty frugal through necessity more than anything else (I used to be on here under a different name)

However, whilst I'm a turn everything off at the wall kind of girl, the OH is more, let's live in Vegas with green lights flashing everywhere! I'm slowly training him to turn things off.

We've done our budgets to see who's paying what and where (he is renting his flat out) and working out what's fair for each of us to pay here.

We've already switched broadband and landline over to PlusNet as they were far cheaper than BT. I also managed to get £50 cashback by clicking a link on MSE :T

Cars are a big expense for us as we both work some way from home and are both self employed. Mine has just failed its MOT and goes into be fixed on Monday before I tax it again. We need to look at this. I've been saving here and there with the Mr T Fuel thingy they've been doing all summer, but I can't get OH into loyalty cards.

Then there's shopping. I'm very much a big shop, plan ahead, but he's a day-to-day shopper getting bits for that day. Again, an area I need to work on! He's very impressed by my cooking and I don't think he's had food like mine before. I'm quite happy to cook from scratch and love baking - but he doesn't combine sugar and fat together, which poses somewhat of a challenge.

We eat a lot of rice-based dishes, which are cheap, but we need to find other ways to cut back. I must venture to Lidl which is nearby and see what their stuff is like. Basically, on foot I can get to ASDA and then by car I have Mr T, Sainsbury, Morrisons and Lidl, or if I go into town, I also have Iceland and M&S (not going to happen!!)

We have no heating in this flat (night storage doesn't work) so we just have the towel rail in the bathroom, which he's fixed instead of buying new, so that saved around £100. We have a couple of electric heaters, but again, I'm all for getting in my slanket as I have done for years living here. We'll see what happens come winter!!

I'm currently quite poorly with a kidney infection, so I'm right off my food and have only had two tins of soup over the past couple of days. So that's a few pence saved anyway. I do surveys, bubblews, clicky things so I think I'm top of things there.

Any tips would be fab.

maman

I'd share out what you each do and claim the shopping for one of your roles.


Hopefully he'll then share the cooking but with ingredients you've bought already and to a rough meal plan that you've both agreed on.


Then I'd do the shopping mostly in Lidl (unless you have Aldi which I prefer) and with a small top up from other shops for anything they don't sell.


Ideally your meal plan would include packed lunches but if he won't co-operate with that then make sure he buys any take-aways from his own 'pocket money'. That's another issue as I'd be also planning how we share up money.


P.S. I assume you're renting so get on to the landlord about the heating system.

WantAnOrange

I'd be having a frank conversation with him to be honest. He is an adult and it is not your job or responsibility to train him. He is equally responsible for your finances and that is far more than just earning it in the first place.

So I would state what you want to achieve and why and how you have achieved it while living alone, then invite him to share his ideas. State why you feel his current method of shopping isn't suitable for your current income.

I'm not sure I could live with someone who had completely different ideas about what lifestyle you want to live together and wasn't willing to compromise. But if you can both sit and have that conversation and find something that works despite coming form completely different ways of living, then that's a great start to a relationship.

I had a similar situation with DH, who started weight lifting and wanted to eat a very high protein diet. An admirable goal and I am very proud of him for what he has achieved since but I had to be honest and say "we have this budget to last his long, this is what I can do with that amount of money, if you revise that meal plan and get more protein in there for the same amount of money, fantastic, but you need to do the research, this is the best I can come up with". And bless him, he researched how much protein was in a range of foods and worked out the most cost effective ways of eating more and I was able to incorporate some of those things into our food shop. By working it out himself he realised how expensive a can of tuna is for something he wanted to eat as an extra snack! And chose eggs instead....

System

Thanks guys.
No, we're not renting, this is my place which I bought years ago. He owns his place on a mortgage which he's now renting out for an income. The night storage has never worked here for some reason. It's something we will look at but for the time being, we're ok without it. I've survived at least 4 winters without it.

He's very open to new ideas, but like any of us, after living a lone for a period of time, it takes time to adjust I guess. I hope I haven't painted him as an orgre (sp) as that wasn't my intention at all.

As I speak, he's doing the ironing - a task I abhor, so he's happily taken on. We don't eat takeaways where he's determined to keep off the 2 stone in weight he's lost this year and I'm the only one who has packed lunches.

We're ebaying this and that, which we no longer want or need.

Breakfast today was bacon & egg sarnies for him and boiled eggs for me. No lunch as we weren't hungry and pie and mash for dinner. We get potatoes from his dad, which is s huge help and they are so tasty

We're out all day tomorrow as OH is working and I'm helping out. So, I've made some sarnies, sausage rolls and banana bread to take. All from stuff I had in - the bananas were ready to walk out on their own nearly We've been invited to lunch at a friend's first, so that's another load off and I'm in the mood for porridge for breakfast.

Horace

Why not see if you can have gas central heating instead of the night storage heaters which don't work? It might help keep the place warm.

System

You'll love this one - when the area was built up, the put gas to the other side of the road, but not ours!
Believe me I've looked into this as I'd love a gas cooker rather than electric.

Horace

autumnleaves wrote: »

You'll love this one - when the area was built up, the put gas to the other side of the road, but not ours!
Believe me I've looked into this as I'd love a gas cooker rather than electric.

How mental - planners heh.

See if you can find someone to repair the storage heaters or buy replacements.

Get your OH to do his share of the shopping and meal planning too (it is good that he does the ironing though - I also hate that job).