Our Journey from Debtdom to Freedom

hazeldreams

Happy Sunday all!

Very little to report on the debt busting front here due to being so close to month end and were away on 1st August (payday) so real efforts will no doubt start the following weekend!

Will start with making a list which I'll tick off as August progresses to try and save the £s to chuck at the debt mountain.

I'm also going to pinch pink poppies idea of totalling debt paid off on my first post each month I can see that will really motivate me!

Off to read some more diaries and look for some grocery money saving ideas - really want to smash as much as possible off the debt in August! £2k would be ideal but with back to school costs and dd1 birthday in September it's going to be a struggle!!!

Wish me luck!!!

Igamogam

Looking at your original SOA...........can you cut the amount you spend on food every month? It can be done with some cleaver planning and savvy shopping - even if you think you do that already you will be surprised!!

hazeldreams

Hi igamogam

Thanks for stopping by! I'm embarrassed to say that since I posted this our spending on groceries is more like £500 per month now :eek:which is why I desperately need to get a handle on it!

I've been reading through some really inspiring diaries and Pinterest has been mentioned repeatedly so may pop on over there and see what I can find. we have a fridge and store cupboard full of stuff to use first though so it will be beginning of August before I can really start menu planning again!

Also need to write my money saving list ASAP ...getting things written down is key!

Igamogam

hazeldreams wrote: »

Hi igamogam

Thanks for stopping by! I'm embarrassed to say that since I posted this our spending on groceries is more like £500 per month now :eek:

:eek: indeed. We are 2 adults with 1 young adult and sometimes eldest young adult and 2 cats and our food/ household cleaning/ toiletries / cat food comes in around £280 a month and that includes a doorstep milk delivery! It can be done:D We eat well and I cook from scratch almost everyday.We often choose organic, definitely local/UK and I try to stick to seasonal food.I made the decision in January to cut our food budget and have managed to stick to it more or less. A rigid list based on meal plans and using cash only has been the key for me and I thought I had a handle on it until I really scrutinised it. Good luck:)

hazeldreams

Igamogam wrote: »

:eek: indeed. We are 2 adults with 1 young adult and sometimes eldest young adult and 2 cats and our food/ household cleaning/ toiletries / cat food comes in around £280 a month and that includes a doorstep milk delivery! It can be done:D We eat well and I cook from scratch almost everyday.We often choose organic, definitely local/UK and I try to stick to seasonal food.I made the decision in January to cut our food budget and have managed to stick to it more or less. A rigid list based on meal plans and using cash only has been the key for me and I thought I had a handle on it until I really scrutinised it. Good luck:)

OMG that's amazing!!! £280! That saving would knock months off our DFD!!! What sort of things are on your rigid list? Do you work out the cost of each meal? Anything else you can tell me about how you got to £280 would be amazing and so very gratefully received!!

Thanks so much for your advice so far!

Igamogam

The Rigid List means I just buy what we need - no 'Oooh-I-will-get-that-because-its-on-offer' sort of buying! If its not on the list it is not bought. I will pick up BOGOFs especially on cleaning products, toiletries, cat food but generally not on food. Sometimes I do pick up offers on stuff that can be frozen easily ( meat/ fish) and I either then have a mammoth batch cook or make sure its added to my freezer list - we have 2 freezers which before this, just became a dumping ground for unidentifiable bits and pieces:eek:

When I decided to tackle the food budget the first thing I did was look what we had 'in stores' So that was 2 freezers and three double cupboards of packet/tinned groceries etc. I listed everything and although we will eat stuff beyond their BBD I gave a large bag of stuff away on Fr**gle as I decided I was never going to use them - must have been stuff I bought as a 'I will give this a try!' Once I had the space I then reorganised the cupboards. The freezers were emptied and stuff thrown away and a list made of what as left and then I started planning!! For the first month we ate from stores just with adding fresh fruit and veg and some bread:rotfl:

The secret is in the planning - shop from stores first - what is there in the cupboard/freezer then make a list to buy and stick to it. Generally, but not always I go to local butcher once a month and bulk buy for freezer now. I dont shop in discount supermarkets but I have friends who do and swear by them - I find the quality poor and feel you get what you pay for HOWEVER I have found some things OK - some fruit and veg mainly so if I am passing I will shop there - but I dont make a special effort neither to do I do multi stop shops - I live in a rural location and a shopping trip can be a 25 mile round trip - on line shopping good ( makes you stick to a list and avoid unplanned stuff !) I am also an avid voucher user to help keep costs down:rotfl:

We have very little food waste in our house - chicken carcass every now and then. I have become very inventive using left overs, making things go further ( lentils in a shepherds pie always a good one!) I have followed a couple of blogs THIS ONE and THIS ONE and of course loads of advice on this site:D I bought myself a very small book called The Great Takeaway Secret and although we are not adverse to the odd take out this little book has produced some fab meals and saved us a fortune!

I think when you have paired everything back - mobile phones, energy bill, insurance, clothes, gift spending, etc food is the last place you can find a a few extra pounds to throw at the debt. Debt busting is a whole new way of life because the life we led previously got us to where we are now so stuff has to change. Some can manage an over night change and others its gradual. I think we changed a lot of stuff quickly but didn't think about the food budget. I thought we couldn't eat well on spending less but I was wrong:rotfl: Sometimes I will spend £30/week and others maybe £75 so it all evens out - the oddest thing was getting the money at the ATM and saying - 'well that's it for the week. We wont starve but we maybe eating odd combinations by the end of the week' There haven't been many disasters!! Any money left out of the £70 is either put over to the next week or put in change jars to paid off a CC at some future point - the change jars now fill up much more quicker and consequently the debts get chipped away at a much faster rate - I have no idea where that money went before!

Everybody is different and you will find your own way. I am certainly not one of the "I can feed a family of 6 and 2 dogs on £3.64 a week whilst cooking over a tealight" brigade! Hats off to those who can.............but you have to live a little. I have found something that works/suits us

BTW - if you are wine drinkers.........buy by the case on line....bargains to be had;)

hazeldreams

Igamogam wrote: »

The Rigid List means I just buy what we need - no 'Oooh-I-will-get-that-because-its-on-offer' sort of buying! If its not on the list it is not bought. I will pick up BOGOFs especially on cleaning products, toiletries, cat food but generally not on food. Sometimes I do pick up offers on stuff that can be frozen easily ( meat/ fish) and I either then have a mammoth batch cook or make sure its added to my freezer list - we have 2 freezers which before this, just became a dumping ground for unidentifiable bits and pieces:eek:

When I decided to tackle the food budget the first thing I did was look what we had 'in stores' So that was 2 freezers and three double cupboards of packet/tinned groceries etc. I listed everything and although we will eat stuff beyond their BBD I gave a large bag of stuff away on Fr**gle as I decided I was never going to use them - must have been stuff I bought as a 'I will give this a try!' Once I had the space I then reorganised the cupboards. The freezers were emptied and stuff thrown away and a list made of what as left and then I started planning!! For the first month we ate from stores just with adding fresh fruit and veg and some bread:rotfl:

The secret is in the planning - shop from stores first - what is there in the cupboard/freezer then make a list to buy and stick to it. Generally, but not always I go to local butcher once a month and bulk buy for freezer now. I dont shop in discount supermarkets but I have friends who do and swear by them - I find the quality poor and feel you get what you pay for HOWEVER I have found some things OK - some fruit and veg mainly so if I am passing I will shop there - but I dont make a special effort neither to do I do multi stop shops - I live in a rural location and a shopping trip can be a 25 mile round trip - on line shopping good ( makes you stick to a list and avoid unplanned stuff !) I am also an avid voucher user to help keep costs down:rotfl:

We have very little food waste in our house - chicken carcass every now and then. I have become very inventive using left overs, making things go further ( lentils in a shepherds pie always a good one!) I have followed a couple of blogs THIS ONE and THIS ONE and of course loads of advice on this site:D I bought myself a very small book called The Great Takeaway Secret and although we are not adverse to the odd take out this little book has produced some fab meals and saved us a fortune!

I think when you have paired everything back - mobile phones, energy bill, insurance, clothes, gift spending, etc food is the last place you can find a a few extra pounds to throw at the debt. Debt busting is a whole new way of life because the life we led previously got us to where we are now so stuff has to change. Some can manage an over night change and others its gradual. I think we changed a lot of stuff quickly but didn't think about the food budget. I thought we couldn't eat well on spending less but I was wrong:rotfl: Sometimes I will spend £30/week and others maybe £75 so it all evens out - the oddest thing was getting the money at the ATM and saying - 'well that's it for the week. We wont starve but we maybe eating odd combinations by the end of the week' There haven't been many disasters!! Any money left out of the £70 is either put over to the next week or put in change jars to paid off a CC at some future point - the change jars now fill up much more quicker and consequently the debts get chipped away at a much faster rate - I have no idea where that money went before!

Everybody is different and you will find your own way. I am certainly not one of the "I can feed a family of 6 and 2 dogs on £3.64 a week whilst cooking over a tealight" brigade! Hats off to those who can.............but you have to live a little. I have found something that works/suits us

BTW - if you are wine drinkers.........buy by the case on line....bargains to be had;)

Thank you so much for taking the time to give me such fab advice! Love the idea of taking cash to the supermarket, that will definitely help as there is the need to tot everything up as you go round rather than know if you go over the debit card will cover it! I'll definitely do that! I've defrosted one freezer fully this weekend and the other freezer and most of our cupboards will be bare by next weekend as we've also been eating from the stocks for two weeks, so by Thursday/Friday this week they'll be some well wierd concoctions happening!

We always buy our meat from the butchers, it's a family tradition and I know it's the same or less than even A**i and L**l. Our weekly shop is always from A**i but I think the difference for us has been that we've stopped batch cooking and using the cheaper cuts of meat like mince, so I need to have a good think before the weekend and write a menu planner for the whole month thinking about batch cooking up as much as possible and which meat cuts we can use and bulk out with lentils as per your helpful suggestion to make it go further. My real weakness is fish - I love it so much but really don't like frozen fish from A**i so I've been buying fresh fillets from Mr S which cost a small fortune! I think I'll have to limit it to just 2 portions a week ..booo!

I've joined the August grocery challenge to target us getting through just £380 over the 5 week month - nowhere near your amazing budget Igamogam but for us right now I think that's as low as we can go, I'll work on shaving it down by £20 a month every month over the next few months and hopefully we won't even notice!

We've already made massive headway on the insurances, now just £199 pm (note to self really need to do new SOA) and other bits and pieces we've reduced so apart from Sky (which were tied into until January) there nothing more that I feel we can cut back on other than reducing gas/elec consumption (which I'm sure there's plenty we could do their too!)
Great tip re the wine btw, however we'd end up drinking it all and spending more if we bulk buy, best to stick to just Friday and Saturday bottle from A**i methinks!

So, need to crack on and get this list started....I'm sure I've missed something but at least this is a start...

1. Meal plan for month
2. Investigate purchase of second hand slow cooker
3. Try on all girls winter school uniforms to see if can squeeze them into them for another year
4. Have a scoot round house for ebay stuff to sell
5. Stop using tumble dryer
6. Dust off breadmaker and resolve to stop buying sm bread
7. Do a new SOA

Glad I've got this list started, feeling more in control already! Right off to menu plan using all Igamogams top tips! :T

Over and out!

Igamogam

Let the slow cooker become your friend ! You will probably Find one on fr**gle or ask for one........and it's free!

itcouldbeworse

Hi Hazeldreams, just read your diary and wanted to wish you good luck with paying off your debt.


I hope you don't mind but I'm going to subscribe ad follow your journey.


Take care.x.

hazeldreams

Igamogam wrote: »

Let the slow cooker become your friend ! You will probably Find one on fr**gle or ask for one........and it's free!

Thanks igamogam, but what's fr**gle?!:rotfl: