Mummy Mortgage Moneysaving... MMM!

Vicky496

New year, new diary!

I am not in debt at the moment (having become debt free July 2014), but we are close to completing on our first home and when that happens we will owe £84150 on the mortgage and around £3500 to a family member and our overdraft for some immediate costs (solicitors, removals, and some decorating/new furniture).

In the mean time we have had a really expensive Christmas having gotten carried away a bit - I need to reign in my spending and get back in good habits!

It's so easy to slip back into bad habits, but I find keeping a diary (even if no one reads it!) helps me keep track on my spending, money saving challenges, and productive things I am doing each day.

Over the years I've had many 'light bulb' moments - may this time round be a successful one and I hope people find some of my thoughts useful or interesting on their own journeys.

Vicky496

My targets for the rest of January (3 weeks):

- Minimise food wastage (confess to any binned food in my diary!).
- Have at least 10 no spend days (not including direct debits).
- Take a packed lunch to work each day (15 days).
- Time loads of laundry to finish when the radiators are on - using them to dry will save on electricity for the drier.
- £150 (£50 per week) starting grocery limit for the family... I can almost certainly do less than this, whatever I manage to do it for per week will be my target to beat next month - that way my grocery bill should go down each month.
- Don't buy any food on multibuys or for the freezer that we won't eat in the next 2 months (or it'll have to move house with us).
- Use up some/most of the food is already in the fridge/cupboards/freezer (and biscuit barrel!).
- Sell at least one thing on ebay (again, I can probably beat this, but I like having comfortably manageable targets!).
- Get rid of the charity pile that's been building up as we clear out.
- My phone contract ended 4 days ago - so this month I will find a cheap deal while keeping my current phone.
- Send off a work expenses form that I've had for ages and not posted.
- Clean the oven
- Clean the microwave
- Clear out at least one more kitchen cupboard and clean the insides of this and the other empty cupboards. If I haven't used something for over a year then give to charity or sell.
- Check for good yellow sticker deals when I visit Mr T's (t£sco).

Vicky496

Striking while the iron's hot:
Kept old phone, knocked £10.83 off my monthly bill.
Posted expenses travel claim for £188.55.
Hubby has gone out for milk/bread/cheese/baby food that we are short of... he isn't susceptible to all the little extra purchases like I am!

Edit: He is, apparently, susceptible to the more expensive cheese though!

Vicky496

January so far (starting late)... 3 days in, 19 to go.
NSDs: 10th, 11th (2 so far).
Packed lunches: 2 out of 2!
Today's spends: £31.60 on petrol. £80.96 on groceries.
...and a really big spend - transferred the house deposit to the solicitor.

Moneysaving:
I have an email sign up to find the cheapest local petrol (99.9p per litre today).
60p coupon for a large pot of cream cheese from MrT (it was already less than half price, so got it for 60p!).
Got some yellow sticker items - I only buy these if I know it will be eaten that day or that I can freeze it and cook it from frozen. e.g. today I got a pack of pitta bread for 20p, have put it in the freezer and can toast it from frozen.

Meal planning for a lazy/busy mum:
Half price dolmio pasta bake (I keep a huge 3kg bag of fusili at home):87p per jar. To make a meal I use the carbonara one with a pack of bacon, the cheesy tomato one with a pack of hot dogs (£1) chopped in it, or the tomato and cheese one with a tin of tuna (75p)... feeds the family and leaves leftovers for under £2.
My packed lunches this week have actually just been a tin of soup and a bar of choc from the post xmas stash. Tinned leak and potato soup or tomato soup is 45p... you need a microwave at work though.
Frozen richmond sausages were £2 for 16 today - I oven cook from frozen, 2 per sandwich chopped in half makes a great weekend breakfast.
My favourite lazy meal: £2.98 tesc value lasagne... a few months ago I bought a different ready made lasagne each week from different supermarkets and different price ranges - tesc value won the blind taste test (with our family at any rate - you'll have to experiment with what you're happy with).
This down-shift week's experiment - tesc own brand coffee... except I smashed the jar - what a waste!

Food wastage:
I was going to confess to this in the food diary, but I have a toddler - food wastage is what they are good at!
Although food has been thrown on the ground/smeared on any available surface I haven't actually had to bin anything because it went off... if I see a date coming up I'll either put it earlier in the meal plan or freeze it if it can be cooked from frozen.
Sometimes if veg is going a bit funny I'll chop or grate it and freeze it - I can then stick it in bolognese or chilli next time I make a batch in the slow cooker.
Am working on encouraging little one to pass food to me if she doesn't want it any more (heaven forbid it should stay on the table in front of her if she no longer wants it! )

Vicky496

A good example of the positive effect of setting myself a No Spend Day challenge:

Today was another NSD today - bringing my total to 3.
If I hadn't been doing the challenge I would have gone to costa and bought a large caramel latte (and maybe a cake or pastry). Having the challenge and knowing I'm accountable to my diary here means I save in small ways and it all adds up!
Instead I came home and had a cup of tea and shared the £2.98 lasagne with the family! Glad to find it's still a favourite.

Other little money saving tasks today:
- [STRIKE]I signed up for a free trial of ynab which I haven't used before, I don't normally do free trials because I forget or have hassle cancelling them, but this one doesn't take card details. Will see if it helps![/STRIKE] Edit: got confused. Will just stick with the SOA calculator I've always used and a spreadsheet.
- Another packed lunch day: 3 for 3!

Vicky496

Reducing electricity costs:
I'm setting myself another challenge - to reduce the amount we spend on electricity.
We're stuck on a key meter as landlord won't let us change it, but we've got the cheapest tariff I could find.
We are in a bad habit with the lights and things on standby.
I switch off the lights upstairs when we're not in each room, but I tend to leave all the ground floor lights on even if we're settled watching TV in the sitting room.
So from this point I will go on a switching the kitchen and downstairs loo lights off kick.

Trying to think what we leave on standby... will turn off the washing machine when not in use, and unplug the microwave. Will charge my phone at work or in the car.

Just told hubby my plan to get him on board - he pointed out that even as we speak the TV is on, but I'm on the laptop and hubby is on his tablet... no point in it being on... off it goes!

Vicky496

A few confessions and other thoughts.

Yesterday was a NSD (now up to 4) and I had a packed lunch (now on 4 out of 5).
Today though I had lunch with a friend (total entertainment spend since 9th Jan is now £8) and I bought a few top up grocery items: £5.94 on two packs of bacon and a dozen eggs (total grocery spend now £86.90 out of £150). Gave some loose change and sponsorship money at work: Charitable giving total: £7.56.

Budgeting
I find it hard to write a budget without a couple of weeks testing my current habits - If I record my spending to the end of January I can then use it to write my budget for Feb.
Plus knowing I have to confess my spending on my diary stops me being even more frivolous!
I'll update this at the end of Jan (maybe a couple of times between now and then).

Over 3 weeks starting 9th Jan, here's my spending and challenges so far in summary:
NSDs: 4/10
Packed lunches: 4/15
Groceries: £86.90
Entertainment: £8
Charity: £7.56
Petrol: £31.60

Small ways to save money
I was thinking this morning about some of the habits I've gotten into that are just small ways to save money.
Buying medium sliced instead of thick bread for instance; about the same price but it stretches further without you really noticing.

A tip on charitable giving
I like to give to charity, but I'm going to try to give time rather than money.
It's effective and affordable to be the one being sponsored or being the one organising fundraising.

Vicky496

Well yesterday was another NSD - total now 5 out of the target of 10.
Today won't be though - we are out of milk and some other essentials so I need to get groceries.

I have taken the opportunity to meal plan for the next two weeks though to minimise the number of times I have to go to MrT's. I shall go today for anything we need urgently and any items that won't go off that we'll need over the next two weeks.

I've ordered using click and collect - if I don't go into the store I won't be able to pick up the little extra things that always end up blowing my budget!

Then after today I will get the fresh items from the small shops near my work - less temptation!

The shop is £51.82, but I suppose that might change if they don't have something I need.
Promotions gave £4 off, Vouchers saved me another £3.42, also got 368 clubcard points (which I always use on double up events, though I might use them in tops tiles which triples their value).
Grocery total is now £138.72.
Not gone through the target yet, but I might just go over if I'm not careful.

I sat down with hubby last night and wrote a budget for Feb starting on 25th Jan (pay day, so is the 'peak' of the financial month).
We plan to keep just the right amount of money in our accounts for the budget and sweep the spare straight into savings on the 25th rather than waiting to see what we're left with at the end of the month to save.
But, hopefully we make some savings on the budget we've worked out - so the target will be to try to add to the savings pots at the end of the month (24th Feb) as well.

It does mean I'll have to re-set my current targets early, but it'll mean that hubby and I can work out the finances together more easily from pay day.

Vicky496

Had a bit of a splurge on sperdrug's website... needed some toiletries that they had on offer and needed baby wipes - 2 packs of 64 own-brand wipes for £1.50 plus 10% off, making it 2 packs for £1.35. Short of using cloth wipes and washing them (I have no garden to hang laundry otherwise we'd also do washable nappies) it doesn't get much cheaper. Bought loads as delivery is free when you spend over £15. My logic is that nothing happens to the wipes if we keep them in a cupboard for ages and we always get through them eventually (did something similar a few months ago and only just down to the last packet now).

Testing baby wipes... (you'll have to do this yourself to see what you and yours will put up with, but here's our verdict)
As with other products, it's worth buying a variety of brands to see what is good value for you - we didn't think the value wipes were worth the saving - you end up using more of them for each 'mess' so you actually spend more overall. The branded ones were thicker, but actually you end up pulling more out of the packet than you need, and they don't really need to be that tough to wipe a bum... so then it came down to own brands for us. I haven't tried b0ots ones yet, they've got them 3 for 2 making them 57p a packet, tscos are 3 for £5 making them 60p a packet. sprdrg is slightly more at 66p a packet after promos, also haven't tried aldl - they do them in a four pack that makes them 57p a packet. I currently prefer the sperdrug ones - although they are all very similar (just the colour of the packet changes), except that the tsco ones were a bit dried out and weren't as effective.

I think next time I pass a b0ots of aldl I'll be picking up one lot of each offer to see if we'll switch next time I stock up.

Worth noting a few things with sperdrug: remember to go through qidco (or other) to get cashback, make sure you've got your sperdrug beauty card added so you can build up points too, and the £15 minimum to get free delivery is BEFORE promotions, e.g. today I spent £14.39 (£16.46 before promotions) and got free delivery.

Vicky496

2 more NSDs (mon and tues this week)... total is now 7 - nearly at my target of 10!
I have also had packed lunches all week so far - now 7 out of 8 (just missing one last week).
Bought some books in a sale: £14.97. Just the kind of splurge I should be avoiding as it really wasn't a necessary spend - was just so so tempted as I'd wanted them before the sale and it felt like a perfect opportunity. I'll have to get more will power next time. I'm going to print that money saving mantra note for my wallet: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/money-mantras

Got confirmation my travel expenses claim will be paid which is nice

Wrote a complaint to our gas supplier about the bill on Monday - too long a story for all the detail here, but essentially:
We had a shock bill last summer and had to call them to arrange to spread the payments. Got another even more shocking bill this week - but then I started to look more carefully at what was causing it (apparently they are just completely rubbish at admin). They had deleted or lost the initial meter reading when we moved in as well as some other actual meter readings (which I only found out by getting a heap of old statements out and comparing the detail). Luckily our letting agent had a record of the meter reading (and who and when they spoke to the gas supplier!) which I gave in as evidence.
Giving them until the weekend before we go to the ombudsman. Should be a very large refund and I wrote that they should consider offering compensation given the details.

Part of me really enjoys complaining when I'm in the right - is that a british thing or am I a bit odd I wonder!

Vicky496

Lost track a little bit the last couple of days... Thurs and Fri were packed lunchs (now 9/10 - really proud of myself!)
Friday&yesterday were NSDs (up to 9... if today is a no spend then I've reached target!). All my targets were to do before the end of Jan, but I'm trying to reach them early - before Monday as it's pay day and I'm going to start new targets and a new months budget from then.

Thought for the day...
Free days out and shopping!
Yesterday hubby and I took DD to the park.
I'd like to go on a walk again today and maybe take DD on her trike. Might take a thermos of coffee and some snacks so we aren't tempted to shop. Maybe we'll go to the beach and walk along the sea front.

Just been going through my purse looking for vouchers and cards that would give me free stuff (not just money off):
- £50 homebase vouchers (got these for my bday, saving them for doing up the new place)
- £12 tesc clubcard vouchers (with about £19 in points still to be converted to vouchers - next time will be Feb) - saving these for converting to tops tiles vouchers where they'll be worth triple.
- voucher for a free 'i' newspaper.
- £20.08 on my boots adv card (that's a nice surprise!)
- £9.32 on my nectar card (and another nice surprise!) I'll save this for doing up the new place and keep an eye out for double up offers.
- the obvious one: a library card! In fact I have two as I've got DD's as well.

Then there's the nearly free... loyalty stamp cards that are nearly full:
- If I spend £10 in waterstones that will complete the card and I'll get the free £10 voucher
- If I buy one more greetings card in M&S that will complete the card and I'll get the free greetings card.
- Two more cafe Nero hot drinks until that one is full and I get a free one
- One more burger at a restaurant near my work and I get a free one (useful if hubby is with me as one will be free!)
I'm not going to rush out to fill those in as I'm trying not to spend. But next time I need to spend on something I'll factor those in... it's been a very interesting audit of my purse!