Save, save, save.

**jess**

Hi there

I've been a fan of reading others diaries on here for quite some time. I'd like to think I am quite a thrifty person and try and save money where I can.

I love reading tips on how others save money in their everyday spending, I don't mean the obvious things like shopping around for cheaper car insurance, more like saving pennies by reusing items or making stuff go further.

So... I'll tell you a little about myself. I live with my husband, my 3 year old daughter and 4 month old daughter. We bought our house 3 years ago after renting together for quite a few years. Our mortgage was £92000 over 27 years. Can't quite recall the interest rate but I believe it was 3.19% and our repayments were £423 each month. Our 3 year fix comes to an end at the end of this month and I have already arranged it to switch over to a new deal which will be 1.85% and cost us £364 per month. I'll be reducing the term so that the payments will be around the same as we were paying (£423) so I'll update once that is done.

We are quite good with our outgoings (some of you probably won't think so but amongst our friends we are definitely the best!)

These are what we pay monthly...
Mortgage - £423
Council tax - £103
Water - £24.67
Gas and electric - £56
Life insurance for me - £16.88
Food - £180
Internet and home phone - £17.99
Mobile phones x2 - £25
TV licence - £12.54
Netflix - £5.99


We also put away into pots for our pension and our car expenses. This covers fuel and insurance, tax and servicing, plus a little bit extra for any repairs.
Pension - £50pm
Car funds - £100pm

That's all I can think of right now, I feel like I'm forgetting something so I'll have to check my spreadsheets when I'm back on my laptop.

If any of these expenditures seem a little high please let me know. I'm only used to comparing them to my un-frugal friends

Our incomes are...
Husband £373 per week
Me (maternity pay) £131 per week

My aim is to pay the mortgage off by time my husband is 50. So that gives us 17 years. Any quicker than that would be a bonus :T Ideally we are looking at moving to France or Spain in the future but that is just a dream at the moment, lets try getting rid of this mortgage first :rotfl:

Thank you for reading! I hope to stick around for a while and shall put a signature on once my mortgage is sorted so that I can document my overpayments better and keep track of how many years I have left on it.

Petal88

Wow £180 on groceries for 3 people and a nappy guzzler is really impressive! Your expenses look good overall but I feel like they're a bit light? As in, do you not take holidays, have haircuts, buy clothes, make up, go to the pub once in a blue moon etc.?

Welcome to the board btw, I'm going to enjoy following your diary!

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Good luck on your journey. I too think your soa is a bit light, for example things like Christmas and days out will add a lot over a year. Good for you for getting started early in life!

**jess**

I didn't include Christmas because I try and save up vouchers for that throughout the year. So from ShopnScan for example. I regularly do surveys which make me around £40 per month and that all gets withdrawn and put in the Christmas fund.

I don't have to worry about nappies because we use washable ones. I learnt my lesson there last time with DD1 costing us an arm and a leg in them!

I work for a big hotel chain so I get a 2 night break from them for free as my Christmas bonus, other than that we don't really want to do holidays abroad while the kids are so little and hard to look after.

I've been toying with the idea of an 'entertainment fund' so we have money set aside for going out. It's not often we do go to the pub or out for meals other than for birthday treats but this is something that could be saved for with the fund. Does anyone else have one of these?

**jess**

Busy day in the household today. We have an electrician here fitting new lighting in the bathroom ready for the bathroom fitters to come in a few weeks. Definitely not a cheap day but it is something that has been saved up for.

On the plus side... DD2's nappies were washed overnight and hung out on the line to dry this morning. Not sure if they will dry though, it is looking a little overcast.
Made myself a healthy smoothie this morning using up some fruit that was starting to turn bad.
Planning on making Yorkshire puddings, pork chops and veg for tea. The veg is starting to turn bad too. I don't know if I buy too much fruit and veg but it always seems to start going off before we can eat it.

I need to ring the home insurance company today. We cancelled it last month to swap to a cheaper one and we were owed £30 back from them but it still hasn't gone into our account. It's frustrating how companies are always so quick to take money off you but not so quick to give it back

Determined not to turn the heating on, I don't like having it on once it's April but I'm sure come this evening we will have to get some blankets out to have on the settee. It's not so bad during the day when I'm moving around a lot but once we sit still you can really feel the chill in the air.

Busy_Mee1

Really impressed Jess - you are doing so well. I don't know where you keep your fruit and veg, but I was having the same problem and now keep it in the fridge. Fruit last loads longer - I just put enough for a day or two at a time in the fruit bowl and I actually quite like cold satumas and grapes

**jess**

I didn't think of that. I keep my grapes and strawberries in the fridge but everything else goes in the fruit bowl. I keep my veg in a cupboard but we do have a large American style fridge freezer so it wouldn't be a problem to fit it all in there. I will give it a go, thanks