I want to stop drowning

debtaghh

Morning,

I have a friend over today and am not planning on spending anymore this month! I will work out grocery spends but think it's nearing to the £400 mark again. Entertainment budget has been awful if I include flights for unexpected trip and food etc. I was working out yesterday that for my dh salary to cover our outgoings we need our credit card debt to be halved...... easier said than done! I know me upping my income is the key, I'm trying and have applied for several jobs so I can't really do much more than that. We do need to also really cut our budgets and stick to them but I just find things always crop up!

debtaghh

I have just worked out this year's expenses :mad:

January food: £314.02 I think this was so low as we had some gift cards.
Feb food : £443.65
March food: £591.26
Apr food: £430.23

The problem is we have guests a lot. My mum this month has stayed over for over a week so it's like feeding 6 people on top of this my dad has come round around 8 times this month.

Entertainment has been shocking. The prob with this is I have booked panto tickets, cheap hotel for a fam celebration that is next month and I'm appalled at how much it comes to!!!!

Jan £47.55- very frugal
Feb: £370.97 panto tickets ordered
March £297.70 hotel booked for celebration
Apr: £499.31 includes flights for unexpected trip and childcare due to trip.

enthusiasticsaver

your March food bill was huge. Do you push the boat out for guests? My feeling would be as your parents come over frequently cooking things like casseroles or cottage pies or stir fry's should not be too much more expensive if just one guest. If you don't normally do desserts (we don't) then don't be tempted to splash out on that or alcohol, fancy treats for guests. We always reciprocate with our daughters by inviting them back to ours for meals too or taking them and families out for a meal. Do your parents do that?

debtaghh

No I don't buy puddings or alcohol. My parents never have us round.

enthusiasticsaver

Have you analysed the March receipts then? Almost £600 and £160 more than usual indicates something went awry. Easter?

Edited to add that you had a bad week around 20th March where you stopped posting and felt seriously depressed. Was that when the overspends occurred as up until then you had been monitoring closely the food spends. It is done and dusted now so no point in looking back but maybe when you have down periods have some coping mechanisms to stop you going off piste as it were?

debtaghh

I did host Easter so think that didn't help plus I did lots of top up shops.

enthusiasticsaver

Do you meal plan? Maybe stop hosting if never reciprocated. That would seriously annoy me. I would restrict top ups to what I would call essentials. Milk, bread,fruit, veg and toilet rolls. Anything else comes out of stores or freezer.

debtaghh

Yes I do meal plan. My parents do give me the odd tenner here and there towards food. I do try and avoid top up shops but think March was just awful financially and I kind of gave up!

debtaghh

Morning,

New month tomorrow ( I can't believe it will be May already!) I need to save as much as possible so my frugal hat from January needs to come back out! I do have a family celebration which involves staying over ( hotel paid for) but I still need to be disciplined. Ds also has a party to go to this month. Food budget needs to be extra frugal as well. With the house move , we will need every extra penny we can get. Our monthly outgoings will increase by a minimum of £200. I really hope I get this job as that will really help if not we will have no choice but to be extra frugal ( and actually do it!).

Have a frugal day everyone

enthusiasticsaver

Good luck with job. That would really help.