Bricks Not Books

VintageHistorian

You're very welcome GP! I've done hoodies, thick trousers and towels, as well as DS's nursery-battered clothes 🤣 If they're not dry by the evening I'll be stunned.

KajiKita

I had at the huge pile of thick, heavy winter work shirts that Mr KK had left all over an armchair in the conservatory yesterday. Had to wash in a couple of batches (they filled the machine too much) but all dry by the end of the afternoon 😊👏

Well done on the freezer finds and I hope the new mirror brings you much joy. You’ve waited a looooong time for it! 😊

KK

VintageHistorian

I hope we all managed to make use of the horrendous heatwave! I don't like weather that hot but it does have it's uses. I even managed to strip the bed, wash the bedding, dry it and put it all back on, in one day!

Total overpayments for May have finished at £41.07. I also put another £5 into the Disney fund after selling another toy DS doesn't play with.

No major yellowstickers this week other than strawberries and blueberries. This has definitely helped me keep food costs down this month, like many toddlers DS is a huge fan of berries and wants them as a pudding or post-nursery snack most days. I need to double check for this week to see if I spent anything extra on food but it looks like I've smashed my aim of being £10 under the food budget this month. I'll do a separate post on that once I've checked my numbers.

June will be another expensive month (website hosting and TV licence) but there will also be more cashouts coming in. I have money pending in TCB, PA and Greenjinn. The last one I'm very happy about as they had cashback on some cocktail cans and I happened to be in Asda, where they had the 3 flavours on offer for 3 for £5! I bought 3 and claimed the money back and I think I've got about £4 back (need to check that too), so I have a Christmas present now sitting in the presents box for only £1!

Not much else I can think of until I do the main money shuffle at the end of the week.

Dinner tonight is four cheese tortelloni with tomato and mascarpone sauce, and some garlic bread.

Have a good week everyone!

VintageHistorian

The results of my food challenge last month are in and I was…£36.55 under budget!

You can see why I had to double-check my numbers as that is quite a big drop, and I assumed I had forgotten an amount somewhere. But no, it does appear to be accurate.

The main thing that I think has contributed has been the excellent timing of yellowsticker reductions at my local Waitrose. They're now reducing to 40% to 50% off sometime after 4pm and we tend to get there any time between 4:30 and 5. Sometimes they've reduced and brought things out, and sometimes we're having to go back after doing the proper shop as they're only just bringing things out as we're ready to leave.

I think I've saved about £10 on fruit alone as there's always some large punnets of strawberries down to £1 and blueberries down to around 90p. DS eats a lot of both, and even if they have gone off by Sunday I'm not fussed as strawberries for £1 are an excellent deal (and non-reduced strawberries don't tend to last past Sunday either!)

The yellowsticker bonanza I had at the beginning of the month was also a big help as it meant I had several things in the freezer that made a perfectly good meal. Normally I have a bit of a hoarding issue with my freezer contents but this month I forced myself to plan what days I would use things before I put them away. Making use of the 3 for £12 offer also helped so I need to be strategic with that in the future too. We also had a picky tea for Eurovision that was made up entirely of yellowstickers and a free large bag of crisps. Normally a picky tea, even a modest one for two people, will break the budget so it was nice to have this one for much cheaper.

The challenge also forced me to actually use up things that had been hanging around the cupboards for a while. A big box of Ferrero Rocher was a good example of this. A very kind Christmas present from my in-laws. They're a nice chocolate but I need to be in the right mood for them, and most of the time I was only in the mood for Galaxy. But the box was large and taking up space so I've now eaten them (and they were delicious as they always are) so now I have space and I have enjoyed a nice gift.

Along with using up more things I was also a bit more careful when doing top-up shops. If I needed to grab a loaf of bread then I was stricter about only buying the bread, and not also buying extra bits that could be used but weren't necessary.

And lastly we didn't have any larger items that needed to be replaced. We had plenty of teabags, Mr VH had enough coffee etc.

I've set my target for £10 this month as a lot of those factors are one-offs. We'll need to buy some more olive oil and cleaning supplies this month so those are bigger items to get. I've now finished all the Christmas chocolate so it's time to buy replacements. I'm still hitting the right time for reductions but last week it was clear that more people have realised the new time and while there wasn't a mad scramble or vicious elbowing, it does make it harder to get things that work for us. Also last week it was mostly sandwiches, which I don't want for dinner.

So we'll see how effectively this month is. I still need to work out what to do with the £36, some will go to the mortgage but I think a chunk will go to restocking Mr VH's microwave rice supplies as he's down to just 2 pouches!

beanielou

Some good savings for you.

VintageHistorian

Absolutely beanie, I know it won't last so I need to make hay while the sun shines!

June has started with a generous OP of £35.49, which included just over £16 from Greenjinn and TCB. I have some cash in PA too but I might save that for July as a little early mood booster.

Haven't decided what to spend the £36 under budget on just yet. Might divert the £6.55 bit to the mortgage and then decide on the £30 part. Mr VH has been getting concerned about water supplies as bits of Kent have had numerous supply issues recently and while we don't live that far south, all water companies are a bit fragile right now. So we might use the money for a bit of prepping on that front.

I had a good sort out of DS's clothes at the weekend so I need to start photographing and circulating them at work. No toys to declutter at the moment so it's going to be clothes for the time being. I've got a bag of outgrown socks I need to donate to nursery for spares.

I have a week off work coming up towards the end of the month so I have allocated £50 to myself for treats, mostly breakfasts or lunches out. I won't go out too much but there's one day where I need to do some work on the side hustle and a nice breakfast will get me set up for the day. I want to print off my ebook draft so I can do the first round of edits by hand, so a treat lunch or some cake while I do that will go a long way. And then I've told myself I can have two utterly lazy days, so something nice from M&S will do on one of those days.

And speaking of work, I have been told that I not currently at risk of redundancy. It took several days for the realisation to hit me and I ended up needing a mental health day as I just felt so utterly flat and shocked as the tension wore off. Naturally though that means the mood is worse as there's lot of upset from those who are at risk, with a lot of questioning about why they're at risk but others aren't etc. This is one reason why the process is so awful, it pits people against each other while they wait for an outcome. Several times I've had to explain that it's the role that is at risk, the person who does the role just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Although the relief is there I'm not taking it for granted in the slightest and money saving must continue. There's no reason why there won't be more rounds in the future, and no reason why I wouldn't be at risk in a future round. I still feel comfortable with the level of my emergency fund but once I get to the end of the year I'll take a look at the new car fund and potentially put slightly less per month in it in favour of a little boost for emergencies. Or I might focus on decluttering more of my things and put that cash for emergencies rather than to the future house move.

I have no idea what to do for dinner tonight. I have got a bit bored of eggs, toast and beans twice a month and I'm better at balancing bread supplies now anyway so there's less need to use up a chunk of a loaf before it goes off. If I can find some reduced minced beef this evening then I might do a quick batch of "chili" (in speech bubbles because it will look nothing like chili as Americans see it) while DS has his dinner.

Have a good rest of the week everyone!

VintageHistorian

Going back to the food budget for a moment.

On Instagram the other day I saw a one influencer who posts a lot about family finances etc stick up a story where someone had criticised something she'd said about £6k a month income being enough (I think that's what she'd said although TBH I had missed the original post), their opinion being that £6k isn't really that much these days especially if living in London.

It appears that she'd originally broken down her budget in her original post and from the look of it there was a grocery budget of £600 a month, for what appears to be 3 people. A lot of the comments I saw were from people saying that £600 was a bit of a stretch! Some of these people said they were 4 person families but quite a lot were from people saying they were 3 person families and I saw one who said they were 2 adults and a toddler and £600 was a struggle.

It really showed me how valuable a place like these forums is, because £600 for the three of us would be a huge jump in our budget! My budget is £400 a month and I know that even that seems large for others on here in similar circumstances. We do eat a lot of meat and could easily bring it down to £350 a month if I shopped at Aldi instead of Waitrose. But as we all know, there are lines in the sand for all of us about what we buy and where we buy it. And I do cook from scratch a lot of the time and keep the freezer well stocked (and choosing to stick to an employer that's close by helps with this, I wouldn't be cooking from scratch if I got home at 7:30!)

Since food costs have shot up I've generally tried to focus more on squeezing several portions out of the "main" ingredient when cooking so there's spares to freeze or to eat the next day. I'm developing more of an "everything needs to earn its place" attitude to food as things stand, as an increase in the food budget means less money can go towards savings goals.

I assume that the £600 a month includes a takeaway a week and probably a few bottles of something with alcohol in, plus perhaps a selection of biscuits and cakes for a sweet treat hit. I've always been teetotal (no real reason, just dislike the smell of most alcohols) and if Mr VH wants a drink he buys it himself, or my in-laws gift him something when they visit us. We do buy more frozen veg than fresh, which affects costs, and DS has a bit of a limited range of fruit at the moment simply because I don't want to waste huge amounts by it going off before he has a chance to finish it.

I didn't post any of this on the original post as I didn't want to start a row on social media. But I'd love to hear more about what people are spending that much on. I know as DS grows up he'll start eating me out of house and home so I'm already thinking about how to tackle that, but at the moment he's 3 so endless grazing can be kept in check and if I was spending £600 now I'd be scared for the future when he's a sack of hormones on hollow legs!

Anyway, just thoughts for a Sunday afternoon. Related to this, our dinner tonight is leftover toad in the hole. I forgot to buy a pack of crispy sliced potatoes in the shop this week but rather than go to the shop for some I'm going to utilise the bag of King Edwards we have and do some potato wedges in the freezer.

sunshineli

Interesting about the grocery costs! We are 2 adults and we have just increased our grocery budget from £300 to £350 per month. We could definitely do this cheaper, but at the moment I am trying to get the balance between eating healthily but also relatively frugal as well. I’m actually trying to eat healthier at the moment whilst staying in budget which I am going to post more about in my diary. Our budget includes household items and also the occasional bottle of wine.

Watty1

I think this forum shows what can be done. Health issues and work issues mean I've not always gone for the cheaper options- there are two of us and the food bill includes household items like toilet rolls and cleaning materials. So my cheapest month this year was £158 in April. I made sure the meal plan looked for what we had rather than 'would like'. May it was £339. Jan, Feb and March awe went for really easy options so we were over £400 but we both had a lot on. I do drink wine so that will have been included although currently not drinking. If I needed to cut down further - and April shows what could be done - I would move to a good meal plan, sticking to it. and actually going to the shops rather than relying on deliveries from A&C and ocado.

Merlin's_Beard

I'm just by myself which has additional costs in some ways and is cheaper in others, and I try and stick to £200 a month and the months I'm actually trying I manage it. That does include more expensive household stuff that's more sustainable than supermarket, and it does include anything I grab to go in a shop or cafe treats, and it does include, occasionally, a meal out if I think I can't put it down to the socialising budget and I was doing it for convenience. It doesn't include any pet supplies or food (she has her own budget), and it rarely includes bigger household equipment (if a mop comes out of asda it's in the food budget if it's off the internet it doesn't)