SH's attempt to make it to September with as little debt as possible!

ab_saver

Hopped over from my diary to say hello - have you looked at the grocery challenge (on the old style boards) for ideas/ inspiration?. I probably spend £75 or less on food per month for one, and when OH is here it's about £125/month for two.
My major saving is loving my freezer - I'm not sure if you share with your landlady/ how much freezer space you have, but I scour the supermarkets for reduced meat especially - and get most of my meat and the bulk of my fruit/veg reduced. I then buy my stock items like pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes/pulses in bulk every so often.
That budget includes my packed lunches - I think I've bought lunch at work no more than 4 times in 7 months. I found having a monthly budget really helpful as it meant I could do a big shop to stock up one week and not leave myself short, but do smaller shops in other weeks.
I don't starve on this budget - I buy nice produce (usually from Mssrs Waite and Rose !!! ) and there is room in it for treats. The only other thing I'd suggest is to think about whether you fritter money away in multiple small shops, e.g. by going in for a pint of milk and leaving with half a dozen things not on the list. If so, the NSD challenge may be for you - if you are stubborn like me, the thought of ruining an NSD is enough to make you make do.
When you are staying with your parents rent-free, I would imagine that your grocery bills will go down further (there are serious economies of scale in food shopping, hence feeding 2 doesn't cost twice as much as feeding one) - you could agree maybe a £20/week contribution towards your parents' household shop?
Honestly, food shopping is one of the areas there is most flexibility in in most budgets, and you could easily shave off £112 over a matter of months.
We are all here cheering you on!

Starlighthappiness

jackieblack wrote: »

I agree
My budget for food is £100 a month (which averages out to £23 a week) and I rarely have a problem :huh: Batch cooking from scratch helps.

ab_saver wrote: »

Hopped over from my diary to say hello - have you looked at the grocery challenge (on the old style boards) for ideas/ inspiration?. I probably spend £75 or less on food per month for one, and when OH is here it's about £125/month for two.

Yep you are both right - I had around £10 left from my £35 budget last week and that involved buying brunch and ice cream for myself and a friend one of the days. I've reduced my budget to £30 this week and if there's still money left over then I'll reduce it further.

ab_saver wrote: »

My major saving is loving my freezer - I'm not sure if you share with your landlady/ how much freezer space you have, but I scour the supermarkets for reduced meat especially - and get most of my meat and the bulk of my fruit/veg reduced. I then buy my stock items like pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes/pulses in bulk every so often.
When you are staying with your parents rent-free, I would imagine that your grocery bills will go down further (there are serious economies of scale in food shopping, hence feeding 2 doesn't cost twice as much as feeding one) - you could agree maybe a £20/week contribution towards your parents' household shop?
Honestly, food shopping is one of the areas there is most flexibility in in most budgets, and you could easily shave off £112 over a matter of months.
We are all here cheering you on!

I do love the freezer - I've just done a stocktake and I have 15 steaks, a pack of bacon and some miso soup (enough for 8 portions) in the freezer so I won't be buying any meat over the next couple of weeks. I also spent £11 of my £30 food budget at the fishmongers and have purchased 12 mackerel fillets and 2 herring fillets. They are quite small so will need 2 fillets a serving, but I'll be putting 8 of them into the freezer and eating the rest over the next couple of days.

Yep - I'll probably do that when I move back to my parents over the summer. My mum loves cooking so I think she'd be offended if I didn't eat the food she prepared. I did something similar last summer.

Starlighthappiness

Woke up with heartburn this morning and was going to pay for some Rennies out of my food budget. Then I remembered that I had some Boots points on my advantage card so that covered the cost. In line with my attempt to downshift products I ended up buying the boots own brand. They are literally the same as the Rennies and £1.26 cheaper.

This takes my March downshift challenge total to £3.25 (ironically exactly the same amount as the Rennies tablets would have cost!)

I am also spending £9 later on an aerial hoop class that I'd signed myself onto weeks ago.*sigh*

Starlighthappiness

Today turned out to be such a spendy day. I realised I hadn't ever bought my best friend the Christmas present that I promised her so that was £24.50 gone. Loaded £3 of my food budget onto my uni card and spent 70p of that and just spent 20p on coffee. I'll still be spending the £9 for exercise class later.

Food budget spend £14.20/30

beanielou

9 quid for an excercise class sounds expensive :eek:
20p for coffee though sounds good

Starlighthappiness

beanielou wrote: »

9 quid for an excercise class sounds expensive :eek:
20p for coffee though sounds good

Yeah it is expensive. It's aerial hoop which is a super niche hobby of mine and thus expensive. Why I decided to have such an expensive hobby I do not know.

Starlighthappiness

After yesterday's chilli debacle(I spent nearly the entirety of my weekly food budget on ingredients for a big batch of chilli) I can report that today was NSD 3/12. I ended up going to a university event where I ate my bodyweight in scones so therefore have absolutely no need to eat any more food for the rest of the day.

I also have a (free!) three day female personal development course from Monday - Wednesday next week which will be providing food so I hope that those days will also be NSDs.

I put in an offer for a house in the town I'm moving to for my grad job and it's been accepted. I am so excited. :j:j:j

My parents will pay for the house and I will pay them back when I am able to get a mortgage after my probationary period. I've thought through all of the risks of this option and in the worst case scenario that I somehow fail my probationary period I can still rent out the spare room, and give both this money and the money from my rental property to my parents each month as well as work from them in their business. I don't think there will be any reason why I wouldn't pass my probationary period though.

I'm so excited to graduate now and begin to make the place my own. I'm a bit terrified of the thought of full-on adulting but I am really looking forward to the next chapter in my life.

ab_saver

That is really exciting about the house - and very generous of your parents. I will warn you that adulting is more expensive than you think (e.g. council tax - important but pricey).

It sounds like you are getting everything sorted. At this rate you'll be an MFW before long!

The course sounds very exciting - I've heard good things about springboard but couldn't make it work with my course at uni and the uni I do some work for now don't run it .

Don't beat yourself up about the chilli - batch cooking (as with many MSE things) stings upfront but saves you in the long run! It's a great freezer staple (my OH loves it) and can be mega healthy.

beanielou

Starlighthappiness wrote: »

Yeah it is expensive. It's aerial hoop which is a super niche hobby of mine and thus expensive. Why I decided to have such an expensive hobby I do not know.

As long as you enjoy it

Great news on the house :j

Starlighthappiness

ab_saver wrote: »

The course sounds very exciting - I've heard good things about springboard but couldn't make it work with my course at uni and the uni I do some work for now don't run it

Yes it should be good. It's quite a small group - only 20 of us - so I think we'll all have the chance to get to know each other quite well over the three days.

ab_saver wrote: »

That is really exciting about the house - and very generous of your parents. I will warn you that adulting is more expensive than you think (e.g. council tax - important but pricey).

Yeah my parents have been so lovely! They are landlords so they are really of the mindset that if you can buy a house rather than rent then that is the best thing to do. (I'm not sure how outdated this view is but the mortgage cost will be the same as it would be to rent a single room in a shared house in the same area!)

I've realised that it is going to be very expensive with lots of unexpected costs. I'll be moving from one of the most expensive cities in the UK (where my uni is) to one of the cheaper ones so I still expect the cost of the mortgage/bills not rise *too* much compared to what I've been used to over the last four years.

beanielou wrote: »

Great news on the house :j

Thank you!
---

I need to *stop* thinking about the house and all the excitement that comes with that and focus on my uni work and revision. I need to get a 2.1 and to do that I definitely need to up the amount of revision I am doing each day. The thoughts about how I'm going to make the place my own will have to take a back bench for now.....

Today will be a NSD I think. I'm going to go to the university library for the majority of the day and then watch a free film screening which one of the societies is putting on in the evening. I'll also finish the last of the chilli for dinner!