Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

XSpender

Pay day for me today.  DH was paid yesterday but his company have got a lot of people’s pay wrong.  We are talking a lot of people!  None of the people who have gone back to work (countrywide) have been paid their normal pay rate for the last 2 weeks worked and many of them and their colleagues still at home have errors on their furlough pay too.  Both of these figures are wrong for DH and he was paid over £200 short.  We can manage without it until it is repaid next month even though I know he could insist on it being paid now as it is his basic pay.

My plan this month was to clear £1000 of debt and put £1200 into savings to achieve our savings goal by the end of lockdown but I will adjust this to £1000 each of savings and debt pay off.  The savings are going to debt anyway in July if I go back to work then as planned so it is swings and roundabouts really.

DH and I will be having our 2nd finance meeting tomorrow morning 🙂 so final budget figures are still to be confirmed.  I am holding off paying off the smallest debt until we have agreed it and will be on the phone to them first thing Monday morning 😁 It’s under £200 but it will feel good to pay something off and close and account.

In preparation for tomorrow I have reviewed what we have achieved over the last couple of months as these are the areas I think we should focus on until August when we start making mortgage payments again and will be unable to save as much.  I would still like to achieve £1000 debt pay off every month but it will be a challenge.

APRIL 
SAVED - £1040
PAID OFF - £569.20
FOOD SPENDING - £620.09

MAY
SAVED - £450
PAID OFF - £1003.42
FOOD - £564.93

JUNE GOALS
SAVE - £1000
PAY OFF - £1000
FOOD - £360
BULK -£40

Today DS and I will be spending as much of the day outdoors as we can.  The pool will be making an appearance, I may even get in it!  I suppose I should paint more of the fence.  

On Sunday we are planning to meet up with DH friend and his family in their garden although we will be 7 and not 6.  I am hoping that we can travel to visit my Mum soon although it will be tough not being able to give her a hug 🙁

Honeysucklelou2

Good idea to start a vets pot. I’ll be starting one this month, even if it only gets a small amount each month. I’ve encouraged DD2 to do the same. Although her dogs are much younger, it will help.

Well done on the savings and repayments. Those are impressive figures .

Have a good day in the garden 🙂.

Suffolk_lass

I was wondering if you had done any analysis of your food spending across April and May - the original posts on the grocery challenge used to suggest you approach it by looking at what you spend on - analysing and addressing the weaknesses and aiming for about a 10% reduction per month. Not sure if these got lost in the rehashing that elsiepac did but they work for me. I currently record alcohol, stores (and bulk), treats and food. Food is about £60 with DH shopping (gone rogue  ) compared to £50 (per week) when I was doing it. We seem to have started including cat food and litter that used to be bought at a specialist pet store plus perhaps fewer YS bargains so might be about the same overall. He did buy a full-priced fillet steak yesterday  :/ so maybe not!

The point is, yours is very ambitious for June and I fully understand why - but wondering what the proposed saving is based on? if your diet plans mean less GF read or something to pare it back?

brizzlegirl

Sounding good XS, love all the option appraisals it’s good to have the data and rationale for why you are going to take the direction you are, and even better to do it as a team, a joint decision with OH.
Re rice, we get this in huge bags from ethnic supermarkets, great quality and a fraction of the SM price, load up with tins of beans and pulses, spices etc when you’re there too. Well worth a special trip if you’re deep in the countryside. 

Have a lovely rest of your day 

XSpender

I was only splitting my grocery spends into food, dog, household/toiletries and alcohol and the alcohol has already been subtracted off the above figures for April and May.

In April we spent £553.36 on food (including 2 x fish and chips, £50 on a meat pack with a fair bit of chicken, bacon and black pudding left, and a sack of spuds and £29 on GF SR flour), £46.73 on household/toiletries and £5 on the pooch.

In May we spent £487.05 on food (including 2 x fish and chips and £18 on Donimoes for DS birthday treat) £71.79 on household/toiletries (including £23 on 12 months worth of water filters which should have been out of a different pot on reflection), and £21.99 on the dog.

I spent £483 on the above 3 categories in March and £516 in Feb.

It is a big reduction but I think there is room to cut back with a reasonable amount of focus.  We spend too much on crisps and snacks and extras if we pop to the shop for some beers for DH.  Replacing some processed foods with one or two cheaper home cooked meals would help too.

Out of this week’s budget (28th May to 4th June) I have spent £13.80 so far.  I have taken the cash out of the bank to use, if there is a problem I will use my card and pay the cash back in using the machine in the bank.  Meal plan and shopping list are written for the next 8 days and I will check the list again before I shop tomorrow to see if I can take anything off.  I don’t want to spend every last penny of the budget tomorrow as I will need salad in the week.

janb5

About four months ago I started using a Monzo card and have a set allowance.  So my other account has all the direct debits and remains untouched.  Every month I transfer £300 to Monzo which covers food + personal spends.  It has been invaluable during Covid as I now get internet shops and share with my neighbours and we can easily refund each other as needed.

Suffolk_lass

That reads much more positively and really shows how your efforts are reducing that spend. I wonder if you could bake some of the savoury snacks your DH (maybe all of you) enjoy with a few beers.

Small cheesy or salty things are straightforward for me with no gluten intolerance but baked potato snacks are easy and cheap (potato skins, or baked potato slices, vegetable peeling crisps with toppings or dips?)

A really simple option is to put potato peelings (de-eye before peeling) in a bag with some vegetable oil, smoosh them around, so they all have a bit of oil on them, spread them out on a baking sheet and in the oven for 15 minutes at 200c - then into a large bowl and sprinkle with salt (I use flake) or spice like ginger powder or a bit of cayenne pepper. You could also sprinkle with grated cheese and back in for five-ten minutes until the cheese melts, while the oven cools. The peelings will keep in the fridge for a day or two so having them a different day to roast or mashed is good. You can do similar with parsnip or carrot peelings too but personally it is potatoes over here!

XSpender

@janb5- We each have a personal and a joint Monzo account which we use for travel and I think using the joint account might work better than cash.  I used cash in Morrisons this afternoon which was fine but £1.40 and £15 of the total were out of 2 different cashless budgets, spending and garden, which messed things up a bit.  With a separate account I could just transfer the money between the 2 accounts as needed.  I track transactions in YNAB from the receipt so that should keep me right.

@Suffolk_lass - I bought less snacks last week and they didn’t seem to be missed. We also have a £1 limit per bag.  The skins sound lovely and the spicer the better for DH.  I have a bag of dried chickpeas I might have a go at baking with some spices for him next week or I could make them for part of his Father’s Day present. I spent £5.85 on crisps and snacks and £1 on sweets today which is about average and this will do all 3 of us until next weekend including crisps to go with a sandwich at lunch if required.  

I have spent quite a while as a Bumble Bee Herder today as about half a dozen have flown into the conservatory and had to be gently wafted back out the door.  The laundry is up to date and I have finished cleaning the conservatory while DH pottered in the front garden. DS has completed a skills test set by his club coaches.  DH and I also agreed June’s budget and goals in about 5 minutes flat.  I showed him the April and May figures but he said he already knew them as I always give him an update when he phones me on the way to work which is when I have usually checked the bank and updated YNAB.😂

I have set up my sinking fund pots in Monzo and have sent a payment to fund the three that are receiving funds this month/until I go back to full pay.  The Monzo pots are for the sinking funds I do not need to dip into often i.e. annual insurance or memberships, dog, Christmas and family birthdays (DH, DS and me).  I have some other sinking funds that will stay in the current account that will be tracked on YNAB that as these are more frequently dipped into.  For example I have a separate gift budget which in June will be used to cover European postage for a birthday card, a new baby gift and Father’s Day and in July will cover a gift for a friend’s daughter. I have left the Family Birthday deposit in the current account this month as it is my birthday in July and I would only have to transfer it back next month.

Tomorrow DH wants to visit a garden centre which may be rather tempting the budget.  He wants to buy a long hose as our last one broke and the current one can’t reach the bottom of the garden.  Also on his list is fir feed but the draw of the plants may be too much!

My, that was a boring post!

janb5

No it wasnt ` boring` it was very considered and demonstrates what huge progress you have made! Well done!

XSpender

Thank you janb5

Back to Home School for DS today.  I think he has quite enjoyed being back and has worked really hard.  Helped by creating phases of the moon from Oreos probably.  Space and food, 2 of his favourite things   Or it could be the fact he went out out for the first time in weeks today and not just out and sit in the car.

I feel like I am back to school too as I have much more purpose this week, I have even dusted off my bu-jo and created a full weekly spread with Dutch doors!

Today I cleared the smallest debt and made an OP to the target CC   

The food spends are £5 over the £90 I was aiming for this week as I picked up a large salad cream (on the list for next week) and a scrub daddy for DH to clean the BBQ in B&M. DS also asked for some YS battered fish in M&S which was quite pricey but will do him 2 meals.  Neither DH or I like fish so I don’t cook it so DS it only usually has it at school or from the chip shop as he says I don’t cook fish fingers right.

I used £10 of the bulk fund to purchase GF breaded chicken 3 for £10 in M&S which should give me about 12 meals. I dropped lucky with some very good reductions on 8 pitta breads, a pack of cake slices, a whole cake and some breakfast pastries.  All GF although I will share the cakes with DH and DS.

DH suggested, without prompting, that we use the M0nzo account for food/alcohol purchases so I am going to do the transfer later today as the bank was playing up all morning.

I still couldn’t find any kitchen scales so after trying 4 different places over the last week, and converting a recipe to cups this morning, I have bitten the bullet and ordered some on line along with some filters for the extractor fan.

I read the weather forecast wrong and thought it was due to rain from tomorrow for a week so whipped our sheets off (usually do bed change on a Tuesday) and had them on the line first thing. I did get my Monday jobs done so will sort out the cupboards of the dresser tomorrow and give it a good clean.