part time worker, full time dreamer 22 June 2017 at 3:59PM in Mortgage-free wannabe 3 replies 807 views

OS_QS

Hi Everyone, think its time for a fresh new diary to reflect my new life. I've made the huge decision to go part-time at work. However, we still want to maintain our lifestyle (if possible!) and also our dreams of being mortgage free as soon as we can.


This diary will be an attempt to reduce our expenditure as well as make overpayments on a much reduced combined salary. Would be interesting to see if we could maintain on less....


Will be back once i've looked at the numbers xx

OS_QS

Big changes!

Have made the huge decision to reduce my hours at work to 3days / week. This will unfortunately impact my take home pay, and more than likely delay any chance of me getting promoted in the near future L.

I have worked out that I will be roughly £700/month worse off, but of course, I get to spend 2 days a week with my toddler, and save on full time childcare.

I have stopped a regular saver of £300/month in an attempt to offset the reduction, of course this means I won’t be saving, but had I went to work full-time I would have been paying an extra £300 in childcare for those three days, so I have written this off.

Due to only working 3 days instead of 5, I will save £50/month on train fares.

In my mind, I realistically need to find savings of £350/month to offset the pay-cut, and I’m going to try to do everything I can to minimise the impact of me taking home less money on our family.

We usually get our shopping delivered from sainsbo’s, as well as nipping there for fresh bits and bobs and treats, and have estimated that it is our grocery spend where we can make the biggest savings. Especially if we take pack lunches to work instead of buying.

Have worked out that we spend almost £170/month on buying lunches at work (I spend £4/day 3xweek, and DH spends approx. £6 every day). Even with buying things for sandwiches + snacks + juice, (which was £40 over the month from Costco) we will save at least £130/month on this.

This just leaves me to find another £220/month savings!!! So I can effectively work less hours for free LOL!

Have started shopping at Aldo with small top ups at one of the main shops. Unfortunately someone carelessly scraped a trolley along our car L, so that will need to get sorted, and kind of put a damper on the experience. Putting this aside, as repairs will come out the car maintenance pots, the first week I got a full week’s shop for £48. DH also nipped to Sains and spent a further £15 later in the week. Ive tracked this month’s spend and we have spent only £260 and this includes a lot of toiletries! (we were spending circa £400/month in sains previously). If I pro-rata this, then we should be making at least £150/month savings here, as I wasn’t being that careful during the smaller top-up shops. This figure doesn’t include lunches, as we bought in bulk from Costco, as that’s included in the point above.

So one month in, I have saved £170 on groceries!!! J.

That’s roughly £300/month saved on food. That is mental and shocking, to think of all the money wasted in the months/years prior!!!

Am off to hunt down the other £50/month by reviewing all our bills / direct debits / subscriptions! Wish me luck!!!

MissLemon

Wow, £300 a month savings on food is amazing! Having the two extras days will give you more time to plan, bulk prep and make your food so hopefully you can continue to save money that way. I know when I meal plan I spend less.

Good luck with your plans. I've subscribed!

freshcotton

Wow so much saved in so little time.

working less to spend time with family is really wise, and also a more ethical way to live as you're consuming so much less.

Good luck