Keeping our options open

becky170

Hi savingholmes, yes I am selling on vinted too so all is not lost. I was just looking at the site and going oh that's a nice dress for DD...but then I gave myself a shake and shut down the tab! 

On the more positive side I have made an overpayment of £350 and £675 has gone into savings today 😁

savingholmes

That's a very positive note! Huge well done. Have fun too along the way.

becky170

Well so much for having a frugal September...DH as brought a new car! We've been talking about it for 3 years but because of COVID and not doing as much commuting we delayed getting a new one. After the last MOT and a list of advisories and car problems on holiday DH decided it was time. My only regret is that we've had to buy it on PCP rather than outright, but with nursery fees up until last year we didn't really have scope to save up for it completely (although maybe I shouldn't have made the mortgage overpayments as our mortgage rate is less than the loan rate but hindsight is a great thing). Anyway we have looked at our budget and can afford the payments and to save up for when the PCP agreement ends so we should be ok. We also need to bump up the emergency fund but I think that will be next year's focus. 

I think we'll try for a frugal October instead!

savingholmes

Ah well. Decision made. Celebrate 💐 your new car. EF building sounds sensible. 

becky170

It's payday so operation Frugal October is underway  a new budget with our updated outgoings has been drawn up so I'm going to track all expenditure. We have a very healthy grocery budget of £600 but I'm hoping we can come in under that. I need to sort out the freezer so I'm going to try and use up some of the items which have been lurking in there. This week we'll be having a beef joint out of there for roast dinner  I do meal plan but my problem is not sticking to the meal plan and then shoving them in the freezer and then never using them again. Let's see if I can do better this month! 

LadyWithAPlan

I have been trying to defrost my freezer for weeks now - I just keep finding more and more meals in there plus more HM stock than anyone needs. Now down to a few frozen veg and fruits, bread and some nice GF burgers plus more stock ,.grr. so hoping to actually eat all and defrost this week. 
So good luck with emptying yours Good way to save money at the grocery though meal planning out  of  the freezer.  I am refusing to buy anything frozen til mine  is clear and ice freeze again.

Well done on all the focus on OP - can you OP the car purchase to get that down asap given the rate  or are your preferring to keep the heat on the mortgage?

I have to avoid vinted - otherwise I buy a pair of shoes every week...

savingholmes

I do the same in my freezer - the salad doesn't fare too well :0

Just kidding about the salad - not the rest. Good luck with frugaling. Do share what you are doing different as it may give us all some tips. We all need a refresh from time to time.

becky170

Sorry for not replying sooner. For some reason I've stopped receiving email notifications when anyone comments on my thread. 

Ladywithaplan I think I am going to have to avoid vinted too as I think I'll be buying a dress/top a week at this rate too! I did sell 6 items last week but really need to get rid of stuff rather than bring new things into the house  it sounds like you are doing well with your freezer emptying. I have managed to eat the beef joint and some mince out of ours. Tonight will be some chicken thighs and chips out of the freezer too. I need to see what else is lurking. I think there is lots of homemade Bolognese in there but I have no idea when I made it and therefore no idea whether it's still good to eat! 

The meal planning is not going well. Well it is in the sense that I mainly made what I'd planned to, even if it wasn't on exactly the day I planned to. It's just that the kids are refusing to eat it. There are very few things they'll both eat at the moment. I think they'll both currently eat baked potatoes and sausages or pizza. They both used to like macaroni cheese but now DS has gone off it and said the school macaroni cheese is better. They are both driving me mad with the constant cries of 'I'm hungry' when they get home from school. I have been trying to limit 'treat' items like crisps and biscuits but then we run out of things like bread and crackers and then we've ended up doing lots of top up shopping. At least DD will snack on fruit. DS will only really eat grapes at the moment so I have tried to stick a bowl of fruit under his nose and hope he eats it but he says they don't fill him up. Anyway as we have done lots of top up shopping and I cracked and ordered more coffee pods (mainly through lack of sleep as both DD and DS are waking me in the night as well as the cat) we have spend £213 of our food budget already and have nothing to show for it. That does include all of DS school dinners for the month though so not all bad  I have my online shop coming tonight. This week I have ordered more bread and now I have a bit of room in the freezer I can freeze a loaf and I have ordered wraps as well as they last longer to see if I can avoid top up shopping. I am also going to move to doing online shops every 6 days to reduce the need for top up shopping. If we don't have to go to the shop we won't buy as much rubbish...well hopefully anyway   

We have now decided to divert most of our mortgage repayments into a regular saver which pays more interest than our mortgage. The aim will be to then pay a lump sum off our mortgage when the regular saver matures, and if anything major goes wrong with the house we'll have it as back up. Therefore we've made a £100 mortgage overpayment and deposited £200 into the regular saver this month 😁

savingholmes

Sounds a good financial plan. 

I hated that with kids and meals. I've been there. No real pearls of wisdom sorry.

becky170

I reviewed our spends for October and we went over our planned budget by just over £300 pounds. That was mainly due to me buying a box of wine, oops, and an overspend of £274 on food. I had no idea we were spending so much on food! That was with only have one takeaway as well. I am trying to plan meals but I think I need to stick to things were I have the herbs etc at home already. The other issue is reaching for easy options when tired...i.e. pizza, as the kids will eat it and it doesn't take much effort, but not exactly healthy. Other than that it's snacks and treats which need cutting down on. On the plus side some of the food has been eaten out the freezer to there's more room in there 😁 Right I'm off to search for easy recipes for fussy children. I'm very tempted just to do meat, carbs and 2 veg as maybe the kids will actually eat that  the shopping is being delivered tonight so we'll be having roast dinner, curry, spag bol and baked potatoes this week. Not sure what we'll be eating tonight as the shopping doesn't come until 7pm. Will see if I can conjure something up from the cupboards. 

Luckily for use we do have quite a lot of wiggle room in our budget so a £300 overspend isn't the end of the world. I just hate the thought of wasting money though. We also seem to have a leak in the roof again so that will be more money going out and it looks like our cat will need more treatment for her long term health conditions so any saved money is going to come in handy.