Life style shift - cutting costs / cheaper meals

ska_lover

Hi Old Stylers,

I hope no one minds me starting a thread / there may be a similar one

I have walked away from a very stressful but well paid career - and have secured my dream job - working for a charitable foundation. This has meant I have took approx 50% reduction in salary to my previous stressful role

I am very happy with my choice and feel relieved.

So I am looking for ideas how to reduce our monthly costs.

Two adults - Me and hubby both meat eaters but more than happy to eat lots of veggie stuff - evening meals and lunches (we never prep or make sandwiches)

I am going to ring round all the service providers we have, broadband, gas elec and check we are on the cheapest deals.

Other than that, I guess what I am asking, is does anyone have any tips on moneysaving, or cheapest meals that they cook?

Many thanks xx

happydays89

If you have an Aldi close by they reduce fruit,veg ,meat ,chill section by 50% about 7.30 in the evening,this is food dated the next day ( so not out of date) we stock up and vacuum pac the meat which can add another year on to the storage.
Aldi are a lot cheaper than Tesco,Asda and with 50% off even better.

dan958

https://www.budgetbytes.com/ is my 'go to' source for cheap recipes.

If you are looking to save some money on your food, beans, rice, and lentils are great.

Chicken thighs are very cheap. De-bone and skin yourself to save extra money.

Those are some bordering on some of the more extreme ways of saving money. If you are just looking to make small changes, the best thing you can do is make sure that you have zero waste. Make sure if you buy that fresh veg, you make sure you are not throwing away half of it at the end of the week.

ampersand

Good morning, ska lover -

Do use the mse index of brilliant recipes :-) They've been cross-indexed, too, so you can put in a main ingredient for results.

Next, I'm sure you'll start taking lunches from home.

Finally, I noted your intention to ring around for comparisons of service providers. Use Mse tools for this first. You will save on call costs/usage and have Compare&Contrast figures ready to present, to 'encourage' better offers.

Well done for making such an important life/career choice.

trailingspouse

In the short term, live off what is already in your store cupboard/freezer as much as you can. This will give you time to get a feel for how much your new budget will allow you to spend on food.


Stop buying alcohol, takeaways, ready meals, coffee to go etc etc - not forever, just until you see how things stand.


Rubber chicken is your friend - https://middleagedfreeandsingle.com/2019/05/24/rubber-chicken/.


Totally agree with dan958 - cut the waste to zero. Only buy it if you have plans for using it, never 'just in case'. And if you find something lurking at the back of the fridge, get it used!!



Is there a reason you don't make sandwiches? Filling and cheap, what's not to love?

Mistral001

When I found myself with a drastic drop in income, I found food was the easiest item to cut. I did it by buying only own-brand food when I could. Many people will be a bit sniffy about doing this, but most own-brand food is not inferior to branded food (it is often made by the same manufacturer as the branded food costing two or three times as much). I reckon I reduced my food bill by 50% or more by doing this.

The utility and insurance bills and expenditure like car maintenance were more difficult to cut. These took several years to reduce significantly.

PipneyJane

Have you looked at the Grocery Challenge thread? There are dozens of money saving recipes and resources quoted in the first few posts of each month's Grocery Challenge. August's challenge went live yesterday.

In addition, the thread's regulars are a very helpful and supportive bunch. Please come and join us.

HTH

- Pip

PS: One thing I did, when I was in a similar situation to yourself, was to challenge myself to read the entire Sneaky Ways To Save the Pennies and Lots More Sneaky Ways to Save the Pennies threads. It took a while (Sneaky Ways runs to 150 pages), but the effect on my mindset was well worth it.

buildersdaughter

Definitely look at cheaper cuts of meat, and stretch with plenty of veg and pulses. Our lovely weekend shoulder of lamb was slow roasted for several hours and was delicious. Leftovers will be cut for stir-fry this evening (plenty of veg) and made into a ragu with lentils (will be frozen as it will be too hot this week).
HM bread is not necessarily cheaper, but much nicer for your money - so think about a breadmaker as a gift or get into the habit of making your own.
Also things like: make a batch of flapjacks (I add chocolate and raisins to mine) - it keeps well and is a lovely snack or lunchtime treat.
Freeze reduced items and stuff in season.
Get on your local Freecycle and Freegle.
Don't know what your entertainment budget is, but I am astonished by how much some folk spend going to big concerts, when most local venues have good things on (though in fairness you may have to sort through some dross!)
Get agreements going about birthday & Xmas gifts - to cut down, to request 'useful' items etc.
Enjoy!

ska_lover

Thank you so very much everyone for your replies - I really do appreciate it

Food

We have been eating out of the freezer this past week and store cupboards, but they are running very low now

I am going to do an Aldi shop tomorrow. But this evening I am going through the index of recipes and making a meal plan for at least the next coming week. The August Challenge thread looks great, lots of ideas there already so I will be utilising that a lot

I always used to meal plan when the kids were little, but I have got out of this habit in recent years and gone willy nilly

I normally buy own brand foods, the only thing we don't regularly have own brand is loo roll. My husband will not hear of value toilet roll. It really winds me up hahaha

[U]Work lunches[/U]

When I start my new job, I have been trying to think of very cheap lunches - and I will have access to a kettle and toaster.

One thing I thought of was to take a jar of value peanut butter and a loaf of bread - toast for lunch, and the loaf of bread will last all week (I never prep the night before, I can never get in the habit of it) so this is about as organised as I will ever get with work lunches.

I do have a friend who meal preps all her work lunches on a Sunday, finely balanced nutritional miracles in lovely tubs, that someone like me would never be bothered to do.

Utilities / Bills

Oh gosh, this took hours today doing the 'call around'
1)House insurance was due for renewal, I swapped us saving £150
2) Broadband/phone ..Limited success with this, dropped £4 a month
3) Changing my own direct debit dates to be inline with new pay day

Entertainment

We are really quite boring to be honest. We rarely go out. We do both have hobbies for which we already own the kit we need, and the ongoing costs for both of these (now we own what we need) is very small, a few quid every few months

We do like home movies though, which we rent through the tele box, and it puts our bill up each month - but this may only be once a month.

Clothes for work

In all my previous roles, there has been a uniform, well they provided the Tshirt, and it was just black trousers - and this meant I was pretty much wearing this outfit most of the time

I really need a few more outfits smart / casual office wear - so I am going to be hitting the charity shops very hard over the next week or so. I did try a car boot sale yesterday, and the only item I liked the look of, was a dress that they were asking £6 for.....wowzers.....as much as I liked the dress, I walked away, as it is a bit much for a car boot isnt it

Right I am off to meal plan

once again, many thanks to all x

PasturesNew

1/ Don't believe that because something's a brand name it's automatically better/tastier.
2/ You don't deserve "the best", or "a treat" every day or every time.
3/ Be aware of - and cost up - waste that goes in the bin. There should, ideally, never be any food in the bin.
4a/ Be aware of the cost of every ingredient in every meal and ask yourself if you really need that individual item in the recipe at all. Many recipes have additional ingredients just because a chef is trying to sell a book. e.g. chilli con carne is just as good without 1-2 peppers and a glass of wine, potentially saving £2-3 on the whole pot.
4b/ Be aware of the total cost of the meal in front of you and mentally set a budget/meal to try to work towards, constantly asking yourself "did I need that bit?".
5/ If buying a takeaway, ask yourself if you need every item you buy. e.g. an indian curry, rice, naan bread, could you just get the curry, make your own rice and buy naan bread in supermarkets. Think about the cost/alternative sources and what you really get out of a takeaway, often there's just one item you can't easily make at home and you just buy the other stuff because it's on the menu.

GreenQueen

ska_lover wrote: »

We do like home movies though, which we rent through the tele box, and it puts our bill up each month - but this may only be once a month.

We have an Amazon Firestick - cost £24.99 on Black Friday, I think they may be more like £39.99 full price. For a Prime membership (£79 a year) we get free access to loads of films, some very recent, e.g we watched Peterloo a couple of nights ago. That may not work for you, but you can see on the Amazon site what films are included in Prime membership and whether they would suit you - you can always rent others, but that defeats the object...