Finding the way through a £100k hole

PurpleFairy26

Well done on the no spend half term and the food spend reduction. 

Personally I find reducing food spends challenging. We’re now at a level which is acceptable (but would like it to be less of course) however, food isn’t cheap. So we’ll done on any reductions. I find the beat wins are like most, ys items or bulking out meals and freezing for ‘free’ meals down the line either the next day or out of the freezer. 

Freezer inventory, ring fencing a budget and simply not going to shops for top up shops made the world of difference here. When we started getting milk separately, even though a little more expensive it meals we no longer just pop to any shop for 4 pints of milk and spend £10. Keep plodding with it, you’ll get there. Some months it seems easier to create food out of cupboards than others. 

Isitdoable

First day of March!  I've appeared to go AWOL but it had been a really crazy week or so, work and personally wise, and genuinely I have not have time to come on here.  I've just spent the last two hours going through our finances for the month and evaluating February.  Once I'm done with my diary entry, I am going to try and go and catch up with everyone elses as I find them very motivating.

The wheels kind of fell off in the last month of Feb

I forgot a couple of big expenditures.  Actually, that's not strictly true, I just hadn't planned for it, which is the story of my financial life!!  Its a lesson I am really trying hard to learn, but as it is month 1 since trying for this fresh start I will try not to dwell on this too much.  I guess this is where something like YNAB is useful.  However, I have managed to earn some extra cash, in real terms to cover these costs without resorting to borrowing.  The successful month work wise has meant I could pay us the extra needed, but it is not a situation I want to keep happening, as this extra money needs to go on business debts....i.e HMRC!
Areas I messed up in the last week.....
- I had not budgeted for one of the little one's birthdays.  We didn't go mad but it obviously cost money with presents etc.
- I had not budgeted for a christening present I needed to buy.
- I had not budgeted for all of us having hair appointments in the last week
- I couldn't use my vouchers for my make up, so had to buy it with actual money
- Busy-ness meant food shopping/planning was horrendous in the last week
- We all had the lurgy last week, I've spent about £25 on medicine!!

The financial upshot of this is........personal expenditure amounted to a total of £850.02 (I added that up with mounting dread).  I have broken it down however.  £124 was on children's clubs, £150 went on presents (for our little one, plus a christening and two other birthdays), £115 went on hair cuts.  I'm going to get my diary out and work out what we have coming up so I can plan for it and buy well in advance, as then I feel I will spend less.

Food spend TBH has been a real disaster this month.  It came to £560.62 by the time we'd done the last shop, and got bits for feeding family for little one's birthday.  This has really shown me that I simply have to find the time to plan properly.  I visited the supermarket or did an online shop 13 times in February!!!  Thats just madness.  I'm incredibly organised in most areas of my life, particularly with work and the children but for some reason, I'm just not very good in this area!  I'm about to plan my diary for the coming week, and there will be a slot in there for meal planning, and I want to allocate some time to batch cooking, as I think if I can get the freezer well stocked it will make life a whole lot easier.

Anyway, thats the disection of the month.   I've just sat down and paid all the credit card bills, and we've made real inroads.  Obviously, I paid a big amount of the Aqua card so thats gone - its a bit distorted, as it meant our drawings from the business were higher last month, but I feel it has at least given us a boost and a kick start to getting everything paid.

First column shows APR, second is the balance on 1.2.20 and third is the balance on 1.3.20 which all payments for this month made.  The Barclaycard got used for a business expense for business number 2 (I did it by accident), so I will obviously pay that back.  I'd made £78 on Ebay sales in February, and that has gone towards the AMEX card.  I paid for all our day to day spending in Feb on the AMEX as it is a cash back card, but obviously I paid them all off in full, plus extra towards the balance.  The 0% cards have just had minimal payments taken off so I can throw everything I have at the higher interest balances.  This month I have spent £765 on card repayments which is a do-able amount for us as a base level, and then anything I can make over and above that amount when earnings allow, I will do.

AMEX	22.9	6736	6331
AQUA	33	2578	338
BARCLAYCARD	20	6382	6391
NATIONWIDE	8	4472	4107
CAP 1	30	639	0
TOTAL		20807	17167
LLOYDS	15	2260	1177
BARCLAYCARD	26	4423	0
VIRGIN	0	0	4410
M&S	0	0	895
TOTAL		6683	6482
TOTAL		27490	23649

PurpleFairy26

Definitely food planning is an art form but tracking spending does help. I've done that on an excel spreadsheet for food for the last 3 years and it's really helped me keep it down and see where we're spending. Just not going to the shops helps. Milk and bread in the freezer helps stay out of the SM for those top up shops. And a portioned cake/ biscuits too if needed. 

Well done on the fleabay sales and paying the aqua card. 

Isitdoable

PurpleFairy26 said:

Definitely food planning is an art form but tracking spending does help. I've done that on an excel spreadsheet for food for the last 3 years and it's really helped me keep it down and see where we're spending. Just not going to the shops helps. Milk and bread in the freezer helps stay out of the SM for those top up shops. And a portioned cake/ biscuits too if needed. 

Well done on the fleabay sales and paying the aqua card. 

Thanks PF.....I agree, I need to be a lot more organised in terms of planning.  I know some areas we are really overspending (expensive products etc.) where I can look for alternatives.

supersaver1000

Hi @Isitdoable and @PurpleFairy26  This is my second month of really focussing on meal planning.   I've set myself up an excel spreadsheet with the days of the week in the first column and my meals in the second column - so I can easily look back at meal ideas from earlier weeks.  I've also got a list of regular items and where I get them from e.g. the purple pack loo rolls in Aldi are very similar to our favourite puppy logo'd ones so I don't waste time looking for special offers anymore, I just get them in Aldi.  Same with kitchen rolls.  I tend to do two big shops at the weekend.  I have to go to one of the big chains to get stuff like the cat food - although I need to look at online possibiilties for that.  As PF says, if I go in for a few things I end up with bargains in the basket.  I've been making sure that staples are topped up e.g. huge bags of oats for porridge, rice from our local asian foods shop, onions, part-baked bread, tinned tomatoes and lots of lentils for my back up meals of spicy tomato soup or lentil dhal.  Sometimes no-one wants what's on the plan so I've found a couple of back ups help.  Its still a work in progress and I need to improve in lots of areas e.g making the flat breads which everyone says are easy to make and delicious.  My target is £60 a week at the moment and I really don't know how other people manage on less - but its my mission to try and get there.  Good luck with it.

Isitdoable

My thoughts today re food shopping.....I think I am going to plan for one big dried order per month - I will do that online, have the space to store it and can get the things I like and can't get at Aldi (Heinz beans/ketchup, that kind of thing).
I then plan to decide on some batch cooking for the month, thats one big Aldi shop to cover that, at which point I can stock up on the baby bits, as it is so much cheaper there (nappies for instance!).
Then it should be a case of just a very small fresh weekly shop.  Also - frozen veg probably the way to go?  I think its actually supposed to be better for you isn't it?  We don't waste much veg anyway, but that would get it to zero.
I've sectioned up my week in my diary, allocating slots of work and home and even a bit of time for me (as I never get that, and I have to say I am starting to feel pretty frazzled - I'm very anxious at the moment, the news worries me every single day).  I have some 'home time tomorrow' and I'm going to use that for menu and shopping planning.

supersaver1000

Hope your planning went well @Isitdoable ?  Your post made me think about whether I could go for a free (over £40) Sains monthly collection for the things I can't get at Aldi.  Looking back at my receipts I've realised that I could order almost £40 of cat food, plus about 4 packs of coffee pods (although I'm hoping to replace that with cheaper cafetiere coffee).   I could even get it delivered to work in one of the £1 slots.  I love the fresh Black Sheep bread they are doing in Sainsbury, and I could get a couple of those and freeze one.  Oh, and Lentils, I've not found those yet in our local Aldi and DH likes their squash and possibly milk/beer.  All heavy things and it means I would just need to do my weekly shop in Aldi - ideally that would be first thing on a Sunday, but I just can't seem to get my lot organised to decide what they'd like the following Saturday (it tends to be our treat day).  Still, baby steps, and thanks for making me think.

Isitdoable

supersaver1000 said:

Hope your planning went well @Isitdoable ?  Your post made me think about whether I could go for a free (over £40) Sains monthly collection for the things I can't get at Aldi.  Looking back at my receipts I've realised that I could order almost £40 of cat food, plus about 4 packs of coffee pods (although I'm hoping to replace that with cheaper cafetiere coffee).   I could even get it delivered to work in one of the £1 slots.  I love the fresh Black Sheep bread they are doing in Sainsbury, and I could get a couple of those and freeze one.  Oh, and Lentils, I've not found those yet in our local Aldi and DH likes their squash and possibly milk/beer.  All heavy things and it means I would just need to do my weekly shop in Aldi - ideally that would be first thing on a Sunday, but I just can't seem to get my lot organised to decide what they'd like the following Saturday (it tends to be our treat day).  Still, baby steps, and thanks for making me think.

It did go well thank you supersaver....and my goodness hasn't that stood me in good stead.

Coronavirus!!!!!!!  Quite frankly a disaster for our business.  The last week has got increasingly more stressful as the situation unfolds, and that is before I even start to worry about my family and loved ones.  I was very blasé about the whole thing before we had a video call with our friends in Northern Italy (for reassurance ironically), and they told us the full scale of how overwhelmed their health system is.  Scary stuff and really focused my mind of what was important - protecting my family.

I've given a lot of thought as to how we may come out of this, so much so that I've only slept for 6 hours in the last two days.  In the immediate future - we should be covered by insurance if the country goes into lock down (ironically this may make us better off), HMRC have advised me they will not be persuing any of their debt while we are all in this situation.

Financially I am pleased with myself that I have not done any emotional spending in this time (apart from a steam cleaner for the floor....OCD kicking in big style!).  I will update my figures at some point today.

brizzlegirl

Best of luck with it all, stay well and safe 
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Isitdoable

Hello diary, hello anyone still reading!   I've been AWOL for hopefully what is obvious reasons.  The Coronavirus saga obviously continues for everyone.  Financially for us, the ceiling has kind of fallen in on us.  Sometimes it all feels very insignificant, sometimes it feels like another disaster on top of the one that is wrecking our business and income.
I need to get on top of financial planning etc. but given we are not going anywhere, the irony is the only thing we are spending money on is food!  Haven't spent a penny on fuel, all children's activities are cancelled, and obviously there is nothing else for us to do.  We are just at home, home schooling, walking, doing things at home and ticking over with work.
Having our income cut to zero is obviously horrendous.  We lived off our credit cards in April, luckily we had one of the government grants come in which means I have paid off what we spent on the credit cards, but the rest of that money is earmarked for suppliers to be paid.
I've applied for Universal credit, this may be our only way to eat(!), but it seems it will barely cover our bills.  So its all very hard right now.  Our insurers are looking at our claim, but as many have seen in the news, they are being bloody awful at paying out for anyone, so we really don't know if anything will come of this.  If it does, our situation is significantly better, if not, it is pretty dire.
So I will post a financial update in detail in terms of debts.  And I will be spending the weekend working out the way forward for our business.  My second business, which was just getting going, may still be worth working on, but who knows what business is going to look like for anyone.
Trying desperately to keep my mojo.