Missy’s family of 4, paying off debts, saving for a house and just trying to survive!

missymoo81

Hi!

I'm so sorry I've been MIA. It's been crazy busy since lock down started. So updates:
fell off the money saving wagon a tiny bit, with food mostly. But got back on it the last few days. Trying to see how long I can make my money last. I don't think it will last the month without dipping into the emergency fund. Have spent some money out of this as had £1000 in there but bought paint and chairs in the hope we can make the house look a little better. But will try and pay this back at some point. Wasn't the best decision to pay out on all of that right now, but its the only time we might actually get some time to do the decorating we've been meaning to do for 2 years.

Since this though we've had to pay £400 for car tyres MOT and service, OH paid. But then today the car broke down!!! Managed to limp it home but OH said its going to be expensive, so its off to the garage tomorrow. OH has had to drive to london today about his eyes, and they are going to do the op again free of charge is it didn't work last time, but they're going to do them one at a time. 3 months apart. Which means another 2 weeks isolation for him for each one, which is expensive for us to cover work, and we have to stay over night in london each time and go for another 2-4 follow ups!!!! Absolutely crazy expensive, it costs £90 each time we have to just travel in for an appointment. Going to have a look at trains and see if we can make it any cheaper.

Its Roo's birthday on friday, OH is paying for a cake for him as i won't get time to make one, and a friend is making it for £20, which is super helpful. I need some wrapping paper, and Roo wants  a mexican themed dinner, which is far cheaper than a takeaway. I think I've got all the presents. I haven't really got any money for food shopping this month at all. I've got £9.50 of tesco vouchers and i'll take the rest out of the coffee machine at work as OH said i could. its going to be a super lean month!

immediately I need to get
milk
bread
cheese
squash
apples
bananas
mexican food stuff.

I've been super frugal the past couple of days though. I needed some bright trousers for my classes as my dark ones don't show up on camera, so instead of spending £120 on some, I've asked some friends if i can borrow some! And I was going to spend £80 on some equipment, but again after asking around, someone can lend me some! I've also put off shopping for 2 days as was nowhere near a cheaper supermarket, and I know i won't just run in and get milk, I'll get lots of other things. I've delved into the garage and found some random creamer packets from old camping kits, so have made do having tea with them! Instead I will go to Lidl and get some milk etc from there once I drop the children at school tomorrow. Really going to have to try so hard now with money, with everything going on and a lot less wages. I've got bits and pieces I can cobble together for dinner and breakfast etc, will try and eak everything out. Any tips or help would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading

Much love

Missy x

jwil

Have you got anything around the house you could use as wrapping paper?  Old comics, plain paper you can decorate, brown paper, even aluminium foil, or fabric?  Save a bit of cash for something that's just thrown away. 

When you go shopping, just take enough money for what you need, then you can't be tempted to buy more.

What about a complete food inventory?  I find that just looking in the cupboards I think there's nothing there, but if I write down exactly what is in the cupboards, fridge and freezer I can come up with many more ideas.

remote_control

Great wrapping paper ideas! I'm thinking of starting to use scarves when it is someone in the immediate family.
Great idea about the food inventory too. I do online shopping and my new challenge is to make sure I don't spend more than £100 each week. It's been hard as I am getting bits and pieces for Christmas. I'm going to try the inventory too.

missymoo81

Hey JWil bless you for posting! Thank you so much for all the wonderful ideas. I don’t have any wrapping paper in the house or anything I can use really. I used my head though I usually just grab some wrapping paper and not even think about how long it is or how much it costs. But when I looked it was £1.50 for 2m 😱. I managed to find one slightly cheaper but then had a brain wave. Xmas paper is always way cheaper. I managed to get 15m for £1! And Roo won’t care a jot. It’s blue with dinos in woolly hats! I had to buy some candles for the cake. And usually I’d have spent £5 on cards. But I have some plain ones. So me, OH and May are all going to draw cards and write in them ourselves. 

And thank you for the inventory idea, I had a good look in the freezer and cupboards (fridge is pretty empty 😳), and have come up with a list of meals.

I went to Tesco with £15 in coins that I took out of the coffee machine at work. And the bill came to £21.Odd, but I had my vouchers so it was £14 something. 

I’m v happy with that, as had to buy deodorant and shower gel, I chose the cheapest deodorant that I know works and I downgraded on my shower gel. It def doesn’t smell as nice as my other one, but it was half the price abs I’m sure I’ll manage. 

I also managed to get everything for Roos birthday tea. And we have enough bread etc for lunches. I think I should hopefully be able to get through until about Tuesday. 

Food wise we’ll have:

breakfast
pancakes and fruit
porridge
toast 
cereal
smoothie

Lunch
egg sandwiches
cheese toasties 
jacket potato
cereal

dinner
chicken Fried rice
sausage hot pot x 2
chicken pasta bake
Mexican night 
pizza

im going to have to watch what I snack on as we don’t have much in the way of snacks. I think I may bake some muffins, I have oil and flour and sugar. Hmm what to put in them though.... I think I have a tin of apricots..... oooh will have Roos birthday cake too. 

So far I haven’t spent any money out of my bank account since Sunday when I (stupidly) bought the chairs and paint. Let’s see how long I can make this last. I am absolutely going to try and not spend any money from my bank on food shopping! I will need to do a rather bigger top up next week as am running out of tea and coffee. But I have red bush tea and filter coffee, so will see how long I can eak out the ordinary stuff for, as that’s what OH has. 

I think I have around £3.50 on a nectar card, and I have about £15 in my purse. But it’s non school uniform day Friday so £2 of that will go on that. Oooh actually, I think I have £2 in my drawer upstairs.... maybe. Will check. I also have another £3.50 Clubcard voucher to redeem. So that’s £22 for shopping for the next 3 weeks. As I said, I should be ok until Tuesday so it’s just for the 2 weeks after that. 

Will put different things into the Tesco app and see what I can come up with. I can probably take another £10 from the coffee machine at work, will check with OH it’s ok. It’s ours....it’s just we usually pay it into the bank but obv that’s not available at the moment. So I’m going to say £32 until the first week in Dec, argh that’s more like 3 weeks. Hmmmm not sure how to do this. Will have a look!

Thanks for popping in remotecontrol.

 

missymoo81

Ok I’ve been on Tesco and found that the shopping if I really eek it out should cost around £61. I’ve gone through all the pennies and the club cards and the nectar cards and this is what it looks like:

£16 cash money

£13 OHs club card

£3.50 my Clubcard

£3.50 nectar cars

£10 from coffee machine 

=£46

£15 short

I have another fiver ish in 1s and 2ps, there’s a machine in Tesco that uou pour your change into and it gives you a voucher for the shop you’re in. So that leaves me around £10 short. 

Sooo need to make, find/do something to make that up! 

missymoo81

Hmmm does anyone know if you can just stick raw cut up butternut squash and courgette in the freezer? 

missymoo81

Ok so dinners on the above budget would look much like this:

Spaghetti bolognese

Pasta bolognese

Chilli

Chilli

Tuna pasta

Beans jackets 

Chicken stew

Chicken stew

Chicken fried rice 

Shep pie

Shep pie 

Pizza and wedges 

Carbonara

Chicken curry

Chicken curry

Pork and potatoes

Chicken noodles 

Hmm just cut and paste that from my notes, not sure why it’s double spaced!

Breakfasts will be much the same. 

Toast, porridge and pancakes will feature heavily.

Lunch will be pack ups for the children, I’ve got those covered, but I’ll make them a little cake to take rather than a chocolate bar and I’ll make some flapjack cereal bars too to save cash. 

Me and OH will have smoothie or egg sandwiches or cheese toasties or toast if we didn’t have it for breakfast, maybe tuna pasta too.

Hmmm I keep thinking of things I might need and I’m telling myself I won’t!!!

WinterWarrior

Excellent meal ideas missy. Do you have any prolific or top cash back bits you can cash in to make up the shortfall? For snacks rice crispy buns with the cheapest of chocolate, or the toffee version, and flapjack can often be made from stores. If you have icing sugar you could make a butterfly bun style muffin with no need of filling...I also love nigellas jam doughnut muffins, which basically just need a dollop of jam in the centre before baking....no fancy ingredients required. 

Queen_of_the_Hive

missymoo81 said:

Hmmm does anyone know if you can just stick raw cut up butternut squash and courgette in the freezer? 

Hi Missy, 
I was curious as to this question. A quick google check and there is actually an old mse forum about it. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/538545/freezing-courgettes. I personally would cook and then freeze as they have a high water content. 

Butternut squash I would think this is fine to freeze as its more structurally sound. This is a useful link. https://www.wikihow.com/Freeze-Butternut-Squash

What about making a courgette and butternut squash soup and freezing that? I get cheap blue cheese to give a bit of flavour and add to all sorts of veg soups. Soup is my personal ultimate winter food and great for a cheap meal. 

missymoo81

Hey Suzanne! Oooh forgot about butterfly buns! I do indeed have I find sugar! But I’m low on marg. but I have an idea. I have some fondant icing! I can make some cupcake type things and make little tops for them.

ooh thanks Queen of the Hive! I did wonder about the courgette. Hmm I can never be quite bothered to cook and freeze stuff, takes so long. Might just cook up some curry and add both the butternut and the courgette to it and then freeze that for lunches. I love your soup idea but OH doesn’t eat it and the children are a bit fussy about it! 

Forgot to mention I took the car to the garage today, and they’ve reset the electrics. Hopefully it will be ok, if not it’s a whole pedal unit 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ Which is probably about half as much as the car is worth! So we’re going to keep our fingers crossed. 

I’m up and have made some tea, then I’m going to get myself ready for work online but from the gym and then I’m training after, body is very tired though! Going to have porridge for breakfast and tuna pasta for lunch and chicken fried rice for dinner. 

I’ve got work again tonight too. Hope you’re all ok x