One income family of four - can we get ahead even after pay cuts?

Bluegreen143

Tesco order arrived! By far the smallest order we have done since lockdown, mainly as Red forgot to log in and add stuff 😂

We spent £68.69. £14.85 was a case of beer for Red, and £7.42 was household items (toothbrushes, food bags, kitchen roll and shower gel). 

£46.42 on food:

Salted butter x3 £4.47
Sliced ham x2 £3
Bacon £1.39
Halloumi £2
Natural yoghurt x2 £1.80
Soft cheese 49p
Beef joint 1.6kg £10.02
Frozen berries £2
Strawberry jam 75p
Lemons x4 £1.50
Tinned peaches x2 £1.60
Salt 1.5kg 80p
Pickled beetroot 70p
Balsamic vinegar £1
Peanut butter £1.30
Oatcakes 80p
Cola x4 £2
Wholewheat couscous 70p
Coconut milk £1
Coffee £2.49
Crisps x30 £2.99
Garlic x4 59p
Chocolate digestives 42p
Tinned tomatoes x2 56p
Passata 32p
Sliced bread 59p
Mayonnaise 75p

MEALPLAN

Breakfasts:

Overnight oats

Cereal

Fruity milkshakes

Toast & peanut butter 

These are for the kids & I - Red will have toast, cereal, eggs or a bacon sandwich

Lunches:

Tomato & lentil soup

Beef pasties

Pasta salad

Scrambled egg on toast

Tuna/ham sandwiches 

Kids afternoon snack:

Mini frittatas

Hummus & crackers

Home baking (we have plenty of muffins and oaty bars in the freezer plus I’ll probably bake something else this week)

All the breakfast/lunch/snack options I’ll do bowls of fresh fruit and/or raw salad veg so that where that all goes 

Dinners:

Friday fakeaway - KFC style chicken & wedges

Sunday - roast beef

Beef pasta

Beef chilli & rice 

Salmon risotto

Halloumi & couscous 

Veg curry wraps 

The other meals apart from Friday/Sunday are flexible, we can have them any night 

MagicCat

Hi Bluegreen, sounds like you're making good progress.
Meal plan looks fab!
 I so need to get on top of meal planning myself, groceries are where most of the money goes for me at the moment. Can I ask what recipes you use for oaty bars and kids snacks? I spend a fortune on these, could try giving it a go making at home. Also veg curry wraps sound great, how do you do those? Sorry for all the questions!

Bluegreen143

@MagicCat these are the oaty bars, they are very like the ones you can buy from the baby section of the supermarket but super cheap to make. I don’t often have fruit juice in so tend to make them with some fresh squeezed satsumas or orange as I usually have those. They freeze well wrapped in foil and defrost quickly.

Muffins - this recipe is great. Last week I made nectarine and (dried) apricot ones. Blueberry, raspberry, blackberry and grated apple (or apple/carrot combined) are all good variations. Haven’t made the savoury ones yet. They freeze well and I microwave for a minute or two when we want to eat them.

Other things I make and freeze are pancakes and scones. I do make something “treaty” every week like carrot cake, cupcakes, cookies etc but limit how much the kids can have... all the more for DH and I 😅

Bluegreen143

Meant to say re the muffins you can reduce the sugar to 50g or so for very little kids - I did for Monkey weaning - Bambi as a second child just gets them as they are 🙈

Bluegreen143

@MagicCat forgot to say about curry wraps. My 4.5yo will eat a lot of things in wraps that he won’t eat on their own. So it’s just any mild chicken or veg curry we are having for dinner if I have time I serve with wraps/chapattis and make up wraps with curry, rice, maybe some salad or mango chutney or plain yoghurt in. Sometimes he has to put up with just having curry with rice but he definitely eats more if it’s in a wrap. If I just serve with rice often the veg get picked out 🙈 conversely my 1.5yo can’t quite manage wraps yet so I usually serve hers as strips on the side. She will usually eat the veg curry no bother anyway.

Bluegreen143

JULY BUDGET

INCOME

Partners monthly income after tax. £1,600

Benefits.......................£134 (child benefit)

Total monthly income........£1,734

EXPENSES

Bills................................. £530

Mortgage.....................................£0 still on mortgage holiday 

Council tax (inc water).....................£153

Electricity & gas............................. £105

Life & illness ins................................£49

Internet.........................................£22

TV license.....................................£13

Mobile phones.............................£78

Spotify..........................................£10

Annual bills...................................£100

Will move this into a savings account to pay for Disney+, home insurance, car insurance, road tax, car servicing, boiler service, breakdown cover as they renew. I’m not going to renew Amazon Prime next year.

Discretionary............................£980

Food............................................£375

This is a 5 week month unfortunately as we shop on Wednesdays. Going to bring this down each month as I’m doing the Grocery Challenge on the Old Style board

Other groceries/household........£40

Petrol & parking..................£40

not driving as much as usual so might not need so much...as lockdown eases I suppose this will change 

Fun..............................................£50

My spending.............................£50 

Red’s spending.........................£200

DIY/home projects & gardening....£50

Holiday......................................£0

hopefully we can start to save for a holiday again later in the year 

Clothes...................................£25

don’t need anything this month but will put it aside as I’m sure Bambi will be in the next size soon

Christmas/birthdays.........£100 

Emergency fund................£50

Total expenses.................. £1,512

Amount left for debt.............. £220

ACTIONS

• Cancel phone insurance (£7/month)
• Cancel old life insurance (£15/month)
• Once paid, move most money out of Red’s account and into my account and savings accounts
• Pay £220 credit card (bringing this to zero)
• Apply for universal credit(?)
• Email greengrocers to reduce veg box order & cancel milkman - both done now
• Keep posting here and on the grocery challenge threads and work on bringing this down over time
• Make a plan and budget for birthdays/Christmas with Red 

I think the August budget is going to be really tight as our mortgage holiday ends. Red is going back to work start of July (he’s doing a day’s training and assessment to prepare today actually, I’m going to miss him - we haven’t been apart in 3 months and he’s going to get back really late) but he won’t get his full income, probably up to 90% of basic and no overtime. So I may not be able to start paying MIL in August but I’ll try to do something even if just £20. Then once Red is earning full pay again I’ll increase it.

Re universal credit, thank you to the poster who highlighted this. I’ve just done the calculator and it says we are eligible for £130 a month - that’s based on our usual income but it will be lower for a few months so would we potentially get more? Feel a bit stupid as we’ve never applied before, I just didn’t think we were eligible and have never been on benefits before so didn’t really know how it worked. One thing I’m not sure is if it’s only for people looking for work as I’m not currently - I want to retrain when Bambi is 3/4 and start work once she’s at school. Unless my plan A “winning the lottery and staying at home to have a third child” comes through for me... seems unlikely though 😏😆. If anyone has any advice on UC that would be welcome!

MagicCat

Bluegreen, thanks so much for taking the time to post the muffin recipe, it looks great - I love that you can add pretty much anything! Wraps are a great idea too, will give them a go with my fussy eater!
You sound really on top of the budgeting. Re Universal Credit - I'm not an expert, but my sister is in a similar situation to you, she claims UC and as I understand it she doesn't have to look for work while her little one is aged 1, she will have to have a plan for getting back into work when he's 2, although I think doesn't actually have to work, then when he's 3 I think she has to be actively looking - her plan is retraining when he gets his nursery free hours and apparently that would count, then when he's school age she would need to work or be actively applying for jobs to claim, she plans to be in work by then anyway. Does that make sense? It sounds like it would definitely be worth you claiming at the moment even if it changes in the future.

Bluegreen143

Had a really lovely day today. Was a bit worried I’ve forgotten how to solo parent as I’ve not been apart from Red for more than an hour in three months! But it was fine. 

Extremely hot and sunny here. The morning was a mix of housework and kids playing mainly in the garden, plus at 11am Monkey had his last zoom music class from nursery as it’s now the end of term here in Scotland. After lunch and Bambi had had her nap we headed out to a country park to meet a friend and her two little ones. The kids all had so much fun climbing trees, spotting ducks and frogs at the pond, using fallen trunks as balance beams, zooming about on the balance bike, building a den out of sticks etc. 

One good thing about lockdown is that it’s been a very powerful reminder to me that kids don’t need to spend money to have fun. I love how outdoorsy our kids have become and how eager they are to play in natural environments like forests, rivers etc with not a single toy in sight! I have always taken them out in natural environments but it’s so much bigger a part of our lives now and I have every intention of keeping it that way.

Meals today:

B: chocolate banana overnight oats & strawberries

L: a mishmash of all the leftovers in the fridge + some fruit (there was a bit of veggie lasagne, some soup, some HM pittas, hummus, salad etc). Very frugal as none of it was enough for a meal on its own!

S: picnic snack out - chocolate courgette cakes from freezer and the rest of the apple/pear purée for the kids

D griddled salmon with courgette & pea risotto then yoghurt & honey for the kids

I didn’t spend anything today. Red had to buy lunch and dinner out as he was away for training quite a distance away. Not sure how much he spent yet but think he got a sausage roll and then a Burger King so it won’t be a lot. I did make him a sandwich which he took for breakfast as he had to leave at 5am.

His work have confirmed that he won’t be back at work yet next week so it’s just wait and see when he will be unfurloughed now. I’d love him to be at home with us forever, it’s been amazing, but I’d also really like him to get back to work before the mortgage holiday ends. 

Thanks for the UC info @magiccat. That’s really helpful. I may not need it for reasons discussed below but it’s good to have all the information. Do you have a diary yourself? If so I’ll subscribe, I’m really enjoying reading others!

I used to do a sort of pocket money online job (a very dull advert rating kind of thing) which earned me £100-200 a month. The project finished just before Bambi was born and while I occasionally check the site I’ve never found another suitable project. But just checked there and there seem to be lots going on right now! I’ve applied for a few to see if I get anything. If I got a similar earning from them this time then I wouldn’t need to apply for UC anyway as that’s in the range I seem able to expect in benefits. And it would mean no hassle and able to get back into work on my own terms. Only thing is the job is horrifically dull 😂 mind numbingly so. But you only do an hour at a time, at whatever time of day suits you, and you can half watch TV at the same time as it’s quite easy.

Bluegreen143

@MagicCat just realised the link for the oaty bars didn’t paste in, sorry! It’s here https://www.myfussyeater.com/sugar-free-flapjacks-for-baby-led-weaning/

Bluegreen143

It hasn’t been as good a day today, mainly as I’m so tired. Couldn’t sleep last night, my brain was wired, then Bambi woke up at 5.45 for the second day running. Given she is generally a 7-7.30 riser I am not impressed! It was pouring all morning too which didn’t help. The kids just love to play outdoors and aren’t as good at amusing themselves inside.

Still, it’s good to focus on the positives. I might try to do three daily positives/things to be thankful for on here when I remember 🙂

Today’s positives things:

1. Did some watercolour painting with the children which was nice. Now have a few cute little abstract paintings to offload on the grandparents 😂

2. Took the kids for a short welly walk round our housing estate and didn’t take the pushchair. Bambi is getting so good at walking and I only had to carry her the last bit home 🥰

3. Managed a much needed sofa nap when Bambi was napping and Red was playing with Monkey.

Not really done anything relevant to budgeting today. Must tackle my to do list next week!

Meals today:

B: weetabix & banana
L: lentil soup, bread, fruit for the kids. I had a little of this but also the leftover risotto from dinner
S: hummus, toast, fruit & I think DH had also given them tea biscuits earlier 
D. Fakeaway night - HM KFC style chicken with chips, salad and beans