A new royal start

Bluegreen143

@QueenJess £100 a month on milk??! If you use that much I’d consider dropping the milkman and switching to the supermarket. It does make a huge difference. I moved from £11 a week with the milkman to spending about £4.50 a week at the SM and I get more milk now. If you have similar costs per pint, you’d drop from £100 to £50 and make that £50 saving you’re looking for with absolutely no effort. You could always switch back once your kids are older and you use less milk. 

themadvix

@Bluegreen143 I think for Jess it’s about minimising plastic, so she’s probably not willing to buy it all from the supermarket. However, Jess, could you do what I do and compromise slightly by getting some from Riverford? It works out cheaper than the milkman and you know it’s got good ethics. It comes in plastic (well mine does anyway), but plastic milk bottles are the most easily recycled type of plastic at least. I have 2l with a delivery to reduce the cost of milkman milk as it’s so expensive.

QueenJess

I know it sounds ridiculous.. £100 on milk. I did round up to make an easy budget though. I think it’s £19 a week, so depends on whether it’s a 4 or 5 week month and I do buy organic as well so made it much more expensive for myself. We also have different milks… I use the oat milk (I actually prefer the taste of one from the milkman and hated all the Tetra packs plastic wise), DD uses whole milk and everyone else uses semi-skimmed. DH actually uses lots of milk as he has so much cereal and chain drinks tea with lots of milk in it. He’s also sensitive to different milks and it took me years to convince him to switch to the milkman.

They have increased prices quite a bit recently though and I’ve not checked it versus say Riverford. I was trying to decrease waste as much as possible and like the deliveries 3x a week as I can’t fit enough milk in my fridge for a week… otherwise I have to go shopping multiple times for milk. 

You make good points about the ridiculous cost for a month though. I think I order 14 pints in total a week I think? Sometimes the odd extra one. Will have a think about a compromise there.

badmemory

They've all increased the price of milk.  The 10% increase in the cost of living is not realistic for most people.  Milk over 65% up in the last year.  I would feel a lot better about that if I thought the farmers were getting it.  Unfortunately supermarkets are doing the same to their suppliers as M&S did to theirs over 50 years ago.  They certainly set the benchmark!

Bluegreen143

It’s obviously totally your call, I understand re plastic and used to use glass bottles from the milkman instead for that reason… I just can’t currently justify paying over double for it though now, everything is so expensive and it’s an easy saving to make. Admittedly we all use whole milk here so I’m only buying one type which is easier (I can’t stand reduced fat or plant milks and Red is indifferent as to whether it’s whole or semi skimmed so I get my own way!). I get Tesco shops twice a week so that means I don’t need to fit a week of milk in at once. But the big plastic bottles are space saving compared to glass pint bottles.

QueenJess

Happy new year everyone!  A NSD for us today.  This morning we went for a walk and saw a tractor parade thing down the road that the kids loved and found lots of puddles for the kids to jump in.  Back for lunch (cheese and leek pastries I made last night and cooked at the same time as the dinner) followed by fruit/yogurt.  Dinner will be spaghetti, meatballs and some garlic flatbreads (made a huge amount for the freezer to use up some OOD yogurt and OOD flour), followed by jelly for the kids (also made last night whilst dinner was cooking) and the last of the ys chocolate cake for DH and I.

I took a look at the budget again for 2023 and concluded that I can't make the numbers I would most like to because my childcare is £1,800 a month (£1,600 nursery and £200 after school club) and the mortgage is £860 a month.  It's an absolute huge proportion of my budget.  If I drop nursery to 4 days I think it only (ok, yes it's a lot, but not in proportion to the total!) saves about £200 because you get a discount for 5 days.  I just can't do everything.  Nursery is temporary as it's a couple of years and I need to accept I just can't do it all with the cash we have.  I need to make decisions on budget versus pension and mortgage overpayments.  It's tricky as overpaying the mortgage next year would reduce the monthly payments.  Pension is a bit less important, however, I am very likely to lose my job in the next 2 years as well and it would be good to have something stored up so if I take time out of work it won't matter.  It's nice to have stuff though I guess.  I need to try and decide what budget I should keep, emergency fund savings, mortgage overpayments and if anything is left to do some pension overpayments.

In the meantime, I just plan to try and keep the budget low and make decisions as we go through the year on what to aim for.  I need to figure out priorities and we will need to cut back the budget for sure - we just need to decide what we want to prioritise over others.  I'm sure we'll work it out as we go along.  Just so many decisions to make with potential part time working for both of us.  Definitely plenty to think through.  I also have a pensions meeting later this week - it's a free consultation due to some training I attended.  They want my custom of course, but I am hoping they will give me some things to think about and help my decisions above.

Jessy103

Hope you get the help you need to make your decisions. If not, I'm sure you'll figure it out anyway, you are extremely smart and organised 🙂

QueenJess

Well my plan for this year is to do more stuff for me, worry about less and try to do more enjoyment and less boring stuff.  It's definitely easier when not working though!

I just reorganised the big chest freezer, so I again know what I have.  I had even more than I thought, so I amended the Aldi order for tomorrow, which is now down to £75.  That still has probably a bit more than I need for just in case moments.... I'll take another look later as I'm not 100% sure I'll get the frozen veg squeezed into the freezer!  I also took a look through the veg stores and we still have a bit left and combined with some freezer meals, it means we need less.  I reduced the Riverford order down to £17.55 for this week so far (min. spend is £15, but might take another look tomorrow and see if I can curtail it further).  I also have too much oat milk, so will cancel that order on Weds (£1.25), but it all helps.  We'll definitely be working through stores this month!  I'm just trying to wean myself off thinking we need more in stock.  Some extra is useful as stuff happens, but not to the extent I previously built up stores.

Did some admin for DS; his Beavers starting form and a form for the school trip.  Now taking advantage of DD being asleep and am sitting down relaxing.  My sleep is silly still.. I was wide awake until 2am this morning, despite going to bed around 10:30pm.  It's definitely a habit thing after being awake so much for DD in the night.  Just need to keep trying and hopefully my brain will get the message.

This morning we all went to the park to feed the ducks and play.  It's a massive park and you have to pay for parking, but the kids love it and it's a relatively cheap activity.  Lunch was apparently cafe orders with the kids requesting certain meals.  DD had jacket potato (just microwaved since she doesn't eat the skin anyway) with beans and cheese, DS had cheese sandwiches with an apple and DH and I had more of the cheese and leek pastries with the last of the ys rocket.  Pudding was the last fairy cake for DS, clementines for me and DH and DD had yogurt.  Dinner tonight is roasted beef with hm yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, broccoli, parsnips and swede... yum!  I had that big piece of beef at the bottom of my freezer for a while.  We should be able to get another meal out of the beef later this week.  Pudding will be another mix - I am planning on a mince pie and vegan cream and DH is planning on a banana and chocolate chip flapjack from the freezer.  The kids will have the last two jellies from the fridge.

This afternoon will be just messing around in the house.  Might stick a load of washing on later.  Tomorrow DD goes back to nursery and DH goes back to work.  DS has a play date at a soft play centre and then we will be making birthday cards for the party he is attending at the weekend (and I will be wrapping the two presents with hm wrapping paper from packaging and paper raffia; no sellotape here!).

DD is helping out with reducing expenses by giving up dummies.  Just in her first nap without it and she was fine cuddling her favourite toys.

QueenJess

Jessy103 said:

Hope you get the help you need to make your decisions. If not, I'm sure you'll figure it out anyway, you are extremely smart and organised 🙂

Thanks so much ☺️. I do try to be organised, but sometimes I end up being super organised for 50% of the stuff and the rest is a total shambles 😂.

I am terrible at worrying as well, so going to try hard to just relax a bit more!

MagicCat

Happy New Year @QueenJess! Your plans sound great. And your food is always so yummy. You remind me that I should have a go through our big freezer