Beating Lifestyle Inflation and Staying Mortgage Free!

savingholmes

Sounds a fab yoga weekend. 

Good luck with your goals.

earthgirl2

I'm trying to use random things up in the freezer and cupboards, to save money and also because with doing an 0lio collection, I can keep 10% but I tend not to have space to freeze. I'm hoping I can freeze some of the GF stuff.

I have just bought the bare essentials of things this week, no actual meals, and it came to £63!
There are things on this bare bones list that I can get cheaper elsewhere, or do without. A lot of it is for the kids and it is lifestyle wants rather than needs for sure!

Branded crisps for the kids - they can go!

Mini cheeses - can get chopped up cheese in a box.

Iucoz@de for football- This saves me money over the vending machine, but I still think water would be better for him. I think MrAs does an off brand version?

Dark choc and almonds - this is for me - can I come up with cheaper GF snacks?

Kombucha for me - so expensive - can I think of healthy but cheap alternatives to wine? I don't want to start drinking again!

themadvix

You could have a go at making kombucha? I haven’t tried but am in a group on Facebook called fermenting friends uk and there’s loads of help and advice on there plus people willing to send scobies by post.

 I’m with you on the freezer clearance - mine is also full of random Olio things that I’ve kept as my 10% and I need to sort them and consume them!

earthgirl2

Thanks tmv I have decided to start drinking coconut water which is nice and refreshing in summer and cheaper than Kombucha. Fermenting my own Sounds interesting and maybe a winter project! 

earthgirl2

A quick update from me with some expenses.  Ds has decided that for his birthday present he wanted to buy football boots at an extortionate price. £250! We have let him do this, but he knows this is his birthday present and nothing else from us. If he wants anything else he can use his birthday money from family. 

Ds2 needed a new bike helmet his was really old, secondhand and smashed up 😱 £20. 

DS1 decided that he would rather have Spotify premium than prime et cetera so we have not renewed prime this year and trying Spotify. He has agreed to give up Lucozade as his contribution to this! 

Ds2 he's so thrifty he still has all his Christmas money left and swapped his football boots in the exchange at the local football club and kept the money I gave him to buy them. 

He has also started to shop on Vinted for any items he wants at a fraction of the price of new. 

I bought a plant for a big pot £3.99
 

We have switched the freezer on because we are having students to stay this summer for seven weeks, and I need meals that I can quickly defrost in the morning and serve in the evening. When they go, we will switch the freezer back off.

I forgot my lunch today and spent £1.69. Must get my head in gear, my lunch was in the fridge. 

In saving news:
i've planted up the veg patch and have potatos, radish lettuce and peas growing. Rhubarb is mad. My mother-in-law has given me plants out of her garden to fill in the gaps in mine. 

I have paused my gym membership because I will be too busy to go to any classes for the gym and I've been doing workouts in yoga at home using the FitOn app. I have also been walking on the beach every day.

I feel like I don't really have much else to say in savings news, I don't think I'm doing that well! 

Money making 
I am very busy, and I am sure that is why I am not having time to save as much money. I am doing seven hours of tuition online on top of my full-time job each week.

A couple of the students I have had to do a report and plan for this week. 

We had a B&B guest this week, which was amazing and we made £280. We have another one tomorrow night as well. 

I am also working on my husbands business. Although I could do more at this.

Next week we are starting with our students. The first one is just a single student on their own to ease me into it. because I am owed sometime back at work. I can manage to fit in working tutoring online and teaching students and doing excursions. If I am organised! 

earthgirl2

When I am teaching the students and there is a lot of downtime for me whilst they are completing tasks and I have to sit in front of my computer. I am hoping to get work completed and get ahead with quite a few income generating projects during this time.

I am also hoping to do fairly cheap excursions with them so that I don't have to spend a lot of extra cash. I have three weeks at the local swimming pool vouchers, but I can use to take them swimming. I have some cinema vouchers as well. I will pack popcorn and drinks and picnic lunches where I can. 

Along with this I need to amuse my own kids, keep the house pretty clean and do things for myself (like walking swimming yoga See my friends and relaxing and reading).
I also want to look at how I can cheaply get myself registered to do B&B in Scotland after the new rules come into place.

South_coast

Does having the freezer switched off save that much money? I would have thought having it would pay for itself, especially with home-grown items and the price cap going down soon

I think you need to give yourself more credit, it sounds like you are doing a lot of money saving (and making) to me!

beanielou

£250 for football boots!!!
Glad DS was never into football to that extent!

savingholmes

Well done the money plate spinning. Veg patch sounds fun too.

earthgirl2

Wow such a long time not posting, so much has happened! I'll try and summarise in a nutshell

- a few days after my last post my cat was hit by a car and left for dead. In fact neighbours found her and told us she was dead as she looked it. She was clinging on to life and after a horrific few days and lots of expensive operations, she has lived to tell the tale. We had some insurance and spent £2000 after the insurance. The whole thing still gives me nightmares! It took a lot of looking after her at home after discharge as she didn't settle in a cage and wasn't supposed to move, so I basically moved into the utility room to nurse her. 

- during the summer 7 weeks of students arrived and left. I got good reviews from them all and did cheap activities with them all. One was so lovely that we are staying in contact and I'll try to go and visit her in the future. I made about £5000 profit. 

- because of the cat needing nursing we only managed one week away where a mixture of relatives and friends looked after the cat. It was a cheap holiday on a nearby island, we didn't spend much. 

- generally the kids did cheap activities. 

- I did cat sitting for an app and made £40. I kept tutoring online and have some new customers (I would do this in the utility room, sat with the cat!). 

- I didn't spend much on back to school really £40 for 2 branded jumpers (but will hopefully last us 2 years for both boys) and £20 for water bottle and PE T-shirts. Also £60 and £80 on school shoes. Actually that is quite a lot! 

- I didn't do a lot of gardening so I didn't get the benefit of my veg garden this year. Next year!!

- We had the hospital appointment and ds2 is at least gluten intolerant, probably allergic and maybe celiac but because they didn't test him when he first presented to the allergy clinic - they sent him away with no testing. Now they say he needs to go back on gluten for 6 weeks to establish this. We don't want to do that to him - he was so ill on gluten - so we have to pay for the gf stuff ourselves. 

- I've set up a new shopping system. I roughly know what we will eat in a month. Once a month huge shop at ald1 or 1id1 to buy everything that doesn't go off, freezer stuff, toiletries etc, and then a weekly shop at Mr A for milk fruit bread and gluten free stuff. So far it's worked ok and I think our grocery costs are starting to come down. 

- I have finished the most stressful part of a 3 month project. Delivering a 2day training to others. Originally I was going to be paid more for this, and then I was told I wasn't but I could get time back. Now I'm not sure what is happening about being paid for work that is way beyond my pay grade and job description. I hate doing this but I must speak to my manager about it. At least the most stressful part is over!! I can't earn too much more or I will jump into the higher rate tax band. 

So I either - ask to get paid more for work I'm doing anyway, and reduce tutoring outside of school to stay under higher rate tax.  

-The work I'm doing will be useful if I ever went for promotion and it protects my job and gives me a good relationship with senior managers in the council. It is stressful though. 

- Ask for time back for work I'm doing outside of my job, so that I end up with lots of days I can take to make holidays cheaper. I can also use these days to do things I want to do like go on organised hikes and yoga retreats.