A Paupers Pension Tale (Not many nuts to dig up)

gambleruk

Well Summer is flying by so far, not been the greatest with the weather but apart from that as been wonderful being able to enjoy it without the pressures of work, Being flexible and being able to meet up with friends whenever they are free and also having the time to organise these days as been great, hardly had a free weekend all Summer. Suppose that is a downside of retiring so early is that most of our friends are still working so usually has to be the weekend when we get together.

Financially has been surprisingly easy as well, we have had to replace our karcher, then the steam cleaner and looks like the kitchen fridge will be next but the nice taxman gave me a thousand pound refund from last year so covers all of that with plenty to spare. Our major expense was the festival we went to where we spent £150 on the day, also bought tickets to 3 more gigs later this year, Beth Hart, Cadillac Three and Thunder so hoping these go ahead and we don't lose out on booking fees if they are cancelled but all of this has been managed within our budget.

Like most people on here our pensions are doing very well at the moment, I have consolidated all my wife's pensions into her current one to make life easier and I am thinking of moving my Aviva pension at some stage soon, I moved my old works pension from Now Pensions into Vanguard Vls80, took a few months as Now were really poor but all sorted now. 

The one thing I have found over the past 12 months is just how little we spend on shopping, our budget was £400 per month but only twice have we gone above that and that was down to stocking up on beer & wine, we are regularly under £200 so have been using the rest for going out for a few beers etc. I know this might sound silly but I feel like we have never been better off with our money, never mind our day to day living. Talking of which the wife is off today and we are off to walk the dogs soon and then spend the afternoon in one of our local pubs in the sunshine and sit and put the world to right .

Sunnylifeover50plan

gambleruk said:

The one thing I have found over the past 12 months is just how little we spend on shopping, our budget was £400 per month but only twice have we gone above that and that was down to stocking up on beer & wine, we are regularly under £200 so have been using the rest for going out for a few beers etc. I know this might sound silly but I feel like we have never been better off with our money, never mind our day to day living. Talking of which the wife is off today and we are off to walk the dogs soon and then spend the afternoon in one of our local pubs in the sunshine and sit and put the world to right .

£200 or less, for a couple, is the holy grail - without being critical I'd love to know what you get or don't get for that.

gambleruk

Sunnylifeover50plan said:

£200 or less, for a couple, is the holy grail - without being critical I'd love to know what you get or don't get for that.

To be honest I do all the shopping now so I tend to do one big shop a month and apart from essentials only buy stuff which is on offer, we also get 15% off as well since my wife works for Tesco so I make sure I do the big shop over the 4 days the discount is on, we get 10% off at all other times. Home bargains for cleaning stuff, greengrocers for fruit & veg and stock the freezers up with stuff from Iceland. Wine I always get when there is 25% off 6 bottles, add the 15% off as well and makes a huge saving, Our cupboards and both our freezers are always full to the top, I really am bad for making sure we always have at least one extra of everything as well, drives my wife crazy lol.

Sea_Shell

We're currently averaging about £200 per month for groceries too (for a couple).   We don't get any discounts, but our main shop is in Aldi. 

Plus the odd few bits from Waitrose (food), or Poundland or B&M (household)

harlequinnyc

About £220 a month for us too. Main shop Aldi (this includes wine for moi - OH doesn't drink), then household & toiletries from B&M and Home Bargains. M&S if we fancy an Indian 'takeaway' occasionally,  £10! 

Time's getting close for me, I retire in 10 weeks, eeeek!! 

cfw1994

We need to sharpen our ways 🤪
(although conscious of the thread title, we are consciously avoiding any paupers tales)

This year, we have averaged about £100 pcm 'eating out' (okay - mostly a weekly takeaway, and some dining out!).
Regular food shopping is around the £300pcm mark for mostly the two of us.  (Quicken tells me it is £350, but this includes Costco, so will include fancy new headphones, presents, some clothes 👀)
"Going out, having fun" is around £120pcm.....'holidays' is slightly less than that, although my LEJoG adventure in May (19 days plus a few in Scotland at the end) tipped in at £1,800 all in

The saving grace is that my budget was for food at £500pcm, and similar for entertainment.....& holidays had me aiming for a considerably higher target, so I think we are chugging along okay!

Sea_Shell

We've had one meal out and 2 rounds of coffee and cake so far this month....so we've spent about £60.

I classify these spends under "holidays and entertainment" on my spreadsheet, so they are separate from "groceries".

It includes actual holidays, and magazine subs, and film hire or cinema and eating out etc etc.....unless we've just bought "normal" food in whilst at self-catering accommodation, as that would have been what we'd eaten at home anyway.

SuperSecretSquirrel

Average food and household shop for us weighs in at around £250pm for a family of four (two primary school age children).

OH doesn't drink at all, I get through £10 worth of cheap beer a month.

We cook mostly from scratch, and fairly healthily (lots of salad and vegetables). One day a week junk food dinner (pizza/tacos/enchiladas/burgers/etc, usually with salad, maybe a few chips), one day a week vegetarian dinner, one day a week fish new potatoes and steamed veg, other days are usually things like roast chicken dinner, casseroles, grilled chicken salads, cottage pie, spaghetti bolognese, chilli, curry, steak mushrooms tomato beans and egg, etc). Nothing too exciting, but what we eat we eat as a whole family, no separate children's meals nonsense! We split the spicier meals into two batches

Breakfasts are usually cereal/porridge/toast, lunch usually salad/soup/leftovers or egg/beans/cheese on toast. There's always fruits and yogurts to snack on (and often home made fruit salad topped with yogurt for dessert - apple, orange, banana, strawberry, grape, and whatever happens to be on offer that week e.g. mango/pineapple/blueberry/melon/pear/etc). We drink cheap decaf coffee, branded tea, unbranded juice, and a mix of branded and unbranded squash. We also usually have a packet or two of biscuits and kitkat type things in the cupboard.

We feel like we eat quite well, but also quite cheaply. We don't really restrict ourselves at all. The key for us is using a meal plan and shopping list, and getting the main weekly shop from aldi/lidl, extra household/branded items from hb/b&m, and the occasional small extra bits from asda.

We used to spend a fair amount on top eating out and on the occasional takeaway, but we stopped that during the first lockdown and the habit hasn't really returned.

Albermarle

SuperSecretSquirrel said:

Average food and household shop for us weighs in at around £250pm for a family of four (two primary school age children).

OH doesn't drink at all, I get through £10 worth of cheap beer a month.

We cook mostly from scratch, and fairly healthily (lots of salad and vegetables). One day a week junk food dinner (pizza/tacos/enchiladas/burgers/etc, usually with salad, maybe a few chips), one day a week vegetarian dinner, one day a week fish new potatoes and steamed veg, other days are usually things like roast chicken dinner, casseroles, grilled chicken salads, cottage pie, spaghetti bolognese, chilli, curry, steak mushrooms tomato beans and egg, etc). Nothing too exciting, but what we eat we eat as a whole family, no separate children's meals nonsense! We split the spicier meals into two batches

Breakfasts are usually cereal/porridge/toast, lunch usually salad/soup/leftovers or egg/beans/cheese on toast. There's always fruits and yogurts to snack on (and often home made fruit salad topped with yogurt for dessert - apple, orange, banana, strawberry, grape, and whatever happens to be on offer that week e.g. mango/pineapple/blueberry/melon/pear/etc). We drink cheap decaf coffee, branded tea, unbranded juice, and a mix of branded and unbranded squash. We also usually have a packet or two of biscuits and kitkat type things in the cupboard.

We feel like we eat quite well, but also quite cheaply. We don't really restrict ourselves at all. The key for us is using a meal plan and shopping list, and getting the main weekly shop from aldi/lidl, extra household/branded items from hb/b&m, and the occasional small extra bits from asda.

We used to spend a fair amount on top eating out and on the occasional takeaway, but we stopped that during the first lockdown and the habit hasn't really returned.

Your description of your meals and what you eat sounds very similar to our house ( 3 adults)  However if I take off the booze from our bill, we seem to spend around  £200 each , so not quite sure how you ( and others ) manage to keep it down so low.

Maybe we should look at the exact expenditure in more detail , drive miles to get to Aldi, B&M etc 

Then again I worked One More Year ( or two or three ) so I did not have to bother counting the Pennies , so maybe I will not bother . I think after years of MSE type behaviour , now I have retired I am starting to loosen up and even bought myself a nearly new car 

bluenose1

For 3 adults we still average out approx £400 per month as until I retire my oh does vast majority of  the shopping. He does shop in Aldi but quite often goes to Co-op etc for bits!!!
When I am retired I anticipate that will go down quite a bit.
We both tend to do intermittent fasting so often don’t have our first meal until after 2pm. More for the health benefits than to lose weight.
We eat similar to above, though eat a lot of eggs and cottage cheese and for dessert frozen fruits with greek yoghurt.  We fortnightly batch cook a satay sweet potato curry which we found in the BBCGoodfood site which we both love and freeze several portions. That is quite adventurous for us…. For anyone looking for a new recipe would definitely recommend. We buy the red Thai kit from Aldi and top it up with more coconut milk.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/satay-sweet-potato-curry