Advice on reducing food bill?

wmp92

kimwp said:

I'm getting a bit confused - is any of that £450 fuel cost on your SOA reimbursed by your employer (because it's part of the work you do) or is it all for commuting and personal driving?

Sorry it is a little confusing. £450 is the average amount I am spending on fuel. I have a 82 mile daily commute. On top of this I have work mileage for which I am reimbursed - this amount varies between £100 and £250 a month back - unsure how to include that in the SOA? The proportion of personal and commute is higher, but obviously the 45p a mile is for the work miles plus maintenance.

i think the monthly changes (work is unpredictable, each day different etc) make it difficult to work out  

wmp92

warby68 said:

I know you've only asked about food costs but your SoA does show quite a tricky position as far as paying for anything more than the absolute essentials and reducing debt goes.

Just to check your SoA, is your mileage allowance included in either net income or net fuel cost? If not the picture may look a little better and this plus coming council tax reduction might clear your shortfall.

I agree its the fuel cost which is crippling you. Its 25% of your net salary and if you add in all your vehicle costs that total rises to well over a third.  You will only be able to make the remaining salary stretch so far. If there's a good reason why you can't change this for another year, you might need to dig deep just to hold your overall position. There isn't any room for gifts, or the occasional social items you mention.

Yes you can probably squeeze the food budget if you work at it but unfortunately I suspect any savings here will be swallowed up by the large price increases we're all facing this year, especially domestic fuel. Plus your petrol bill will also currently be rising.

I don't mean to be a doom merchant but I really don't see those travel costs as sustainable for very long whatever you do with the rest of your income. Hopefully you have a plan to address this though and its short term pain for long term gain. 

It is really bad and I regret not considering it before signing the contract. I could leave before but would have to pay back a £3000 bonus that I can’t afford. 

emwi

Could you clarify the petrol costs again. Does the £450 include petrol for work (not commuting) for which you get paid a petrol allowance? Basically any petrol allowance payments need to go under income (average it out for a monthly payment) and all the money you spend on petrol needs to go under fuel costs including the petrol you use during work.

kimwp

wmp92 said:

kimwp said:

I'm getting a bit confused - is any of that £450 fuel cost on your SOA reimbursed by your employer (because it's part of the work you do) or is it all for commuting and personal driving?

Sorry it is a little confusing. £450 is the average amount I am spending on fuel. I have a 82 mile daily commute. On top of this I have work mileage for which I am reimbursed - this amount varies between £100 and £250 a month back - unsure how to include that in the SOA? The proportion of personal and commute is higher, but obviously the 45p a mile is for the work miles plus maintenance.

i think the monthly changes (work is unpredictable, each day different etc) make it difficult to work out  

Ok, so you pay out an average of £450 for fuel and some of that is reimbursed at a rate of 45p per mile, which is higher than what it costs you in petrol per mile because some of that 45p is for maintenance. Do you go over the threshold for the reimbursement dropping to 25p a mile?

You've got a few options for how to put this on your SOA/budget:
- The quickest way is to take £100 off your petrol cost (or add it to your income) if this what you do as a minimum for work each month and treat the additional £150 as nice to have for throwing at debts/savings (I can't remember what you said you had)
- Another way is to average what you claim and and take this off your petrol cost or add it to your income. This will get you closer to understanding what the overall picture is for what you pay out on fuel, but your monthly amounts are going to vary massively from this.
- A more complicated way, that I recommend because a. fuel is such a large part of your income and b. fuel prices are rocketing is:
Split out your fuel costs for work and fuel costs for everything else:

1. Work fuel costs get reimbursed by work so don't appear on your SOA
2. Everything else fuel cost goes on your SOA. As the 45p per mile reimbursement hides some of the costs of your personal fuel, I think you need to work out what your personal monthly mileage is and your average litres per mile, then multiply by the cost of the fuel you use. Knowing these numbers will help you understand the change to your budget as the fuel price changes, which will be significant for you, so worth understanding.
NB Regarding the extra money from your fuel reimbursement over the actual cost of the petrol, you can decide if you want to add some of this to your income on your SOA (eg if you definitely get £100 reimbursement, you could add the additional over the actual fuel cost to your income) or keep it completely separate as a car maintenance fund (bearing in mind you should actually save this somewhere) - let me know if you are not sure what I mean by the 'extra money'.

Something else you could do (bearing in mind the threshold for the 25p per mile reimbursement and extra wear and tear on / decrease in value of your car) is try to get the higher mileage tasks at work so that it helps pay more of your commuting costs. 

wmp92

kimwp said:

wmp92 said:

kimwp said:

I'm getting a bit confused - is any of that £450 fuel cost on your SOA reimbursed by your employer (because it's part of the work you do) or is it all for commuting and personal driving?

Sorry it is a little confusing. £450 is the average amount I am spending on fuel. I have a 82 mile daily commute. On top of this I have work mileage for which I am reimbursed - this amount varies between £100 and £250 a month back - unsure how to include that in the SOA? The proportion of personal and commute is higher, but obviously the 45p a mile is for the work miles plus maintenance.

i think the monthly changes (work is unpredictable, each day different etc) make it difficult to work out  

Ok, so you pay out an average of £450 for fuel and some of that is reimbursed at a rate of 45p per mile, which is higher than what it costs you in petrol per mile because some of that 45p is for maintenance. Do you go over the threshold for the reimbursement dropping to 25p a mile?

You've got a few options for how to put this on your SOA/budget:
- The quickest way is to take £100 off your petrol cost (or add it to your income) if this what you do as a minimum for work each month and treat the additional £150 as nice to have for throwing at debts/savings (I can't remember what you said you had)
- Another way is to average what you claim and and take this off your petrol cost or add it to your income. This will get you closer to understanding what the overall picture is for what you pay out on fuel, but your monthly amounts are going to vary massively from this.
- A more complicated way, that I recommend because a. fuel is such a large part of your income and b. fuel prices are rocketing is:
Split out your fuel costs for and fuel costs for everything else:

1. Work fuel costs get reimbursed by work so don't appear on your SOA
2. Everything else fuel cost goes on your SOA. As the 45p per mile reimbursement hides some of the costs of your personal fuel, I think you need to work out what your personal monthly mileage is and your average litres per mile, then multiply by the cost of the fuel you use. Knowing these numbers will help you understand the change to your budget as the fuel price changes, which will be significant for you, so worth understanding.
NB Regarding the extra money from your fuel reimbursement over the actual cost of the petrol, you can decide if you want to add some of this to your income on your SOA (eg if you definitely get £100 reimbursement, you could add the additional over the actual fuel cost to your income) or keep it completely separate as a car maintenance fund (bearing in mind you should actually save this somewhere) - let me know if you are not sure what I mean by the 'extra money'.

Something else you could do (bearing in mind the threshold for the 25p per mile reimbursement and extra wear and tear on / decrease in value of your car) is try to get the higher mileage tasks at work so that it helps pay more of your commuting costs. 

Thank you ☺️ I think I need to go through it on my laptop when I have a bit more time and redo the SOA. Hard to do it on a small phone screen!

i hadn’t thought about that re higher mileage tasks. I was trying to get the lower mileage ones but that’s a good point that the future the mileage the more I earn! 

CapricornLass

RE the presents: I don't know who these are for, but maybe you could ask the recipients if you could either forgo buying presents for each other, or set a small price limit.  After all, other people are in the same position with rocketing prices and they may be thankful that this is one small cost they don't have to find.  

EssexHebridean

wmp92 said:

Updated SOA (do I put house’s value or the amount of equity I have?)

[font=courier new][b]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet[/b][b]

Monthly Income Details[/b]

Monthly income after tax................ 1825

Partners monthly income after tax....... 0 IS this just you in the house? we're missing the bit that says the "people & car" numbers but I'm assuming 1 person, 1 car?

Benefits................................ 0

Other income............................ 0[b]

Total monthly income.................... 1825[/b][b]

Monthly Expense Details[/b]

Mortgage................................ 470

Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 126.5

Rent.................................... 0

Management charge (leasehold property).. 0

Council tax............................. 148 Try to find out now how much your payments for the new financial year will be, and if you've not already done so, ask to pay across 12 months rather than the usual 10. 

Electricity............................. 30 I'm afraid you need to add at least 50% to both of your energy bills. I'd also suggest checking that they are accurate as your current costs seem to be suspiciously low.

Gas..................................... 25

Oil..................................... 0

Water rates............................. 26.5

Telephone (land line)................... 0

Mobile phone............................ 15 You would be able to reduce this as soon as you are out of any contract you're tied into. I see you have the cost of an iPhone in your repayments so your phone will be fine for a few years yet - just look for a decent SIM only deal. 

TV Licence.............................. 13.37

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0

Internet Services....................... 42.75 This is high - use the main MSE site and the weekly emails to see what offers there are for internet at the moment. Depending on availability in your area you may well be able to at least halve this, though. 

Groceries etc. ......................... 250 You can definitely know some off this - that's £50 a month more than I budget for an mine feeds two of us, and we eat far from as cheaply as we would if we were paying off debt! 

Clothing................................ 30 This can reduce - at least for a time you need to make your clothing spend "essentials only" - make anything else last by caring for it well and repairing/getting repaired when needed.

Petrol/diesel........................... 450 This is your issue. Paying 25% of your income on commuting costs just isn't sustainable I'm afraid. have you explored all the public transport options available to you? Also bear in mind if this has been your cost, you're probably going to see a huge increase in it very shortly.

Road tax................................ 2.5 If you pay this monthly then check you're not being charged a premium for doing so. Ideally budget to switch to 6 monthly or annually.

Car Insurance........................... 53.82

Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 35.41 I don't believe this amount will cover your annual running costs I'm afraid. On the mileage your fuel spend suggests you must be looking at 2 services a year, and I'd be surprised if you don't go through a set of tyres annually and probably a set of wiper blades, too. Then add in things like oil, screenwash, keeping the car clean and tidy... Also - do you actually put this aside or is this here as a proportion of what you believe the annual cost to be without you actually budgeting it? You're showing no cash assets so I'd suspect the latter...

Car parking............................. 0

Other travel............................ 0

Childcare/nursery....................... 0

Other child related expenses............ 0

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10 

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0

Buildings insurance..................... 10

Contents insurance...................... 0 Why nothing here? 

Life assurance ......................... 0

Other insurance......................... 0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 Definitely need to budget for this

Haircuts................................ 17

Entertainment........................... 0 Again - this is implausible I'm afraid. Unless you're suggesting that you go to work, go home again, and your only entertainment ever is sitting infront of the TV then there will be other random spending in this category. A coffee with a pal, the occasional newspaper or magazine, the odd takeaway or even just a sandwich when out and about or when you've forgotten to take lunch to the office? 

Holiday................................. 0 You never go anywhere at all? Not even a weekend visiting family? 

Emergency fund.......................... 0You own a home and a car - you MUST have something here. Seriously - what happens if you get up tomorrow morning and the fridge has stopped working overnight, or go outside to begin your commute and the car won't start? How do you pay for a replacement, or repairs that are needed?[b] 

Total monthly expenses.................. 1755.85[/b]

[b]

Assets[/b]

Cash.................................... 0

House value (Gross)..................... 44000

Shares and bonds........................ 0

Car(s).................................. 0

Other assets............................ 0[b]

Total Assets............................ 44000[/b]

[b]

Secured & HP Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Mortgage...................... 97159....(470)......2.11

Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 4175.....(126.5)....6.9[b]

Total secured & HP debts...... 101334....-.........-   [/b]

[b]Unsecured Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

iPhone ........................486.......37.5......0

Virgin credit .................5509......55........0

PayPal credit .................1971......51........0[b]

Total unsecured debts..........7966......143.5.....-   Are these definitely all on 0% I assume PayPal credit will stop being so at some stage - you need to stop using this anyway really - it's a vile form of debt. Stick to just paying for stuff you buy using PayPal upfront - it's safer that way.[/b]

[b]

Monthly Budget Summary[/b]

Total monthly income.................... 1,825

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,755.85

Available for debt repayments........... 69.15

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 143.5[b]

Amount short for making debt repayments. -74.35[/b]

[b]Personal Balance Sheet Summary[/b]

Total assets (things you own)........... 44,000

Total HP & Secured debt................. -101,334

Total Unsecured debt.................... -7,966[b]

Net Assets.............................. -65,300[/b]

[i]Created using the SOA calculator at www.LemonFool.co.uk.

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i][/font]

Apologies - only just got to this but some comments above in bold as ever. the concern to me here is that you are already in deficit and there are very few savings to be made - there's far more stuff that you aren't currently budgeting for but need to. The commuting costs are killing you - your current salary simply doesn't sustain that level of expenditure on car costs. If you could get a close-to-home job even if it paid £300 a month less you'd still be massively better off just by losing the car. For perspective, you're currently paying a third of your take-home pay purely in the costs relating to the car. 

Just to note - I realise that your original thread just asked about food costs but you do realise that you have a bigger issue than one which can be solved just by trimming food costs, yes? You are absolutely in the right place to get help, but it's going to be a bigger challenge than simply trimming a few £'s here and there off your grocery spend I'm afraid. what I will say is that the sooner you tackle the situation, the sooner you can actually make inroads into getting rid of the debt -  at the moment it is only going to be increasing I'm afraid. 

Soundgirlrocks

Going back to you original request for help with food, everyone agrees meal planning is a great way to save but its something I struggled with especially planning for 1! I discovered an app (iOS only at the moment) called Meal board, its brilliant for meal planning and you can create shopping lists and if you want keep stock of store cupboards. Its made a big difference to how much I spend and you can adjust the servings on your recipes per meal / week ( you upload, scan recipes into the app)

I now do a batch of soup for the working week (5 portions), and a different dinner each night (serving 2) plus weekend meals and am spending about £50.00 a week for 2 people. I generally don't eat breakfast so that helps.  Having a clear list when I do my shop and not wasting because I've bought too much is brilliant.

As others have said the Old School board is great for advice on how to cut your food bills

kimwp

EssexHebridean said:

wmp92 said:

Updated SOA (do I put house’s value or the amount of equity I have?)

[font=courier new][b]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet[/b][b]

Monthly Income Details[/b]

Monthly income after tax................ 1825

Partners monthly income after tax....... 0 IS this just you in the house? we're missing the bit that says the "people & car" numbers but I'm assuming 1 person, 1 car?

Benefits................................ 0

Other income............................ 0[b]

Total monthly income.................... 1825[/b][b]

Monthly Expense Details[/b]

Mortgage................................ 470

Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 126.5

Rent.................................... 0

Management charge (leasehold property).. 0

Council tax............................. 148 Try to find out now how much your payments for the new financial year will be, and if you've not already done so, ask to pay across 12 months rather than the usual 10. 

Electricity............................. 30 I'm afraid you need to add at least 50% to both of your energy bills. I'd also suggest checking that they are accurate as your current costs seem to be suspiciously low.

Gas..................................... 25

Oil..................................... 0

Water rates............................. 26.5

Telephone (land line)................... 0

Mobile phone............................ 15 You would be able to reduce this as soon as you are out of any contract you're tied into. I see you have the cost of an iPhone in your repayments so your phone will be fine for a few years yet - just look for a decent SIM only deal. 

TV Licence.............................. 13.37

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0

Internet Services....................... 42.75 This is high - use the main MSE site and the weekly emails to see what offers there are for internet at the moment. Depending on availability in your area you may well be able to at least halve this, though. 

Groceries etc. ......................... 250 You can definitely know some off this - that's £50 a month more than I budget for an mine feeds two of us, and we eat far from as cheaply as we would if we were paying off debt! 

Clothing................................ 30 This can reduce - at least for a time you need to make your clothing spend "essentials only" - make anything else last by caring for it well and repairing/getting repaired when needed.

Petrol/diesel........................... 450 This is your issue. Paying 25% of your income on commuting costs just isn't sustainable I'm afraid. have you explored all the public transport options available to you? Also bear in mind if this has been your cost, you're probably going to see a huge increase in it very shortly.

Road tax................................ 2.5 If you pay this monthly then check you're not being charged a premium for doing so. Ideally budget to switch to 6 monthly or annually.

Car Insurance........................... 53.82

Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 35.41 I don't believe this amount will cover your annual running costs I'm afraid. On the mileage your fuel spend suggests you must be looking at 2 services a year, and I'd be surprised if you don't go through a set of tyres annually and probably a set of wiper blades, too. Then add in things like oil, screenwash, keeping the car clean and tidy... Also - do you actually put this aside or is this here as a proportion of what you believe the annual cost to be without you actually budgeting it? You're showing no cash assets so I'd suspect the latter...

Car parking............................. 0

Other travel............................ 0

Childcare/nursery....................... 0

Other child related expenses............ 0

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10 

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0

Buildings insurance..................... 10

Contents insurance...................... 0 Why nothing here? 

Life assurance ......................... 0

Other insurance......................... 0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 Definitely need to budget for this

Haircuts................................ 17

Entertainment........................... 0 Again - this is implausible I'm afraid. Unless you're suggesting that you go to work, go home again, and your only entertainment ever is sitting infront of the TV then there will be other random spending in this category. A coffee with a pal, the occasional newspaper or magazine, the odd takeaway or even just a sandwich when out and about or when you've forgotten to take lunch to the office? 

Holiday................................. 0 You never go anywhere at all? Not even a weekend visiting family? 

Emergency fund.......................... 0You own a home and a car - you MUST have something here. Seriously - what happens if you get up tomorrow morning and the fridge has stopped working overnight, or go outside to begin your commute and the car won't start? How do you pay for a replacement, or repairs that are needed?[b] 

Total monthly expenses.................. 1755.85[/b]

[b]

Assets[/b]

Cash.................................... 0

House value (Gross)..................... 44000

Shares and bonds........................ 0

Car(s).................................. 0

Other assets............................ 0[b]

Total Assets............................ 44000[/b]

[b]

Secured & HP Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Mortgage...................... 97159....(470)......2.11

Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 4175.....(126.5)....6.9[b]

Total secured & HP debts...... 101334....-.........-   [/b]

[b]Unsecured Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

iPhone ........................486.......37.5......0

Virgin credit .................5509......55........0

PayPal credit .................1971......51........0[b]

Total unsecured debts..........7966......143.5.....-   Are these definitely all on 0% I assume PayPal credit will stop being so at some stage - you need to stop using this anyway really - it's a vile form of debt. Stick to just paying for stuff you buy using PayPal upfront - it's safer that way.[/b]

[b]

Monthly Budget Summary[/b]

Total monthly income.................... 1,825

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,755.85

Available for debt repayments........... 69.15

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 143.5[b]

Amount short for making debt repayments. -74.35[/b]

[b]Personal Balance Sheet Summary[/b]

Total assets (things you own)........... 44,000

Total HP & Secured debt................. -101,334

Total Unsecured debt.................... -7,966[b]

Net Assets.............................. -65,300[/b]

[i]Created using the SOA calculator at www.LemonFool.co.uk.

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i][/font]

Apologies - only just got to this but some comments above in bold as ever. the concern to me here is that you are already in deficit and there are very few savings to be made - there's far more stuff that you aren't currently budgeting for but need to. The commuting costs are killing you - your current salary simply doesn't sustain that level of expenditure on car costs. If you could get a close-to-home job even if it paid £300 a month less you'd still be massively better off just by losing the car. For perspective, you're currently paying a third of your take-home pay purely in the costs relating to the car. 

Just to note - I realise that your original thread just asked about food costs but you do realise that you have a bigger issue than one which can be solved just by trimming food costs, yes? You are absolutely in the right place to get help, but it's going to be a bigger challenge than simply trimming a few £'s here and there off your grocery spend I'm afraid. what I will say is that the sooner you tackle the situation, the sooner you can actually make inroads into getting rid of the debt -  at the moment it is only going to be increasing I'm afraid. 

I find it useful to read the thread to avoid covering old ground.

Why is PayPal debt "vile"?

GrumpyNige

Personally, we have a 7-day meal plan and I do the shopping, from the list, not the better half.