Advice on reducing food bill?

Lisalouise1974

I swear by getting my shopping delivered. This allows me to both meal plan and not overspend. I use Tesco, I have switched to mostly own brands for basic stuff. I do go to Lidl once a month for a big shop, butter, fish to freeze, cereals, and some meats. This allows for two adults and two cats, breakfast, lunch ( we both work from home full-time ) and dinner  and all household goods inc shampoo, toilet rolls, cleaning stuff for about £50 a week. If my partner wasn't here I'd get this down to £35/£40 per week.

The things I also noticed were:

If your BF is there every weekend then he should contribute to weekend shopping if he doesn't already. 

Your electricity seems too low, please make sure you are giving monthly meter readings or you might owe them a lot of money.

A freezer is probably a must.

Would your employer allow some sort of hybrid working to try and cut down you petrol costs, you never know unless your ask.

I have combined broadband and mobile via plusnet, including a slight increase I am paying £33 a month.

Lack of contents insurance would worry me, I get both on a joint policy for £19 a month.

Retireinten

The good thing about working for an LA is they will be very aware of the impact of things like energy increases on their residents/citizens and subsequently will have to seriously consider any reasonable request made to manage this for their employees. You are essentially being pushed into a form of financial hardship by your work situation and the energy crisis. 

I would have an honest conversation with your manager about your commute costs and the fact you are struggling to balance your income and outgoings.  Can they increase you to the next pay spinal column point? Can you reduce your commute days?  Don't just go in with the problem though, consider how you could make this work - try to have a workable solution for management to consider. 

I appreciate you do work related visits but can some be held via teams or held over 3/4 days with notes being completed for each on the day you work from home. Is it possible to condense your hours into four, with three being visit days and one being a home working day.

I wouldn't rule out moving jobs either.  Recruiting in LAs is a huge headache at the moment with many paying more for the same job to attract applicants.  That combined with commute costs would allow you to pay back any bonus say over a 12 month period.  The main risk is if they try to  make a deduction from your last months pay. 

wiggers

Focus on buying food with a high protein content. In a typical meal, protein should be 50% of the total weight or more.

Look up the "P:E diet" for more details.

EssexHebridean

kimwp said:

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. 

Why is PayPal debt "vile"?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6054527/paypal-credit-beware/p1 

specialkaye

Regarding the commuting costs and possibly a couple of things to think about.

1. Can you plan the visits to 3/4 days a week and WFH the other days?
2. Do you HAVE to clock into the office before your first visit? If not and you have visits closer to home your work mileage will start after the first visit so you might be able to reduce your 'commute'. Do this on both the way in and way home if you can?

FluffyBabyPenguin

Regarding buying a freezer, you'd have to work out how much money you'd actually save. Batch freezing and YS bargains are great for utlising an existing freezer, but if you're already in debt and you're not spending a crazy amount on food, a few freezer meals per week will take a long time to break-even on the initial freezer cost. If you batch cook, many meals keep in the fridge just fine for 4 days anyway. If you buy YS food, it can be cooked/made into a meal, and then refrigerated for another couple of days. 

It may be worth seeing if you can get one second hand, or even for free, which would make it more worth your while.

It may be useful to keep a note of roughly what each of your meals are costing you. Do you cook much from scratch, or use a lot of convenience food? How often do you get takeaway or eat out? The Old-style board has a few great recipe threads that you may find helpful.