SOA budget advice 12 December 2022 at 9:12PM edited 16 December 2022 at 12:20PM in Debt free diaries 41 replies 4.7K views

theoretica

Good actions already.  From your SOA it looked to me as though you hadn't really budgeted - just spent and let habits continue and money take care of itself.  It's your money, you know it can only be spent once, and you need to divide it out in the most effective ways for your family. Which for many people means thinking about money more than you have been used to - not in a worrying way, but calculating, making plans, reworking the calculations and plans if you are considering spending that was not in the plans...

RobM99

Cracking start - yay!

foxgloves

Good start, Snowdrop! 
You will definitely be able to reduce the grocery spend. We don't have tinies, so can't do an exact comparison of course, but it can be helpful when looking to set a sensible grocery budget to have an idea of what others are doing. As the budgeter in our relationship, I allow £350 per month for grocery shopping. This is for two adults (including 1 big hungry husband who is built like the proverbial brick privy!) & 2 cats. It also includes all cleaning & household products, loo roll, washing powder, all that kind of thing & pet food. We eat really well on this amount of grocery budget. We cook from scratch, meal plan every week & always write our shopping list from this plan, making sure that we check every item to see if we can 'shop it from home' instead of automatically putting it in the trolley because we can't remember if we need it or not. We find that batch-cooking saves money too & use our freezer as a key money-saving tool. We like an occasional takeaway, but not at the once-a-week (or sometimes twice!) level we used to have back in the Spendy Era before that lightbulb finally pinged on & began addressing our debts. Nowadays, if we want a takeaway, it comes from our existing grocery budget or occasionally from our Leisure/Entertainment Pot. If there are no available funds for splurging on takeaway in either of those, then we can use our monthly Personal Spends. What we DON'T do is put them or any other eating-out/treat type expenditure on a credit card. It shouldn't be revelatory as a 'living within one's means concept', should it? But Mr F & I lived beyond our income for a very long time & I look back now we are completely debt-free & wonder how we failed to get a grip a whole lot earlier. It sounds like you are doing so & will be free of debt at a much younger age than we were.
 One thing I CAN tell you about is the amazing feeling you get when you pay off that last chunk of debt & realise that your income is now your own. If you'd told me in my 20s or 30s that I would be debt-free & actually advocating on this forum for a debt-free lifestyle, I'd have probably collapsed laughing! Apart from a mortgage to buy a home & borrowing to buy a sensibly-prices reliable car for work, etc, I can't think of any situation which is improved by being in debt. Your time is now, Snowdrop! Good luck with it all.
F

snowdrop33

Thank you for all the comments they are really encouraging. 

We have done our budget tonight together and worked out how many hours I would need to earn extra to cover all our bills. And the plan is to do this for the next year and then review everything. We have worked it so with my 6 weeks annual leave I get for my permanent job that I would earn slightly extra on the other weeks so that I get these weeks off too from extra work. 

snowdrop33

enthusiasticsaver said:

Some great actions taken already.  Would you like me to ask this thread to be moved to the diaries section?  Then it will all be in one place rather than you having to go through it all over again.

Yes that would be good and then I can carry it on. Thank you

enthusiasticsaver

I have asked the forum team to move the thread to the diaries section.  Saves you going over everything again. 

enthusiasticsaver

snowdrop33 said:

Thank you for all the comments they are really encouraging. 

We have done our budget tonight together and worked out how many hours I would need to earn extra to cover all our bills. And the plan is to do this for the next year and then review everything. We have worked it so with my 6 weeks annual leave I get for my permanent job that I would earn slightly extra on the other weeks so that I get these weeks off too from extra work. 

Good that you are making a plan together.  As the debt drops lower it will be really motivating to think you  can drop working hours.  I would tackle the grocery shopping first to save money as that is an easy win.  @foxgloves has given you some good suggestions. 

I would suggest menu planning, batch cooking, cheaper supermarket if possible and more veggie meals which tend to be cheaper.  For reference we normally spend £300 for 2 people and that usually includes a bottle of wine every 2 weeks between us.  We are not big drinkers.  Maybe go through receipts and see if you can downbrand on stuff too. 

flipflopflo

Pop over to the Old Style Moneysaving board and check out some of the threads on there especially the Grocery Challenge, it’s fabulous for helping get the groceries spend down. 

snowdrop33

So January is soon approaching and I have got everything in place for my debt free journey. 

I have opened a monzo account and opened the various pots I need and loaded in the amounts. I have kept my normal account with enough in to cover all fixed bills and will use the monzo for my variable spending so I can keep track of everything. 

I plan to upload at the end of the month what I have actually spend vs my budget to keep me in check. 

The plan is for the next year is to learn how to budget properly and continue ti pay off my loan in the hope that 2024 I can reduce my work hours slightly. By then we won’t have to pay nursery fees and the debt should be reduced. 

I have already made some easy changes to decrease outgoings. 

I think my main learning this year is going to be planning and budgeting for these things in advance so I don’t have to use credit. Rather than buying things or booking things and then think about paying for them afterwards. 

DawnW

Good luck @snowdrop33. You can do this!