Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Less_Talk_and_More_Action

Amazing use of the Christmas turkey @foxgloves.  

We don’t have much in the way of Christmas paper leftovers but (for the first time) we have saved all gift bags for re-using. 

I hope you don’t mind me butting in (again) to ask a question.  Your information re personal spends was incredibly helpful so my next question is about pots.  I have set some up in a separate bank account but wonder if you would mind sharing the pots you have. I think I’m there with ours but may have missed something.  

This is a big part of my intentional actions to debt repayment- to avoid bills coming out of nowhere and having to use a credit card.  

All words of wisdom are very much appreciated.  

L x 

foxgloves

Hi LTMA, I don't mind you asking at all. We are all here to help each other. Remaining debt-free for the rest of my life is one of my biggest motivators, especially as I was a late convert to budgeting.We have 10 Savings Pots:
Car maintenance
Clothes
Holidays
Meow fund
Appliance replacement
Tech replacement
Dentist/Optician
House & garden
Leisure/entertainment
Presents
On the same spreadsheet, I also have a space for our Personal Spends Savings. I have £100 of unspent Personal Spends in there as I thought that as I don't currently require it for anything, it may as well be contributing to earning a little bit of interest.
In addition to our 10 Savings Pots, we have an Emergency Fund & New Car Fund - the latter has been fed with £100 per month since we bought our current car, based on estimated trade-in & how many years we will keep it. This should ensure that our next car purchase will not require any sort of loan, as we would rather not go back down that route if possible. 
I hope this is helpful & answers your question. 
F

Less_Talk_and_More_Action

That's really helpful @foxgloves.  I have just banged my head against a brick wall in recognition of general stupidity in missing off dentist/opticians!!!!  Given we both wear glasses and I have teeth that seem to need something every year and attend a very good, but very expensive, dentist I can't believe I overlooked that.  Mr L has a dental plan and doesn't seem to need all the work I do. I don't think we will have an emergency fund for the next six months whilst we build up some of the pots as i think most would be covered by one of the pots.  This will enable some good reduction on CC1.  But it's definitely in the plans as I recognise that one of the key things I need to reduce is over-reliance on my CC to pay for any unexpected (and some expected) expenditure.
I really appreciate the information.  I relate to so much of your spendy years musings, you could be writing about me although I am an even later convert to budgeting!  I don't share your capability in crafting, knitting etc but it still interests me and your methodical and deliberate approach to things is exactly what I am looking to develop.  I occasionally think about all the money frittered away and am disappointed in myself, but I can only change what's ahead and I still have lots of opportunity to get all this squared away and be debt and mortgage free on retirement with savings in place as well and a sustainable plan for myself and Mr L to enjoy our later years.
Many thanks for your help.

Lx 

foxgloves

That's the exact point of the Savings Pots, @ LTMA....to have funds put by for what are perfectly foreseeable expenses. Tbh, I didn't initially have a pot for dentist/optician either as I only set up 6 pots initially to see if the system worked for us. I also have crumbly teeth which always need a lot of work & need varifocal specs, as does Mr F. When I paid over £500 for my first pair of varifocals (which did not involve particularly expensive frames), I realised we needed to be putting money aside in readiness. The key thing is that our pots keep things off credit cards but also keep our emergency fund intact. A broken freezer, a dental filling, a replacement toaster, cats'annual.boosters, new car tyres or winter coat, etc....they are not emergencies because they are perfectly foreseeable. With Savings Pots in place to take care of this everyday stuff, we can avoid using credit cards & kidding ourselves that various costs are 'emergencies' when they are not.
I should add that we do both have a credit card & use them regularly, but unlike in the Spendy Era, they are paid off in full every month. In fact, they now pay US, as we primarily use them just for loyalty points which are paid out in vouchers.
F

Makingabobor2

I've just been sorting out my new pots for 2024 and never thought about a separate " appliance" or "tech replacement". Might have to have a little re think & sort one out  

milann

Pleased the gravy wasn’t compromised by lack of cornflour. I have to admit to getting twitcy when my cornflour tub looks low. 😂😂 so fully understand.
Glad the turkey s t r e t c h e d to so many meals. 

ladyholly

milann said:

Pleased the gravy wasn’t compromised by lack of cornflour. I have to admit to getting twitcy when my cornflour tub looks low. 😂😂 so fully understand.
Glad the turkey s t r e t c h e d to so many meals. 

Thank you for the cornflour reminder. Now added to next weeks shopping list.

Moorviews

Great creative work with your turkey! All I have done is to make stock and freeze the remaining meat in meal sized portions. The drumsticks have been frozen separately to make soup with. My mother made soup the same way as your nana. It’s amazing how many tiny little bones there are in a bird! Like you, I make and strain the stock before making soup. It’s a far more pleasant experience to eat. 

All my wrappings and trims have been folded now and the cupboard repacked. @Baileys_Babe - I use fat quarters of quilting fabric for my reusable wrapping. You can make bags with it, or just fold it and stick with sellotape like paper. Some ribbon helps to secure everything and that can also be used again. I receive a lot of gifts in paper gift bags, therefore have too many in store. I try, but fail, to get the giver to take them back. Now, that I have sorted them out I’ll make sure to donate some to a charity shop towards Christmas 2024. 

We had to replace a kitchen appliance in the week before Christmas so I can see the importance of a separate pot. We don’t have separate pots, although I used to have a few virtual ones on the budget sheet so that we understood how much money could be budgeted for groceries or gifts. Now, we need to get a lot more organised, as we need to decide what our annual income is going to be in the year ahead. This is due to us not having salaries anymore. I shall be thinking about your pots as a good starting point. Thank you for being willing to share the details with us. 

foxgloves

Hello Friday Frugalistas,
Thanks for all your comments & contributions. As I suspected, Mr F didn't need to open the new box of cornflour for his Christmas Day gravy, which he looked very slightly sheepish about, before saying that at least we are now stocked up for gravy needs well into the new year!
@Moorviews - Yes, any soup made from poultry is better done in 2 stages to avoid all those tiny bones as far as I'm concerned. There is no flavour difference. I sit down to a bowl of my turkey soup & it is just the same as my Nana's, just without the pearl barley & occasional unwelcome bits. Aged about 11, I was once convinced I'd found a turkey eyeball floating around in her Boxing Day soup & got in trouble for wasting it! Of course it couldn't conceivably have been an eyeball, as this was long after the days when ordinary non-shooting/hunting folk would pluck & draw their own Christmas game birds, but once I'd convinced myself that's what it was, I couldn't not see it!
Anyway, onto more resources that are worth maximising at this time of year. Today is my Big Budget Day, so I have spent most of this morning (fortified by coffee & Christmas cake) working on January's budget. And if leftover turkey was Useful Resources 1, no. 2 has been Various Oddments of Festive Underspend. Turkeys are ordered on weight bandings so I had to budget top-end in case we got a whopper. We got a smaller one, which resulted in an underspend of £21-07. I have sent that across to the Presents Pot this morning. As we had a decent wodge of nectar & C**p points saved up for Christmas, we also had an underspend of £58-35 on what I had budgeted for December's groceries. I have carried this sum into January's budget to pay for our traditional New Year's Eve take-away curry, then what is left after that will be transferred to a savings pot. The savings pots also benefitted from us still having lots of food in, enabling me to budget £50 less for January's groceries which was added to this month's pots allocation to make a total of £350-93. I have paid into 7 of the 10 pots. Of the remaining 3, two of them are at the maximum amount we agreed on for the current financial year & the 3rd one is actually overly full, as until next month when I need to get the final stage of my implants finished & settle up, it is holding the money for the rest of my private dentistry work. 
This afternoon, we are going to do next week's meal plans, plus January's master meal plan so it will be interesting to see what we will actually need to buy food-wise this week. I am thinking defo cat food, butter, maybe flour & a few basics, but using the resources we have in stock, I am hoping not too much more than that. 
Time to go & find some lunch,
F x

badmemory

I'm another one that has spent quite some time today dealing with spreadsheets but I do the whole year.  All it has shown me so far is that I will have a bigger problem this coming autumn than I did last autumn.  I have to hit the last day of the month with £1005 in the bank.  This can be interesting when your pension arrives 4 weekly & I suspect it isn't all caused by my overestimating.  Back to the drawing board then.