Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

marionmgcars

I’ve just finished balancing my books for February and reduced my food shopping bill by £30 - absolutely delighted.  This is from using Too Good to Go app, and the Olio app. Being new to retirement I love that I have time to use these apps and menu plan, and always shop with a list.  

marionmgcars

Brilliant start to your weight loss Foxgloves 👏👏

Makingabobor2

marionmgcars said:

I’ve just finished balancing my books for February and reduced my food shopping bill by £30 - absolutely delighted.  This is from using Too Good to Go app, and the Olio app. Being new to retirement I love that I have time to use these apps and menu plan, and always shop with a list.  

The TGTG app is a bit rubbish in this area by the seem of it and Olio doesn't seem to have much either. Maybe I should keep trying though. Think that's it isn't it? Having the time. I am retired but still seem to have no time....lol  Maybe I need to have a life reset. 

badmemory

The NI No duplication used to happen a fair bit years ago, due to typos & no way of verifying & double issueing.  A lot of people years ago used to have their contributions logged (if you can call it that back then) to a different NI No again because of what were basically typos by employers (& their employees) & also because of the gov.  This must seem incomprehesible to people now who have to go through so many checks, but years ago if you rang up they didn't even ask your date of birth let alone all the stuff they ask now.  Of course the people on the end of the phone now just don't believe anything like that could ever have been possible.

Makingabobor2

badmemory said:

The NI No duplication used to happen a fair bit years ago, due to typos & no way of verifying & double issueing.  A lot of people years ago used to have their contributions logged (if you can call it that back then) to a different NI No again because of what were basically typos by employers (& their employees) & also because of the gov.  This must seem incomprehesible to people now who have to go through so many checks, but years ago if you rang up they didn't even ask your date of birth let alone all the stuff they ask now.  Of course the people on the end of the phone now just don't believe anything like that could ever have been possible.

Yes, I suppose mistakes were so much more possible years ago.  I have the same first name and surname as my MIL, although different middle name. Can you imagine what chaos that might have caused years ago....lol. 

cbsexec

Makingabobar2

Yes, I suppose mistakes were so much more possible years ago.  I have the same first name and surname as my MIL, although different middle name. Can you imagine what chaos that might have caused years ago....lol. 

Don’t you believe it - just as many mistakes made now only now they always believe the computer is correct 😱

themadvix

Makingabobor2 said:

marionmgcars said:

I’ve just finished balancing my books for February and reduced my food shopping bill by £30 - absolutely delighted.  This is from using Too Good to Go app, and the Olio app. Being new to retirement I love that I have time to use these apps and menu plan, and always shop with a list.  

The TGTG app is a bit rubbish in this area by the seem of it and Olio doesn't seem to have much either. Maybe I should keep trying though. Think that's it isn't it? Having the time. I am retired but still seem to have no time....lol  Maybe I need to have a life reset. 

Are you checking Olio in the evenings? Tesco collections don’t happen until 8.30, so things aren’t listed until after this (volunteers have to get the food home, sorted and then listed). Anything that’s use by has to be collected that night, so you will have to turn out then for that, but stuff that’s best before might be collectable the next morning - but you need to read the listing from the FWH (food waste hero/volunteer). Always, always, always put the time you can collect in your first messages as this will help the FWH to allocate the food to you (and saves them from getting peed off and ignoring you - it’s quite high pressure with the time constraints and many, many messages, so do everything you can to help them and you’ll be more likely to be allocated food). Iceland collections are a bit earlier usually, around 5.30. But things go fast, especially at the moment, so you need to check often.

Suffolk_lass

@lucielle TRE is time restricted eating - partial day fasting, with the length of fast typically being determined by your age. eg 12:12 means you eat all your meals within a 12 hour window and fast for the other 12. Diabetics might fast for 14 and eat within 10 and those wishing to lose weight may do 16:8, irrespective of age.

walkers60

Please could you explain your savings pots for me.  Do you mean you have a separate bank savings accounts for each of the different pots - a bit like in the past my in-laws had separate envelopes for each pot.  ie food, travel, holidays, repairs etc.  Is this the modern version?

foxgloves

Hello diary readers - what a lovely lot of comments, all of which I have enjoyed reading.
@joedenise - Why have I never thought of that re low-fat coconut milk? Effectively 2 for the price of 1. You are a clever sausage! I will defo be trying that at some point.

@WinterWarrior - It's the thought of the Hand of Fate waiting in the wings which prevents me raiding our savings pots......I just know that if, say, I used a sum from the Meow Pot to fund something else, one of the little devils would manage to stage a vet visit-required drama by the end of the same week!

@lucielle - Exactly as @Suffolk_lass said above. Mr F & I are eating healthily (principles of Judith Wills' Traffic Lights Diet' which has worked for us in the past, but we are also following TRE as per 'The 10 Hour Diet' by Jeannette Hyde. This involves a 14-hour fast (a lot of which happens overnight so not nearly as drastic as it sounds) then a 10-hour 'eating window'. We've chosen this to be from 10am to 8pm.

@marionmgcars - Thanks! I can but try......must admit I am quite motivated by being able to fit in all the stuff which was too tight to wear last year. Think what a shopping from home opportunity that will be!

@walkers60 - Yes, that's kind of the same thing. In fact, when I first started budgeting to pay down our debts, I did use the envelope system with actual cash & for somebody much more used to frittering money than saving it, this was a good entry level stage to the practicalities of Savings Pots. I only had 6 envelopes/categories back then, but as I became more confident, increased it to 10 & swapped to virtual pots. We have a Co-op current account which has a linked savings account. It's very easy to transfer funds from one to the other, so all the Savings Pots money is in that savings account as a lump sum, but I have a regularly updated spreadsheet which separates it into the 10 categories, so that I can always see at a glance what is in each. Every January, we have a Money Summit - basically a meeting where we look at where we are with our finances & set goals for the year ahead. As part of this, we run through each of the 10 savings pots categories, think about any obvious planned expenditure we know will need to come out of them....then set a maximum holding for each one for the year. This means that as certain of them fill up (often because they have smaller target maximum amounts), nothing more is added, so the money that has been used to build them up can then be snowballed into other pots. Hope this make sense.....do feel free to ask me if it's about as clear as mud! It protects our precious emergency fund because the Savings Pots cover those expense that ought to be perfectly foreseeable - i.e a car bill, a replacement fridge, presents, annual cat boosters, etc.
F