MeandO's money-shuffling

MeandO

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82139472#Comment_82139472

That all makes sense, foxgloves. I too read about other countries helping neighbours out and it being more of a community effort than individual. I think it may have been Finland. I'd love to live in a neighbourhood like that, but sadly my neighbours, except one, all seem very much for themselves. I have often taken cakes, bakes, Christmas cards etc round and am usually eyed with suspicion!

I actually bought some long life milk yesterday and stocked up on porridge oats. I may continue to buy one or two items extra that will keep but it's a struggle with affordability and storage space for me presently. We have plenty of torches, candles and a charged phone charger thingy (can't remember the name of them!) and plenty of blankets etc if we need to keep warm. I'm glad you've said you have stashed water in the loft, I will buy an extra case or two and pop them up there then, covered up, maybe.

ArtyJ931

best start stocking up I guess. I am in a small city within walking distance of lots of shops and supermarkets so hopefully will be ok anyway

foxgloves

@MeandO - I think the government advice was exactly that, just to encourage people to be a bit more resilient in terms of being able to 'do the basics' if there was a national or local problem. I think there is probably a huge range of approaches to this, from the full scale utterly committed 'prepper' to those who couldn't organise their way out of an empty crisp packet. I remember reading a while ago about a chap phoning the police because his local branch of a well-known chicken shop chain was unexpectedly closed so he couldn't buy any take-away! There will always be people who think the government/local council should do everything in an emergency & ours does get onto the sandbag distribution pretty quickly with being a flood zone, but of course they would need a few days to get organised in the face of an emergency so in that intervening time, we would have food, water, light &/or whatever, depending on what the emergency happened to be. Good thinking on the long-life milk. I bought a carton yesterday & Mr F announced he'd rather drink black coffee or no coffee than put that in it, so I have threatened to write my name on it!

Years ago, when I lived on my own, there was a lot of snow one weekend which caused a power cut. It was pre-online shopping & I also had a horrible sore throat. Didn't want to drive in heavy snowfall, local bus not running, so I set off on the mile long walk to the nearest shops to get some medication. I got about halfway before I was so covered in snow I gave up & came back home. I decided I'd be ok if I could just have a hot drink. An electric oven so that &the kettle were out of the question, so I set up a little ring of candles, filled my smallest pan with water & held it over the candles to heat. It took ages & by this time, the power had been off for about 4 hours. I had just got it hot enough to pour onto my coffee……& the lights came back on! Typical but glad to see the power back as it was so cold. A friend phoned me shortly afterwards, complaining that he'd just 'had to go to bed all afternoon' because there was no power, then my Mum phoned as she'd heard on the news that our region had been without power due to snowfall. She said she wasn't worried about me as she knew how much I love candles & that I'd have plenty in! She was right & my flat was very fragrant after all the scented ones I'd had burning. I felt really resilient…..& I drank that not-quite-as-hot-as-I'd-like cup of coffee because I felt proud of myself (made a better one afterwards though!)

We've had an expensive year here & I am not intending to spend lots of money hoarding supplies, just a few things being bought here & there to ensure we have a more resilient pantry than usual, & making sure that includes things which can be eaten without cooking in case 'whatever it is' involves a power cut . I think I will copy your addition of an extra bag of porridge as that can be eaten uncooked as overnight oats, so thanks for that.

F x

debtfreewannabe321

I have a few things in bulk but they all require cooking so if the power went out we'd be beggered. I've thought about a generator before but don't really have money to prep in that way. In my old house we were caught in a flash flood which was just awful. I've never in my life seen so much water. We lost power and nearly lost the ground floor to the house to it and our fish were swimming in and out of our flower beds the water was so high. We were out there using whatever we could to direct it back to the road but drains were blocked too! So I have always had in the back of my mind we should prep in some way. But our freezer as it was in the old house is in the garage...if it was a flood again, well the water went about three ft up the freezer so a generator on the floor would be no good would it 🤣. We've not had floods here thankfully we're slightly higher than the road but I slightly go to catastrophising mentality sometimes when bad weather starts because of the last house.

Sorry money is so tight for you, we've done alright this month thanks for the odd sale coming through which has topped up spends here or there. But this can't last forever so I need to find another way to top up soon enough. I really should get back to surveys! It's a good way to boost income each month.

MeandO

I loved your 'Coffee by Candlelight' story, @foxgloves.
@debtfreewannabe321 which survey sites do you use? I used to do a lot of them - p!necone was good then (when it was £3-£4) a survey), but I found it so boring and frustrating when booted out of surveys after answering 90% of the questions. I might have to resort back to it though, even just to boost the gift fund or something.

MeandO

Morning all,

It's Friday! One more week until payday…

DS had some money to put in the bank from FB sales which I was planning on doing yesterday after blood tests. I hobbled halfway to the bank and then remembered the local branch is shut on Thursdays,🤷🤦 so kept the cash myself to pay for groceries etc from my purse for the foreseeable and transferred the amount to DS's account from one of my pots.

I did a bit of a budget overhaul this week and went through income vs outgoings based on the potential mortgage rise next month as the rate on one of my sub accounts is ending and going from 1.74% to around 5%. The child maintenance is also being reduced by almost £50 per month (won't go into that now).😡 It's a good job I did this exercise as it turned out outgoings were £3 odd more than income. 😕

I went through the bank account and cancelled a few things that weren't essential: Netflix (before the price rises and we get D!sney+ free with my bank account perks) and Pr!me. We use the music streaming on the latter and free delivery when I order stuff from the big river site, but OH also has membership and will order things for me and I will send him the money. I don't order things that often now anyway, although Christmas is coming up and that's when I tend to use it the most.
DS has spotify and uses that a lot so I will see if it can be used on more than one device.

That little exercise reduced the outgoings by £14.98 per month, but I will need to pay £25.99 a month for something related to DS's sport training from next pay day 🙈 and he has asked for some Maths tuition and the 'School/Sports' pot is currently empty after all the expense of the Summer.
I showed DS the budget and explained to him that something will have to give so that we can afford everything. He said he would quit the sport, but he lives for it and he would be so down, so I'm not allowing that to happen. We have agreed to par down Christmas/birthday gifts and save less to that pot so that I can afford everything. 😕

I'm dreading the energy rise now. I'm on a fix until November and it's almost £100 a month as it is, not sure how I'm going to factor in the price rise. I will have some backpay and a (very) small pay rise in this month's salary, but the backpay paid in one hit means I won't be eligible for UC next month, so have to allow for that. Plus the slight pay rise will mean less in UC every month so I won't really see a benefit.

I listed a few more items on fleabay last night in attempt to bring in a bit more money but there's been no interest yet. I hope some sell.
I'm also going to have to buy petrol before pay day despite driving everywhere on eco mode. I'll have to take it out of the car pot as I don't have the funds elsewhere.

A couple of years ago I earned a lot less, had a bigger mortgage and was still able to have enough in the budget to comfortably pay for everything, save money and overpay the mortgage. Those days are long gone, everything costs so much now, especially on one income. 😕

ArtyJ931

any chance of re-fixing before the rise?

MeandO

Unfortunately not, Arty, as there's an early exit fee. 😐️

MeandO

Hello, I hope Monday is being kind to you all.

Mine has involved a Dr's appointment this morning, more demands for blood and a referral to neurology. Hopefully I'll get some answers.

I had a nice relaxing weekend on the whole. We didn't do much but that was just what I hoped for. Friends popped over for a couple of hours yesterday and we had cups of tea sat out in the garden as it was lovely and warm. It was nice to catch up with them. One of them is a GP so gave me some good advice for my appointment today.

The grocery budget has been overspent 🙄as we ran out of fruit, milk, eggs etc. so I'm going to take the overspend from one of the other pots to compensate, probably the car pot as that is at £900 presently with no expected expenses on that front for a good few months, hopefully. Pay day is this week and I will be relieved to reset the budget and fill the pots a little again.

Two items sold on fleabay at the weekend making £31.50 which I will put straight towards paying things off. I've listed everything I want to pay for and popped it in my signature. It doesn't look great but I am better at paying things down than paying things (savings) 'up' if you know what I mean. I'm more motivated this way.

debtfreewannabe321

Hi MeandO I'm sorry things are so tight. We've had to go through our budget with a fine tooth comb too lately. Could your DS find a small part time job (is he 16? Or still 15?) it could perhaps teach him a little about budgeting but also relieve your budget ever so slightly if he pays for his sports he likes? I know when both my DS1 and DD got jobs they were so pleased and proud to be earning their own money.

I use prolific for surveys I gave up on pretty much all the other ones I tried as they'd kick me out when I'd already wasted time on it or pay a pittance.