Mimis money makeover

Mimismoney23

Flights from Edinburgh are super cheap to newquay. I did consider it as flights from.manchester near me are 10 times the price hence the driving. 
Hope you are getting on well with your mission 

Mimismoney23

Today we tried my daughter on her bike after being in storage and it's a million miles too small. So I have sent it to my niece and have been looking at how to get her a new bike without the cost. I found out my local council loan out bikes monthly for free and offer free cycling classes in the park on Saturdays so I have signed up for that and was really pleased at the savings that will be.
We do have 2 other bikes that are a bit seized up and old and they offer free servicing and repairs of bikes too so I am hoping to get them fixed up and find a use for them.
Been a good day of looking for alternatives.

SuzeQStan

Subscribed Mimi 😊 how are your vinted sales going?  I used to sell a bit but think I’ve gotten a bit lazy with it lately.  Hoping your success will
inspire me to get back into it.

That’s really good about the bike scheme! Maybe with the other bikes fixed you can go out as a family on the bikes for low cost activity

Mimismoney23

Hi @SuzeQStan so far no progress with vinted sales but my son has informed me he hates all his clothes this morning so I will have quite a bit more to add. I always struggle to price things but hopefully i will have some good updates soon.

Mimismoney23

So I've lost track of how many days in I am but I've paid an extra £5 off one of the small debts today. 
I have all weekend free with no kids and no plans so I will be getting more on vinted and trying to eat what foods in the freezer that no one else really wants. 
I have made a start on making some clothes for our holidays out of my fabric stash so I should have plenty of time to get some of that finished without breaking the bank. 
I have been on the surveys on a few different sites so have a couple of pounds built up so far. I know they will take quite a while to build up but it's nice to feel like I'm doing something useful in my spare time.
We have had two birthdays last week so thats took a little more than I would have liked out of the pot but I am going to try and make up for it this week. 
£170 comes in tomorrow so I am figuring out how I am going to divide that up to be best use and try to stop myself spending while I have it. 

Mimismoney23

So as I have £170 coming in this week which needs to last 2 weeks for food, petrol etc I am going to keep the £100 in the bank and pay £70 off my smallest debt which is currently £363.43. That should take me to £293.43 and I will aim to pay it off and close it on payday on 22nd. It's not my highest interest item which I would prefer to pay off but I realise that as its one I can use regularly to pay for items I am at risk of paying it off and then using it again if I am short and need something which is a slippery slope. 
I know keeping things open with low balances is better for my credit score but if they are there I will use them and get myself into a pickle again so om being tough on it. 
I'm trying to just ignore my credit score and focus on doing what's best to get the debt gone. 

Mimismoney23

Just worked out my food spend for June so I can make a realistic budget going forward. Horrifying to see in June I spent £840.93 in supermarkets. That's my whole years wage if I do that every month just on food. I also didn't include any meals out in that.. so that shows exactly where all my money goes and more than it should. 
It definitely needs an overhaul but it's going to be tricky.

ShakeItOff

@Mimismoney23 - 100%! I was on keto a couple of years back, and the prep was always worthwhile.  That and my slow cooker - that thing was worth its weight in gold!

NomNomPaleo and the Well Fed books are also good resources, I found (yep, ex-paleo and Whole 30-er here!).

SuzeQStan

Mimismoney23 said:

Just worked out my food spend for June so I can make a realistic budget going forward. Horrifying to see in June I spent £840.93 in supermarkets. That's my whole years wage if I do that every month just on food. I also didn't include any meals out in that.. so that shows exactly where all my money goes and more than it should. 
It definitely needs an overhaul but it's going to be tricky.

Hi Mimi - well done on your LBM 💡- I found that restricting our food shop to weekly online/home delivery helped us to save a fortune on food costs. No limitations just no top up/popping out to the shops. Only the weekly online shop.  

You can make a food plan taking into account all meals/snacks packed lunches etc that need to be covered, then put all required items into your online shopping cart to get a realistic view of cost & what you need to cover a whole week.  

If you get delivery later in evening from 7pm onward in mid week it’s quite cheap (MrA. as low as £1.50). 

This saves so much money as impulse buys don’t even enter into the equation. I challenge myself to cover all eventualities in the single online shop.

If I haven’t bought it in the weekly big shop we have to do without it till the following weeks big online shop. And if we forgot something then we rely on freezer items which do come in handy

 Good to make sure everyone knows the score.  And they can contribute what they want (within reason 😉) as well to the big online shop.  It can be like a challenge for the family.

no unplanned shops, budget protected.

edit to ask - what do you think would be a realistic monthly budget for food for your family? What figure would you like to stick to?

Mimismoney23

@SuzeQStan thank you for your advice I definitely think getting deliveries is a great idea. I am terrible for just going to the shop every single day spending money and it adds up. I get 10% nhs discount at Asda so I'm trying to use them but I'm not sure if I get it online so I think I will look into that this week.
I'm going to try and drastically cut the costs as I think as a family of 3 we should be more around £200 per month but I will definitely have to start cooking from scratch a lot more.
I am concerned it will be a big shock to the children but will be better when I have more money in a year so hopefully they understand.