Stopping the backsliding… a family of four no longer living beyond their means

Bluegreen143

Floss said:

How about a family trip to Go Ape if you have one near you?

Also, maybe think about your family gifts - you're budgeting £365 before you even think about your kids or each other. My family have previously had a £15 limit, and last year we did Secret Santa which stops all the giving for the sake of it. My sons both have way more disposable income than me so don't get presents now unless it's an '0' birthday.

Red has zero interest in cutting budget to his family. If anything he may want to spend more than this on his mum to spoil her - bearing in mind that she lost a son and got cancer and diabetes diagnoses within the past year. 

Given his mum is single, with few personal relationships except Red and us (one other university aged grandson, who won’t probably remember to give her anything!), I can also understand that he feels Christmas would be slightly grim for her without him making a fuss of her and giving her the opportunity to make a fuss over us.

My parents and sister/brother in law have good incomes and while I’ve broached the idea of reducing budgets before, and in theory they’re on board, in practice they spend just as much after the conversation and I would feel really mean if I just have a token gift. I might broach again with my sister though.

I usually get my mum and stepdad tickets to something or a similar experience gift, eg tickets to the ballet, plus a book each. I know it sounds expensive but it just doesn’t feel like it’s an OTT gift 🤷‍♀️ 

Another factor is that our kids are the only young children in both extended families (Red has two childless siblings, and my sister hasn’t got kids yet though is young enough for that to change) and of course everyone makes a massive fuss of them, and it doesn’t feel right or grateful to not buy anything much back. If all our siblings had kids we could buy for kids only but that’s not how our families are.

What my mum and sister and I have done is stopped giving each other birthday gifts (all our birthdays are in August) except a very cheap token thing to open for about £5, and we save our money for our annual weekend away together each September. 

Beanielou, I haven’t heard of Popsy but I’ll check it out! 

Thinking I could even make them both an item of clothing for their birthday, think I have a dress sewing pattern for little girls kicking about somewhere. They are still young enough not to find HM clothes cringe!

What I should have done with Monkey’s jumper is knitted it for a gift rather than just giving it to him. I’ve been knitting it around him and he knows about it so it doesn’t feel right on this occasion. 

Bluegreen143

Updated “Stuff” to buy/borrow/make/mend:

1. Navy jogging bottoms for Monkey - both his current pairs have small holes or stains, which is OK for playing at home but not for sending to school for PE.

2. Check that Monkey has enough branded school jumpers in correct size (if not, should be able to make do until next second hand sale at school. They are £4 second hand but £27 new!). 

3. Non stick/ceramic coated frying pan as ours isn’t in good nick anymore.

4. New bras for me.

5. New nightwear for me.

Bluegreen143

Red and I are both a little, ahem, worse for wear today after our (fabulous) night with friends yesterday. He suggested halving in for a takeaway out of our personal pots. Not only am I rough, but the fridge is also bare! BUT the thought of confessing on here, once again, kept me to the straight and narrow. Plus I’d already begun defrosting the chicken for dinner. 

I’ve got an interesting but tasty smelling curry on the hob just now - we’ve no onion or garlic 😳 but I’ve added granules of both to the spices used. I triaged which of the leftover veg from during the week needed used up most and the curry is bulked out with cauliflower, chopped red pepper, half a punnet of cherry tomatoes and mushrooms as well as the chicken. I’ve also got naan dough rising to go with it. 

Tesco shopping coming tonight! I already know I forgot a couple of household items - the food waste bags you need for putting food waste in the brown bin, and food bags, which I need for freezing the dried chickpeas I bought once they’re cooked. But I’ll try to do similar to last week and buy as little as possible through the week to really get in the habit of once a week shopping again. 

The shopping cost £95.48 and contains:

Fruit & veg
Romaine lettuce 75p
Broccoli 66p
Grapes £1.90
Rocket £1
Green beans 85p
Frozen savoy cabbage £1.60
Frozen leeks £1.50
Carrots 65p
Cherry tomatoes £1
Apples x6 £1.49
Cucumber 89p
Red pepper x2 £1.18
Garlic x2 £1.10
Red onion x2 34p
Lemons x4 £1.20
Kiwi fruit 30p

Meat & dairy
Lean mince 500g £3.49
Salmon fillets x4 £8
Salted butter x2 £3.38
Extra mature cheddar 400g £3
Bacon £1.45
Mozzarella balls x2 £1.38
Whole milk 8 pints £2.90
Finest sandwich ham x2 £5
Greek yoghurt 500g 85p
Pizza mozzarella 250g £2.25
Chicken breast 950g £6.50

Bread
Seeded bread £1.05

Store cupboard
Jarred green olives £1.30
Strong white flour £1.30
Spaghetti 500g 28p
Ketchup 890g £1.35
2kg dried chickpeas £2.10 (I ordered one and they’ve substituted a 2kg bag for the same price!!)
Tin pineapple 65p
Beef stock can £2.30
Mayo 500ml £1.20
Chopped toms x4 £1.95
Baked beans 42p
Onions 1kg 99p

Treats & drinks
Mackies ice cream 1ltr £3.30
Decaf coffee £3.50
Pringles £1.75
Variety crisps x6 £1
Salted cashews 99p
Decaf cola x6 £4.20
Bugles crisps £1.25

Household 
Toilet rolls x9 £2.17
Kitchen roll x2 £1.79

I wanted to spend under £91 because of the top up items this week (to keep it under £100 all in) but it’s not too bad, though I do have a couple items still to get and may need more bread or bananas later in the week too.

Meal plan 

M - minestrone soup 
T - meatball spaghetti 
W - salmon, chips or rice, veg
Th - chicken curry or chicken fried rice 
F - HM pizza
Sa - out for dinner 
Su - chicken pie 

Spendless

Are you aware that there's a special occasions board for Christmas (and other celebrations) and a couple of Christmas threads run on it all year round. Many of us buy throughout the year to spread the cost, though as my family get older I tend to save my loyalty points towards gifts. Do you already shop anywhere that does them. My main ones are Boots and Tesco that I save. I randomly got asked to do a survey last year that gave me £10 Amazon gift card and used that too. Though my list is loads smaller than it used to be, I also  buy for extended family, mine is top heavy with pensioners including my almost 99yo Nan. 

Re the kids birthdays since everything falls in the same month, what about considering a present for say the birthdays one and an experience for Christmas (or vice versa). Mine are in their 20s and they definitely remember what they did rather than what they received as a present. Only yesterday my 21yo was telling me how much she enjoyed the variety of holidays we did as she grew as some were UK, some Europe, a couple of US and covered  Beach, theme park, woodland and city breaks. I was quite touched cos I'd always considered our breaks (except the US ones) as not that special and purely based on affordability at the time. In comparison I don't think she's ever mentioned ehat her fav Christmas gift was to receive.

Re actual presents though, at 9 mine outgrew lego (he'd never been into the kits, always wanted to build his own stuff) and became interested in k'nex instead. https://www.basicfun.com/knex/ Still needs storing though! 

themadvix

Do you need to buy food bags for the chickpeas? Do you have empty cereal bags, takeaway tubs, bread bags?  I use all of the above rather than buying food bags (empty cereal bags come from my dad as we don’t actually have any - porridge oats come in paper bags).

 In a similar vein, could you line the food waste caddy with newspaper? I use the bags too, but have just read in Nancy Birtwhistle’s book that she just lines with newspaper. Suspect it depends how frequently it gets emptied/how wet the stuff in it is.

Bluegreen143

@themadvix the council rules are that they won’t collect if it’s not bagged in the correct biodegradable sacks unfortunately. I don’t actually use the caddy, I just have the bag out on the counter all day and take out each night so we use one a day. We got flies and mould when I used the caddy and filled up over a few days! 

Good point on not using food bags. We actually don’t have lots of food storage containers atm, and because of rarely getting takeaways we don’t tend to build up a collection, but I could maybe scavenge enough to do 4 or so lots of chickpeas in. I batch cook freeze in tin sized amounts for ease of use. The 2kg I have is 20 tins worth but I won’t do them all in one go!! If I do 5 and use one right away I might have enough between bread bags and takeaway tubs. 

Bluegreen143

Just had an interesting thought. I was just reading a book on minimalism where the author briefly mentions not buying items which don’t fit your values. For example, she doesn’t have a watch, not just because she can tell the time using her phone and clocks, but because she tries to avoid overscheduling her life and needing to know the time constantly. 

While it sounds obvious not to buy things which go against your values I suspect that many of us often do. 

For example, I value not creating plastic waste yet was about to blindly order some food bags without thinking!

I remember last year I was saving up for a new iPad and was potentially going to get a super expensive brand new model. I was weighing up getting it on a data contract to get it quicker instead of having to save up 🙈 The main impetus being that homework is digital now and I was fed up of Monkey having to submit it on my phone. 

Then I realised that this was madness. Our family values are really about living in the real world and not spending ages on screens. Why would I pay a fortune for something which would make online life easier and more attractive for both me and the kids?! It’s the exact opposite of what I value! 

I took some time to ponder what to do about a device then when my mum got a new iPad, I asked her what she was doing with the old one. She said “oh nothing” so I asked if I could just have it. 

She pointed out that it was cracked (it’s actually just a hairline crack in a corner), a bit slow and doesn’t hold its charge well and was surprised I still wanted it. She sensibly gave me it for Christmas (amongst other gifts!). 

In reality it’s not a worse option than the brand new one. In fact the flaws make it BETTER for our purposes not worse. I wanted a utilitarian device which serves as the family Google calendar, allows us to look up recipes while cooking and means Monkey can submit his homework. The low battery life means it needs to live in the kitchen plugged in instead of being carried off to rooms to be used for hours. Because it’s a little slow, there’s no temptation to spend hours scrolling. We update our google calendar or submit the homework and we’re done. And of course it was free! 

Just a bit of a lightbulb moment about how the free, imperfect solution is actually better sometimes! 

BUT while I managed this line of thinking in the iPad example, I think I’m bad at it in general and definitely guilty of buying solutions to problems which aren’t even problems to start with - of just buying things which I think are the “done thing”. So I’d like to strengthen this muscle and little challenges on the things I’m considering buying are exactly what I need 😊

QueenJess

I also do anything not to use a plastic food bag. I last bought a box maybe last year because DH moaned, but almost all of it is left (I think DH used 2 for some chicken breasts, but we rarely eat them anyway). I have slowly replaced them with silicone bags over time, but they can be expensive.

I still do have some food bags in the freezer, but I reuse them multiple times. Often I freeze things in ice cube trays or muffin tins or just on a tray before decanting into a bag. Saves a lot of bags.

theoretica

Are you filling a food waste bag a day?  I put my food waste into an icecream tub in the kitchen and empty that into the bag when needed.

foxgloves

Re plastic freezer bags. I don't buy them either. During lockdown, I received a free pack of very tough stiff blue freezer bags from the watery-sounding kitchen shop. They were so good, I bought an additional pack in a smaller size. They are still in regular use & are easily washable in hot soapy water because they are so much stronger than standard freezer bags. We have had them about 4 years now & every single one is still in use.
F