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

Bluegreen143

Morning everyone! 

We’ve edited the grocery order so final version below, coming today. Red added some stuff. However I think this is a more realistic order to last a week, and I’m delighted it’s under £100 (given I normally spend somewhere between £140-180 a week…). I think £100 a week is a good target for me to initially aim for tbh. 

TOTAL COST £96.75

PROTEIN & DAIRY
Chicken breast 950g £5.50
4 salmon fillets £8
2 salted butter £3.38
Extra mature cheddar 400g £3
Bacon £1.45

Whole milk 4pint £1.45
Greek yoghurt 500g x2 £1.70
6 bratwurst sausages £3.50

FRUIT & VEG
Cauliflower £1.19
4 sweetcorn cobettes £1.39
Broccoli 82p
Mixed grapes £1.90
Sweet gem lettuce 2pk £1
Chestnut mushrooms 89p
Rocket £1
Celery 75p
Strawberries £1.90
White cabbage 80p
Potatoes 2kg £1.35
Easy peeler clementines £1.29
Cherry tomatoes £1
Apples x6 £1.49
Whole cucumber 89p
Sweet potato 42p
Red peppers x2 £1.18
Red onion 21p
Lemons £1.20
Bananas x10 £1.60
Melon £2
It’s possible we’ll need a little more fruit and salad at the weekend but I’ll try to stretch it and eat the more perishable stuff before longer lasting stuff to reduce waste. 

BREAD
6pk hot dog buns 89p
Seeded bread £1.05

STORECUPBOARD
Tinned chickpeas 49p
Tinned black beans 49p
Conchiglie pasta 1kg £1.29
Tinned tomatoes x3 £1.17

TREATS/SNACKS/DRINKS
2 tubs olives £5
Pretzels £1.50
Pringles £1.75
85% dark chocolate £2
Biscuits 85p
Orange juice cartons 3pk £1.69
Cola x8 £5.60
Pot noodle 90p
Crisps 6pk x2 £2
Party mix crisps £1
These are literally all for Red, except the dark chocolate, and if the kids have a few crisps at the weekend 😂

HOUSEHOLD
Kitchen roll x2 £2.38
Kids’ toothpaste £2.20
Extra strong bin bags £4.50
Mould remover £4
Antiseptic wound wipes x2 £2.30
Cotton wool pads £1.50
I’m assured that the extra strong extra expensive bin bags are necessary as he’s doing loads of tip runs on Monday 🤷‍♀️ 

Moving on. 

Today I’m taking the kids to a birthday party - they split the cost of the gift from their pocket money which is a new money saving idea of mine 🙈😂 they were perfectly happy to do so so I think I’ll be letting them take responsibility for party gifts from now on. 

My to do list for today is:

- start sourdough

- make and freeze naan

- clean both bathrooms

- catch up on washing 

- remove pea plants and sow lettuce/carrots/beetroot 

We have nowhere near enough time to grow food seriously so my aim is modest this year - simply to grow and eat at least a couple of varieties of fruit and veg so the kids know where food comes from. We do keep chickens as pets too so at least get to eat their eggs!

We’ve successfully harvested peas, strawberries, blueberries, cherry tomatoes and herbs but my salad and carrots keep getting munched by slugs this year and something ate my one courgette plant too! We’ve taken to going out at 10pm and removing them all so this is my last ditch attempt to try again to grow salad this year 🤞🏼

Later today my mum is dropping off their dog as we’re dog sitting while they’re on holiday. Their usual dogsitter sadly passed away this year.

 It’s not really ideal - I actually really dislike dogs 🙈 and he’s the kind of dog you can neither leave alone nor take anywhere… he’s a rescued stray with anxiety… but they would have had to cancel their holiday otherwise which I didn’t want after they’ve had such a rubbish year (multiple bereavements). 

Luckily Red is off with the kids and I’ll be working from home four out of five days so we’ve plenty hands on deck to look after the dog. The kids are delighted at least as they love him and he’s surprisingly really good with them.

joedenise

Too late for this week's shop but have you considered buying frozen corn cobettes - the Tesco ones are a decent size and microwave easily to cook - about 5 minutes so quicker than boiling them!

Also for things like curry it's worth getting chicken thighs rather than chicken breast as they are usually cheaper and just as good.  I only really use chicken breasts for things like fajitas or if using them as part of a mini roast (far cheaper to buy a whole chicken for a roast and have LOs to have in sandwiches or chopped into a sweet and sour sauce).

Floss

I classify money that goes into my saving & emergency fund pots as bills, so they don't come out of my personal spends. That is for incidentals like social things, random purchases or a monthly Costa coffee with my best mate (fortnightly meet, we take turns to pay). 

Bluegreen143

Thanks @joedenise, good reminder on frozen corn cobs!

@Floss I know some of my budget categories are a bit unique. It’s partly because we operate the “joint budget + his/hers budget” approach. 

We do have joint savings like the emergency fund/car maintenance type pots which come from our joint account. 

We also put £500 a month (amount has varied but this will be the amount from next month) into our own personal accounts when we get paid - this is separate to our joint budget. 

This personal budget needs to pay for:

- our own clothes (and make up for me)
- phone bills/own subscriptions
- socialising with friends and dates with each other
- gifts to each other or for friends (usually gifts to eg our parents and our kids are considered joint expenses) 
- hobby materials (eg yarn or books for me, wood for Red)
- bad habits (eg alcohol, Red’s vaping supplies) 
- and basically anything we want which there’s no room for in the joint budget! 

Red spends all of his without fail, but I save some of mine which is why I have “savings” within my personal pot. I know it sounds a strange way to categorise it, but it’s basically just what’s built up over time because I haven’t spent all my personal pot and I split it between a cash ISA and a stocks and shares ISA. 

I’m currently saving for spending money for a weekend away with my mum and sister in September plus to replace my wedding ring, which I lost several years ago, as well as the S&S ISA which is just to build up over time for now.

I’m not overly precious about the personal savings and I do end up often bailing out the joint account with them, I ended up putting about £250 back recently to spend on our holiday a few weeks ago. But as long as it’s going upwards and I can afford the things I want that’s fine. We find having some money under our sole control helps avoid any resentment with each other over money!

In other news, I realised I’m down to my last laundry tab so despite vowing to try to shop once this week, I definitely need to pick these up 😅 I’ll try to go myself, if I send Red he’ll buy other stuff!

enthusiasticsaver

Is Red on board with cutting back?  I can certainly understand the personal spends as Mr ES and I do that ourselves due to our differing approaches to saving and spending money.  It can be a problem if the other party is sabotaging your  efforts. 

joedenise

Looking at your shopping list I do wonder whether all those treats for Red and chocolate for you ought to come from your personal spends rather than from the grocery budget.  It seems extremely unfair to me that Red has all that extra "junk" (for want of a better word!) to your bar of dark chocolate!

Floss

joedenise said:

Looking at your shopping list I do wonder whether all those treats for Red and chocolate for you ought to come from your personal spends rather than from the grocery budget.  It seems extremely unfair to me that Red has all that extra "junk" (for want of a better word!) to your bar of dark chocolate!

I think is a fair point, and would be a big step towards restraining your food shop spend. 

Bluegreen143

Ha, I’ve raised that idea before and it wasn’t very favourably received. I’d rather have a happy husband than a perfectly minimised food budget though!

Spending today - just the £97.06 that’s the final bill for the Tesco delivery. 

Meals:

B - banana & strawberry milkshake for the kids & I, bacon sandwich for Red

L - leftover Chinese food, the kids had tuna sandwiches and carrot sticks

S - I took the kids to a 6th birthday party this afternoon so they both had gazillions of junk food. I also took all the leftover Chinese food from last night (it’s that kind of very good friend who I knew wouldn’t mind me showing up with a bunch of half eaten takeaway tubs!) and it was reheated and munched by the attending parents, so it’s been all used up without further risk of damage to my waistline 😂

D - making pot roast brisket in the pressure cooker, along with roasted veg, though I’ll probably serve later than usual as the kids and I might be still a little full from the party 😅

I did get the bathrooms and laundry done today but I’d like to try making naans this evening for the freezer 🤞🏼

Back to work tomorrow, urgh. Not super loving it right now because I really hate having to work when the kids are off school. I know they’ll have a lovely week with Red, who is off, and I finish by 3pm each day anyway so we can still do stuff together in the afternoons ❤️ then I’m off on leave for just over two weeks the following week so hoping for nice weather then! 

And then when the holidays end (14th August here) my little Bambi will be starting school ❤️❤️❤️

Bluegreen143

Decided to scrap brisket tonight and make it tomorrow, when I’ll have more time and we’ll be hungrier. 

I did the veggie enchiladas planned for later this week (mine weren’t actually vegetarian, as I used a little pot of chicken stock from the freezer in the sauce to get it used up, but if I’d used veggie stock they would have been vegan). 

It was a new recipe and they were sooooo good! Served with a salad of red gem lettuce, grated beetroot, spring onion and cucumber dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette.

Used my HM wraps stuffed with a black bean/roast sweet potato/spices/HM enchilada sauce mix. The adults’ enchiladas had red jalapeños chopped through, I skipped that for the kids. Topped with enchilada sauce and baked. I didn’t add cheese, because I didn’t have any, and it was still really nice. Actually enjoyed by the older child and tolerated by the other so it counts as a meal win here! 

Got a leftover enchilada for my lunch tomorrow too which I’m looking forward to.

I love that nothing in this meal was ultra processed - the wraps, sauce, dressing etc were all HM - the chicken stock was about the only premade item but it was the remnants of a fancy can of broth which doesn’t have anything nasty in it. It can’t have been expensive either.

Bluegreen143

I’m in the “boring” part of the YNAB budget where you’re just waiting patiently to be paid so you can budget again! Luckily I get paid mid-month and Red gets paid at the end, so we don’t have tooooooo long to wait ever. 

My plan until payday is to avoid spending pretty much anything unless it’s necessary. I do have money in my personal budget but I think I need a bit of a mental reset to switch off the spending reflex!

I hope I’ve planned my shopping well enough to avoid spending much (if any) more on food until Sunday. I will need laundry tabs as discussed so I’m thinking of cycling over to Lidl after work. It’s an excuse to take my bike out as I’m still a little wary/nervous about cycling! Plus it saves on petrol and is more green 😇 

I’m trying to organise a play date for the kids this week but would aim for that to either be at the other person’s house or meeting in the park, so no costs there. Red is taking them to our friends’ house on Wed so he can help with DIY and the kids can all play together (it’s the sort of friends where Red and I are close to them and the kids all go to school together etc too) so that will entertain them for free too. 

I’m also aiming to go to the library this week, another free source of entertainment! Frantically trying to finish my second library book first though 😂 it’s a new one, so you only get two weeks and can’t renew it. I’ve been averaging 3-4 books a week lately but this one is massive so it’s harder to get through! 😂

My other aim for this week is to try to finish knitting the sleeves of a jumper I’ve been knitting for Monkey for about a year 🤦‍♀️ I checked and it still looks like it’ll fit, it’s unisex anyway so can go to Bambi if needed. 

I think I mentioned we’re dog sitting my mum’s anxious rescue ex-stray this week so in a way it’s another good money saving thing cos you can’t take him to busy (expensive) places anyway 🤣 the kids and Red are out just now with him on the derelict golf course behind our house. 

Anyway, I’ve just finished my breakfast so must get back to work! Trying to “frontload” work as I’m awful for procrastination. So doing the harder/bigger tasks first, but also trying to work flat out in the mornings in case it all goes to pot later. And if it doesn’t it means I can stop and have a proper lunch with the kids and a more chill afternoon etc. I’m hopeful about this because it’s fairly quiet just now due to others being on holiday. But I have a few big tasks on my list I MUST do this week!