Spendy Wendy to Saver Savvy

joedenise

Well done.  You're doing really well.  I'm sure you'll reduce the grocery and eating out/coffees out over time.

foxgloves

What a fab start you have made, @Spendywendywoo. Keep up the good work! 
F

Spendywendywoo

@Suffolk_lass, thank you.  The biggest factor in half term is the cost of the food DS manages to eat. So far he has managed to eat just what he would at school so we're winning, though I did buy a bit of extra fruit in case he needed / wanted more to eat. I've already put additional money to the side for this month, in addition to the monthly money I put into the annual expenditure, as we don't have to pay council tax or my prescription prepayment so an additional £280 in the pot to be divided between the categories. This makes me smile, a lot, as usually we would fritter that money away on other non-useful items. 

@joedenise, thank you. I agree, there's certainly savings to be made.  I have started to do a c&c with one of the supermarkets (I chose a slot that only costs 50p or a £1, and then pick up a few cheaper items from Ald! as we have one local to us. A full shop would usually cost £150+ in Ald! and I'd still end up forgetting things as I didn't meal plan, but because I am only buying what we need and I can see what I am spending / what offers there are, the total this week came to £87.98, this included all meals for the week, extra snacks for DS and some staples like rice, spaghetti etc. Meal planning is really helping with this and has helped us to reduce food waste somewhat.

@foxgloves, thank you. Thank you for starting your diary and allowing me to realise that we too were spendy spenders, we've a long way to get to where you are but some progress is still progress and a step towards the goal both DH and I are aiming towards - MF and early retirement

jwil

You’ve done really well! 

Spendywendywoo

@jwil, thank you. I hope to be able to do PADs like you do, though I think it will be a while until I can do that, you give me hope that I will reach that point

Spendywendywoo

I've just done a calculation of February groceries (the month runs mid month to mid month but for ease on MSE I calculate groceries per calendar month)...£348.44/£450...this is more than I wanted to have spent at this time of the month but it is a shorter month and the challenge of drawing out the money until the end of the month will be fun (we have plenty in the cupboards so won't go hungry). Just over £100 should be comfortable as there is only one more week to shop for and I am going to reverse plan this weekend. 

I must remember that usually I would have gone way over the budget and ended up in the overdraft before payday so....this is just fine progress

badmemory

You do manipulate your prepayment cert don't you.  I do DSs for him & get 14 x 28 days per cert, not 13, then pause before manually renewing.  So don't have it on auto.

Spendywendywoo

@badmemory...no I don't.... so you order before it's due for renewal and then renew the month after it was originally due?

To be fair I was thinking of cancelling it altogether... I now get 56 tabs in each order so one prescription every two months, whereas I did have 3x prescriptions per month on previous meds hence why I have the cert. It just doesn't make sense anymore to have one but I am worrier and at least this way if I do get ill and need antibiotics then I am covered and would likely be cheaper in the long run... or maybe not... umm... 

badmemory

You could always get a new one if it looks like you may need more but if you are only getting 6 a year then no.  The main thing I think is not to risk being in the position where you land up having to chose which meds you get, but you are not near there.

Spendywendywoo

@badmemory, I will do that - thanks for raising this. It's little things that I've always just paid for, more for the security and now it's ingrained that I pay for it but I do need to start challenging every payment and DD (this is the next phase). I will add the amount (the inflated amount that was due to be charged from March) directly into the annual expenditure account as it's an amount we have not had access to for many years (but for good reason given the meds I used to be on). 

Just a little financial update... we had two new tyres fitted last week and opted for the rotation option included (£20 to move the back tyres to the front and the front new tyres to the back) as this is what was advised on the internet and by a friend with mechanical knowledge. The mechanic who changed the tyres advised we didn't need to rotate the tyres as it's a front wheel drive car. Usually I would just accept that I'd ordered something that I didn't need.... but I rang the dealership and they are refunding the £20 into my bank account so I will be moving that directly into the annual expenditure account (it's a payment from last month and therefore not accounted for in this month's budget)

Small wins will make it big for us
Wendy x