Need fresh eyes on my budget!

honeybee1234

@elsien @Spendless @ellenvan @liselle

Thankyou for the helpful words! I really appreciate them. Notes in no particular order:

• I am going to go through this month's grocery receipts, and last month's if I still have them, and see what's going on there. I have a baseline idea of how much we use of a fair chunk of things, but obviously not everything! It is frustrating as I am really well versed on the prices of items in different stores, when they are on sale or full price, and when different stores have any general offers/coupons on so to see I'm going over budget is irksome. It's hard to know where to cut down as I shop at Lidl for the most part anyway and I'm not spending shed loads per week. I think.
• Ikea was a very difficult decision and I so very nearly caved. It was the prospect of having more debt over my head again that stopped me, so yes, I'll take that as a win!
• I actually do a lot of things for extra funds, eg surveys, cashback, bank offers etc. It's this that I dip into when I overspend, but I want to use more of it for savings pots
• I was thinking of looking round charity shops for decorative bits actually, so I'll bear this in mind!

foxgloves

I second treasure-hunting the homeware/ornaments shelves at charity shops. I found a dinner plate matching our dinner service in a charity shop last month & at £3-99, it was a fraction of the cost of a new one (which I wouldn't pay these days, preferring the thrill of the charity shop chase). My pretty glass 1930s trifle bowl was a couple of quid from a charity shop & in the past, I've also bought frames - removed the print & replaced with something from home so as to get a good quality frame for a low cost. I find that buying 'nick nacks' can result in a less personal 'look'. Treasure hunting for 2nd hand things often makes for a much more eclectic look. Back in my Spendy Years (which were extensive), I bought a lot of stuff for my house which made a significant contribution to debt levels. I've just been sitting here trying to think if I actually still own any of these 'nick nacks' now & I can't think of any except for a suede cat. Everything else has been given to me as a present, inherited from my parents & grandparents or treasure hunted in charity shops or upcycled from something else. Oh....I've just remembered some ornaments I do still have from that period, which are packed away out of sight & I am going to list those for sale because they are no longer to my taste.

Grocery prices have gone up so much. It may well be that your current allocation is no longer realistic.

But I think you have made progress because you didn't load up more credit card debt at IKEA. All of us will have a 'wobble' at some point, but you chose the right path when faced with temptation.

Time2count

I agree, the grocery costs have risen (still rising)

I use cash for grocery shopping and I've had to increase how much I take with me. A year ago I could spend approx £30 on my weekly shop (I do a once a month home delivery with tins packets bottles etc as I don't drive) and maybe £5-10 on a top up later in the week. These days I'm lucky to get through my main shoo for less than £40. That's actually a 33% increase 😮 wow

Blackcats

what a nice lot of helpful comments and great musings @honeybee1234

I wonder is you can re-frame your mindset a little to pat yourself on the back for stabilising your finances which is creating a stable, safe home for yourself and your children. The kids probably won't notice a Knick knack but they absorb a loving, happy, place to be with a parent who is supportive and setting a good financial example.

Just like @foxgloves I was a regular spender on stuff. I absolutely loved the homeware section of big supermarkets - candles, mugs, towels, glasses, bed linen, Knick knacks etc etc. When I first started my diary I "needed" a sparkly pink plastic cactus from sainso's home department. It was actually the thought of being accountable on my diary that stopped me buying the plastic cactus (I had the thought of foxgloves' looking over my shoulder and walked away from the plastic cactus even though my initial thought was it's only £10 🤷‍♀️ ). Your victory in ikea sounds like a similar triumph 😉

Catscoffeecake

I have to agree with everyone else, the cost of food has gone up, maybe start keeping receipts so you can go through them and see what you might have purchased that was an "extra" rather than something for a meal. Could you maybe withdraw the money as cash for food shopping and that way you have to stick to your budget? budgets do need to be constantly reviewed and as time goes on you will find more things crop up you havent considered that need to be added or a pot that needs adjusting.

ArtyJ931

apparently the cost of food is going to be rising exponentially over the next 6 months too. I’ve taken to stocking up on things I use all the time to try to delay the impact of future price rises. I’m adding 10-12 various extra tins to my shop every week to build up a stock. Absolutely senseless given the situation I’m in but it’s how I’m wired.

honeybee1234

Thankyou @foxgloves @Time2count @Blackcats @Catscoffeecake @ArtyJ931 for your replies and thoughts. It's so nice for people to be supportive and I love reading about what people have done what they've changed and what they are doing now.

I am patting myself on the back for the Ikea 'incident' and carrying this forward with me. I was seeing this as a negative but yes, it was a Good Decision Made which is forwards momentum which we like!

Re: groceries. Of note:

- this month I've spent just over 400.00 on groceries. This is for me, and both DSs who are here every other weekend and sometimes in the week, plus two cats, from a starting budget of 300.00.

• 103.00 covered all pet things. This includes for OH's dog, although he does give me the money for her things. This way I get any points from buying her stuff. I did end up buying an extra 40 pack of cat food for 14.99 from Lidl as I was trying to find them something they'd eat!
• 15.00 was spent on Dr. Pepper. ( 3.00) of this was OH's
• I did have a small splurge on a salad tea which has bumped up the total (not costed this yet)
• same with ice creams which I don't usually buy but I was melting - 3.00

I'm going to go through the finer points in a bit. The total was more than I realised, so I'm going to work with 400.00 as a provisional grocery budget for July, and see how I go. Frontload with fixed expenses, eg cat food, cat litter, toilet roll and household items, then split the remaining into however many shopping weeks are in the month. I am considering using cash although not decided as I do use gift cards to get cashback at Asda and Sainsbury's.

Also, no browsing the Home section any more at Sainsbury's! I do enjoy it but there's nothing I NEED there!

Spendless

£400 is what I use for my grocery budget. There's me, a dog, a husband who works away a few days every week, an adult son who lives not too far away who we sometimes have round for meals and a (just graduated) student daughter who comes home randomly for so long . In that respect I suppose Im not a great deal different to yourself in terms of differing amount of people to feed over any given month.

My husband is paid tomorrow and we are at zero in the grocery budget, when usually theres some left over.

What Ive identified caused this. They were 5 Fridays (the day I usually shop) from my husband's last pay packet till the end of June. Daughter after graduating came home for a week. The hot weather had me buying more expensive 'picky bits' ice creams etc, add in the rising costs and that's why June was expensive. Youve also got some tempreature related grocery items that have bumped your bill.

elsien

So with the cash thing, because handing cash over does make you think more about what you’re spending - it does for me anyway because credit cards as we all know aren’t real money - I use the cc (gift card in your situation) to pay for it, then put the money aside out of my cash envelope to repay it. That way, I can see exactly how much I have left.
I know you can do that virtually with cash pots, spreadsheets etc but actually seeing proper money evaporating before my eyes works for me.

honeybee1234

Morning!

First day of the month! I woke up to a host of notifications whereupon I realised I hadn't adjusted my standing orders to my pots from last month so will be spending a bit of time sorting that out! Easily sorted though.

I've been thinking about my budget and am thinking a "from the ground up" approach is the best way. So based on the premise of building up an emergency fund as a priority then paying things down, I've decided to start with the basics grounded around that.

So:

• emergency fund has dipped below £1000 due to helping eldest DD with a holding deposit for her new flat. We have a payment agreement in place so she's paying me back starting next month, and I'll be putting some in as well
• I'm focusing on furnishing my 'basics' pots as a priority. This means a new experimental budget of 400.00 for groceries this month, (similar to you @Spendless and I'm liking the cash suggestion @elsien so I'm thinking of doing that!) and an as-yet-undecided clothing budget. I desperately need some new clothes, so once I buy what I need, I can sit the clothing pot further down the priority list
• Also priority is 'kids' pot
• Anything else leftover will go to the 'home and garden' and 'activities' pot for things to do over the summer holidays.
• My 'Annual' and 'Christmas' pots have fixed standing orders so they just unobtrusively fill up each month without needing to think about it

I'll revise this next month to reflect if I've stocked up on the clothing I need or need to fund it some more. Ideally I want a nice little surplus in there then to be able to leave it alone for a while. I'm not sure how much? Maybe 50.00 or more, although that would be fine for a starting surplus after sorting what I need more immediately.

Today I'm carrying on with my summer mission of decluttering and tidying. So in a bit I'll be sorting through boxes of paperwork, and either file/shred/recycle. Then I'm doing some gardening, and I need to book a slot to go to the tip next week. Trying to keep my decluttering momentum going!

Have a good day everyone!