Need fresh eyes on my budget!

vampirotoothus

Hi with the meat I find it keeps much better in a lidded container in the fridge when it has been opened, do you? V x

Blackcats

you are making great progress!

I also have to focus on my grocery budget otherwise it runs away with itself. I find that reminding myself that I'm only buying for 7 days really helps otherwise I end up buying extras or topping up items that I already have that will actually last a week.

could you do a bowl of pasta salad to keep in the fridge for a variation on lunch? We find eggs are a good option for lunch - on toast or hard boiled in a sandwich. A good old fashioned cheese and tomato or pickle sandwich can be a nice treat especially if you make it into a toastie.

ellenvan

For sandwiches

Sometimes a whole cooked chicken is better value than packs of sliced chicken or ham. Depends on offers.

Cheese and cheese spreads keep better and longer than cooked meats - less waste.

joedenise

I buy whole chicken and gammon joints which we have hot on day 1, cold on day 2 and then the rest is sliced up and frozen in usable portions for sandwiches. Gammon joints are particularly good for this and much better tasting than the packets of ham which are really processed. We invested in a slicing machine so the gammon joint goes much further than it used to when sliced by hand. It's also considerably cheaper than the packet ham.

ellenvan

Re haircut

Don't know if there is anywhere like this near you but are local training college has a hair dressing course and they do cheap hair cuts.

Takes a bit longer than hairdresser appointment as they go carefully.

Really pleasant experience last time I went. They are trying to pass exams so try hard.

foxgloves

Oh my goodness, @honeybee1234, £60 for a dry curly cut is a lot of money…..admittedly I don't know anything about cutting curly hair as mine is straight, but it does sound a lot when no hair-washing or heated appliances are required.

It sounds as though you are making progress on your Pots & also your approach to grocery budgeting. I am a very frequent freezer of leftovers as even just a single portion can be a meal on a jacket potato night & we often do schedule in a 'JP night' on our meal plans when we each just top our potato with whatever we fancy from the freezer. I also save little odds & sods which can usefully be paid forwards towards a future meal. For example, I often don't need a whole big pepper for something so will chop some of it up into a little pot, ditto any leftover sweetcorn, ham, pasta sauce, etc, & next time I'm making bread dough, that's the basis of a pizza, just need to grate some cheese & chuck on some dried herbs. Re ham & chicken for sandwiches, yes, that can be quite expensive to buy. Sometimes when I've had nephews staying (I don't have children) & knew we'd be needing stuff for sandwiches, picnics, etc, I've bought a ham hock & cooked it in the slow cooker then removed all the meat to a box in the fridge for using in sandwiches. I've never paid more than £4 for a ham hock & that was from a deli. Our butcher does them at 2 for £5 (they freeze well) & occasionally £1 each when he has a surplus. The cooked meat also freezes so it could be used at a later date in a frittata, quiche, on a pizza, etc, or in ham & lentil soup along with a little of the stock from slow cooking it. Home made mini-pizzas make good filling lunches too. Easier to cut up if you use a rectangular tray & you can make use of whatever you have in, including stuff you've saved in the freezer to avoid wasting it. That would make about 6 decent servings.

I think you are doing well though, so don't beat yourself up. You are doing your best on quite a modest income & it does take time & a fair bit of experimentation to get each aspect of a budget pulling together as one. I might sound quite 'together' now regarding our budget, but it took a lot of re-jigging of systems/methodology to get there.

F x

Spendless

You're still doing well. I know you have blips we all do.

Id certainly consider alternating the 2 hairdressers, cheaper one for your fringe. Other for the rest.

Dont know if this will help but I started moving my 'use this up' items to the bottom shelf of the fridge. It acted as a visual reminder that I needed to do something with it or Id be binning it.

Buying a whole chicken, stripping the meat and freezing it would work out cheaper than buying chicken pieces. Same with a gammon joint versus packets of ham. I dont make my own bread so cant comment on that. Do the boys care what brand of crisps they have? Fruit do they like the traditional (cheaper!) fruit like apples or do they like the more expensive berries etc? Any blackberry bushes near you to take them picking? Can you swap the yoghurts for some inexpensive home baking such as flapjacks? Or buy a pot of greek yoghurt which is filling and they have that with various toppings. You might need to invest in some small reusable pots if this is for lunches out rather than at home.

ArtyJ931

home made bread works out cheap per loaf but doesn’t last as long - not usually a problem as it’s so tasty. Tricky to cut thin enough for anything other than doorstep sandwiches but excellent for toast. I estimate it costs around 40-50p per loaf and is a lot better for you. Had to buy a shop loaf recently and got a decent one and it felt so insubstantial.

honeybee1234

OMG thankyou everyone for the useful responses! I have read every single reply and am making notes of useful tips! So grateful for everyone's thoughts. I'm doing a bit of quick maths and working out what will be useful, so I shall update on this soon!

Okay. So I've been doing an 'end of month' review this morning. The gist is that my budget and pots are going really well, and I will possibly have a small surplus in one or two of the sinking funds pots depending on how much more I get out with the boys in the next week. I also have an extra 255.00 from a bank switch and various cashback, which is burning a hole in my bank account as I don't know what to do with it.

The bad news is I have accrued balances on my credit cards. This is from finishing decorating the living room, plus new school items for DS2, and I got a new fridge freezer last month. Current credit card status is:

Nationwide: 1009.13 (I am awaiting a refund of 69.90 which will drop the balance to below 1k)

Vanquis: 1062.81

Capital One: 189.49

How do I feel about this? Well, as I sat here gathering the info earlier, I felt quite despondent about it. But then I realised a fully funded emergency fund would have eliminated the fridge freezer cost. Eventually I will have a funded pot for appliances and this will cover such things, I've just not got that far yet! I just completely forgot about a school uniform fund, I usually do this every year but it escaped me this year! Fortunately this is the last year for uniform, and I'm going to ask DS' dad if he can throw some in to cover things.

Basically... This is all a learning curve isn't it? That and time. A collection of payments that either I haven't been able to build up pots for yet, or things that needed saving for and I hadn't. Notes have been made! Vanquis is a 0% card that is ticking over that I will be paying down, and I need to balance transfer the Nationwide this month onto a 0% offer on another unused card.

Today... I am hoping to get out of the house with one or both DSs (minimal spend for parking), tackle the balance transfer, and leftovers for tea (broccoli pasta with chicken grills/veggie grills from the freezer and garlic bread.)

Have a good day all!

Dakota_Rose

Got to love a lump sum coming INTO the bank! That £250 is crying out to be an emergency fund if you don’t already have one 😊.

Otherwise, you have the choice as to which debt it goes to, or which sinking fund really needs it.

Really nice to read that your pots feel like they’re starting to work for you. Hopefully this time next year, the things that have gone onto the CC will be covered by the sinking funds you have in place. Perhaps keeping a list of items that end up on the CC would be a good idea so that you can include them in future funds? I’ve spent on my CC this summer too - all personal spends that I’m now slogging to pay off before the start of term.