Need fresh eyes on my budget!

honeybee1234

Morning!

Today is grocery shopping day. I'm looking at about £40 for the week at Lidl. This will be mainly fresh stuff as I front loaded with groceries at the start of the month with the 10% off Lidl coupon.

My car insurance is up for renewal in March, and I've managed to get a quote £250 cheaper than my renewal quote 😱 I honestly have no idea why the discrepancy but the price I've got is actually cheaper than the price I paid last year! I have this put aside as I do save each month so it's been paid in full.

I am also expecting a cheque (old school!) from Ovo, who somehow overcharged me at my previous address. I had an email saying they'd messed up my moving out date and so owed me a refund - immediately before that email I had a different email saying that I owed THEM so I was incredibly confused as I couldn't work it out! Turns out I was actually in credit to the tune of £350 (how?!) I don't know what to do with this money. Am considering putting it towards new tyres.

Time to get going, will post back later!

elsien

that’s good news. Do you have an emergency pot stashed away separate to the rest of your moneybecause I would be tempted to put it in there and then use got tyres or anything more urgent that crops up in the meantime?

Blackcats

great news about DD's job - well done to her.

I was thinking about how our grown up kids are still our kids and how we want to support and help them in any way we can. Although your budget is tight could you give each of them a bit of money each month to help them - maybe £40 each - 1 taxi journey for one and food for the other? It might not sound sensible because you are struggling too but you also need to feel emotionally right about your financial journey too. You could do this for 2 or 3 months and then explain that you will drop the amount a bit more as you tackle your debts.

honeybee1234

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81882487#Comment_81882487

Yes I do, and I was thinking about doing this. Tyres are on the list of things to sort out so I'll be looking into this over the weekend.

honeybee1234

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81883141#Comment_81883141

I have thought about this, and trialled it briefly a couple of months ago, but I ended up sending them extra after the initial amount. So some discipline on my part is definitely needed for this.

ellenvan

If you always send extra they won't budget correctly.

Tough love needed sometimes, in order to protect your own budget.

I know it's easier said than done though.

honeybee1234

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81884257#Comment_81884257

This definitely applies for my eldest; the thing is for DD at uni, she's starting from a negative deficit even with the part-time job so I do want to help in a way I can afford. I'm going to factor this into my budget like @Spendless suggested, so I need to see what works makes mental note

I'm considering setting up standing orders to my pots when my UC comes in so that's dealt with automatically? I did do this for a couple of months last year, but found that I was used to allocating different amounts each month manually depending on what I had prioritised and how much was in the pots. Going to have a look at this as think it would be helpful!

Shopping on Friday came in at £32 at Lidl, and £1 at Asda for taco seasoning so quite happy with that!

Today is a quiet day at home watching films and watching the rain out of the window. It's one of the bonuses of my mental health really, I don't go out an awful lot so it's rare I spend money in that way. The fridge is all stocked up, cupboards are full thanks to some prudent use of Lidl coupons and offers, tea is planned, so I just have a short to-do list to tackle and that's it.

I'll post soon about how I've ended up with credit cards nearly at their limit as it's definitely useful to think through both generally, for my day-to-day life, and for planning my budget.

honeybee1234

So, here's how the credit card debt happened...

A few years ago, I left my then-home with very little possessions. It's a long and convoluted story, but I ended up bouncing from house to house until I ended up where I am now.

Because of my mental health and financial situation during that period of time, I was often working with a negative deficit. I somehow managed to get by, not without my fair share of financial struggles, and applied and was awarded PIP (with the requisite 0 points and appeal beforehand of course!)

I moved here, and wanting to make it a home, started working through getting all the furniture I needed, and replacing the temporary bits I had for ages that were falling apart. I planned some purchases on 0% cards one at a time... and so this is where I came unstuck 😳 A combination of not being able to pay things off before the 0% finished, a few tight months where I spent on the card and here I am.

I had a spell last year of paying down one of my cards, but again, a couple of tight months and I was no further forward than if I'd just paid the minimums. I also had a bad year last year of not saving enough for Christmas. This was one thing I'd managed for the last few years, and I didn't save as much as I'd planned by a long shot. I swore last year I wasn't going to neglect saving for Christmas.

I'm in a bit of a stressful period with my mental health, and so I'm trying to tackle a meaningful budget alongside paying down my cards, and making it as low stress as possible. Luckily, the one thing I have the luxury of atm is time to work on this, so here I am!

This month hasn't been brilliant as my grocery funds are depleted. I'm going to sit down and look through and see where the money has gone so far, I think it's a case of oversight on my part for the things I don't buy as often but definitely need, and running out of a lot of toiletries at the same time 😕 I'm trying to get my money to stretch too far with a lot of things, which as I don't spend on the usual types of things such as alcohol or eating out, I justify to myself as being OK…which it obviously isn't.

Tomorrow I'm going to make some solid, realistic targets to work towards with paying down the cards and building up my pots, especially for the car and Christmas. I think having a timescale for the cards will be a motivator so will prioritise this!

honeybee1234

OK! So this morning II've been combing through my groceries account over a cuppa, an here is what I've discovered in no particular order:

• I usually reliably shop on a Thursday or Friday at Lidl, and make use of their coupon and offers (positive)

• Last month I did an online shop at the start of the month at Sainsbury's for the stuff I needed but couldn't get at Lidl. This worked really well practically, but I didn't do it again this month as I was disorganised (positive and negative)

• This month I started off well budgetwise, but a couple of weeks in and I've used the groceries account for non-grocery things. This looks to be because I've needed to pay for stuff that would have come out of my personal spends but ran out (Ubers for DS to go to his sports, money to DD at uni, and otherwise unallocated spends - youngest needed a replacement piece of uniform) (started positive, then negative)

Thoughts:

• Do I include pet items within the grocery budget or do these separately?
• How should I budget for bulk items, eg cat litter, washing up liquid, etc?
• Should I include household items within the grocery budget, eg cleaning cloths/gloves, cleaning products etc?
• Do I need to increase my personal spends, or could I allocate money for these extra things (Ubers for DS, money for DD etc)

Some food for thought there😁

elsien

Do you have a bank account with spaces? That might work for putting money aside each week/month for pet items, bulk buys etc? Like a virtual envelope system.

Otherwise it’s what works for you.