Lumina's leap towards a brighter future

August's targets were:
- [STRIKE]have homemade lunch 4 out of 5 days a week[/STRIKE] worked well, but forgot to include coffees etc...
- [STRIKE]track food spending and stick to meal plan most days[/STRIKE]
- [STRIKE]TT works really well and we don't seem to miss the money[/STRIKE] even small OPs will make a difference in the long run!
- find 2nd hand pram for LO - we were about to buy one but then found out it would be too wide for our car,drive and front door... we might leave this one until LO arrives and buy a sling for the first month or two
- use any underspend from Aug as OP - no underspend, went over budget by quite a bit...
- [STRIKE]need to try UHT milk[/STRIKE] it's not too bad tbh, so will buy some more
- [STRIKE]decide if we can reduce emergency fund by 2k to overpay[/STRIKE] decided against it, the immediate security is more important to us than clearing the mortgage slightly earlier..

August wasn't the best month financially. I had budgeted £335 for groceries and we spent £460 :eek: £135 for top up shops and £35 for work lunches , also had a rather expensive family lunch and ended up overspending £55 in the eating out category... feeling slightly deflated about our MFW journey and we only started 6 weeks ago... only managed about £15 in overpayments

I don't think we waste much food, and we buy own brand items for most things... I might change our fortnightly online delivery to weekly which might stop us going to the local shop too often. And remember ready a thread about budget meals somewhere on here, that might help me to see what we're doing wrong...

On a more positive note: OH's business went well in August *we think*, and he might be able to pay himself a small wage this month. We should know once all his expenses have been paid, but fingers crossed

House renovations are coming along nicely - we're definitely making progress and sensible choices most of the time.
I have set aside £800 for heating work so far and we should be able to save another £800 in Sept which should be enough. We decided not to get the bathroom done this year, because there are quite a few other things we'd like to do and they all seem to add up!

We'll hopefully be able to start more substantial overpayments in Jan next year, I've made a small £12.54 OP for now.

Targets for next few months

• meet a few IFAS for OH pension
• put OH wages into savings until Jan 2017
• stick to meal plan

Kittenkirst wrote: »

Hi Lumina, sounds like this month has been a better month for you
Well done on the overpayments!

If your OH doesn't like porridge would he eat flapjacks if you made them in advance? I've made various fruity flapjacks using either *ldi super 6 fruit, fruit that's going a bit dodge in the fruit bowl or ys fruit I've nabbed (like spiced plum flapjacks). I serve them with a big spoon of full fat Greek yogurt (you can even heat the flapjack in microwave for a warm brekkie)

Thanks Kittenkirst, that's a good idea! We recently bought some granola bars with berries and pumpkin seeds that were rather tasty. I'll try and make my own next week