early 40s and not fabulous at all

Following your thread with interest. Just a suggestion about food shopping. If your nearest Al dee is not that far away, with the money you save a taxi fare would still leave you in pocket. And I find shopping there is quicker because there is not so much choice, although I get most of what I want, so it doesn't take so long. I top up at Waitrose weekly but only spend about £10 extra there. For two of us our monthly bill is about £150 and we eat very well!


Good luck...I'm sure you will get there!

Yes that includes everything. Admit we are not in debt and our mortgage is paid off, but we prefer to spend on other things than food! We do eat well, eat out probable once a fortnight. I cook mainly from scratch. Best wishes.

Another member of the "£150 a month for food, cleaning & basic toiletries club" here - we buy very little supermarket meat preferring to shop from farmers markets or direct from the supplier, but a LOT of seasonal fruit & veg from the cheap shops! :rotfl: Love the "super 6" and "Pick of the Week" type offers and frequently build my meal plan around whatever is the cheapest on the veg front.

Almost the only branded stuff we now buy routinely is Fairy (only on offer but by FAR the best in our water) WU liquid, Nescafe coffee (the ordinary stuff, not the gold stuff) as MrEH pulls faces if I give him anything else, and washing powder or liquid as I love the smell of Bold or Surf and never find the own brand stuff as nice. If we were skint that last would go in favour of a discount brand though. Oh Branston beans through choice - but again, on offer only. On other things I'm happy to buy branded if it hits my target for price, but if it doesn't then own brand it will be.

Plush - less alcohol might explain your weight loss all told if you've been out less than usual - there's a surprising amount of calories in that stuff!

Oh - and stick that card in the back of a drawer and leave it there - go on, I dare you to get to the end of the week, to start with, without touching it. ()And then I'll dare you to go to the end of the month!)

Thanks all for the tips on Aldi. It never occurred to me that I could take an Uber, it would probably be about £8. Need to investigate that one. I'm not working in half term so should be able to do it then together with DD.

Now £150 sounds impossible for me. I'm struggling to keep it under £250 at the moment (and I'm not managing to do it, too many top ups). And DD has school lunches, not packed.

Right. I need to plan the weekend around my family who's visiting. I already know what I'll be cooking. They aren't really interested in seeing much of London, as they've lived here before. Looks like the weather will be nice so that means long walks in our local park and perhaps alongside Thames river.

Looking at my accounts, they are both still in green. One more bill to come out of Barclays and it will have a bit of extra left. Halifax looks healthy and also getting child benefit is coming on Monday, but it will be a miracle if I don't dip into the overdraft - with the upcoming weekend, then passport fees and/or the annual boiler service. I could possibly push the boiler service until next month by giving them a cheque dated 25th. We shall see. My debt is still at £13587 (sainsbury+barclaycard1). I was hoping to make an extra payment just before next pay day, if any ££ left in Halifax, but that is too ambitious.. let's hope I don't touch the overdraft (and Barclaycard #2! of course).

Now the negative part. I've neglected entering some spending in the Spending Tracker app so now I have to do it all manually. My plan was to enter all spending for 1 month, evaluate, budget next month, then look at it again after a full month and so on. I keep forgetting to enter stuff and I've no excuse, the phone is on me all the time.

OK - step-by-step for saving money on groceries.
1) Grab as many receipts from shopping as you can find - and analyse them to work out what are your "expensive" items as a starting point. That's as good a place as any to look at making savings to start with.
2) Put a mark against everything you bought a brand label for - and then look to "drop a level" on them next time you shop. NEVER flag this up to other members of the household - just serve it as normal, no bells or whistles. Mostly likely it'll vanish with no comment.
3) Choose a couple of regularly bought items to drop to "value" products on and see how they are each week. Some will be great, some will be OK, some will be so disgusting you'll laugh over that experiment for years to come.
4) Go through your cupboards, fridge, freezer. Make 2 lists - the first is for anything you have that could probably do with being used as a priority - eggs nearing the end of their date, veg going a bit bendy, that sort of thing. The second list is for everything else - you can ignore basic condiments but anything that classifies as a "building block" to make a meal from.
5) Taking list 1 - write a week's meal plan - remember to think about breakfasts (that might use those eggs) lunches (Cheese & coleslaw sarnie with the bendy veg?) and dinners. Your aim is to use EVERYTHING on list 1.
6) Looking at the meal plan in conjuctions with both lists, work out what you need to buy to make those meals. You've got the eggs, but do you need a load for toast and lunchtime sandwiches? Cheese to go with the coleslaw? You get the idea. ONLY the stuff you're short of goes on the list at this point though.
7) use your receipts, and list 1 to note any routine purchases like milk, fruit etc that are needed, and add those to the shopping list. Factor in everything you need for the week - so you won't be tempted to go back again. (An exception to this might be milk, which is heavy, but I have a plan for dealing with this...)
8) Go shopping, and purchase ONLY the items on that list.
9) Take it all home and eat for a week knowing that you have all you need, and that nothing will be wasted.

If you can't manage to carry all the milk in one go then when you go back to buy more, take cash. The right amount of cash. And ONLY the right amount of cash. I appreciate carrying stuff can be tough with no car but inside London itself buses are amazingly good, and you could dig out an old rucksack/backpack to carry the heavier items in? (I do this if I walk/cycle to the supermarket).

Would it be cheaper for DD to have packed lunches instead of school dinners? It may be that it won't if this means she just eats more of a snack in the evening, but it's worth costing up.

Bearing in mind that you've acknowledged that you know you tend to waste food, that's such a good place to start to reduce your outgoings!