Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

XSpender · 6 May 2017 at 10:06PM

lessonlearned wrote: »

Can he be "taught" how to add water. .......:rotfl:

He is a lost cause with anything kitchen related

I do often pack him home made ready meals to heat up at work but he is so busy at the moment he doesnt have time for a break but the sandwiches can be eaten in the minutes between clients.

I have been quite domesticated today and have cleaned the whole ground floor of the house and washed and dried 2 loads of washing on a combination of line, cold radiators and clothes horse. We do have a lot of cosmetic work to do in this house but when it is clean and tidy I don't notice it as much.

DS made buns for his party tea with little supervision and I made a chocolate and banana cake. This will do for desert tomorrow lunch
time when my parents visit. Main meal is made from stores and is an AGCJ recipe so low cost

We bought an incenerator bin but after some discussion with the neighbours we have decided to take the waste to the tip instead and will return the bin next week. The garden has been tided and although we still have a huge amount of work to do it is looking much neater. I bought firelighters and long matches too but since DH wripped the box of the firelighters open for some reason I am stuck with them and can't return them.

Also bought beers x 2 and crisps and sweets in Mr T as well as the fire lighters and matches.

We had a closer look at the energy bill tonight and it is the gas that is costing us the most so we have agreed to take much shorter showers and keep the heating off until October, close the doors and curtains and stick on a jumper or 2!

Our DFD is based on paying £800/month off our debt which is about £60 over our minimum payments. I paid £50 off the BNPL and paid the biggest CC payment today, rounded up to £100. The CC DD isnt due out until the 18th but I like to have all my bills paid sooner rather than later. All minimum payments have now been made and with the extras we have paid £804.54 this month so far.

Our good friends lost a dear friend to suicide this week and their grief and shock by has been awful to see and has been on my mind the last few days.

XSpender · 7 May 2017 at 6:49PM

Lovely retro party tea this lunch time with the parentals. There is enough left over for a little bit of supper tonight (we are still full!)and for mine and DH's lunch tomorrow. The biscuits and cakes and the rest of the banana cake I made will last the rest of the week! Plus I froze half of the buns DS made

DH has worked like a Trojan in the garden today clearing the waste and has taken 6-7 car loads to the tip and we have used the incinerator to clear some small bits with both our neighbours blessing.

The work DH has done, that has created this waste, has given us at least an extra 20ft of garden

Not much to report on the spending and buying nowt front. I have spent today on some beers for DH after he has worn himself out in the garden.

DM brought us some everyday wine glasses as a gift which was much appreciated and we have given her a chunk of plant she asked for out of the garden. She also 'fiddled about' with the curtains in the breakfast room and they hang so much better :T

I cleaned a blown glass jug I use as a vase that never seems to get clean at the bottom with vinegar and hot water and it has come up a treat.

Plans for next week:

Spend no more than £40 on food (excluding beer)
Stick to the meal plan
Meals and snacks to work for me and DH everyday (I'm working at home 3 days, lunch provided 1 day, travelling 1 day). May try and get DH to take some breakfast in the car. Yes I will have to make it :rotfl:
Use my evening meal allowance from work to buy groceries and eat main meal at home at lunchtime. Plan what to buy beforehand.
Sort out and iron and/or put away all clean laundry
Keep the heating turned off
Have a TV/PS4/internet free night
Send off pack to sell 2 x iPhone for the 3rd time

4 NSDs
Pluck up the courage to post a SOA

XSpender · 8 May 2017 at 7:14PM

I didn't update my list from the weekend so will do it now:

Buy an incinerator bin for the garden waste - £19.50 @ B&Q and some summer bedding plants for planter at front £10? Done and bang on budget
Buy some beer for DH - £6.00 Done and under budget
Make fairy cakes for DS party with his help - He made them I supervised
Sort out the clean laundry that is covering the bed Not Done
Wash rest of laundry and line dry including 1 whole load of knickers and socks which I washed last night! Done
Hoover Done
Clean kitchen and mop kitchen, breakfast room and conservatory Done
Change sheets - our room and guest room Not Done
Boxes into loft (including Xmas decs )Not Done
Find some sellotape and wrap DS presents and write his card Done
Make chocolate banana loaf to use up 3 dodgy bananas Done
Decide what to make for tea as I have realised I am a meal short on meal plan Done but didn't need it as we had party food last night so have 4 chicken breasts defrosted I need to cook!

So far this week:

Spend no more than £40 on food (excluding beer)
Stick to the meal plan - Mon - slight deviation but still all from stores
Meals and snacks to work for me and DH everyday (I'm working at home 3 days, lunch provided 1 day, travelling 1 day). May try and get DH to take some breakfast in the car. Yes I will have to make it Monday - Tick
Use my evening meal allowance from work to buy groceries and eat main meal at home at lunchtime. Plan what to buy beforehand.
Sort out and iron and/or put away all clean laundry
Keep the heating turned off - FAIL - it was cold last night and this morning it has gone back on for a bit
Have a TV/PS4/internet free night
Send off pack to sell 2 x iPhone for the 3rd time
4 NSDs - Spent Monday on batteries for DS birthday gifts
Pluck up the courage to post a SOA

This meal planning is doing wonders for my waist line as I have lost a lb since last week and haven't actual watched what I was eating:)

I have £59.08 unallocated on YNAB and have another £82.80 coming in CB at the end of the month and am soooo tempted to make another £50 OP to the Argos BNPL but need to wait as we have another 22 days before pay day so can't risk it.

I did send a sneaky £25 to the EF account though

XSpender · 9 May 2017 at 11:26AM

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned....................0 (2 company cars)

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2450
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1750 - can sometimes be higher than this
Benefits................................ 82.8
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 4282.8

Monthly Expense Detail
Mortgage................................ 1627
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 182
Electricity............................. 55
Gas..................................... 146:eek: See below notes
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 50
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 95 (2 phones 12 month contract left)
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 26 (includes line rental)
Groceries etc. ......................... 450:eek: See below notes
Clothing................................ 50 (dry cleaning, tights, shoes, uniform)
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 140
Other child related expenses............ 12
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 32
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 60
Other insurance......................... 72 (Redundancy and acc & sick for mortgage) :eek: see notes below
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Haircuts................................ 80 :eek: See notes below
Entertainment........................... 40
Holiday................................. 100
Emergency fund.......................... 100 :eek: See notes below
Netflix................................. 7.49
Boiler Cover............................ 22
Miscellaneous........................... 40
Total monthly expenses.................. 3458.49

Assets
Cash.................................... 325
House value (Gross)..................... 330000
Shares and bonds........................ 500
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 330825

Secured & HP Debts[/b]
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 278000...(1627).....3.4
Total secured & HP debts...... 278000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Virgin.........................5725.66...57........0
Virgin.........................5416.35...55........0
Lloyds.........................8919.51...90........0
Argos BNPL (12/17).............350.......50........0
LLoyds Loan....................12114.5...275.1.....3.4
Bank of Mum and Dad............4366.17...265.7.....3.9
Total unsecured debts..........36892.19..792.8.....-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,282.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 3,458.49
Available for debt repayments........... 824.31
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 792.8
Amount left after debt repayments....... 31.51

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 330,825
Total HP & Secured debt................. -278,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -36,892.19
Net Assets.............................. 15,932.81

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/font]

Notes:

:eek:Gas - old boiler system, poorly insulated house. Until we can replace whole system only option is to cut our usage

:eek:Groceries - this is our biggest area of over spend and we usually spend nearer £600. I am focussing a lot of my effort in this area going forward and will do a separate post on my plans.

:eek:Other Insurance - I am seriously considering cancelling this. We took it out because on our old house we could (and did) afford the mortgage on one salary on this house we couldn't. DH gets good sickness cover and has been with his company for 15 years. Although I am a permanent employee I am contracted out as a consultant to other companies and when the business lost contracts last year no-one was made redundant they were moved into other roles even if they had no experience or didn't want to be to avoid having to make redundancy pay outs. My acc & sickness cover isn't great. Pays out 70% of mtg pmnt for me and 30% for DH.

:eek:Haircuts - 2 trips to the barbers for DH and 1 for DS. £50 for a cut and blow dry for me every 6 weeks. I dye my hair at home and this comes out of the grocery budget. I have tried cheaper hairdressers and I get what I pay for so will not change this. I have cut out waxing every 4 weeks so have cut down here

:eek:Emergency Fund - This is the money I budget every month for doing work in the house and garden as a lot needs doing but we are having to stop major updates now as we cant afford it. This is for materials e.g. paint or to build up for bigger work like the labour to redo our utility room with materials left over from our kitchen.

Childcare - I have recently stopped DS breakfast club as he was having some issues which have now been resolved and I have found it possible to do the school run myself when WFH

Forgot to add in the £10/month I have started to put away for the National Trust membership. Started in Jan and came out this month so will start to save for next year from June.

DH wages have taken a hit since he moved locations both from lack of bonuses and increased travel. I also think his tax code is wrong but trying to get him to sort this out is a nightmare.

Any input greatly appreciated.

Hiddenidenity · 9 May 2017 at 1:48PM

No advice sorry but popping in to follow xx

XSpender · 10 May 2017 at 6:57AM

Missed another £9.99 off the SOA which is for DH Apple Music subscription.

I spent 4 hours in A&E last night with DS with a suspected broken arm :eek: All OK and he got to see his X-ray which made his day. I will be sending him to school unless his arm has dropped off in the night :rotfl:

We got back to the house at almost 9.30pm so ordered a Chinese as absolutely starving by then. I defrosted half a chorizo to use with the 'needs eating asap' defrosted chicken in the morning so now have 2 items I need to cook today before I leave for an overnighter for work.

Today I will need to buy a cartridge for our printer and some tights for work. I am going to hand wash my tights from now on because I am sick of them getting all tangled up and ruined with clicks and only getting one wear out of them. I don't buy posh ones, they are just from Sainsburys.

I have yet another cold sore on my lip, I must get them every few weeks

XSpender · 12 May 2017 at 11:23AM

DS has ended up having 2 days off school with his wrist this week but has gone in today.

I used my dinner allowance to buy some groceries and have sandwiches for tea but adding the Chinese at £14, £10 for DH when I was away, £16.95 on beer and frozen pizza last night and £48.49 on a small Mr T delivery today our food/booze spends are at £374.24 out of a budget of £400 with 2 weekends left to cover. Today's delivery did include 16 portions of GF breaded chicken steaks and kievs on offer which will last a few months.

25% of this months spend has been on booze including a bottle of gin and a bottle of wine when entertaining. This is far too much and unless we bring this down I can work on bringing the food spend down but the overall total is still going to be too high. Ideally I want to spend £100/week on all food and drink.

The total is better but still not low enough and we will be over budget by the end of the month so I know where my YNAB surplus and CB will be going :mad: One good thing is that we have only wasted a third of a punnet of unpleasant grapes which just shows how much less I have been buying over the last couple of weeks. There is still a lot of stuff in the freezer too.

The mobile bills and broadband/phone were less than budgeted so saved a tenner. I need to look more closely at our bill for the phone/broadband as we don't use it to make calls so don't have a tariff on it but my DMIL (whose own phone bill is through the roof) may use it when she is here.

Our electic/gas tariff and house insurance are due for renewal next month and I have managed to find good insurance cover via TCB that will save us £185/year if we pay it in full or £201/year if we were to pay it monthly. I am tempted to pay it off in full from savings and using a bit of cashback I have sitting on TCB.

The gas and elec via the MSE energy club is with a small provider with good reviews and will save us £50/month based on our current high consumption and new £200/month figure. They get good reviews but no cashback on this deal.

I still need to have a discussion with DH about cancelling the PPI on the mortgage.

Changing providers and cancelling the PPI would free up an extra £180/month on my SOA but this is based on an average £450 spend on food and drink which I am nowhere near yet.

Not much else to report. Worked in a beautiful location this week and bumped into someone from school I haven't seen in over 30 years. I didn't enjoy secondary school and always thought I would never want to see anyone again but it was lovely to see her and catch up and find out what had happened to some of the girls over the last 3 decades!

GeorgianaCavendish · 12 May 2017 at 11:48AM

Hi XSpender, well done for getting your SOA done - it is really scary at at first but you should be able to make some good savings and start putting that towards debt repayment. The other DFW-ers really helped me with mine

Groceries - this is pretty high. Can you switch to a cheaper supermarket? (I'm going to get on my ALDI fangirl soap box again, it is brilliant! My grocery shopping is cheaper and I'm getting much better quality food than local Tesco. I've even converted my food-snob in laws

ALDI wines are fantastic too, my fav is their Gavi di Gavi ... something like £5.49 a bottle and is just as good, if not better, than the £14.99 one I used to get from Waitrose).
Do you meal plan already? If not, that might help with the spend too.

Haircuts - I totally get you not wanting to switch hairdressers, but is it possible that you could eke out the time between your appointments? Do you have an attachment to your stylist or would you be able to see someone slightly cheaper at the salon? Is your salon on Treatwell? (You can get cashback via TopCashBack for appointments booked via Treatwell, and I discovered that my stylist has cheaper appointments available on Treatwell for certain times of the day.)

Takeaways This used to be a big spend area for us and for precisely the reasons you describe, being too tired to cook etc. I found some really lovely takeaway type dishes (in ALDI

) and keep a couple of those in the house in case of emergency. It's harder to justify a takeaway when I know I can heat up something that is tastier, healthier and cheaper in a much quicker time than it would take Deliveroo to get to us!

Tights I got some net laundry bags on ebay for washing my tights in the machine (the proper ones are from Lakeland, mine are a knock off version that was £2.99 for a 4 pack). I put one pair of tights per bag to stop them getting tangled in the wash. Best decision ever!

XSpender · 12 May 2017 at 1:52PM

Hello Georgiana and thank you so much for posting. I love you user name.

GROCERIES - I do love Aldi but because I am coeliac I always have to shop in another supermarket as well, like Tesco or sains, to get the gluten free versions of staples like cereal, bread, beer and some branded items that just happen to be GF but are not available at Aldi. It is easier to be tempted in the big supermarkets. It is especially bad if I take DH so if I can prevent us both from entering a shop we will hopefully spend less. I have only gone back to internet shopping this month and we are spending less. Still too much but better than we have done the last few months.

I have started meal planning again too, I don't know why I stopped as it certainly takes the pressure off when I have a busy week.

HAIRCUTS - I am growing my hair so have gone from 4 weeks to 6 weeks between cuts, last month due to the timing of appointments I didn't actually pay for a cut as my appointment didn't fall in April. I did once have another stylist cut it when my hairdresser was on holiday and she ruined my hairstyle, she literally cut it out of my hair :eek: Thanks for the tip about Treatwell. I had a look and my salon (t0n1 and guy) isn't listed

I earn 10% off my hair in loyalty points every time I rebook and this accumulates so every now and then I have a half price cut. DH has been working every weekend lately and wont have time for 2 cuts this month so I have shaved £10 off the budget

TAKEAWAYS - I will buy some frozen pizza for the freezer for when I am late or we have an emergency like Tuesday night. Because I am Coeliac I am limited to the RMs I can eat that are reasonably priced. Good for DH though.

Thanks for the tip about the laundry bags I will have a look for some as this is a great idea!:T

I think I am giving myself a bit of a hard time over the food budget this month, even though I know it is much too high I need to start to reduce it over time. My aim is to spend £100/week on all food, dog food, toiletries, hair dye, booze, food and booze for entertaining and cleaning and laundry supplies. In the last 3 months I have averaged £142/week :eek:.

I have set this month's budget at £400 but it is a 5 week month so I am attempting to drop from £142/week to £80/week in a month when not only is it the first month of a real focus on this area of the budget in a long time but a month when we have had 7 for a 3 course Sunday lunch and a party tea for 5 adults and a cake for DS's birthday.

There is no way I will achieve £80/week so I am upping my food budget to £500 (5 weekends at £100/each) for May. I am about £25 over where I should be at this point in the month so I think it is achievable.

June is a 4 week month so the budget would be £400 but I am away for 5 days with the girls so will need to work out what to buy and what money to leave DH as he won't make himself lunch or cook when I am away and has no time at work at the moment due to staff issues to nuke a HM or bought RM for lunch and wont make sandwiches.

mitch2509 · 12 May 2017 at 2:06PM

Hi

I'm not much of a poster, but my husband has coeliacs and I wondered if I might be any help to you. We hardly ever have to go to another supermarket anymore to get GF as there's loads that can be bought that aren't strickly GF but don't have gluten in them or made in a factory that might contain it. If I do need some GF products I go to my local small Asda there's less there to temp us 😂.

Anyway if I can help point you in the right direction for what you can eat or any help at all just say (I don't like stick my nose in if it's not needed)

If you haven't all ready there's a great Coeliacs group on f@cebook, it's called something like Coeliacs with humor and there's some really good advice on there and also there's a Coeliacs UK app for your phone if you haven't got it.

Good luck

Rachel

Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

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