Trying to Save

The envelope method is working for me. However, next payday I may adapt by dividing my budgeted amount in 4 (possibly using four separate envelopes then, keeping the other three at home) Grocery money is dwindling down fast, think I may have lost track somewhere or I need to increase my budget.

I realise that I haven't snowflaked towards CC1 for a while. I need to get back into the habit.

I planned all of our meals for this week, but didn't have time to update. Now I'm going to start thinking about next week's meals.

Hubby has done a bit of overtime. We're hoping to have some extra money for when we're both off next month.

I spent over half an hour last night trying to work out what I'd spent in each category. It's less time consuming to use separate envelopes for each category so I'm doing that instead now.

Here's the balances for each envelope with the original amount in brackets.

Household: £17.85 (£20)
Nappies/misc: £24.04 (£40)
Food: £82.98 (£120)

Every four weeks, when I get paid, I start off the pay period well by writing down what I've spent - then I start using my debit card for purchases and lose track. Well for this pay period I've decided to use the envelope method. However, I've just put all of the money budgeted for this pay period into the one envelope. It's not as crazy as it sounds, it's my food shopping money (£120), SG's nappies/misc (£40) and household items (£20) Therefore I won't be using my debit card for any of these purchases. I've been putting my receipts into the envelope too.

I paid off the rest of the fridge freezer today so no interest will be added and my minimum payment won't increase. I've got a few other Buy Now Pay Later items that need to be paid off next year, so I will make that one of my goals for next year.

Wow it's been almost three weeks since my last post. I meant to update sooner but my attention was diverted elsewhere when we discovered that SG had her first case of head lice... We noticed this about dinner time one night, so I hurried over to the local pharmacy to get some treatment. I was stressing about how much this would cost - but we got it through the minor ailments service. It's still not away yet, and we all have it. I've been to the doctor's to get more treatment. He told me it's harder to get rid of in the hot weather.

It's payday tomorrow and I have £1.40 left. I had to transfer some money from savings to cover some spending too. It's times like this I'm thankful for savings, although we still haven't bought our bedroom carpet yet.

I've still been planning our meals.

Found a make-up bag reduced to 50p so I'm going to give it to MIL for her birthday, alongside her other gift (usually pyjamas)

I haven't added any more snowflakes, due to money being so tight.

- Chicken enchilidas
- Leek and potato soup with crusty bread
- Baked potatoes with beans and cheese
- Omelette/frittata with chips

I saved £1.30 using coupons and then 10p using my discount card so I sent a payment to the credit card.

Used my catalogue reward money to order my friend's birthday present. It was £9 but free to me.

I spent £5.xx shopping yesterday, will need to find my receipt.

Spent £61.36 on food shopping so far. Three weeks to go. I've budgeted £120 but I'm hoping to make it less.

I am going to try to snowflake towards debt this month, despite things being really tight this month.

Spoke to hubby and we agreed that he will consistently do overtime, if he can get it. I hope he manages to get some.

SG's first Christmas present was delivered today. I got her my first playdough set. It was reduced from £20 to £6 but I used my rewards from my catalogue, so it was free. I'm now on a mission to think of what else I can get her since she will be almost two by the time Christmas comes.

- Fish with homemade chips and peas
- Beef burger pasta (plenty of leftovers)
- Tomato soup

We've also got a lot of rolls and sandwiches to use up. We will have them for lunch/with dinner this week.

My total snowflakes for July are £9.23. I've done better but I can't complain. However, I don't know how much longer I can keep it up since we are in a dire situation here.

This is DH's second pay since reducing his hours by 5hrs/wk (£100 four-weekly) At the beginning of the month I had to give him money out of savings to cover his shortfall, so I thought he was ok. Nope, he went into his unauthorised overdraft and was charged £5/day. Fine will be taken out either this month, or next. Well we've got the same problem this month. Tomorrow we're going to go over hubby's outgoings with a fine-tooth comb. (We don't have a joint account) Well, hopefully we will. The problem is that he doesn't know exactly what is coming out of his account, whereas I do. Hubby is currently working a nightshift after being at work all day (nobody was in) so he might not be alert enough to discuss but it needs to happen. It's stressing me out.

I also have a shortfall of roughly £50 in my budget, although I'm not as worried since I can - hopefully - alter my variable expenses to spend as little as possible.

Wish me luck for the next four weeks. I'm going to stretch our pennies as far as they can go. I had leftover pasta for dinner, and hubby will finish it tomorrow.

I forgot to meal plan. Off to do that now.

For those that are interested, the Royal Baby is on its way. Kate was taken to hospital three hours ago.

This week I received money that I had been saving from my pay every four weeks (£640). The money was from company shares. This money will be used to:

- buy a carpet for our room
- pay for trip to England to visit DH's grandpa
- towards debt

I want to do some shopping around before we buy a carpet so we get the best deal. I'm going to have a look online then we're going shopping tomorrow.

I put some of the money towards my catalogue so I only have £69 left of the fridge freezer to pay. I will pay half when I get paid next week, and the rest in August. I also gave hubby money towards his credit card since he was over the limit!!

I checked online for train tickets, and we can get a return for £41. Of course, we haven't picked actual dates yet or spoken to his Grandpa so these were just random dates in September that I picked.

Ideally, I would love to keep some money in savings but it might be a bit unrealistic.

Now I know the whole point of a meal plan is to be specific but my freezer really needs defrosting, and we have some stuff that's been in there a while. So this week I will try to use that up. We will be having:

- filled pasta with wedges
- vegetable pasta/risotto
- toasties/wraps with chips
- fish pie with veg

Also, I've been thinking more about my grocery budget, and maybe where I shop is the problem. So next pay I'm going to get some stuff from Farmfoods. I noticed on their leaflet that they sell the cereal bars that I've been buying from the pound store for 89p. That's an 11p saving, there must be other stuff too. I'm going to investigate.

I've overspent on groceries by £5.46 so far. Two weeks to go and we will need more milk at some point, and bread too. I think I will budget more next month for groceries and less in another category.

I counted up my snowflakes: £5.93. I've got some direct debits coming out soon though so I'll make the payment once they're paid.

I budgeted £40 for nappies and baby snacks for SG. Spent £27.35 so far and this includes a pair of sandals and a top for £3.

I work for a large retail company. I would be lying if I said that we had a lot of staff (in my dept anyway) Whenever people leave, they're not replaced. Which was ok, at first. A year later or so though, it's not so fine. I think some full-time colleagues may have been complaining because it was brought up today. What was basically said was that the reason the company doesn't replace them is because they are investing the money elsewhere [to bring customers in] Nobody said a word. In fact, I think it wasn't mentioned again.

In other news, I read in the paper this morning that £5.8m is being invested in Scotland after Andy Murray's success. I found a link to a detailed article if anyone's interested:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23238125

It was 20 degrees Celsius here, roughly, which frankly is enough for us. I don't know how my fellow SA bloggers manage to survive in the extreme heat you have - this is a cold day for you guys I bet!! Well, here, we are useless. We complain that we don't have the sun and when it's here we complain.

We were out in MIL's garden yesterday with SG but we had to bring her inside a lot because it's just too much for her - plus she hates wearing her sun hat.

This week I will make:

- five bean chilli with wedges/rice (never made it last week)
- chicken in a garlic and herb sauce with potatoes and veg
- risotto

I'm really close to using all of my grocery budget so I'm hoping to spend as little as possible. How did this happen? Well, because I'm not used to us having nice weather we never have ice cream in the house. This means when we do go to the shop to get it I'm usually feeling tired and hungry and I end up buying other stuff such as BBQ chicken wings and spicy chicken thighs. We finished the last of them tonight. Maybe I should pay more attention to the weather forecast in future and buy these things in advance! It could have been worse, well that's what I keep telling myself. We spent £20.11 in the shop and £8 was for nappies.

My shopping came today. I've spent about £70 of my £100 grocery budget. But the fridge, freezer and cupboards are full. The only things I may need to buy are a few fresh items. I've lost my receipt from the butcher's but I know I spent £11.xx there.

Waiting on my new credit card statement so I can make a payment for this pay period. I also want to start putting snowflakes towards debt again.

This is hubby's first pay with his new hours. £100 less than it used to be. Maybe I'm trying to get too much done, put towards debt, especially with less income. But, in my opinion, I'm saving myself money in the future by dealing with debt now. I just hope it works out. I'm going to track every penny for the rest of this pay period.

We were given some free food from a local cafe at the weekend so I made the steak pasta today. It was food that was going to get thrown out otherwise. We ate it over the weekend, but we still have some sandwiches left.

Next week I will make:

- five bean chilli with rice
- mozzarella pasta bake
- minced beef with cheesy tortillas

I'm expecting to have leftover chilli and mince.

This weekend I am making minute steak pasta in a tomato sauce.

I've budgeted £100 for food shopping and £20 for household items.

I've spent just over half of my food budget for this pay period.

Tomorrow is payday so I'm currently writing my shopping list while meal planning. I've already decided that I want to use my slow cooker a few times over the next four weeks. Just need to find a few recipes.

I will also start tracking how much we spend on household items over this pay period. I think this will be interesting since I've never done it before.

Lastly, I will start snowflaking again. I already have a few coupons which I am going to use for items which we need.

Today I was thinking about my grocery budget. I include all things household in this. Now I'm thinking it's time to budget specifically for household items, rather than including it in my food shop? I'm thinking maybe £20 or so for household items would be reasonable. I'll add it to my budget next month and see. Of course, now I will actually be paying attention to what I'm spending on these items whereas normally I would just count them as "food". Hope this makes sense.

I've had a chance to think about our meals for the week too. I'll make sausage casserole, pork with potatoes and veg and baked potatoes with beans. I'm expecting leftovers.

The grocery budget that is. I budgeted £100, which is more than normal, only to find that we have spent more.

I think things are so bad this month after this overspending that I am considering not snowflaking towards debt for the next three weeks. I will pay more than the minimum payment for CC1, which is £74.xx. I will pay £90. I know, how am I ever going to get rid of it if I don't put as much as I can towards it?

On the plus side, there is plenty of food in the house. The only things I will need to buy are perishable items. I just need to decide what I will be making for the next three weeks.

I promised hubby a steak for Father's Day but we will have to postpone it.

I've been watching Extreme Couponing these past few weeks. Wish I could go shopping and save 90% or pay nothing for it. I guess you need to devote 20 hours plus a week to get those kind of savings, and have plenty of storage space (or not, in some cases, but continue to build up your stockpile)

I found myself browsing what's the cost website earlier. I entered my details for it to reveal an expected payoff date for CC1 of June 2015!! This is based on me paying £90 a month (minimum is actually lower) According to them, my minimum payment will not reach £60 ish until it is practically paid off. Not what I like to "hear". Of course I didn't add my snowflakes to this since they vary.

CC2 payoff date is worse, obviously. Sometime in 2018.

All of this is based on using the snowballing method.

Now that I've registered and saved my details I will be checking back occasionally.

That's it. Rant over.

Totaled up my recent discounts from shopping: £3.24 so sent a payment to credit card.

Total snowflakes for May (best yet!): £16.35

This is based on savings from coupons and my colleague discount. It's mostly from coupons though this month.

Noticed that there was a Money Day at my local family centre this week. It's aim was to "provide a range of advice including: advice on energy bills, budgeting tips and advice" I never went, I just seen it advertised. I guess they think people need help.

The other day I read in the paper that payday loans were being given to drunk people and children.

I was fully intending to post this week meal plan today until MIL showed up with two carrier bags full of stuff from her work. My freezer is now full of paninis, wraps and rolls. My fridge now has half a haggis (for hubby), wraps and paninis, plus all the veg and meat I already had in there. Also we were given a ready meal for two so we will have that tomorrow night when I'm home from work.

Hubby found a packet of jelly in the cupboard today so I made that up to have after dinner.

Made hubby's father's day card at baby group today, so that's that sorted. It took me a few attempts to get SG to put her hand on to the card, it's not perfect but I know hubby will appreciate it. Today was a NSD. Could do with having more of them.

Hubby's contract might be changing very soon - he will be working about five less hours a week. He's happy to work less so he can see us more. I'm not too sure but it will be good to have him home more when I'm off. We definetly need to watch our spending when his new hours start. It's not like we're bad to be honest but there will be no splurges.

I'm awaiting a letter soon about my Sharesave. I've been saving for three years. I'm not sure how much I will get, this is my first time getting it. People at work are saying that the letter should come through soon. The money will be used for getting carpets and some storage space since we have been here for almost nine months and we still don't have a carpet in our bedroom. But things take time.

Well I received a reply:

Thank you for your message.

I appreciate that you pay more than the minimum payment each month and have never missed any payment on your account. Please continue doing the same as this will help you to improve your credit rating. However, I'm unable to review the current interest rates on your account at the moment. Please be assured that we do review the interest rates on a periodic basis and will let you know in writing if we are able to offer you a lower interest rate in the future.

If you have any other queries, please send us a further secure message.

Sent an amail to CC1 company asking for a decrease in interest rate. I said I never miss a payment and I make more than the minimum payment. First time I've done this. Worst case scenario they say no but at least I will know that I've asked.

I'm just back from having lunch with my mum. My mum ended up buying our sandwiches and coffees. I bought us a chocolate brownie each. £3.70 (would be cheaper to make it!) Then I bought baby sunscreen and value teabags £2.77

Came home to find my quarterly clubcard statement from Tesco was here, and some money off coupons. I will be using them when I'm shopping next.

It's Father's Day next month. Hubby has asked for a plain red cap. I managed to find one online for about £2.xx including postage so that should be here next week. Hopefully it's nice.

Just sent a payment of £2.48 to CC1. This was from savings using my discount card. This brings my total snowflakes this month to £13.07

I'm meeting my mum for a coffee today. My treat, as my mum always ends up buying my lunch when we meet. Last week I went to hers so thought I would suggest going out instead this week. I also need to buy some teabags today and sunscreen for SG. I'm hoping that will be my only spending for the rest of the week though.

I suggested to hubby that we go to England in September when we're off so SG can meet her great-grandad. I'll start looking into that now. This will be our first time travelling with a toddler. I think we would be getting the train there.