Scroogy September

Well as the titles suggests September is going to be more than scroogy, i am determined to try and spend as little as possible. The bank is way past the black and in the red. CC's are maxed out and can't be used.

Part of the deal is  the bills  will be paid as well as transport costs etc but general spending will be a big no no. Can't stop the transport costs. My eldest needs £15 a week, youngest  £10  and me a whopping £20, so £45 a week just for that. School meals are £20 a week for two children, so youngest is straight on pack lunches no choice in the matter. Eldest well, we'll see how it goes.
My partner and me pack lunches, and the business pays for the vans fuel.

Decided our grocery budget for the month will be £200 for a family of four, three cats and guests. 

Whilst at the same time keeping the store cupboard filled to a reasonable level.
the idea is that hopefully by the end of the month i will have been able to save up some holiday money for our first family holiday with my dad in October. As well as fingers crossed save up enough money to buy a new freezer. Ours went kaput about a month ago, its really hard adjusting to life without one. I've just realised how much we rely on one item. but also how much we waste :(

The fridge is bare and the veg is past its best but lets see how far the fresh stuff goes.

Wish me luck and lets see how it goes

kez xx




Grocery Spends £2.26

Items:  £2.26 on 2 x thick loaves of bread, 2 x tins of garden peas, single cream, 4 large onions and 10 satsuma's.

General: 0

No Spend Days

Hi everyone,

We today definitely hasn't been a spend free day, had to go shopping yet again. My partner took us over to supermarket and pet store for things. I swear our third can cat smell fresh cat litter from a mile away.
Honestly my partner and i were shocked at how much the prices of general has gone up.
We looked at the reduced food and even that was expensive. Raspberries reduced by 10p, ridiculous. No wonder there is so much waste when the supermarkets don;'t reduce food by much.

One good thing happened, my partner now agrees with me that the local halal offer better quality meat that the supermarkets do and at very reasonable prices.  But he did say that we would have to find a good butcher just for pork, what an i say he likes his bacon and sausages!!


No Spend Days or a NSD

What is a no spend day? I hear you ask, well this is where you actively don't spend any money at all. To help me this i joined in a challenge on MSE as i find it helps me to focus when its down on paper or the net in this case.

They are no hard and fast rules and can choose what counts as a spend free day.Every person is an individual and so are they budgets.

The way i plan a no spend day is by making sure i don't so any unplanned spending.
For example:

• I don't count Direct Debits - i have no control of these.
• I don't interest payments or bill days - again i have no control of them
• I don't count overpayments to credit cards as i'm actively trying to clear debt

But i do count the following :

• Buying items from the corner shop such as sweets, milk, daft things
• Buying clothing which is not needed
• Getting the van fixed, again :(
• Paying for school meals
• Paying for large for groceries
• Paying for meals out
• Basically anything other than bills

Its the 11th of January and so far we have jointly achieved 8 days of no fiscal / monetary spending at all. Instead we had 3 days , one planned and two unplanned.  Which i think is pretty good.

I like the idea as it makes me think about my spending in a different way.

Maybe you could try a no spend day and see how it works for you :)

See you tomorrow

kez x

very tough month

As stated a very tough month for us financially, don't know how were going to get through it. Tobe honest its happened before, December is a tough month and this timed we more than over spent. So i'm paid the bare minimum on credit cards. Not good considering i'm trying to pay debt off.

Today my partner and i went shopping, to be honest i thought i had an £300 spare this month till i checked and paid cc's today and i nearly cried. My partner doesn't quite know how bad it is, but i'm going to have to be blunt with him. Its so horrible though as the past few months have been horrendous healthwise . Anyway we spent £58.68 and that was £6.50 worth of coupons, yellow sticked reduced food and lots of deals. In the end with came out with hardly any food. I'm being serious 6 filled carrier bags and we will have to go shopping for more food.

I know i was to post a budget but to be honest my mind is so boggled and my hormones are all the place i simply can't.

So instead i will post when i can with ideas and how were coping day to day.

Sorry for the negative post i'm just being honest and upfront.We earn less than £10k a year including working tax credit, child tax credit and child benefit. So effectively were living on less than a person on Jobseekers Allowance, yet the government are cutting on benefits and people on very low incomes. So the poverty line is widening.