No money! We are officially broke, we have food and a roof over our heads, bills are paid but, gulp, we have no money for petrol! I have to do the school run for the rest of the week, 32 miles each day and my petrol tank is empty, I'm going to have to borrow money from the children to get them to school. I'm so worried about it all, still, we have food, a roof over our heads and the bills are paid!
School hols - I hope we get the warm weather that is predicted as we'll be able to go for bike rides and take picnics out with us. We are away in August for a week [children, Mum and I] Mum has paid for the caravan and is paying for most of the food and I'll pay for the petrol and some of the food, the children take their own spending money, I'm praying for good weather so we can spend the days at the beach.
I've had to pay for school things this week, £14 for C to go to Wicksteed Park and £2.50 for D to have a "fun" day at school. We haven't been told what the "fun" things are as its a surprise for the children. At least there is no spending money needed for D and Mum has given C £5 to take with her.
I can't believe I'm at the age I am and things are not getting better with money, all we do is pay out for this, that and the other, we never blow our money on "stuff" it all goes on things to keep us alive and at school, I could go out and get a job but for the time being K is against that, he wants me at home for the children and whilst I agree with it I am fed up with having NO MONEY!
Helen x
Showing posts with label Grocery Shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grocery Shopping. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Grocery Shopping Rant and other bits
K is feeling a lot better today, thank goodness! We went to the Lottie and planted peas and runners. We had to give everything a good water, the weeds are getting out of control!
Grocery shopping - this month we have spent £323, that's a horrendous amount for 2 adults and 2 children and our budget is £250. We have overspent by £73 and we need things. K and I sat down tonight and decided to do the following
1. use up what we have, we have 1 large freezer and 2 smaller ones and they are FULL, stuffed to the gunnel's with food, how terrible that is too have so much food in, its what I call dead money - we've paid a supermarket money for food that we can then store for months! All those deals come around time and time again and yet we have fallen for the trap they have set us, well no more Mr Moneygrabbingsupermarket, we buy what we NEED and that's it.
2. We are drawing out cash each week for the shopping we need [£75 per week for June] and what we don't use goes into the car tax/insurance pot. If we need more money one week for shopping and we don't have enough then we have to wait till the next week till we can buy it.
3.Take advantage of offers but realise that the offers always appear again and again and again, we don't need to buy enough for 6 months, we need to shop smartly.
4. Get rid of the freezer in the garage, we've given ourselves 3 months to run it down, this will also save on the leccy to run it.
5. Use the money saved to buy car insurance for the year, pay upfront and then save for the next year, it may take us a couple of years to get to the point where we can pay in one instalment instead of 12 but this will happen and its cheaper to pay once a year [avoid those charges for monthly payments] we also want to pay for the car tax yearly instead of every 6 months as its also cheaper to do that.
6. Remember that every pound saved is ours and not the supermarkets
I can't describe how angry I am that we have fallen into the traps set by the supermarkets - we know better but we still got sucked in by them. We struggle every month, especially for the last 2 weeks and that's hardly surprising given how much we are spending on food! There are areas of expenditure we can do little about - petrol for example but where we can we will save. Lidl and Aldis will be our new bestest mates and Tesco can go jump, petrol is what we will use them for and also offers that suit us not them. We will also buy more from the Market - fruit and veg etc, we don't make enough use of the market, that's another change about to happen.
Nice part - I used Groupon the other day to buy tickets to take Mum and the children to a Medieval Day on Monday 4th June - day out for £12 plus petrol, we'll take our own food and drinks [we always do] and I'll buy the children an ice cream. They have pocket money to take with them if they want to buy themselves something but I buy nothing for them, sounds hard but they are happy with this. Their Dad gives them a lot of pocket money and they get to keep it and spend it on what they want to [within reason] everything they want to buy has to be okayed by me and its always discussed in detail and we scour the Internet to get things cheaply [D really "gets" this, C sometimes struggles and wants things NOW] Even if the weather is poop I'm sure we'll have a nice day.
Yesterday it was Mums birthday so we went for a walk at Harold Odell Country Park, boy was it hot, we were really daft and didn't take water to drink so had to buy a drink there, £4 for a tea and a hot chocolate, expensive, cake was £3 a slice - didn't buy any. We had a lovely, lovely walk.
The weather is due to cool down for a few days, that will make weeding at the Lottie a lot easier
Helen x
Grocery shopping - this month we have spent £323, that's a horrendous amount for 2 adults and 2 children and our budget is £250. We have overspent by £73 and we need things. K and I sat down tonight and decided to do the following
1. use up what we have, we have 1 large freezer and 2 smaller ones and they are FULL, stuffed to the gunnel's with food, how terrible that is too have so much food in, its what I call dead money - we've paid a supermarket money for food that we can then store for months! All those deals come around time and time again and yet we have fallen for the trap they have set us, well no more Mr Moneygrabbingsupermarket, we buy what we NEED and that's it.
2. We are drawing out cash each week for the shopping we need [£75 per week for June] and what we don't use goes into the car tax/insurance pot. If we need more money one week for shopping and we don't have enough then we have to wait till the next week till we can buy it.
3.Take advantage of offers but realise that the offers always appear again and again and again, we don't need to buy enough for 6 months, we need to shop smartly.
4. Get rid of the freezer in the garage, we've given ourselves 3 months to run it down, this will also save on the leccy to run it.
5. Use the money saved to buy car insurance for the year, pay upfront and then save for the next year, it may take us a couple of years to get to the point where we can pay in one instalment instead of 12 but this will happen and its cheaper to pay once a year [avoid those charges for monthly payments] we also want to pay for the car tax yearly instead of every 6 months as its also cheaper to do that.
6. Remember that every pound saved is ours and not the supermarkets
I can't describe how angry I am that we have fallen into the traps set by the supermarkets - we know better but we still got sucked in by them. We struggle every month, especially for the last 2 weeks and that's hardly surprising given how much we are spending on food! There are areas of expenditure we can do little about - petrol for example but where we can we will save. Lidl and Aldis will be our new bestest mates and Tesco can go jump, petrol is what we will use them for and also offers that suit us not them. We will also buy more from the Market - fruit and veg etc, we don't make enough use of the market, that's another change about to happen.
Nice part - I used Groupon the other day to buy tickets to take Mum and the children to a Medieval Day on Monday 4th June - day out for £12 plus petrol, we'll take our own food and drinks [we always do] and I'll buy the children an ice cream. They have pocket money to take with them if they want to buy themselves something but I buy nothing for them, sounds hard but they are happy with this. Their Dad gives them a lot of pocket money and they get to keep it and spend it on what they want to [within reason] everything they want to buy has to be okayed by me and its always discussed in detail and we scour the Internet to get things cheaply [D really "gets" this, C sometimes struggles and wants things NOW] Even if the weather is poop I'm sure we'll have a nice day.
Yesterday it was Mums birthday so we went for a walk at Harold Odell Country Park, boy was it hot, we were really daft and didn't take water to drink so had to buy a drink there, £4 for a tea and a hot chocolate, expensive, cake was £3 a slice - didn't buy any. We had a lovely, lovely walk.
The weather is due to cool down for a few days, that will make weeding at the Lottie a lot easier
Helen x
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