Overspending - Help

[drumst1ck]

Just had a brutal sit down with DH through all our finances. We are beginning to overspend and are going into our savings which we desperately don't want to do as we are trying to save to buy a house.

Please give me your best money saving tips! (Mainly looking for food/household type tips, big spends like bills we are pretty good at keeping as low as we can)

Meal plan. And stick to it.

You know all those unwanted items that you can't be bothered to sell? Sell them. Do it. Either go on Ebay or Facebook groups or whatever works for you. If you haven't had a clearout within the past six months, I guarantee you will find something in a cupboard you'd forgotten about that you could sell. Yes, it's a faff, but you will get money out of it.

What are you overspending on?
Is your household groceries bill reasonable?

Usually I would recommend a cupboard clear out in the kitchen as often there is a lot of cash tied up in store cupboard items. Most of us have upped the amount of food in our store cupboards to allow for Covid and Brexit disruption. And for now that seems sensible, think of it as savings!

My obvious tips are:

• stop buying expensive beauty products
• get a cheaper hairstyle (long and tied back, get a competent friend to trim it, DP can use clippers).
• trade down to supermarket own brands
• shop in Costco, Lidl, Aldi
• meal plan
• go vegetarian 2 or 3 days a week.
• get a slow cooker so you can enjoy cheaper cuts of meat
• don't buy expensive imported out of season fresh fruit and veg.
• take packed lunches to work.
• Don't buy coffee when you're out, it's overpriced
• cook from scratch as often as you can
• buy a stack of 20 microfiber cleaning cloths - you will use far less of the expensive cleaning products - it's a miracle
• check all your subscriptions- do you really need them?
• grow your own fresh herbs. Delicious and saves a fortune.
• agree not to buy each other expensive gifts - just a card and a kiss on anniversaries and at Valentine's, £20 max budget for Christmas and birthdays
• stop buying new clothes for a year, excluding undies. It's a bad habit as you probably don't need more clothes. If you need something try to source it second hand.
• turn the heating down 1 degree.
• turn the hot water temperature down a bit

Cut down spending on any food and drink out of the house or as much as possible. Cut out takeaways or restrict to once or twice a month.

Eat at home or take packed lunches and picnics. People can be spending hundreds of pounds a month so huge scope to cut down. If you want takeaway, get the supermarket equivalent instead, much cheaper.

Look back at your few months spending and identify where you are overspending and how to make changes.

Give both of you an allocation of 'pocket money' for personal spending based on what is affordable after essentials and savings for your house deposit. Once this money is gone, you have to do without until next month.

For food at home, work out which meals are expensive and swap to cheaper alternatives, eg frozen fish is usually cheaper than fresh. Eat less meat and have cheaper cuts.

Meal plan and stick to it, do one weekly shop so that's all you need. We do most of our shop at Aldi with a bit of Morrison's or Asda for any specific gluten free products I might need.

Batch cooking also helps, so you can have two or three meals out of one lot of food. Put potions in the freezer and you've got another meal for the following week etc.

We have a big budget spreadsheet (DH works in finance!) and literally have a budget for everything including "extras" - in other words disposable income for that month. We don't just spend whatever is left after bills, we set a limit. So that spend may be a meal out or clothes. Also a separate budget for kids school shoes etc. And also budget for birthdays coming up.

We also put money into a separate savings pot every month so when it comes to car insurance and MOT etc the money's already there.

Include a night of leftovers in your meal plan, my meal plan isn’t for set nights just a list of meals I’ve got the ingredients for. Eat the things that need using first.

We also put money into a separate savings pot every month so when it comes to car insurance and MOT etc the money's already there

Yes, make sure you are including annual and irregular expenses in your budget. Cars, pets and houses need money spending on them from time to time so need to include allocation in your budget even if there's nothing needed in the short term.

Meal plan and shop only once a week so you stick to it.
Your freezer is your best friend so you’re not tempted to shop midweek:-

• Freeze milk, cheese and bread for emergencies (and rotate them each month ie use them and replace again so they don’t stay frozen for too long);
• Batch cook so you have your own ‘ready meals’ to go with fresh veg, salad, pasta etc.
• Freeze meat and fish, pies and pizza, etc. which you can defrost to use later in the week.

Meal planning really does make a difference - and ensures no out of date stuff is in the fridge. After doing the shop plan that week around the use by dates and what is suitable for freezing. Make sure you don’t get stuck in a rut though with the same old, bring in changes and the new or seasonal meals so you’re not tempted to break out with boredom! Analyse your day to day “cash” spending on takeaway lunches, drinks, etc and make/take your own. Get the cheapest energy bills - check out Martin Lewis MSE for easy links to do this. Don’t browse shopping sites unless you really need something, so you’re not tempted to make impulse purchases. All the above would be a good and pain free start with an immediate effect.

I have pots for everything that I spend. Food. Car. Savings. And spending. I don’t move it over from pot to pot. If I have no spending money in that pot, I don’t buy that new pair of trousers.
It really is about self control and accountability. But this came from years of no accountability whatsoever that got us into a huge money debt.

Review every regular payment going out of your account.

From your bank statements, after bills, where is the most money spent and what can you do to reduce it.

Nothing is too small to change, it all makes a difference.

Thanks all! I think meal planning could really reduce my food bills. We always have a lot of random stuff in the fridge left over and often things going out of date (a big waste!!). Going to try cutting out all takeaways apart from one at the very end of the month once we have reviewed our spending that month to see if we can afford it. Cut right back on online shopping and have a big clear out and see what we can sell. And then see where we're at!

@BarbaraofSeville

We also put money into a separate savings pot every month so when it comes to car insurance and MOT etc the money's already there

Yes, make sure you are including annual and irregular expenses in your budget. Cars, pets and houses need money spending on them from time to time so need to include allocation in your budget even if there's nothing needed in the short term.

I highly recommend YNAB (You Need A Budget) for this. You can do this type of budgeting with pen and pencil or spreadsheet of course, but YNAB has changed my life.

Buy foil containers and make double food wise and freeze for the following week

Do this for meals that take a while to prepare and cook, so it saves you time and money

Get a monzo account (others are available) and use that for your spending money.

You can categorise each spend, set a budget. See where the money goes.

I still have the original downloaded spreadsheet from my first month I used it. What a bloody revelation.

I also check my bank account twice a day. I’m obsessional about it. I have a separate bills account. That has the correct money in there for all my bills. I check that once a week to make sure there are no surprises.

I check my spending account. Check what is coming out. What is going out.

I also don’t buy things when I see them. I leave it a week and then if I do want it. I buy it. But only up to £50. Anything over that I make myself save up for a few weeks for it. Makes u realise that u don’t always need the thing u wanted the most

I second a monzo account. Turn the round ups feature on to go into a Christmas pot, makes it so much cheaper come the time (obviously it's a bit late this year but for next!)

I came across a great saving method on here. You save £1 Monday £2 on Tuesday etc etc. Much less noticeable than sating you are going to save £28 a week. I used to do it in cash each morning but now I just transfer the money into my savings account. It soon adds up for big things like holidays and Xmas

Go through your bank account for standing orders and direct debits.make sure your not paying for an old phone contract or insuring an appliance you've scrapped.

Treating savings as a bill helped massively for me.
I use to move whatever was left into savings which often wasn’t much but now on pay day I move the set amount to my various savings accounts straight away. Then I can calculate what’s left and give that a job too.

@Audreyseyebrows that’s what I do. I get paid weekly. That’s our spending money. Anything left at the end of the week goes to savings.

When my husband gets paid. The bills money gets put into the bill account. I then put money into the car fund if it needs topping up. Petrol money for that month in one abs food money for that month into another.

The rest goes into savings.
Each has an upper limit. If all of them have reached their upper limit it goes into our long term savings which is for dire emergency

All great ideas.
Mine are I never ever buy my lunch at work I always bring it in also the same with coffees I only do that as a treat the result is I hardly spend money in the week.
Sign up to coupon apps Lidl from example get coupons and you get £10 off if you spend £200 a month which I do over weekly food shops .
Plan meals , slow cooker etc also leftovers for lunch .
Always use Quidco for online shopping it adds up and if you are shopping anyway .
Save as much as you can each week even £5 that's £20 a month but again adds up instead of spending £5 a month .
I hardly ever buy anything full price , research the best deals , like I needed to buy a new mattress you can get some good online deals out there if you are prepared to put time in , same with clothes , Christmas etc .
It's took some time but I'm now debt free apart from mortgage and it's so nice to know if say my washing machine died I could afford a new one .
Little things make a difference over time .

You've had some great advice so far but re bills I'd like to know exactly what you've done to get those as low as possible? It's not just shopping around/switching it's also reducing usage (eg lower thermostat and on for fewer hours in the day and dressing more warmly at home, eg you shouldn't need heating on at night once in bed, plus you could do things like get an electric blanket) and using cashback sites or credit card (paid off IN FULL every month - as per Martin Lewis guidelines)

Mse is a great site for money saving tips I think you'll find the old school forum particularly helpful

I now use the "nest egg" app to keep an inventory of all food and drink and you can record expiry dates on it too and set the alerts re expiry dates to suit you. Even if you only use it for short life products I'm sure it would help a lot. You can also create your own categories so you can assess how many meals worth of food you have in - that's what I've done.

Remember to regularly rotate food to minimise waste inc tinned goods. These have a long date but you still want to keep on top of things.

We always have a lot of random stuff in the fridge left over and often things going out of date (a big waste!!)

Exactly which foods do these tend to be? Vegetables can be used in soups/curries/stews/casseroles if still safe to use but past their best

Soup is dead easy to make and great for using up odds and ends. My basic "go to" method is sauté onions, garlic and any veg (diced) that is improved taste wise by sautéing, then add however much stock for how much you want to make, I usually use 2 pints boiled water and 3 stock cubes, then add whatever other diced veggies you're wanting/needing to use up, bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer and cook until the slowest cooking veg is soft and fully cooked. I have to allow to cool as my blender isn't designed to cope with hot liquids and I like my soup blended. Once cooled I blend and freeze with date frozen marked on container. I aim to use it up within 1-3months at most.

I'm veggie so the meat eaters will need to advise on using meat safely in soup.

Fruit - are you buying expensive and out of season fruit? That goes off quickly? I think a lot of people do nowadays. Maybe go back to more "traditional" but longer lasting fruit - apples, pears, bananas, oranges... you can also use fruit that's past it's best eating wise in smoothies or make a wee coulis to go on yoghurt/ice cream or on cereal or on a dessert... you can freeze some fruits too, grapes are particularly good imo.

I also note you say "going" out of date so I'm thinking you're possibly over cautious re food safety? I am very cautious too but I'm slowly learning what's ok to risk following some very helpful threads earlier at start of lockdown search "frugal foodies" here on mn. Remember "best before" means it's still safe to use after that date, just it won't be at best quality. Eggs in particular are fine ages after "best before" date, tinned goods are fine too for ages. Fruit and veg generally speaking if it looks and smells ok still it's fine.

Some foods you do need to be cautious on and "use by" means there's a chance it's less safe after those dates though even then a day or so is usually fine (I've really struggled to get my head around this so I know it's hard)

Also when I open something and it's supposed to be used "within 2 days" or whatever I write the date opened on the whiteboard I have in the kitchen so I have a clear, visible reminder when I'm in the kitchen. I was getting rid of stuff cos I couldn't remember when I'd opened it so wasn't sure if it was in the "2 days" period.

I live alone so batch cooking really helps with those days when I don't feel like cooking cos it's just me. Freeze in foil trays and then you just need to pop in fridge night before eating, reheat in oven on the day until piping hot.

Also I find bbc good food good for getting ideas as you can just put the item you need to use into a search as a potential ingredient and it gives you loads of recipes for it eg eggs and it'll give you loads of recipes to use eggs in

I do a spreadsheet, have done for years but I do it weird! Mainly as i am on legacy benefits and they come in at odd times, but basically it's a week to week forecast but I do 6 months at a time. I also regularly create and review an SOA - statement of affairs - which is a list of calendar monthly income and outgoings. I look on my banking app (I can search and create a list of a payees amounts and work out an average per month). I include all regular outgoings AND an amount "set aside" for things which aren't every month but are regular occurrences eg Xmas, birthdays & anniversaries, when I have a car amounts for mot/maintenance/road tax (road tax is cheaper to pay annually than by dd), when I'm able to have them holidays/weekends away (currently housebound through ill health) - you get the idea

Get loyalty cards for every shop you use and use them, very handy come this time of year and several offer more than just occasional small value coupons off purchases eg Tesco clubcard via the "partners" offer heavy discounts off air travel, experiences etc

Check before purchasing anything if there are any discount codes or vouchers available online, don't think I've ever paid full price in places like Pizza Hut for example.

Get a taste card if you calculate it'll pay off, they're offering a free trial at the moment. Could save you money on that monthly takeaway.

I do think you need an attitude adjustment as you're saying things like "trying" and "if we can afford it"

As yoda says "do or do not, there is no try"

If you set your mind to you WILL save £x you're far more likely to succeed. As a pp says treat it as another bill/regular outgoing.

Good luck