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)

Switch to an account that gives you really good transparency on what your spending. Monzo let’s you annotate everything so you can see what you’re spending and where you’re spending it.

Change your bank account to Starling. It has absolutely revolutionised my spending habits. You can categorise your spending, set budgets but the best thing for me has been their saving spaces. They’re like mini accounts within your account that you can make regular savings to for things like car maintenance, Christmas, holidays etc. Anything.! Seriously, look into it.

Thanks all. These are really helpful. Few things I've done today:

• meal plans for the week. Plan to shop at Aldi and try cheaper products I wouldn't normally go for. Stick to the list (and not get drawn into the middle isles of tat...)
• DH won't be buying lunch anymore, that was working out at about £20 a week for him. But if anyone has any decent cheap lunch ideas for him to take it that would be appreciated, he does a lot of exercise and a high metabolism so needs filling things to get him through the day.
• checked my Tesco clubcard and have £30 worth of vouchers there so that will cover a small shop one week. Will use the clubcard for fuel in future if possible
• Full stock check of cupboards, fridge and freezer to see what we can use up that I had forgotten about
• More conscious efforts to reduce gas/electricity/water. We've been quite lax in this recently
• Big bills are all definitely on the lower end so not too worried about those but will double check them all this week over on money saving expert to see it there's any easy swaps we can make
• Will look into taste card to help with takeaway cravings (pregnancy isn't helping with that..)
• Will be doing clearouts over the next few weeks/months to see what we don't use and can flog
• Look into Monzo etc to help us be a bit more aware of spending. Obviously just looking through at the end of the month isn't working.

We have set ourselves new budgets for different categories and will be sticking to that.
Just need a good kick up the bum I think!!

Anything I've missed?

One I forgot was that we do spend a lot of fresh fruit and veg. DD is 1 and absolutely mad on berries so we have just carried on buying them even though they are expensive and out of season. Would frozen work out cheaper? Any other alternatives? Want to keep her diet as varied as possible (appreciate if we are cutting back this might not be feasible all the time)

OP try searching your fav takeaway for a recipe

Chicken curry is simple, onions, spices, add stock, brown sugar and cornflower to thicken - add chicken or have it with chips to dip in.

Sticky chicken you make like KFC chicken but with a honey and soy source glaze.

Sweet one sour source is tomato source, brown sugar and vinegar plus water and cornflower to thicken

Once you practice it’s quick and easy and cheaper

@drumst1ck

One I forgot was that we do spend a lot of fresh fruit and veg. DD is 1 and absolutely mad on berries so we have just carried on buying them even though they are expensive and out of season. Would frozen work out cheaper? Any other alternatives? Want to keep her diet as varied as possible (appreciate if we are cutting back this might not be feasible all the time)

Frozen berries are definitely cheaper and it wouldn’t hurt to try her with them. They’re great for adding to weetabix / porridge in a morning or to yogurt.

Frozen fruit is definitely cheaper! Blueberries are fine, raspberries go a little mushy and I’m not a fan of frozen strawberries. Well worth a try though!

I found this to be a game changer, take cash out, put your card in the car.
Strange how you actually put things back if you need to run out to the car if your going over budget .
This is good if you just want milk and have £2 change,. You don't impulse buy