How would you spend a bit of saved housekeeping money

[HonHonoriaGlossop]

Ive been trying to save between £80 - 100 per month since august out of my housekeeping money. This is 1/4 of it so has meant being very creative with the cupboards, using up stuff in the freezer and being very frugal/serious yellow sticker shopping and olio.
by the end of this month (pay runs 20-20th of the month) I should have around £300. I was planning to put it aside for early next year as a bit of a cushion and continue adding to it all the time I can afford to make the savings, however I'm now wondering whether I would be better off investing in buying basics like cereal, coffee, pasta, butter, cat food at the current prices and developing a bit of a stash to be used next year. food prices keep marching upwards so now I'm wondering if it would be more astute to buy what I know we will need.
in my position, WWYD ? Also any tips on what looks like still going up in price and worth the spend now ?

i can't believe I'm looking at how I can best invest my money in the markets of dried pasta and olive oil.... thanks, Putin

do you have savngs already for a car/holiday/dentist?

I think I would stock up on some bulk purchases. I have always bought olive oil in 5l tins and decanted for kitchen use. Likewise ecover handwash and bioD washing up liquid. If bathroom cleaner or kitchen roll is on special offer I buy it for later. There's an organic instant coffee DH likes that I buy 6 jars at a time. Not massive savings always but as pp said it's nice to have things in stock.

As for surplus cash, I have money in premium bonds for a rainy day fund.

Interest rates in savings accounts are increasing however if this is just for running the house then I would save half for now and build a stock up and half for next year.

With regard to crops, I did buy some buckwheat flour to put in my freezer. I don't use a lot but wanted to be sure I had some. So not to save money.

I always split "extra" money like this in to 3. 1/3 kept as "rainy day" money, 1/3 kept as short term cash at hand and final 1/3 goes to store cupboard. This works for us as we always have unexpected things cropping up and so committing it all to one thing or another wouldn't be helpful.

Actually I think it was important to clarify it.

We see lots of posts about women try to squirrel away tiny amounts for themselves out of 'housekeeping' money they get from their partner.

It's often a way to financially abuse and control.

That's definitely not the case here but it's clearly been the assumption without it being explained. It's quite an old fashioned term.

I’d use £100 to stock up on special offers for your usual brand of toothpaste, toilet paper, ground coffee. Things that get used up at the same rate every month.
Wish I’d done that with cooking oil (75 per cent increase in 1 month due to Ukraine).

And maybe look at some low wattage appliances that save on central heating like an electric throw or microwaveable heat pads.

i have to agree, it is unusual terminology

To clarify - we have a healthy amount of savings etc and a pretty good household income as there is shed loads of overtime at work because we have no staff plus DH does a couple of jobs outside his normal job as well (he's addicted to work but that's another story).
i started doing the savings one month as I wanted to see how little I could manage with and decided to carry on doing it to build up a bit of extra money that I have stashed away. This is solely for food.
im sure some people might think I'm being OTT saving out of the housekeeping budget as we are comfortably off but I wanted to have a pot of money put aside for a food-related rainy day

@HonHonoriaGlossop have you got a Costco card?
I'd maybe stock up there with some of it but be careful as some of it isn't actually cheaper.

And if I don't use it on the household spend or leave it in the bank DH will undoubtedly find some power tool or other item he "must have" 😂

If you don’t already do so, save it to pay your car insurance annually, you can save a couple hundred pounds doing it this way

Ooh harsh! I think these things need to be clarified and I read it as concern from the other poster. Pleased all is well as agree with pp that it is a fairly old fashioned term that can imply that there is financial abuse

Well if you have a good amount of savings, it won't hurt to have some extra food in the cupboard. Go for things that have a good shelf life and that you will definitely use!

Thankyou for all your suggestions - we have all our expenses covered, holiday funds etc. so this extra money really is just for food/toiletries/cleaning/washing expenditure and we have the luxury of not having to subsidise other areas with it.

Yeah that simple comment was really rude.

Agreed

I am sorry for the initial snappy response. I have had a few "comments" in the past from work and other people taking the piss out of our old fashioned financial set up (fiercely tracked spending, mainly in cash and housekeeping money, bargain shopping etc). However this helped us get out of debt and on top of our spending. So I get very defensive over it.
my view is that if more people paid more attention to their food shop, they'd spend less. I massively overspent before we took the money out in cash.

If you have room for a large freezer / have a large freezer I would use some of money on buying meat joints when on offer , otherwise perhaps coffee and wine

@Upliftin3 thank you @HonHonoriaGlossop the term you should use I’d household budget then I suppose. I automatically read it as you got a “housekeeping allowance” from your dh/dp and you were trying to make it stretch etc. No need to be rude.

cleaning solutions?

new curtains?

i think you know perfectly well what it means unless you're a bit simple

Best response yet I have seen on Mumsnet OP 😀

The empty shelves in recent years made me rethink my shopping. I now buy larger quantities less often. So 24 loo rolls, 75 wash laundry powder, 5l cooking oil, 500gm tin coffee and so on.
The only slight downside is the storage. I have stock in my hall and on the landing. The pluses are, I feel more secure with the cushion, I spend less per unit, fewer deliveries and delivery fees and more free time to spend on MN.
Have you thought of buying a 90L chest freezer and batch cooking to get ahead of food price rises? I looked up how much it cost to run per year and weighed that against future food costs. Very happy with it.

@2catsandhappy yes we do have two big freezers. I do lots of yellow sticker shopping so they pay for themselves in storage for bargains. I also cook my parents 4 meals a week so yes, I do do quite a bit of batch cooking as DH and I both work shifts. Plus Emergency dinners for when Dd has an unscheduled stay at granny's. It's very hectic in our house with lots of comings and goings 😂.