To cut costs by reducing my family's food quality rather than give up my expensive haircuts?

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Ok, ok, deliberately provocative title for a basic WWYD. And I'm asking for financial advice in AIBU, so I am prepared for Opinions, capital letters.

We've happily lived within our income for years and years, but borrowed against the mortgage to reno our kitchen, so we have a debt to repay, albeit as slowly as we like.

There aren't a lot of areas we can cut back on. I could squeeze every area slightly but it would be a lot of effort for really not much money. I just deleted a long explanation of how cheaply we live because it was dull, but neither of us has expensive hobbies, buys CDs or computer games or expensive clothes, our social life is parks/picnics/free toddler activities/dinners with friends, and we're both DIYers. This is all just because we are boring sods naturally frugal; we lived like this even when we both worked fulltime.

There are two areas where there is some real fat to cut. One is food, and the other is my hair. If we cut one or the other, we'd add enough to what we currently save in order to pay down the debt fast enough.

Food: we cook from scratch so the budget isn't taken up with processed meals, but I spend around $200 (150quid) a week for two adults and a toddler. Our meals are meat or seafood heavy, which is made worse because I buy from a local butcher who sells free-range, ethical, great quality meat which is probably 150% of the price of other butchers. We tend to have good cheese, pate and posh crackers in the house, mineral water, wine, etc. My two year old is familiar with smoked salmon, olives and Brie, which is ridiculous because she'd be just as happy with cheddar and pickles but she eats what we do, and this is how we eat. We don't have junk food or snacks, but everything we do have is unncessarily good quality. I'm pretty sure I can cut this by a third without compromising on fresh ingredients and well cooked meals, it would just mean going to a cheaper butcher, making a couple of vegetarian meals a week, buying cheaper cuts.

Hair: I spend a fortune, frankly. It's long, and only gets cut every 3 months, but I go to an expensive hairdresser. The real expensive is the colour; it's coloured and streaked, and that happens every six weeks. I spend about 100 quid a month on it, all up. If I coloured it at home and found a cheaper cutter, it would go down to about 20 quid a month since it's only cut every three.

Here is the justification part: I couldn't do anything like the streaking at home. I'm mousy with a lot of premature grey, so the blonde streaks help cover the roots much better than any solid colour ever has. The cut is the first cut I have ever been really happy with, it's very low maintenance and looks classy but funky, and professional enough for my job. I've never found a cheaper hairdresser that can do as good a job, maybe I'm unlucky? I'm not particularly slim and not particularly pretty, but the one thing I do have, now, is great hair. It makes me feel good.

I prefer to cut down the food budget, but AIBU?

I ripped through $400 in just under a week last week. Unfuckingbelievable. Not even buying that much in the way of luxuries.

Sorry that should have been just over a week or just under 2 weeks. It did include nappies and a new big box of washing liquid, but still!

Oh yeah, I'm including cleaning products and toiletries in the total!

Maybe I should persuade my husband to stop using the expensive MachIII razor blades. Have you seen the PRICE of those things?

Yes, and after something like 10 years DH asked me to pick him up a new razor cause his one was all crusty, so I bought the Fusion, which the mach3 blades don't fit apparently and which have even more expensive blades.

Still, we complain about the cost of living while sitting in our big houses, eating meat and surrounded by safety.

Best Bloody Place in the World!

Tortoise - I don't know how you've got off so lightly with this thread. I spend between 600 and 800 pcm on food and toiletries/cleaning stuff and have two teenagers to feed and approximately 400 per annum on hair and I have been torn apart on here in spite of living well within budget and being able to afford it. TBH, if I were you I think I would be tempted to spend a bit less on both to repay the debts faster and if the hair were that important to me I think I would try to earn a little bit extra ringfenced for personal expenditure.

Oh, I'm sure it's because I posted in the quiet time, onceamai!

The debt in question is actually 'just' mortgage debt - but I'm not of the school of thought that says a mortgage doesn't count as debt. So technically I have 20 years to pay back the debt, although obviously the sooner I can do so, the less interest is levied upon it. We do already save a bit out of our income, this is just how best to increase those savings and pay it down fast.

I am looking at other areas to squeeze, but earning more would be very difficult, as my job is only part time and I can't increase the hours (small workplace, no funding to increase staffing), and every hour that I'm not here I'm looking after a two year old. In about six months, hopefully, DH will finish his PhD and his income will rise, so this is temporary either way.

Well I'd not worry too much really as you are managing within your budget and it sounds like you are quite frugal in lots of ways. I'd go for changing your diet a little bit, perhaps by eating a vegetarian meal in the evening twice a week, making one of your weekend meals a bit simpler (I'm assuming that you have a cooked breakfast, and then two proper meals?), and eating real luxury treats less often.

We went through a stage when we spent a lot of money on fancy food as a treat after shopping, and it got more and more elaborate and expensive. Now we've moved somewhere food is more expensive and we only have one income we stopped, and it has made really fairly little difference to our lives. We do appreciate the smoked salmon etc more when we get it too.

I think you have to be careful about cutting costs I can get very parsimonious, and then I get miserable and binge shop. All about balance really.

are you not worried about gout?

Well I wasn't...

Good grief... sounds like my house. "I'm pretty sure I can cut this by a third without compromising on fresh ingredients and well cooked meals, it would just mean going to a cheaper butcher, making a couple of vegetarian meals a week, buying cheaper cuts." Don't go to a cheaper butcher, but yes to making a couple vegetarian meals a week... there's lots of fabulous, easy, tasty and inexpensive vegetarian meals that pack in nutrition.

That sounds completely reasonable to me - did you say $200 a week on food? That is half what I spend, but admittedly I have four kids to feed. But I have a vegetable garden and we eat vegetarian every 2nd day.

Hair costs alot doesn't it? I stopped visiting the hairdresser for a while - just had hair trimmed and coloured myself, but the result was not nearly as nice. I think if it is important to you, try to keep up the hair, spread out the time a bit longer between colouring if you can, and maybe eat less meat. Meat is so expensive in this country (also Aussie). With our large family I buy meat in bulk and have a very big freezer.

And don't worry about gout, all the latest thinking leans toward eating grass fed meat and omega 3 fats - the best way to eat.

Oh yes, I forgot the other option is to have smaller meat potions and up the vegetables on your plate (or have pudding after, a nice treat, good for fruit and generally much less expensive than a first course). Or cheaper cuts cooked differently (I love a good stew personally, or marinades work well on cheaper cuts).

Approach the person who does your hair quietly and see if they do a mobile service themselves . That would be way cheaper. Unethical I know. But many do it and advertise in local papers etc too.

YAB a little U.

I'm not sure who you're doing your hair "for" but... my boyfriend cannot tell the difference between my 11 euros haircut and half-price home dye, and the hair of my friend who pays 230 euros a pop! :) It's all in the blow-dry anyway.

And yes, I've got shit thin, fine hair.

Oh, and I wouldn't recommend cutting back on meat/fish but then I am a fan of Paleo. :)

Tell you husband we have a programme here about people planning to move to Oz, when looking at finances they always comment on how expensive the food is on the comparison list!

It depends how motivated you are to pay it off quicker and what are your deal breakers. Agree you could add an extra week or two between colours/ cuts over the year that would add up. That's only going to work if you actually put the extra somewhere else though.

If the source of the meat etc is very important then the only way to reduce the cost is to eat less of it. A couple of meat free days could make a difference over the year. Could you sell it as ensuring dd has a varied diet and to turn out fussy by expecting meat ever meal?

I don't think there is anything wrong in having one expensive treat when you are so frugal on everything else, it's not like you can't cope with it you just want to see if youczn cut down anywhere else.

I don't think it needs to be a flat difference between a box of colour and £100/month on hair. Can you ask your friends where they get their hair cut and coloured? You should be able to knock a good third off.

I would suggest you do reduce your food bill because you are buying a lot of treats. If you are a good cook (and it sounds as though you are) you can cook vegetarian food three nights a week which will bring your bill down, stuff like spinach and ricotta canneloni, mushroom stroganoff, pasta with pesto...

When I'm menu planning I have at least one meal which is the week's "cheap meal". Also - do you menu plan? One of the most expensive ways to shop is to do so without a list...

Ask around you will find a cheaper colourist who is equally as good as your current salon. I used to pay over £100 for my cut and highlights now I pay £49. Not a flash salon but amazing hairdresser who owns the salon, I do have to travel a little further. Don't get a box of dye, it's crap, and you have to be careful when you have colour already on your hair

I saw a friend fairly recently with the best her hair had ever looked, she'd just been to the salon someone at school had opened. Another friend turned up yesterday with fabulous hair. She said 'bet you can't guess where I had it done ' but I knew exactly where she'd been and was right. £13 she paid for a cut and blow dry. I really want to go and have mine done there as pay a friend £12 to come and do mine and it's nowhere as good .

I'd ask around and see if there's someone local who is good to give a try.

I think you could shave quite a bit off your food without noticing.

Firstly, I don't know what Oz is like for fish, but avoid cod and haddock like the plague. Pick up a very cheap fish and assess whether is is oily or white - and cook it accourdingly.

Coley, pollack, whiting, pouting and hake - all decent tasty white fish. Nobody will notice.

Secondly, buy the cheaper cuts of good meat, and slow roast it. Lamb shouler, pork shouler, beef brisket, nice sausages, chicken wings (lemon batter these) and ribs and mince - all good. Don't buy steaks and chops for now. I believe winter is coming up? The stew is your friend!

Thirdly, you can keep the olives and the posh cheese, but have these as a meal, not a snack. Have a dinner of them on a Saturday night with some hot french bread and a bowl of salad, it will be filling and this way is a cheap meal instead of an expensive filler.

Eggs - cheap protein. Eat these without meat, with plenty of bread. 2 or 3 boiled eggs with thick cut toast is a substantial lunch.

Turn your delicious little sides into the main. Chop olives into your pasta and serve with a whizzed and cooked tin of tomatoes. Olives are satisfying because they are strong flavoured.

Seafood - go for mussels and frozen shrimps rather than scallops and oysters, and again, serve this with linguine and tomatoey sauce, with plenty of olive oil.

ALWAYS put potatoes in your stew. Always. Use different spices to give it an entirely different flavour. When you cook mince, chop in a LOT of onions (cheap bulk) and carrots, and only use half of what is there.

It sounds like you are doing well both with hair and groceries. Where are you? If I go to a nice salon it costs almost $200 - and I'm only getting a cut and semi perm colour. And I aim for $200 a week groceries but I don't often manage. Only thing I can suggest is a few veg meals a week - pasta or soup?

Eat more frugally in the week, cheaper cuts, less meat etc. and have our current diet at the weekend so you really appreciate it. Stretch out the time between colours a bit more.

Then have a glass if champagne at this being your current dilemma!

Your current diet rather.

Freudian slip there.

You're spending way too much on both food and hair.

Does your salon offer trainee prices? Perhaps speak to your colourist and say you need to try and cut back for a year or so, do they do trainee nights. they are always supervised by experienced stylists anyway.
And yes, cut back on the quality of food slightly.