... to think I CAN manage on this income

[lilachair]

I think I can, but I am recently out of a marriage where money wasn't really a problem, so I'm getting used to budgeting, and its tricky. It will be a while before my divorce settlement comes through, and I really don't want to go into debt.

So, after my rent and all my bills are paid, I'll have £120 a week left over. But that will be for all extras, food, clothes (haha.) toiletries, school trips, Brownies etc.

I can do that can't I? Also, any tips very gratefully received.

crosstraineraddict I've noticed we are eating a lot less meat, and I meake a great cauliflower curry! So that will be weekly no I think... I never used to look at the prices of anything in the supermarket (It was always Asda though, not Waitrose) Now I pick up chicken breasts, look sadly at them and put them back down again
The girls love porridge and eggs though, so we'll be well fed if a bit bound up...
And meal planning, yes, I've started to do this I think. Planning every nights meal and only buying those things. And only buying the bread that is reduced. Means they have been thrilled to bits to get white sliced occasionally, rather than the stuff with bits in that I like
Thank you!

ladykookoo Oh wow. That's good, but scary. I put wine in. I'm going to have to give up wine

Yep, veggie is the way to go.

You can make bread if you have time, and it works out cheaper than the fancy supermarket stuff, but is time consuming - it's only useful if you want a cheap treat IMO, not as a regular thing. You don't need fancy equipment either, just flour, yeast, salt, oil, and a baking tray.

I don't really have advice (apart from that digression) as people have said everything I was about to say, but I just wanted to say best of luck, and I hope the nursing goes well, that is such a wonderful thing to be doing.

ladykookoo I agree, I'll take the cash out I think. If we can physically see how much we have left, I'm less likely to want to waste it, and I can show the girls how much there is too, when they ask for random things which they do constantly

LRDtheFeministDragon I love your name! Making bread, I can do. I have a breadmaker (gift from a friend when I moved in) I could put that to work? Would that work out as cheaply do you think? And thank you! Can't quite believe I am finally getting to do it. Eeeee.

It is a handy tool. It was enough to get DH to downgrade from Redbull to Emerge when he saw it would save us enough to have a weeks holiday over the course of the year.

In regards to your DC, do they get pocket money? If not, maybe you could start giving them a couple of pound a week, tell them that if they want something they have to use their own money. It will make them realise how far money goes and what they can get when they save.

lilachair just to add another budget thing to the list; I have just made my DCs pasta for lunch and used Tesco value pasta sauce, I think it was under 30p, certainly pretty cheap, and they all agreed it was very nice. Value pasta is pretty cheap too so you could make a meal for all of you for under £1 even if you sprinkled a bit of cheese on top too!

I have to say my first thought was car costs. Petrol but also bits dropping off at the worst possible times. Assuming you think you're OK for that, then yes, definitely.

Oh, well, if you have a breadmaker I expect you're fine. I've never used one.

Making bread is not as cheap as buying cheap sliced white (not unless you do magical things with huge sacks of flour, which isn't very practical for you, I think). It is cheaper than buying posh seeded supermarket bread.

You can buy nice seeded/wholemeal flour in any supermarket, and they will all make a nice loaf of bread.

But this is really advice for when you have a few pounds spare, so other people on this thread might be advising against it ... it just occurred to me because sometimes it's worth knowing about the middle-range alternative, as well as the very cheap and the very expensive.

I buy flour for about £2 for 1.5kg (you can get it cheaper and still nice, I think). Oil need not be anything exciting. Salt, yeast is 60-something pence for a box. That amount of yeast and flour would make about 6 loaves the way I make it, more if you like them smaller.

It's not very expensive but you factor in electricity/gas to cook it, and it's not amazing. It's just a possible treat if (like me), you get tempted by the fancy bread that's 3.99 for one loaf.

Poundshop is fab for toiletries, medicines, cleaning and household stuff. And crisps and biccies, if you're that way inclined :)

Also you can get the odd really good book or DVD there, in amongst the tat.

Card Factory - bulk buy all birthday cards.

Yes, should be manageable.

Any chance you could shop at Costco if there is one not too far? If you have a friend which is a member then can take you. We've brought our grocery bills down a lot by bulk buying. particularly good for boring stuff like washing powder and toilet rolls. Also good for dry goods and whole salmon and stuff like freezing.

Oh, I did forget something!

If you can, and if you have one, get rid of your TV license. There is so much on Iplayer you can watch a bit later for free, it's a really easy saving and you honestly will not notice you've not got it once you get out of the habit.

OP - tip - chicken thighs cheaper (and tastier) than chicken breasts. And even on budget I still get them at Waitrose

One bargain hunter friend of mine goes to our local Boots and is always picking up salads etc for pence. ASDA is the same I think, but later on.

I assume you have checked to see if you are entitled to tax credits etc?

stealth I'm going to have to start putting everything spare aside for that I think. Yes.

LRD I'm going to treat myself to Naice Flour... instead of shoes... Thank you! But I think the children would leave home if I cancelled the telly They'd go and live at DisneyDads where it rains playstations and xboxes...

onemorebite Always used Costco when I lived in the US... it was good. I'll see if I can find one, thank you!

I had another couple of thoughts. I have a shed full of crap that I can do a car boot sale with, I've been putting it off because of the weather, but anything I make on that can go into the Car Falling Apart fund. Also, I knit a bit, and can make £100 at a pre-christmas craft fair (well, I have a couple of times before). So I'll get cracking on stock for that and see if I can find a local one.

I'm all inspired! Thank you so much, I feel so much more positive than I did this morning when it all looked terrible.

I second the chicken thighs suggestion! I always buy thighs these days. Wings are ok too. Or buy a whole chicken for £4 and use it for several meals.

bread flour in Aldi was something like 60p for 1.5kg last time I looked (last month)

I usually buy 2 or 3 bags and then we have a fresh loaf on Saturday mornings.

We are 2 adults, 2 dc with another one on the way, plus a large dog

We shop at Aldi a lot, and we run on roughly £75-£80 for a 2 weeks bulk shop, and top up in between on fruit, bread and milk as needed. Some weeks it's a bit more, some weeks a bit less, depends on needing toiletries, washing powder etc. We have meat pretty much every day, but then I cook large meals which go over 2 days sometimes (lasagne, macaroni cheese with a layer of mince at the bottom)

Dog food we bulk-buy from a local wholesaler, £18 for 15kgs - feeds my Dal for about 6 weeks at a time.

I make all my own pasta sauces; use a carton of passata, shred an onion, a bit of celery, and a good pile of mushrooms in a food processor. I also lob in 2 or 3 carrots to help bulk it out. This with a 450g of mince makes enough to feed us all for a bolognase, and there's usually enough left over that I can use for lunch the next day for me/DD. It's a good basic sauce which can be flipped from bolognase to chilli very easily!

Aldi's frozen chicken is good to use, especially if you buy the big bags of breast fillets - I fry 2 or 3 off as needed and snip them into strips for curries and stir-fry. I can make one bag last 2 meals like that.

Tuna pasta is also a god-send! Approx 100g of (uncooked) pasta per person, a tablespoon of mayo per tin of tuna used, and one tin per 2 people. Cook pasta, throw it all together when cooked, and add pepper to taste :)

On a last note, if you can find a FarmFoods near you, they are brilliant for bulk buying, especially their frozen veg.

I hope it can be done Lila as I'm doing the same here. Access starts September and I'll be working 20 hours a week around it.

Financially it's going to be very tight but hopefully so worth it!

Good luck!

Lila - Gumtree is also good for selling stuff - especially bigger items. No charges for selling.

You can also sell CDs via musicmagpie.

Both might be good for building up a savings pot.

LENTILS! They're great for adding protein and bulking out anything you make with mince (spag bol, chilli etc.) or pasta sauces. Just chuck a handful or so in with the tin of tomatoes/stock and leave to bubble til soft :-)
Also, I often buy a whole chicken for a sunday roast treat, use any leftover meat for curry the next day (with added lentils, of course!) and I boil up the bones in water to make tasty stock for lovely soups. Strain it through a sieve then freeze it in portion sizes until you need it...
My dd (6) and I have lived on about £1000 per month (~£700 rent/bills) for the last 18 months or so - ok we live in wales and have no car and no TV but she prefers iplayer now beacuse she can choose what to watch when she wants.
Best of luck!

You can add porridge oats to spag bol to bulk it up.
I use 1/3 oats 2/3 minced beef.

Shop in Lidl/Aldi/Farmfoods/Iceland.
Make your own bread, or by it reduced a couple of hours beofre the shop is shutting.

Don't buy meat unless it's reduced. I have a separate budget for big buys. Usually £20-40 per month. When I see reduced meat I buy as much as I can afford, split it into portions and freeze. Any money that is left over is use to buy things like nice coffee and teabags when they are on offer, or it is saved until the next months for more bargains!
Grate cheese that will go off before you use it all and freeze that too, we used to waste lots of cheese, and it was costing £3-5 a week to buy a fresh block. It may not sound like much money but my food budget is usually around £3.50 for a meal for four people.
Make sure you have maybe £150 set aside for unexpected vets bills, or car repairs.

Also take come money out each month for Christmas & birthdays.
If you are holidaying in London go for a cheaper hotel, we are staying in a cheap hotelk 1hr outside of london and will be getting the train in each day. I've bought a rail card (£28 for 12 months) and this reduces the train fair for all four of us in our house from £45 return to London down to £15. Don't forget to budget for what you are going to do with the dig when you are in London. Do you have a family member or a friend who will dogsit, or do you need to pay to put him in the kennels?

Will your children be entitled to free school meals when they return to school?
When you are at college/uni amke sure you take a packed lunch and a drink (a posh coffee after uni every day soon mounts up to a lot of money).

I would echo what other people have said, think 'we have no money'. Always think, 'Do we NEED it?' if the answer is no, consider it money saved!

Good luck, you'll be fine.

£120 a week is very doable. Especially as you are in the country. Swap trips to the supermarket for whatever is being over produced. I am currently doing jumpers for haircuts and pickles/ jam for spices. Keep an ear out for who is taking what to the slaughter house or who is over producing eggs and milk.

Aldi aldi aldi :) ... Esp the washing powders, fabric softeners, thai fishcakes, creamy tomato pasta bake and the thai green curry sauce (77p as opposed to £2 for the lloyd grossman tesco one!)

You can do it :). ... We have a mortgage of £390 a month and have ds aged 8 weeks and dd aged 9 and me and dh and we manage on his wage of £13,800. We do get tax credits but our weekly household budget is about £100 and we do just fine :)

Also for entertainment get yourself an orange mobile phone if you haven't already (even if it means getting a sim only just top up a minimum amount) and you will have 2 for 1 cinema tickets :)

Good luck x

mAKING BREAD COSTS MORE THAN aLDI BREAD at 49p a loaf.

Tesco vouchers can do you RAC cover which saved me loads on car disasters. It's 25% off ATM :)

I save my Tesco vouchers for zoo trips etc so that we have treats in the holidays even when we can't afford to go away.

don't worry about the orange mobile, ask one of your mates to forward you the code

If you have a mobile, think about losing your home phone, sometimes I call from the landline and think 'doh!' I should have used my free minutes.

If you watch tv online, from any streaming service you need a T.V licence!

It's not worth the risk of a fine!

I think you can watch things previously broadcast without a licence, but not 'live' telly.

I'll look it up.