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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be shocked at how few people know how to budget?

163 replies

Coldtits · 02/02/2009 21:39

I see it all the time, both online and in real life - people who don't use their common sense to save their pounds. Or who have so little faith in their own judgement and abilities that they live entirely on prepackaged, pre weighed, precooked food.

I watched one of my friends buy some ready chopped chicken breast and a jar or tomato pasta sauce. Now, I KNOW she's on a budget, and I mentioned that it would be just as nice to get some thighs aand chop them, and use a tin of tomatoes and some garlic and salt and pepper, and would probably cost much less than the nearly £6 she was intending to spend.

"Oh no," she said. "You know I can't cook."

This was not a time saving exercise. We've known each other since childhood (before I get accused of not knowing the situation) and she was cooking dinner for herself and her boyfriend - day off, no kids.

I know she's not thick! I don't get it.

OP posts:
pointydog · 02/02/2009 22:44

As we are offered more and more products, so we become increasingly lazy and greedy.

One day... kaboom. We'll hvae had our chips.

scrooged · 02/02/2009 22:44

Oven baked, grilled, microwaved or fried?

YeToxicHighRoad · 02/02/2009 22:46

I can't become lazy and greedy. As I said before, instant food makes me feel sick.

Ronaldinhio · 02/02/2009 22:47

say after me

mmmm pot noodles

RealityIsMyOnlyValentine · 02/02/2009 22:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

BarbaraWoodlouse · 02/02/2009 22:59

There's a difference between "budgeting" and "cost cutting" surely?

To me budgeting is about planning your expenditure and living within your means.

Cost cutting is what you do (or should do!) when what you spend is more than you bring in.

Ready meals, magazines etc are all to some extent a luxury but that doesn't mean the purchaser can't budget for them accordingly....

mysterymoniker · 02/02/2009 23:04

I lost a lot of those skills when I was ill - budgeting, cooking, planning. It's been quite a long haul reclaiming/relearning them and still have a way to go, but for a while when I was really floundering I wanted to carry a small placard around that said 'I used to be just like you' to all the smug, organised people

philopastry · 02/02/2009 23:25

I can cook tasty cheap food and pick up a bargain in a charity shop but I can't budget.

I have been going on that money supermarket expert site to try and sort myself out but it is like doing no work at all for your A levels and then trying to swot it all up the night before the exam.. I feel like I am way too far behind to ever catch up with the money savvy ppeople out there so I panic and go back to head in the sand, shop at Asda instead of Sainsbury's and hope that that protects me from the worst the credit crunch throws at us.

HecateQueenOfGhosts · 03/02/2009 08:25

HARLEYD

If you have excel, I can email you my spreadsheet if you like - it is really VERY simple to use.

HecateQueenOfGhosts · 03/02/2009 08:37

solanum

Have to disagree. As someone who has also experienced abject poverty, (we can exchange Monty-Pythonesque poverty tales if you like )I can tell you that, for me, budgeting makes a lot of difference. ime, money can melt away if you do not keep control and seeing it in black and white can make you conscious of where you are putting every penny. And help you plan and 'jiggery-pokery' if something unexpected comes up. Knowing exactly where you are, financially, can give you such peace of mind. Having a budget can make you feel like you are in control of your money (or lack thereof!), instead of feeling like it's in control of you.

But that's just me. You feel differently and that's fine. It doesn't, for example, affect me in any way if you know where your money's going or not, so at the risk of sounding like an old cow I don't really care. But I think YABU to be cross because other people feel that something concrete gives them some security and comfort.

Nighbynight · 03/02/2009 08:40

Hey, you do NOT need 500g of minced beef for an average family meal!
We are 6 people, and we use 250g of minced beef for spaghetti bolognese. A 500 g pack lasts for 2 meals.

Meat is just a flavouring, you dont need to fill yourself up on it!

TrillianAstra · 03/02/2009 08:40

Don't get confused philo, Money Saving Expert and Money Supermarket are different. One is advice/forums on how to save money, the other is a price comparison site. Both useful, especially this for first-time budgeting.

I use about half a bulb of garlic in my spag bol, but agree that doing it yourself it cheaper than a (decent) jar.

caykon · 03/02/2009 08:52

We have joint accounts but dh is not inteested in money at all, I get all of that on my shoulders. I try to sit down and work it all out but it makes my head spin. Then when dh does want something and I say we can't afford it, I get called allsorts and told he works full time and deserves a treat, which i agree to to a certain degree,but if he isnt going to help manage the money he also has to take my word when I say things are tight.

Are spreadsheets easy to set up ( I'm not terribly good with things like that) as this may be an easier way to keep track and something that I can easily show him whenthings arn't adding up.

frogs · 03/02/2009 08:54

Hecate, could you email me your excel sheet? I do have a budget planner but I keep tinkering with it and it never seems to be quite right.

Thanks.

Kathinka1966 googlemail com

OrmIrian · 03/02/2009 08:54

I budget. Have a spreadsheet. And it works perfectly for things like DDs and petrol and mortgage. But whatever I allow for groceries is usually not quite enough So I have it all laid out neatly and it is soothing - but it isn't always totally correct....

chocolateteapot · 03/02/2009 08:59

I used to be completely incapable of budgeting but have sorted myself and now too have soothing spreadsheets.

I'm able to make our money go much much further than it used to and the control I have over it takes away some fairly major stress.

HecateQueenOfGhosts · 03/02/2009 09:00

of course frogs, no problem.

chocolateteapot · 03/02/2009 09:01

And I think financial literacy is a skill that some people are born with but for most of us it has to be acquired and doesn't correlate with intelligence.

caykon · 03/02/2009 09:07

Hectate - If its not too much bother would you mind emailing me a copy of the spreadsheet, it sounds just like the thing I need to be doing. Thankyou

caykon33 at aol dot com

CharleeheartsherChains · 03/02/2009 09:07

Hecate, can i have a copy pretty please?

[email protected]

Thanks

2pt4kids · 03/02/2009 09:26

Hecate, you are going to wish you'd never mentioned your spreadsheet soon! lol

Could I have a copy too please??

sarah dot dommett at gmail dot com

mrsgboring · 03/02/2009 09:32

mysterymoniker I completely understand. I used to have a wonderful system, and provided home cooked organic food for my family for less than the cost of my old prekids supermarket standard shop (by living on vegetables plus one meat thing, one cheese, milk and bread each week, topped up by a monthly shop for coffee, tea, tinned toms etc.)

Now I am pregnant, which is always hard for me with sickness and worry and exhaustion. (I know, I know, it is for lots of people) I have for a long time found it hard even to face cutting up cheese for DS so have been buying individual portions in packets, ready prepped/made foods, and regularly can't cope at all and rely on takeaways and pub meals out to get food into me and family. We have maxed out a credit card this month for the first time ever [ashamed]

Sometimes, when you're stressed, tired and ill, budgeting goes out of the window. When you're poor, you are chronically stressed, so it can be a vicious circle.

That said, I do agree with the OP on a general level - I am amazed how many people don't seem to know know where to start, or even that they could change what they buy and still survive, even live comfortably.

Divineintervention · 03/02/2009 09:33

I have an idea to budget but no willpower. Both Dh and I have/had jobs that were 75% commission and despite the fact that he earnt 'stupid' money there were/are times when we have no money.... quite shameful.

Divineintervention · 03/02/2009 09:35

Mrs Boring....you can budget for times that you don't feel like budgeting....like a rainy day fund!!

mrsgboring · 03/02/2009 09:43

We do, (can pay c/c bill off, it's just the card is out of action for the next week till we do, and I'm guessing they'll fine us) but I still feel crap about it. Not least because we are eating worse food - worse tasting, worse quality, worse nutritionally, for far far more money because my fitness is missing from the equation. And we're getting DS addicted to various rubbishy or overpriced foodstuffs into the bargain.

It has given me an insight, though, into how easy it can be to fall into a state of learned helplessness with buying food, even though we are fortunate enough for it not to result in financial trouble. (My suspicion is that if I worked long hours behind the counter at Argos, say, that I would feel all the time a watered down version of the sick-and-tired I've got at the moment and I wouldn't be able to buy myself out of trouble with my pay packet)