Low spend May

[bungletru]

Trying a very low spend May
would love to share ideas with anyone else struggling (or not)

Current plans:
—no Amazon deliveries unless absolutely necessary
-grocery shopping -only in person no online orders /maybe just 1 this month
-food - in bulk, curries, casseroles, etc.
-limit takeout no dining out this month
-no socialising (we have a wedding so that takes priority)
-find free things to do with the kids (2 &4m old) other than prepaid stuff
-no long journeys

I am not having a great few days. And have promised the DCs a cinema trip so that will be another £20-ish pounds.

I have for a while now had an 'eating out of the freezer and pantry' week the last week of the month. I am planning on doing that this week also. I have alot of potatos (thanks Super 6 deals at Aldi!) so things will be a bit potato heavy but that's okay. Was planning to sautee some potatos and onions in a little veg stock as a side dish today to go with sausages.

@bungletru I try to buy them a bit green and separate them all they seem to last longer like that. If they do go brown, the taming twins banana cake recipe is really quick and easy, my lot love it, she has a lot of nice budget recipes on her website.
Some great ideas on here so far! I hooked a gammon joint out of the freezer this morning so will have gammon and mash tomorrow, will make gammon pasta one night for dinner and the rest will be used for lunches (it was a big joint i should of frozen it in 2 bits really)
This morning i made jam tarts, banana cake and some cookies for lunches and desserts which is so much cheaper than buying treats from the shop.

Unexpected vet bill today as well. £50.00.

Tonight's dinner will be pasta in a creamy lemon sauce (as i have cream I need to use up); broccoli and salad. DH very unusually agreed with me that we need to not spend any money on food for a while and use up freezer and larder stuff. Aside from fresh veg as he is vegetarian and a salad fiend. Lunch the past 2 days has been a chowder I had in the freezer - very satisfying.

Took the kids out for the day yesterday and had lunch out etc so that was 60 altogether. Spent 81 on more food shopping. Restocking the freezer and cupboards with gluten free options is expensive!! So I’m down to 895…this gorgeous weather has me craving a burger so I’m going to hunt out a burger now to make for dinner. 🤣 more money

Checking in to hold myself accountable! We thankfully had a very good bank holiday weekend. Other than a food shop (that I budget for separately) my spends were
Farm with ds2 on Fri - £10
Boots - £17 - but did the recycling thing to get £5 worth of point
B&Q - £16 on stuff to wash the cars with so we will do that ourselves from now on, hopefully we get better at it as we did a terrible job with the kids 😂
And hooded towels for the kids that they've wanted for ages and now they have them for half term and for our holiday in July.

Going well on the clearing the credit card by the summer holidays with a budget of £400 for between now and start of the holidays. Other than diesel and a tier 1 dentist trip for dh there isn't anything that comes to mind.

Plus saving for dd birthday. Sold some things on ebay/vinted/Facebook, closed my ISA as I don't currently have any money to put in it 😂💰 to get the interest we got from when the our loft conversion money was sat in it waiting to pay the builders. So that is going well too.

I've still got high hopes for may!

I have high hopes for today! Car is filled with petrol and I am in the office today which provides lunch. Have food for dinner and I have a lengthy wait between meetings at one point so hoping just a very low spend on a coffee somewhere.

We are massively overbudget this month, so I am having to:
Return hair products (typically I ran out of 2 things at the same time) - saving £70
Not have a blow dry for an event I am going to - saving £35
Not having my hair cut - saving £65
Not having the car valeted (this is a new luxury I have started to treat myself to every 6 weeks) - saving £35
Had planned to treat myself to a bunch of flowers, this not happening now - saving £10
No takeaway coffees/lunches or even a sandwich in the cafe. These are rare but not happening what so ever for May
Not buying wine for at home - saving £10-£20 a week
Thinking about what I am buying in the supermarket and going without anything that is not necessary. Will help for my diet too !

edit to add:
no takeaways
no pub
we have several family birthdays to pay for and a wedding. we only need a gift for the wedding, we have outfits already from a previous wedding this year

all v depressing, but a must for May

So from April/may pay on 23rd April to may/June pay on 24rd may- I saved a total of €460. I’m delighted about that. I got paid yesterday and put €350 in my savings and replaced €100 into my emergency fund (had to get my car fixed) so I think for may/June now I’m going to try to aim to save another €100-€150. I have SO’s into my emergency fund, car stuff (which is at 0) and main savings which total €70 so another €80 should be attainable.

1734 a month left for food and fuel 👀

Well when you’re trying to save for a house. 👀