Day to day spending

[Sliderz]

Do any of you keep track of your day to day spending? I haven't done until recently as I'll be starting maternity leave soon and need to budget. I haven't been the best with money in the past and have spent a fair bit on stuff I don't need, so I'm trying to be conscious of what I'm spending now.

Whilst on maternity leave I've worked out I'll have around £350 per month to cover food and any other day to day expenses. I've budgeted separately for all bills, travel etc but the £350 will need to cover any coffees, lunches and a food shop for 2 adults (and a newborn although I'm hoping to breastfeed). Does that sound manageable?

So £350 a month, just for your weekly shop for 2 people ?
Of course that is more than enough. Would also leave plenty for lunches out and coffess out, but of course, they aren't really needed if you are on a tight budget. Nice, but fall in to the 'treats' category when you are watching your spends.

That's about eleven quid a day. You'd be surprised just how far that doesn't go....

'coffees' are probably out, for example.

What is your current monthly spend on grocery shopping?

We haven't been good at keeping track of a current spend but I'd estimate £100 a week in a supermarket and then buying lunches out on top of that.

At the risk of stating the obvious, £100 a week in the supermarket plus lunches on top is quite a bit more than £350 a month, so it's going to take a big change in mindset to stick to that amount.

£350 is plenty for food for 2 adults and a newborn (does this amount need to cover nappies etc) but your lunches will need to be homemade not shop bought most of the time and you might need to eat cheaper meals than you are used to.

Get on top of the food budget and work in if you are thinking of paying for formula and nappies etc.

Use shops own brand or value or change where you shop.

I can do a weekly grocery shop for about £15pp including toiletries and cleaning stuff.

Look through what you spent last month and see where you can make swaps or changes.

I've budgeted separately for nappies and formula if needed so the £350 wouldn't need to cover that.

£100 a week and then lunches on top is a lot spent on food for two adults.
You can certainly look at reducing your grocery spend, and then you probably need to pragmatically decide what you can afford in the case of lunches/coffees. So for example you might decide it's one lunch a month or a coffee every week (or however the figures work out!). So then it's a mindset change to adapt to that. For example, if you're meeting friends with babies, you would have a picnic in the park or everyone bring something to share to someone's house, rather than going for lunch out.

Yes, we track day to day spending and it really helps. You'll probably find you spend a lot less on certain things when on ML, I've often found that being at work and out and about can be pretty expensive. However you do need to get your food bill down. You're spending a lot for just two people. What do you buy and from where? There are lots of people on here who can help with that.