Reining it in for 2025 - anyone with me?

[Christmasgonk]

So we’ve had a hugely expensive 2024 following an (almost) full house renovation plus extension. And we have overspent on Christmas (largely because we wanted to go “all out” this year as last year we were living in a damp and cold building site. However, we really really need to cut the spending in 2025 to build up a buffer/save for retirement.

Current plan is:

• quit drinking at least until May (when we go away) - I need to drop about 2 stone anyway;
• meal plan religiously and use as much from store cupboard as possible - we grow a lot of our own veg but obvs not much left this time of year
• stop any mindless spending, particularly Amazon habit!!!

Most of our spending tends to be on food/drink (even though we don’t really eat out anymore) so if we can cut that down we might be able to boost our savings.

anyone with me? What’s your spending weakness?

Oh and my newest one is transferring myself a bit of fun money into a Chase account each Friday, this is definitely helping with any feelings of missing out!

I’m in , looking to hugely overpay on my mortgage ..

I love this challenge of an inventory of toiletries etc and using them up. I am so guilty of having loads of stuff sitting around unused.

also great idea to flog what you can. DH recently sold his drum kit which was just festering in the garage - netted £500 but was on the proviso he could buy himself a hedge cutter(!) and other shite!!!

we are also going to do an inventory of the store cupboard and freezer and try to plan meals around that as food shopping is really our downfall

Great idea on the clothes! I may steal this one

I'm a couple of years in to the being more mindful and spending less. A couple of things I found really helped at the start, go on money saving expert to get a decent interest rate easy access savings account and every time you resist a spend transfer it to that account, seeing what you'd normally spend without thought build up really helps. So didn't get a take out coffee £3.50 into savings, didn't buy that top you don't need £25 into savings. Also don't deprive treats in your food shop too much or it becomes too miserable and you won't stick to it. So if we're having something nice at home instead of a meal out I get something nice like gu puddings as although not cheap it's cheaper than desert in a restaurant and still means we've had something nice.

This is a great tip - love MSE. The forums are great

I’ve just held a summit with DH and told him I am cutting our monthly spending budget (covering food, petrol, clothes/shoes, kids activities, toiletries, eating out etc) by half until our April pay packets (so for 4 months).

A good cheap pud is pancakes - batter so cheap and then can make a lovely lemony syrup also for cheap.

How did your DH respond? We have very different attitudes to money in our house! I'm more the saver.

@Berga he said ok but he is definitely the more “spendy” of us so I will be interested to see how he goes.

one thing that does grate: he comes home for lunch and each day (I WFH bar one day a week) so has lunch at home. I buy him a multipack of crisps and choc to take to work for snacks but he was buying more at work (at twice the price) as he said it wasn’t enough, so I started buying him 2 multipacks of crisps (so he could have 2 packs) and he’s STILL buying more at work!!!!

I really struggle with food planning. I never know what I want. If someone was to say ‘ ok on Monday we’re having x on Tuesday we’re having y ‘ I’d be ok. But I’m all out of ideas. That’s when I overspend or eat junk.

I’ll join.
want to retire in 30 months time

Oh you lucky thing. I reckon I’ve got between 14-17 years to go!!!

what do you think you need for retirement?

I think it’s hard if you know you’ll likely change your mind. Maybe for you something like simony fresh or hello cook might work? Probably more inspiring than our sausage pasta or jackets!

I'm also in on this, We've also just finished a refurb - have one last piece that will hopefully take place in January and that's it.

Dp is out of work and trying to make his business fly so we are both going to cut back though I suspect I will be a lot more successful than him!

I've also got a budget spreadsheet and a few weeks off work and will start working on it then. I bought a cheap coffee machine so no coffees out. We won't eat out and I've stopped drinking completely.

Me too 😞

I’m in. No debts but now no savings either.

I was considering cancelling my gym, liberty drop and PT which would come to almost £200 but I’m still undecided! They are my only joy.

Like you @Christmasgonk I’m thinking of stopping alcohol.

Maybe a general no spend might work for me? I waste so much without even thinking about it. If I only replace what I need I’m sure that it would make a huge difference.

Yes it’s quite depressing giving up things you enjoy. I wonder if maybe set yourself small targets to begin with, like 2 or 3 no spend days a week, or maybe a month of no toiletries spend, using up what you have? Might be easier than going completely cold turkey (pardon the Xmas pun).

Ive recently discovered my love of reading and borrow from the library a lot. I think that also helps keep me off the booze as I want to head up to bed and read most nights after dinner and a bit of tv - plus it’s free - freida McFadden is currently my go-to.

i do also think there’s loads of good series come on in Jan/feb so means less likely to want to head out

Gah, well at least we’re in it together!!!

Eugh the local shop with higher prices 🫣

our local Sainsbury’s is outrageous. I also found I was doing a big monthly shop, then popping into the local one daily for “fresh bits”. Oh my god it’s expensive doing it that way.

since August I’ve now completely done away with the big monthly shop and now do once a weekly shop at Lidl, and now only get milk from the stupid local Sainsbury (Lidl’s dont do organic milk - not sure if that’s just our Lidl or all of them). Honestly it’s been amazing and I’m saving about £100-£150 a month doing this!

I am keeping my eyes on this thread! It was so awesome realising how much we were saving from this tweak!

This is great! I feel we do need to beat the greedy supermarkets on this.

Im a sucker for sweet treats though and have to stop that!!! I need some “thinspiration”.

We are having in-laws for lunch Boxing Day - normally we’d go mad and overspend on food but this year we’ve decided to try and cut it down. We’re doing a duck cottage pie (the expensive part is the confit duck but we brought back a load of tins from France in the summer) with veg, starter I think is going to be some feta rolls in filo with honey (again quite cheap to do) then DH will make a semifredo. We are also planning to get some cheeses etc as we will eat those over remainder of Xmas/new year. We have plenty white wine and a few cremant (again from France) so just need some red.

Thankfully the in-laws also can’t eat a huge amount these days - age!!

My downfall is the crisps and nuts! DP’s is dark chocolate. Part of the weekly Lidl shop is we agreed on what is “reasonable” in a week and if we run out, we run out. So for example we could eat our whole weekly quota of nuts in a day or spread them out throughout the week. But we absolutely do not buy more. Same with wine.

once or twice we didn’t finish it all but still bought the same weekly quota on the next weekly shopping trip.

that all might sound a bit babbly as I’m a bit sleepy today and working through my first coffee but hopefully makes sense!

the other positive is I have lost a (tiny) amount of weight and I think this is the only change!! Only about 1kg since August but considering I’m not trying, I think that’s pretty good!

Another great idea- if you run out, tough. Think after Xmas I am going to enforce this one in our house! DH is pretty greedy!

Sounds like you might need to keep your share of weekly treat allowance under lock and key so he doesn’t snaffle yours too!!

Yeah - sometimes I do joke that we need to live like students with our own cupboards for this reason!!!

So many good ideas here, but I've not seen anyone mention only buying second hand clothes (great for the environment as well as the pocket) and taking a packed lunch to work. I hardly ever buy a coffee out either, I make one at home in the morning and put it in a travel mug, topping it up to get me through the morning.