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?

Meant to be meeting the girls for breakfast tmrw but am thinking l might have them round to me instead - got some sausages that need eating up and loads of eggs - will only save me £10 but better than nothing right?

You can overpay mortgage by £50 a month it’s adds up. Too hard to save then may a chunk. Interest calculated daily. You have the option to reduce term or balance can’t remeber what’s best. Plus the overpayments serve as a safety net in case of redundancy and can’t pay so it’s defo a good idea. Most mortgages only let you pay off so much a year say 10% of initial amount borrowed or get admin charge so do ring up and ask.

@Raindropskeepfallinonmyhead it all adds up.

Keep the gym and drop the PT. Or get an online pt. Mines excellent £150 a month nutrition plan excercise plan and videos of all the weight excercises you could think off with personalised excercise plan. I’ve lost a stone 1 more to go then sadly he have ti be sacked. I’ve struggled gaining 2.5 stones pandemic and wfh related. I needed the accountability

@Purpl the PT is online and like yours does nutrition etc. The gym I use for classes. I’ve decided to see how I go by cutting back on everything else and keeping these as I do really enjoy them. I’ve cut out all my other joy 😂

I love classes too. Might be worth checking other gyms too see if any as good but cheaper? Think of health as an investment though. I looked at local yoga and pain classes in halls but it still worked out cheaper to pay the gym membership.

Need to spell check spin not pain 🤣

Does anyone have a job that has shop saving discounts on offer ? I’ve got a reloadable Asda card pay £300 but only pay £288 a month. 100s of retailers but I don’t like my money tied up in say M&S or bbq unnecessarily. Was reluctant to use initially but it’s pay dividends on food shop

Pain classes works too!

I get an NHS staff discount luckily so the gym is £25 a month for unlimited classes and 24/7 access.
The online PT is £140.

I’m resigned to being fit but poor.

Re discounts through work. I use my Bluelight card and know that I’m incredibly fortunate to get discounts from a lot of places (although obviously easier to just not spend in the first place).

Yes can I join.
I wouldn't have the foggiest how to do a spread sheet.
We're able to survive but not have lots of lovely things.
Ideas I had , meal plan which I generally do. Waste less food. I'll.admit I'm terrible for binning items that most definitely could be eaten or rustled up to make a dinner

Buy less branded, I don't buy loads however things like lenor and cleaning products I'm a bit of a mug. When lidls own or wherever would do just the same.

Also last year we did manage to clear our credit cards, around 3k. I actually don't know how.

We have 600 on PayPal credit and 200 on a furniture finance left.
My next thing to clear is PP. As interest is £10 a month. We do have an expensive January but after this I'll try doing £100pm rather than £50 off of it
Furniture payment is only £15 pm so that's not noticeable

We don't eat out really. I am a sucker for buying a can of pop out when at kids activities. So I'll either buy a mutlipack to take each time or maybe a thermos cup and take a brew with me.

@PartyBagFillerUpper i definitely think it’s the little things we don’t notice that add up - like you say, a can of pop here and there.

We have def noticed a difference even in the last couple of weeks not buying snacks and drinks when out with the kids.

good luck on your journey!

We only finished Christmas yesterday as my parents came up for a late celebration as they were ill over Christmas itself, so I’m only really in the proper mindset from today.

I definitely think the little things help - I need to get my eyebrows done today, but as DD2 isn’t back to school until tomorrow I don’t have the school run to do this afternoon and can get the bus all the way into town rather than the tube and will save myself £5 on travel.

I'm happy to help you with a spreadsheet if you want to give it a go? They're only as complex as you make them. A simple money in/money out one would be easy to set up and use but a notebook would do you just as well. Let me know if I can help. 🙂

WFH today. No spends & sold 3 things on vinted. Dentist tomorrow so that will be spendy.

Smoothie maker motor went bang so ordered a Nutribullet after some research. We did use our old one quite a lot as Dd is not keen on fruit but loves a smoothie.
I do also have an account to cover household items etc so it hasn’t come out of the weekly budget.

Not a NSD yesterday as DC2’s swimming payment for term was due - £148. But we knew this was coming so was catered for in budget.

Today should be a NSD.

NSD yesterday - walked to drop off some Vinted parcels and would normally buy lunch/a treat but came home for lunch instead.

Have spent £8 this morning on parcel bags for the big Vinted declutter. Budgeting to buy lunch with DS tomorrow as well, but the rest of the week should be no spend.

Vinted balance is currently £118 & also waiting for some refunds to be processed, so bank balance isn’t looking too bad for January!

Yesterday ended up with swimming and friends over for McDonald's for lunch after. It wasn't too bad cost wise and the kids had a blast, (better than coming home alone and having lunch at home, I didn't have enough in to cater for an extra adult and 3 more kids) so worth it, we used our rewards for our lunch so only paid for the kids.
Today was due to start the no spend days...then get an email for a school trip payment for dd. I'm starting to think aiming for no spend days isn't going to work for me, I am logging any purchases on our card out of our "spending account" and trying to keep that as low as possible. I'll still smile when I get a no spend day but my main aim is to keep the card purchases low overall. Dh has reminded me he has dentist next week so that's another large one from the disposable income (he has expensive treatment every 3 months due to a gum condition). He used to get half the money back through a work health scheme and also claim for £150 worth of his contact lenses payments so the dentist was pretty much covered for the whole year with those two payouts. I've asked him to ask the dentist how much is the yearly cost going to be and we can put in a monthly budget for it.

I have budgets for everything that doesn't get paid monthly like annual bills, kids clubs, water bill, after school club. I need to make purchases outside of these as low as possible. I have a separate budget for groceries which I do need to get down once I've sorted the disposable income!

At home with the lurgy today - felt lousy when I left work yesterday. Ordered some dog food but it lasts 3 months. An afternoon in bed with a book I think 🤔.
Ive seen a jumper in Hush this morning whilst browsing online and put it in my basket. Will now wait to see if a) there’s a discount in the near future b) I get bored of it before I order it iykwim.

Yesterday wasn’t a NSD. DH spent 23 in b&q on some trunking/kit for putting sound system speakers up, 2.45 on painkillers and £11.67 on a mid-week top up shop.

Today should be NSD though.

Collected reserved book from library (free!)

im bored!

Count me in. We need to save money for travel, loft conversion hopefully too. And also time in the week.

I have decided to bulk buy the stuff I pop to the shop for, hoping to save trips and minimise impulse purchases. Cat food on subscription from Pets at Home via Virgin points, loo roll and bin bags too. I have even put an order in with Boots for toothbrush heads etc. We have milk delivery available here so plan to set that up too.
Need to get better at meal planning.
Hoping for more ideas from this thread!

Still here, still avoiding temptation.

@Christmasgonk I really enjoy the library. What are you reading? I’ve just started Strange Sally Diamond which I can’t remember reserving.

Adding to my lists of things that I wanted to buy and the savings that I have made by actually taking time to think about it …

I convinced myself that I need a treadmill but have decided that I don’t need one. Approx £200 saved.

I mindlessly put lots of clothing into my online shopping cart. £190 saved by avoiding.

£390 that I was tempted to spend on things that I don’t actually need. This is my problem!!

@Fabulouslyunfabulous well done on saving yourself from mindless crap!!

the housemaid series by frieda McFadden - about to start the final one (think Netflix are producing a series). I’m reading all her books so have all the ones the library has reserved!!

I was listening to Paige Pritchard’s Money Love Podcast, and her guest was Jen Smith from Frugal Friends. Two things that Jen said really stuck with me:

• When she’s tempted to buy “stuff” from Amazon, she asks herself whether she wants to contribute toward Jeff Bezos’ next yacht purchase.
• Before buying anything, she reminds herself that the item will eventually end up in a landfill. It may spend a bit of time in a charity shop and be used by someone else in the interim, but its final destination will ultimately be in a landfill.