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?

I keep hearing good stuff about the series!

DH has spent 69.65 on petrol and 2.21 on some pepper seeds for garden. It’s def gonna be close to stick within our self imposed reduced budget this month!!!

Ended up at home all week with the lurgy so no impulse spending although did order a coat I liked but have been looking for a while. It arrived today but is going back so that’s sort of a win 😂.
Hoping to get out tomorrow and go and see the new Robbie Williams film, tickets for Vue bought via O2 priority so £9 for two and I’ve a J Lewis reward for 2 free coffees and cakes so we’ll go there first. Hopefully won’t be too spendy.
Need to chose paint for the kitchen which is being redecorated in a couple of weeks , and have ordered a new blind but all accounted for in the house budget.
DH car is being serviced and MOT’d on Monday ( 14 years old) so fingers crossed for that and my car tax renewal came through today £190 - there’s always something but again there is money in the car account to hopefully cover it all.

@Nearlyadoctor oh no on the illness but good for the budget!

cinema trip sounds great - and good way to keep costs down with coffee and cake on freebie first

what colour you going for in kitchen?

@Christmasgonk - I want a very pale cream paint to go with light sage doors, and the cream spotted Emma Bridgewater blind I’ve ordered. Would love a new kitchen but the new roof took the money in the autumn so just freshening this one up for the time being,

@Nearlyadoctor have you tried slaked lime mid? Can’t remember if it’s F&B or a little Greene but we did our kitchen in that and love it (albeit it’s with blue for us)

@Christmasgonk No I haven’t , we’re going paint shopping Sunday so will look for it , thank you 🙏

No worries - it comes in dark mid and normal so maybe check them out - nice shade!

I am struggling here too! Went to soft play with ds2 today to find out his annual pass had run out. Ended up at the arcade next door, only spent £5 though. Ds1 has said his school shoes are tight so need to look into that this weekend. With the shoes and dh dentist next week we're looking at £100 left for 3 whole weeks. Our car needs diesel but we also have an electric car so hopefully we don't have both of us driving at the same time anytime soon so we don't need to top up the diesel.
And I've just remembered it's my dad's birthday next week! So that's cut out some of that £100!

@HP87 its the worst when these unexpected expenses like shoes crop up!!! I get really annoyed when I think we’re on track and then get derailed.

i also can’t deal with loads of different “pots”. Know it works for some people but not me

Definitely shoe shopping tomorrow. Managed today to only buy paint for the loft out of a ringfenced budget.

I used to have loads of pots like individual pots for each kids birthday, Christmas, different pots for the different half terms, dentist, kids clothes, diesel, But I couldn't manage it. So I just now have pots for stuff that gets paid by direct debit or transfer that isn't monthly. Like the kids clubs and after school club are termly / half termly by transfer. Water bill is every 6 months, car/home insurance annually. Basically anything that can't be paid for by credit card! Or will be too much for the credit card out of my monthly budget so would need paying off straight away.

The rest of Jan will be a struggle. After my dad's birthday and ds1 shoes I'll be on about £70 for the month. I have ds2 birthday early Feb which I'm allowing myself to spend a bit extra on the credit card for.

I have interest free purchases until April 26 but I have been clearing it each month until dh was made redundant. So I have a little leaway to spend a tiny but extra but I cannot get in the habit of it otherwise the payout would be gone in a couple of months 😂. It's that credit card that we are now paying off £500 a month so it doesn't take from his payout. So if I go too much over the £500 and make a habit of it I'll end up maxing it out and needing the payout to clear some. We would also like to be in a nice position of having some left over when he finds a job so we've got to be strict now. I still want the loft conversion mortgage paid off ASAP so the more we have left the more we can pay off.

Very pleased coffee & Cake in John Lewis, cinema and train fare came in at £19.40 and despite a couple hours browsing I wasn’t tempted to spend anything else. We did go to Brewdog for a beer (DH ) and a Prosecco but DH treated us so a good day.
The downside I did order a jumper online in the sale, but I think it’ll be too big so 🤷‍♀️.
Paint choosing tomorrow and then cooking a roast as DD’s boyfriend will also be here , but I think I’ve got all I need.
Will need to do a food shop on Monday but that will be 9 days since I’ve bought anything so quite happy with that .

I try and do the pots thing and it does work for me most of the time - but it does mean I'm guilty of not looking at my finances as a whole and spending from one 'pot' because there is money in there even if I have overspent in others.

I've not had a brilliant week - my fitbit died and it's the third one I've had that has done this (either completely dies, or gone black screen) and none has lasted more than 2 years recently so I've jumped ship and ordered an Apple Watch which definitely wasn't in the plan! It should last longer so work out better value overall, but was a bit of an impulse purchase.

Cheap day today though - winter walk and I promised DD a hot chocolate to get her out of the house, but that should be it for spends. And Dry January is going well so no spending there, even though I really fancied a glass of red last night.

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend - £22
Flowers for a family member- £5

I’ve sold quite a few books on Vinted this weekend , mainly at a £1 or £2 each but have got a total of £17 so that’s a win. The funny thing is some I’d put free on our local FB buy & sell and no by wanted them ( big hardbacks) and yet put them on Vinted £8 and the 3 went within 20 minutes 😊
I went to buy paint and ended up buying 3 tester pots at £2.55 each which I hate spending money on, so at least the books will cover that and I’m happy now with the colour I’m choosing .
Well done @abnerbrownsdressinggown on resisting the red wine , I’ve been do DJ but did succumb to a glass of Prosecco out with DH yesterday, back on the wagon today.

Sold a bit more on Vinted, so that’s a bonus. Plus getting my steps in by walking to the Post Office and back.

Bought two things yesterday (had a meltdown over DS’ ongoing behaviour so bought the Explosive Child book & some mould stuff for the shower) but today was a NSD.

Fridge is looking emptier and less thrown out this week which is good, so I’m impressed with my meal planning.

Added incentive to not buying loads of stuff/selling more on Vinted is that we’ve decided to do 3 holidays this year, so need to get saving!

Had a win yesterday at clarks, I had a voucher and I didn't know how much was left on it. It covered the whole payment for ds school shoes! Luckily his trainers are OK for a bit longer. Got some cards as I've run out of cheap ones (ds1 in reception so lots of whole class parties!) and got some birthdays coming up. Spent £11, a few groceries from the groceries budget as we parked in a supermarket car park to get free parking.
Paint for the loft this weekend so that's been pricey but separate budget. Carpet shopping today, but as we're only doing the two rooms now and not the rest that needs doing it will be a lot cheaper than the "roughly £3k" we were told for all of it.
Very happy with the overall spending this weekend, it's been stressful with loft stuff all over the house and being inside pretty much all day for two days with 3 kids, dh painted all weekend. But we've made it! School today and hopefully no more that needs doing at the weekends.

DH has hopefully sold some broken slate tiles for £10 and has advertised more. They were leftover from our roof extension. Keeping 20-30 back for any emergency repairs.

I advertised a T-shirt bundle (kids) but no bites. Will try once more when weather gets warmer but will then charity shop if no joy. Annoying as they are in perfect condition!

DH ordering a few seeds for growing stuff in garden. For some reason it says unavailable when I try as wanted to use vouchers!!

Other than seeds, NSD today. I went for a run at lunch - free!

I had a voucher for a day out which we used on Sunday. We took a flask of coffee and a packed lunch. Unfortunately I got caught in the gift shop so down £3.

I’m hopeful that I won’t end up in my overdraft this month!

Vinted sales have died down for me since Christmas. I wondered if buyers were reining it in but going from here it seems that they are still buying so I’ll list more this weekend.

@Fabulouslyunfabulous i think people maybe haven’t got much money left after Xmas and some probs got paid early in Dec making Jan a long month! DH has had no bites on some other stuff he listed on a local FB group and we reckon that’s what it is

Agree with Vinted, I’m going to wait till payday, put the last few bits on & then maybe pay for the Spotlight.

I have made about £195 although aiming overall for about £400.

DH’s car 14 year old VW Golf went in for annual service and Mot yesterday - £258.50 which was much less than budgeted. Does need 2 new tyres as does my car but I knew that was coming up so overall v happy 😊

2.75 on toothbrushes but used points

11.40 on prescriptions and shower gel (not in uk) and 1.29 on a card for DC2’s friend.

Car refused to start last night - DH charged battery overnight so hoping it’s ok but otherwise likely expensive repairs. It’s a 20 year old car and we could really do with a new one

house insurance renewal received and it’s 500 more than last year - ridiculous. Will shop around

£500 more that's ridiculous!

I had to get presents for some of Ds1 school friends party's coming up, they have lots of march/April birthdays in the class so I stocked up. Also got Ds1 party bag fillers for his party (another April one!). We decided that he will have a party and it will go on the credit card to be paid at a later date.
So with those two orders I got some craft bits for £20 which will hopefully tide us over another weekend of being at home with stuff everywhere. Last weekend of that though. My big toy sort out starts next week and the playroom will be ready by Thurs evening for me to start moving stuff up and then organising on Fri!

I'm really hoping the loft is going to be a huge life changer for us and we will find it much earlier and more relaxing to stay at home with the extra space.

We have officially run out of disposable money for Jan though! With dh dentist, dad's birthday and the other few bits we have hit our budget. Two weeks to go! It's at this point you look back and think did we really need that McDonald's after swimming, I'm happy with the month so far but might be a different answer come the end of it 😂

DH booked dentist appts yesterday but I think I’m going to find another practice. Check ups are £169 with no mention for children, so potentially over £500 for 3 of us and not even sure if that includes X-rays.

There’s another place closer that would be more like £180 for us all. Can’t believe how obscene it all is!