A no spend January with limited grocery shopping spend

[MikeRafone]

Im needing a detox from spending for January

Ive cancelled my amazon prime account - for now as I rarely use it until easter so it saves £35

all my bills will go out by direct debit and standing order by 2nd of the month

Im going to set a limit of £4 per person per day for the grocery shopping so £28 per person per week. We have a lot of left overs, some of which im going to freeze for January.

Coffee at home rather than out in a coffee shop, no hitting the sales for stuff no-one else wanted!

Im wanting as many no spend days as possible for January

anyone want to join?

but today spent on top up shop, which was more than I thought but will last me until at least thursday

£79.76 for fuel and top up shop, £11.25 on coffee for me & dds today

5/15

£178.17

glad the tip about entitled too might be useful. Many people don't apply for benefits until they are in dire straights money wise. Whereas they could have been legit claiming way before. Also look int things like PIP, careers as it might be applicable. Ignorance abut benefits is very harsh as they will not back date though ignorance of not knowing you could claim.

What gets my goat is someone living alone who is diagnosed with dementia can have SMI applied to council tax and not pay anything - but how the fuck are they supposed to know that when they are Seriously mentally impaired? The issue is due to their condition they can become confused and not make payments, make some payments, late payments and then end up with court summons, bailiffs etc

rant over!

Emptied my coin pot today and also the tub I use to save currency when we come back from holiday (kept the Euros because they will get used). I will pop to the bank at some point tomorrow to exchange both for about £80 into my savings account. 😁

@outofideas2 I didn't think uk banks accepted foreign coins, only notes ?

I mostly have notes. I work for a charity and we have a tub for old/foreign coins which they can change so the few coins I have will be going in there.

Today I've spent 29 (dog food and stuff to complete craft project) 62 tesco. 8 accessories (not essential, but it was in a sale and I want to make it an enjoyable experience.

So far in Jan ive spent £ 226 - we're not even halfway through and I've really been trying! I'm shocked! Will go up hugely tomorrow as I have to get fuel for car.

Travelling tomorrow- I'll take a coffee ad sandwich from home but will need a top up. I suppose what I'm going for is intentional spending rather than emotional.

Hope everyone is doing ok

Out of my £500 Jan budget I have £232 left of which £50 will go in my milk direct debit (we still have glass bottles from the milkman, expensive but I love that there is no plastic and it supports a local dairy).

So £180 left and we’re not even half way through. I do have a freezer full of Batch Lady meals and beef so it’s doable but going to be tight.

I watched What Not to Eat on channel 4 last night as I do like the idea of less UPF and have been following the ethos in January. However it is more expensive.

I popped into the Co-op today for spring onions and spent £35. B*gger!

It will delay the big shop by a couple of days but I’m annoyed at mysel and my schoolgirl error.

We are trying to avoid UPF. I buy a sourdough loaf from brilliant bakery but my DH hates sourdough. I mainly toast it. To make it go further I slice then freeze.
I am loving M&S for UPF but there are so many temptations!
We are still eating the cupboards/freezer.
M&S do a good every day loaf but I need to find soft buns that are easy to eat!
I’m finding the best way to spend less is stay home.
Must finish my decorating and craft stash. Easy at moment with snow/rain and just being freezing 🥶.

I spent money yesterday! Not from savings but unnecessarily.

All on sale. Clothes basically. They arrive tmrw/Tuesday. Will return what doesn't suit. Arrgh I have a problem 😕

Top up shop yesterday of £8 and spent £4.50 on a coffee at a soft play party. The latter could have been avoided but it did make life a lot better in the moment.

NSD currently 5/12.

@WhitegreeNcandle we also have milkman milk, it is expensive but I suspect it saves us a lot on top up shops!

online shop arrived. I have ordered staples, evening meals for 3’days plus breakfasts and lunches for the week. Kids and DH eat out for lunch so it came to £45. Will have to top up on Thursday.

The app has an orange logo

@Ireolu as someone else said on this thread earlier, just pick yourself up and start again.

I also have a problem with spending/shopping and have succumbed a couple of times already this year. Try not to beat yourself up. Even a little improvement is still an improvement.

Today I've spent £75 on petrol!

But I managed to avoid buying a snack in petrol station and came home to shop the cupboards!

M&S do a good every day loaf

is it £2.20

where as a 4 ingredient loaf at home no knead is around 60/70p

I seem to be full of cold today and so staying home, not going anywhere and not spending - so hopefully another no spend day making it 6/15

Thank you for writing this. My concern is it starts the slippery slope. Have just resisted even more 'stuff' so will view that as a positive. Will try to refocus.

We've all been there...

I've been out today, written a list of bits I needed mainly cleaning and medical items but there were so many things I'd normally have bought purley because I think they're going to cheer me up, make me feel good but I stopped and asked myself if I needed them or would they, which is more likely, just end up in a spare room with all the other odds and ends that were unnecessary "cheer me up" purchases.

Had a freebie coffee that comes with a
garden subscription membership.

But today was a good day of only buying the needs.

£3.70 buying BIL coffee. He'd bought us both coffee/snack and said he'd buy us another coffee. We genuinely couldn't fit anything else in, but I knew he really wanted one, so I sneaked off and bought one for him.

I’ve done well today.
Took lunch for work and prepared lentil soup in slow cooker. And made the no kneed bread buns. I got up 30 minutes earlier to prepare etc.
Soup I prepared and put ingredients slow cooker night before. Just to switch on. The buns I did everything but warm water.
And only bought milk in Tesco! I just went in and didn’t look anywhere else just milk and straight to checkout.
God it was hard! I really wanted to have a look around, why I don’t really know!

Yay. No spend day and took my own lunch. Leftover chicken from this evening all shredded for my lunch tomorrow.

keep on going everyone.

No spend day here too. Worked from home and just didn’t leave the house so it that helped.

Had a great weekend away but it was a bit more expensive than expected. Not too much over just that everything cost a little bit more than I’d anticipated and we ended up doing three paid for activities which we wouldn’t usually do so that bumped it up.
I was with long term friends and we have always just split everything equally at meals out but a couple of them are obviously now at the stage of affluence where they don’t look at prices and order lots of extras so I may need to have a difficult conversation before we go away next time. They’re not taking the p, it just doesn’t occur to them.

Anyway back to normal life now and a NSD yesterday.

Great ideas on this thread thanks to @MikeRafone for starting it!

I like to do this for the month before I go on holiday, especially if it’s 2 weeks +. I make sure I do a rough meal plan before my online shop and aim to make as many meals with as little spends as possible using food cupboard staples. I run the fridge and freezer down as low as possible before I go away and often give them a clean out if time allows. The savings from this allows for holiday stuff if needed and also keeps the credit card bill down for the normal spends (use c c for all supermarket stuff to gain points and use the points for Xmas or more pricey grocery shops).
Thats always worked really well for me although you do need quite a big restock when you get back but it helps to clear out all the odd bits.
However got seriously caught out returning from a 2+ week holiday in March 2020 …..!

I’ve just watched hollie and life on you tube and she’s budgeted £50
per week for herself and 4 kids , I’m not sure if she has a partner as well. An interesting watch . She did her shop online at Tesco