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?

I've been lurking a while but now Joining in on this thread as I've decided to be more mindful of my spending and hoping this will make me more accountable.

I've just started watching Hollieand life too. She said in an earlier post she's a single mother of four children and trying to save to buy a house.

Yesterday I rearranged my freezer and made a list of everything I had in it. I'm really going to try using all of it up before I restock it and mindful of not throwing food away.

I had a voucher from a supermarket offering me £18 off my first online delivery so I'm going to take advantage of that plus use my points to get £10 off.

Spent 17.50 on food today. But no treat bits.

Total spend for Jan is
318.50 on just food and petrol

Calling it early and saying today is a NSD.

I’m making pork goulash in the slow cooker for dinner and didn’t have enough paprika. Usually I would go and buy some (plus other stuff while I was in the supermarket) but I decided to just make do and I’m sure it will be fine.

Not wanting to lose a planned NSD is really motivating!

Spent another £8 on food today. They just keep eating it!!

Total £326.50 This has been an eye opener! I'd have said that we spend about £400 a month on food!! Not even close!

Today I've spent £3.48 on a carrot, banana, clementines on offer, Tescos Growers Harvest peas and their basic plain yogurt. £9 on cat food on offer. Dental check up £27.20 - she advised I know use Dental sticks, so will get them with work staff discount. Luckily nothing wrong with my teeth

how many of you are there and what are you eating typically?

The average food bill for a family of four I think is £400-£600

£6.20 in Costa. It was my turn to pay.
£17.38 in Home Bargains on things I really needed/was running out of.

I've spent very little this week, just some money onto my bus ticket app and £16 to update my DBS. Both outgoings definitely necessary!

My DH is going to Costco on his way home from work so we will see what my half will cost. Again it's necessities like laundry detergent, tomato puree, almond milk, peanut butter, that we use all the time. (I'm dairy intolerant).

He's sometimes tempted with treats though, last time he went he came home with a huge bag of dried mango and some Japanese rice crackers. The big bags cost a lot but it works out cheaper than buying smaller packs. And those dried mango slices are ridiculously delicious!

I meant to add, I cancelled apple tv on 29th December and since then have had no streaming tv. I haven't missed it yet, there is so much on itv, channel 4 and bbc. I will see how long we can last!

I've enjoyed watching Patience, The IT Crowd, and Red Eye, amongst others.

@MikeRafone a moment of idiocy - I forgot that £75 of that was on fuel and £30 on presents. So not quite so bad as I thought!

5 of us plus a dog and a cat. I think I tried too hard to cut down on weekly shop without planning, so have had to keep popping to corner shop which is much more expensive. Lesson learnt.

Ive been spending today

I had a Starbucks at lunch time - £4.45
I got 2 presents in Sainsbury for £6.99 20% off and £8 reduced to £3.50 but paid on nectar card - £0
Present on amazon, collect from local post office on Monday so no postage to pay £6.99 reduced from £16.99

and £1.40 on snacks

so today - so far is £12.84

7/15
£191.01

but im eating out tonight with friends, need to go as they are away after this week until end of February between them - so need to see them.

Birthday party next week, so a card and ballon to buy, but feel I got a good deal on the present so far. I shall go to the card factory for the card and ballon as its not expensive that way.

Nearly half way through the month and still to do a proper grocery shop and have an empty freezer.

Still waiting for my $78 dollar cheque to cash

Ive been and collected the latest Anthony Horroritz book for free - so that saved me £6
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marble-Hall-Murders-Magpie-bestselling/dp/1804943002/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3IQXPCBHZS29L&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.eTQ4BY10PTZcs6zPt3adi_8_MLOSyVmKujoajC_M2CleXJh5z_KA32-heOlALKUCH4CbhA5lYXxm2cWG1oR14J2Ncy6Tyg7evHhvdy02d_Toywfwe7Szkcg0NWn6raZvc1paanm1t-blcCfNilOln2b9T2iqDHlxqYaFw1GCPANw0qm0fcDz3yhO4jaJ0xrbXQYOg5gMjsW9SJrvd61Rhc2cIik-wBY2BIv2T7Lm4Gg.OU0kwT7CLYs6BX3k49WJ7mnDxLrNd4vrOtP8AXnKjEw&dib_tag=se&keywords=anthony+horowitz+books&qid=1768407416&sprefix=anthony%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-2

Also I see Marten Lewis is talking about another possible windfall from Nationwide building society - make sure you put £500 in the account and take out again in the first 3 months of the year and use the account etc so you qualify for the windfall.

Ive also emptied my Amazon basket of the other 3 items - I really don't need them...

I thought I’d check in and see how everyone is doing- and saw your post @MikeRafone

i feel halfway through the month is where the spending starts to kick in.

I have done my budget so I KNOW I don’t even have £1 spare, but I’m itching to start spending!

want to buy football sockets, and pe kit for my son (all top ups that can be pushed to next month)

want to get my car washed and valeted (could do it myself!!)

want to arrange to meet friends in London- as fancy getting out and about.

already done an ott grocery shop, as was feeling malnourished from my saver meals, scraping together scraps from cupboards etc

@ strategies25 - hang in there. It’s month end for me now (I get paid on 17th) and it’s been a long month for me. Hopefully something will come up. I put a few things on Vinted and they can through for me.

maybe ask friends round for a coffee instead of going into town? It’s not the same but might get you through.

I did a top up yesterday £11.25 and that will get me through until Saturday. The freezer is looking leaner.

Thanks @Specialagentblond - and well done on getting through a long month!

my friends live far away but I could always spend time with my parents instead.

So last night was a success, I spend the grand total of £11.00 on drink and food out - we did get a January discount on top of a discount on 4 dishes we chose - so it was a budget night out

Today I really needed my nails doing as the xmas nails had chipped after 5 weeks. I painted over 3 nails in black to get by till today. Cost me £10 to just get gel removed but he did file and buff so they were decent. ive come home and painting myself - price £00 wanna see?

coffee in town £5

7/15
£216.96

im finding being accountable makes me much more mindful of my spending, but also interesting to see how much im spending

Yes @MikeRafonewhen you start to write it all down it is shocking how much the money can slip away!

@MikeRafone I get paid twice this month. It will be over £500. Do you reckon that would qualify me for that payment if they do it again?

I think that’s what it was last year

ive got one DD and my Netflix coming out, olus a regular savers account

so im sure i will qualify

I’ve run out of bank swaps to make free money 🙈

Fingers crossed! I created a bank too late to qualify last year but my husband qualified grr.

Half way through the month I've managed to pay back 400 of the 500 I took out of savings before Christmas & pay the credit card bill for the supermarket food shop.

Grocery spending is £177, petrol £20. I had to spend £20 on prescription fees/medicine & £40 on parts to deal with a plumbing issue. I bought a bottle of wine to take to a friend’s (£5 with Tesco vouchers). So <275 in total & apart from that I’ve spent nothing … I have to say it’s been a little bit painful 😆Grocery spend will inevitably increase as I have to start replacing stuff. I am very happy that I've bought no junk food at all - I've been baking quite a lot (which I don't think it cheaper) but is definitely nicer!

I need to keep going through February & March though as we’ve got a few big expenses coming up - car, medical, education related. And I need a new hoover (Henry packed up after 20 years … I’m borrowing my mum’s at the moment which isn’t permanent). In total it will be an extra 1500-2000 in the next 6 weeks. Ouch.

oh I cancelled audible & spotify - we can cope fine without. I renewed (paid for the year) prime in November so still have that & we have a £12.99 netflix subscription. Had to renew my life insurance & that's gone up £10 a month but there's still a bit less coming out of our bills account.

Most of it I see as doable but how can you eat for £4 a day?

Usually see our friends out for coffee, but went to theirs today, saving around £14.

Raided Lidl for prawns, stir fry, large box eggs, bread, tomatoes, cod and salmon - the latter were on clearance, so £14.59. We don't eat meat, so I keep my eyes open for fish on offer.

So o order on Amazon yesterday and delivery would be Monday, I am collecting from my post office 2 minutes away for free & Alexa has told me the parcel has arrived - so free delivery and I’ll pick up tomorrow as I pass
So £8.99 saved

We're a family of 5 and manage around £4 per person per day. We are vegetarian which makes a big difference and if something is a good price I stock up, so I currently have approx 15kg rice in my cupboards and 36 tins of tomatoes. I know tomatoes aren't expensive but the saving was 20p a tin, 36 tins, £7.20. Rice is basmati for £1.10 a kilo, Sainsbury's own 1 kilo bags are £1.79 so the new 10kg bag has saved me £6.90. I do that for everything we eat regularly and the savings add up.

We all have, toast, porridge, pancakes or muesli for breakfast. The children have a packed lunch consisting of roll, salad, fruit, yogurt, and a piece of cake most days. DH and I usually have leftovers, soup, whatever needs eating or sometimes a sandwich. At the weekend we'll have quiche or hummus and flatbread or a roast. I make all our bread and cakes etc. The bread is cheaper than shop bought, the cakes definitely aren't but they are nicer and we eat less, maybe 1 or 2 cookies rather than half a packet