I spend all my time at the moment it feels, thinking about money. Saving it, raising it, earning it, spending it. It’s partly because of this challenge, and partly just because money is tight, and we’ve got four children. I don’t have a pension, or college funds for the children, and if we have a rainy day I guess it will just rain.
So, two strategies under consideration. Looking at every penny currently spent and making sure it’s spent sensibly, and looking at every avenue for raising money too.
Lots of little cut backs still available, even though we’re pretty frugal already. I’m definitely going to try making our own yogurt, I figure uht milk and a vacuum flask will be a reasonable outlay there and is, as I understand it, all I really need. And the cloth nappies need to come back out, that’ll save another 6 or 7 pounds a week. I’m a bit nervous about how I’m going to get them dry, I might have to get the terry squares out as they are most likely to dry on the airer in the kitchen. In this weather tots would have to either be on the radiator or the tumble dryer.
I’m not sure if I can cut a lot more of our food bill without it adversely impacting health. I already shop at Lidl and Aldi with top ups from the coop. Wondering if getting back into baking our own bread would help.
Meal planning is definitely good.
Breakfasts are scrambled eggs for me and littlies, cereal for the other two.
Lunches are sandwiches or homemade soup. Broccoli and stilton, 4 portions for £2 and that was only because coop only had vintage stilton, nearly twice the price of the normal stuff. Lentil and onion comes in at about 60p for three portions.
Dinners
Monday: roast chicken, roast potatoes, baked beans. £5 for 6 of us, plenty of chicken left for sandwiches for next few days.
Tuesday: homemade beefburgers, probably in bread buns, with leftover beans and miscellaneous veg. £3 for 6.
Wednesday: fish and chips, our luxury meal and my night off. Is £10.20 for our order.
Thursday: homemade pizza. Cost is around £3 depending on what toppings I put on.
Friday: toad in hole. About £4 I think, again depending on what veg I chuck in with it.
Saturday: spag bol out of freezer. Costs around £2.
Sunday: jacket potatoes. Cheese, ham assorted pickles. £3 maybe?
On top of this I buy bread, yogurt, fruit, biscuits, tea, coffee, etc but my weekly shop this week for 6 came in at £65 and there will be around £20 extra. I’m going to start keeping track of exact costs to see if there’s anything I could be doing better.