photo from Google
Did anyone watch the Martin Lewis TV prog last night? It featured a woman who spends less than £3 a week on her food shopping by buying just yellow stickered items. That woman has dedication!
Marlene from Simple Living blog has the same mindset and gets some brilliant buys on a regular basis. 'Mean Queen' Ilona has it down to a fine art too. I rarely find anything reduced to pennies so I think I must go at the wrong time of day. As it's a car journey to the shops it's a bit tricky to get the timing right but I must try harder, especially in the new year when big bills start to roll in and money is tight. Already we have a bill for £1760 for our ground rent. We have already saved up enough for that and council tax is paid by monthly direct debit, but there will be rates, water & sewerage charges, a tank full of LPG to pay for, TV Licence (end of December), the telephone line rental (paid annually up front to get it cheaper) which is due middle of January and so on.....
If we can save on the food budget it will help enormously as we also have to find money to site our touring caravan somewhere during the whole of February now that OH is no longer warden here, otherwise we will be homeless for a month! We are hoping to take the 'van to Padstow at some stage so we need cash!
Ebay is calling me....must have a rummage and sort some stuff to sell....
Is January an expensive time for you too? Or perhaps a different month? What do you do to cope?
Have a wonderful day and stay warm x
Most of our bills are paid monthly so we have to budget mainly for extras birthday gifts and such. I have got lucky with some stickers a few times but not always worth the effort as I have to drive 14miles to the supermarket.
ReplyDeleteGosh that's a long way to drive MM and not worth 'popping in' x
DeleteI'm trying hard not to think how much I spent at the supermarket this morning. I decided I really need to have a store cupboard of non-perishables. It is a good feeling knowing the cupboards are now full though and it isn't Christmassy stuff but things we use regularly. There never seem to be many yellow sticker bargains here. It's very rare I strike lucky. X
ReplyDeleteJules, I can see you're ready for Christmas then! :) x
DeleteThankyou for the mention Angie, I have missed those programmes I must catch up on itv player. It is always the same I find, all bills and direct debits seem to come out at once, sometimes it gets a bit tight for us, but we get through it. I am sure you can rustle up some super thrifty meals. xx
ReplyDeleteYou are an inspiration, Marlene, I really enjoy seeing your bargains. Do try and catch up with the Martin Lewis progs I can always find some tip or other to help us on there x
DeleteI love a full store cupboard, hubby has retired so he looks out for yellow stickers, slowly we are getting better
ReplyDeleteWell done for getting hubby on the case! YS items always give me a buzz Marlene! x
DeleteThe most expensive months for us are the ones leading up to December with Christmas shopping. I do a monthly budget every month - nothing fancy, just a note pad, listing all our direct debits. I then count how many pay days there are (hubby's paid weekly) and divide the total outgoings by 4 or 5 weeks, minus my small monthly NHS pension. Whatever's left I transfer to another account to save or use. My earnings from my home based work are extra and go into the other account too. This system works well for us. So all our expenses are spread equally with no big bills in January - of course if something broke like the washer then that would have to be replaced or fixed.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you have got it just right Mrs LH. Unfortunately we are only allowed to pay certain bills on an annual basis here so we have to make sure we save up enough money ready for each one. It is the unexpected bills which can throw a spanner in the works, isn't it :/
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