The blog has been a bit quiet of late, we are just getting back into a routine and unfortunately working in finance this is our busiest time of the year but this year I really want to make the blog a bit more about us, our lives and our memories. Too often it gets bogged down with various reviews and giveaways, I think more cake is needed on here too!
So on of my first posts is about our money goals in the new year.
Like I mentioned in this post last week, we need to start looking to get our house more suitable for us as we get a little older (the kids I mean not us!) and start looking at extending our house so the kids are able to have a bit more space for themselves.
No matter how we do this we need to look at money and that is our plan for 2016.
So we’ve started off by making a few adjustments to the way we do things.
Starting with our food shopping! I dread to think how much we were spending a month on food with lots of junk and lots of wasted food. I hold my hands up and admit I’m one of these people that go in for a load of bread and come out £40 worse off, but no more. This is being dealt with 2 ways.
Firstly we’ve started off by withdrawing a set amount on payday. This has become our “spending money” as we call it. So if the kids need milk money or we need to get milk or bread on the way home this is what we use. It also pays for our days out or little treats we want. If it all goes then that’s if for the month or if likewise there is any left this gets rolled over to the next month.
This has made us more aware of how much we are spending and making sure that we are not overspending when we go to get a couple of bits.
Next up is our food shopping, I shop online once a week as after working all day the last thing I want to do in an evening or on my weekend is to try and get a weeks shopping done and home. So I am ordering from Tesco which gets delivered at the weekend with all our weekly fruit, veg & bread etc., I use their delivery saver option which means for £6 a month I can do as many orders as I want as long as they are over £40 they are free. To me this makes so much sense anyway as the times I go for delivery they are normally £6 a delivery anyway.
Then I’ve been buying our meats from Muscle Food, our friends recommended them before Christmas so I brought the new customer offer and haven’t looked back! I find their quality of meat so much better and I’ve found them a similar price to the supermarket offers.
I packaged the chicken breasts up in portion sizes and most of the other items come vacuum packed anyway.
I would recommend going for their new customer offer on the top left corner which will give you a chance to try their whole range to see which items you like. We’ve come across items that we really like and some that are not really to our taste but this means going forward we can order the items we like.
I have also been using Quidco with any online orders that I have made. Since I started using Quidco I’ve earnt on average £280 a year in cashback and I still use it when I’m shopping for everyday items but also insurances and my utilities. If you sign up through my referral link here, once you spend £5 you will get an additional £4.50 added to your account.
Over the coming weeks, I will share other ways we are saving money and trying to make a little extra money but I’d love for you to share ways you have found that work too.