How my family saves money and stopped overspending
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I’m a spender! Budgeting doesn’t come naturally to me. I have ADHD, so the dopamine hit of buying something new makes me want to constantly buy things. So I have to be super careful and watch what I’m buying. We started properly budgeting last year, and it changed our lives.
I remember sitting down and filling out the spreadsheet and I could’ve cried on how much we had been spending. So I made budgeting my entire personality and here we are. We stopped overspending and started saving.
Meal Prepping
We started meal prepping! I used to just pop to the shop if there was nothing in for dinner. I’d end up spending around £20 each time! So I started planning 5 meals for £20. I made sure I was using similar ingredients throughout the week to minimise food wastage and make the most of our money.
Second Hand Shopping
We swapped to second hand shopping! Anything we can get second hand we do! I could cry thinking about how much money I wasted before Albie was born at all the new tiny clothes he never wore! I bought for every season… but he was tiny and come autumn he was still in 0-3 months! Not the 3-6 months I’d planned for. Even Xmas is done second hand, you can find so much still in boxes / new that people are throwing away.
No Spend Challenges
So I started this blog to document no spend Jan! We frequently do no spend weeks and weekends, especially if we have been overspending lately. It just helps us to reset our money mindset, it’s so easy just to ‘tap tap tap’ and spend!
Cash Stuffing
Another thing we started doing is cash stuffing. Each month we take cash out and split it between envelopes. Each envelope is for a designated area of spending, ie, food, home, pets etc. The idea is the physical act of handing money over stops you from spending. I can confirm it works! Physically handing money over makes you so much more conscience of what you’re buying.
Batch Cooking
I also started batch cooking. Once a month I’ll cook a heap of tomato sauce to be used in pasta, pies, pizza bases ect. I also batch cook mince & veg. I keep these in the freezer and they can be used as the foundation of most meals.
Spreadsheets
When I started tracking our finances, our spending habits transformed. I use this spreadsheet , it does all the maths for me! I just input the numbers and see how much we have left each month. I use it at the start of the month to give myself a budget, then at the end of the month I go back and enter the exact totals. For example, I might budget £400 for food shopping, but we only end up spending £380.
Start Saving!
“But I still can’t save!”
I’m not going to sit here and tell you by batch cooking and cash stuffing that all your financial worries will go away. Reality is we are in a cost of living crisis. There is only so much we do. If you don’t have enough money coming in, then no amount of budgeting is going to change that. The financial situation of our country is sickening right now, and I don’t want to invalidate everyone’s struggles. These are just a few tips which helped transform our spending habits.
