Budgeting on Universal Credit - Any tips Guys ?

katiesymon

Hi Guys, Hope all is going well for everyone. I wondered if you had ideas about making it through on your individual budgets. I have a few strategies I thought I would share. One of them is I mostly shop online. I have written a small excel spreadsheet budget, which I toggle through during the month. Basically I withdraw cash for bus fares, paying cash at the post office for bills. That's my cash drawings. Then the rest is online bills, council rent, taxes - what is left is divided into food and if I need any clothing item. We all need socks replaced and so forth.  I can toggle something - I find Asda Online Groceries brilliant. The Smart price, brand is so cheap if you type smartprice and then when up sort by low price - you'll be amazed spaghetti starts at 15 pence, lemonade 17pence. Basically I can do groceries about £50-80 a month this way and Asda allow you to juggle around with it a few weeks before hand and edit your food plan before buying so I peruse it the night before and select the cheapest delivery fee £2. I freeze cheese (cut it into desired amounts bag and freeze, put rest in fridge) mozzarella 45p and milk and bread, (save the bottles and use them to split the large milk) but sometimes buy milk powder (you can freeze that too if opened) and reduced milk in the can for emergencies. Canned tomatoes 38 p or 55p (cant remember) can be made into sauces on pasta 22p, with a shake of basil so give it a try, you'll be amazed at what you find. 2 chicken kievs for 89p. Once I got the hang of it I could build up on stores. After delivery I do not need to go to the store again. Use You tube for tips on food storage or cooking as you can make a nice flatbread from flour and water (toss in garlic or even rosemary if you like) it cooks dry without oil in a frypan. 1 small pot of yoghurt with milk in the slow cooker makes more yoghurt. I save all milk cartons and fill with rice, lentils and pasta for clean secure storage. Any left over money I transfer to a bank account with no debit card and I can pull it back to the main account if I need it later in the month. The bus fares sit in a jar at home and I usually get the required coins from the Post Office when paying bills. Have you any ingenious tips or recipes we can share ?

Adrian_Scope

Great idea for a thread @katiesymon! 
We've recently returned to using cash for things, it's amazing the difference it makes to the budget.

How do you find the kievs at Asda? We use a lot of smart price/value range products but haven't tried these.