I am shocking at keeping to a budget for food shopping as i never know what i want to eat that week. Where i can, i always buy the normal items when on sale rather than pay fall price. I need to get better at this, it is one of my goals for 2024.

When grocery shopping base your weekly meals on the specials for that week.

lists on your phone while you think of things during the day to add on there

Some wonderful ideas there, thank you for sharing

Have just started watching my spending and am starting to save a few dollars a week for a rainy day. Thanks for your tips – I will incorporate them into what I’m doing.

think my chance of sipping coctails on my yacht is a bit advanced for me, just have to pay the bills successfully. it helps to have a list it is true but sometimes specials come into view so I have to recreate my list if the item is something cannot resist. At the moment fruit and nut packs are on special at local store so they are on my list as something that are good for me and I adore.So good if possible to bdget them in then it becomes a win/win

I do all this and try really hard to stick to my shopping list, one way i found that helped was to record the price of each item on my shopping list so I kind of knew what the cost was before I had finished, worked really well while we were in the roughest of days but I have been a bit lazy the last year

At the end of each day, empty your change (silvers will do) into a container, preferably not see-through (and keep it secret) and see how much you have accumulated at the end of each month. You’ll be surprised!

I try to buy clothes that mix & match, not only mine but the childrens’ clothes too. Some I am able to buy in colours that can be worn by a girl or boy, especially for everyday wear around home, just out & about or daycare. I watch for bargains in clothing and buy the next size if I know what I will need for them. I did misjudge size with some Tshirts but they were able to be worn under other clothes for extra warmth. That icludes under PJs for one child who insists on sleeping with his arms above his quilt, getting his chest exposed to cold air. Less coughs and colds since I started doing that. I honestly didn’t expect it to make any difference. Also T-shirts have sleeves where singlets don’t. Some are also longer in the body. I also discovered boys are often longer than girls – especially the sleeves – not only in Tshirts but skivvies, PJs etc. Sometimes boys are cheaper too, even if they are plain and the same colour. Talking to other Mothers, some of them had also noticed the same thing.

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  • • june11 replied
    • 02 Jul 2016 , 4:00 pm

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  I forgot to include the fact that sizes vary between brands, and also some are tagged with the incorrect size labels. A few months ago I bought two hoodies the same brand. I later discovered one is larger than the other. Now I always check them.

Some great tips to try

all great tips, but at the moment, I really need some money that grows on trees :/

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

We live week to week as we have so much debt and got in over our head when we both lost our jobs soon after having a last child.
I have to budget week to week, so I always have a grocery list, and reguarly monitor our finances. I have a spreadsheet set up with all our bills and income and the date they come in or out of the account.
Slightly worried about the increase to daycare expenses when I have to go back to work after our third child is born.
Also concerned about the upcoming election and how that is going to negatively affect families.

Excellent tips. You have to be wise with your money. I’ve taught my kids to not give their money away its Their money you don’t want someone else benefiting from it. I feel we should be teaching kids in school how to budget and showing our kids where the household money goes. Kids should understand where the money goes. I never did this and I wished I had.
A friend of mine went through a nasty divorce and she had the where with all to sit her kids down and explained the household budget to them to show what money they as a family had to live with.
It really helped and stopped the kids asking all the time for extra money from her and as soon as they got to an age to work they did. All those kids are a credit to her today. Educated, working and financially secure.

Wise tips !

We have gotten rid of our credit cards and we have paid off our personal loan now it’s time to knuckle down and pay off our mortgage.

These are some very handy hints. I’ll be sure to do at least half of them as I do get very tempted when hungry

I’m guilty of not creating lists and sticking to them when I’m at the shops. Problem is with two small children, I remember to write the darn list at home but always forget it when I get to the supermarket. Always end up spending more than I intend of doubling up on grocery items because I can’t remember what we’ve got at home. I find using an app for lists much more helpful as I don’t forget my phone (that often).

I found that by creating fortnightly meal plans and shopping to the list we had way less wastage of food and weren’t spending as much on impromptu purchases.

We do ok with our budget – most of the time… I do shop around for the cheapest, but yes, sometimes it’s too easy to get extra of what you don’t need!