Tired and Skint

Category: Save Money

  • Batch cooking – is it worth it?

    Absolutely. Batch cooking is 100% worth it. It gives you a meal plan, a shopping list, a food budget and so much more.

    Just last night, I made myself my lunch for the next 4 days, it took me 90 minutes and to be honest most of it was just sat around waiting for it to cook.

    So how does it work?

    Essentially, batch cooking is simply just making more food, a big batch that you then split into smaller batches. You can freeze most things, you can take some to work for your lunch and you can eat it that night. In doing this you can turn one cooking effort into 2, 3 or even 4 meals, often at a lower cost than it would be if you cooked the meal on 4 separate occasions.

    How much can you save?

    In reality not much to start with, in fact it almost feels more expensive to start with. Let’s take for example a meal that feeds four people costs £7.50, you’re going to scale that up into a bigger batch, double it and that’s £15. Scale a meal from 4 to 16 portions and suddenly that one meal for 4 goes up to £30 (£7.50 x 4). However, you’re now able to take advantage of scale and the discount that it can provide.

    At the time of writing this, Sainsbury’s 5% Beef Mince was priced as follows:

    • 250g – £3.00 (£12/kg)
    • 500g – £5.00 (£10/kg)
    • 750g – £7.25 (£9.67/kg)
    • 1000g – £9.25 (£9.25/kg)

    A generic Lasagne recipe for 4 people calls for 500g mince so applying that logic to a recipe for 16 people you would need 2kg and using the above pricing it would cost £18.50 for two packs of 1kg beef mince versus £20 for 4 500g packets. A saving of £1.50 on one ingredient.

    So back to the point, there’s more money leaving your pocket short term but long term, you’re keeping more of your money.

    £1.50 isn’t worth the effort – or is it?

    I don’t want you to get hung up on this point but what I will say is that in the example above that’s just one ingredient. I can’t think of any meal that is one ingredient alone, not even chips (unless you want really really badly cooked soggy chips in an air fryer because you’ve tried to prove me wrong). Generally speaking most meals have 4 ingredients or more and you can save on each ingredient by bulk buying. I’ve gone off track a little and now I’m getting hung up on this point.

    The real saving is time. By batch cooking you can save yourself at least one cooking session a week. That Lasagne I keep referring to, you cook it once and you can eat it once a week for the next month and in reality you’re just reheating it (it will need freezing if not eaten within 3 days of originally batch cooking it). Let’s just say, you save yourself 1 hour a week by not having to cook a meal from scratch, over the course of a year that’s 52 hours you’ve given back to yourself.

    The saving people never realise: Takeaways/Eating out

    My favourite part of batch cooking that hardly anyone realises and possibly the biggest saving of all is that by having a pre made meal ready in the house (even if it’s frozen) means that you can avoid a takeaway. Now I’m not saying takeaways and treating yourself is bad but what I am saying is that if you can’t be bothered to cook, you don’t have to but you also don’t have to order a Domino’s either.

    Picture this, you’ve come home from a hard day at work and you can’t be bothered to cook, perhaps you’ve got kids or a sport to get to. Housework to do, homework, meeting a friend. It doesn’t really matter what it is.

    You’re looking for something quick and effortless to eat so your first step is to mindlessly look in the cupboard for noodles or beans on toast or even worse, crisps. Once you’ve eaten 4 bags of crisps and you’re still hungry the next step is to look on Deliveroo or Ubereats, one things leads to another and you’ve just paid £20 for a takeaway and whilst waiting for your takeaway, you’re eating your fifth bag of crisps.

    Now let’s change it slightly, everything above happens until we get to the cupboard. We change the cupboard for the fridge/freezer, pull out that Lasagne, put it in the oven, set the timer and wait. Timers goes off, you eat the lasagne and you’ve saved yourself £20 and 5 bags of crisps.

    Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll slowly be building out my recipes and I’ll be posting them here as and when so keep an eye out for them.

    In the meantime, give batch cooking a go.

  • Phone bills – a different perspective

    Today I wanted to talk about mobile phone contracts and more specifically why I don’t have one.

    When I turned 18, one of the first things I did was take out a new phone contract and from memory it was an iPhone 7, top of the range at the time and probably around £35 per month. 2 years later and I upgraded to an iPhone 8. Another 2 years later an iPhone X and I repeated this process all the way through to an iPhone 13, every time, my phone bill increased until finally I was paying almost £100 a month.

    My final phone contract was due for renewal in November 2024 and simply put, I refused to upgrade. I was sick of paying an extortionate amount for a phone I used primarily to scroll Facebook and google things. When my phone contract came up for renewal, I did what most people do when looking at upgrading, I looked for the best possible deal, the best of everything, unlimited everything.

    Then I had an epiphany, why don’t I keep the phone I have a move to SIM Only? In moving to SIM only, I’d be saving at least the £50 per month device plan but it was actually more than that, overnight I cut my current phone bill down to £10 a month, that’s a £90 saving per month, £1080 per year and given that most phone contracts are 2 or 3 year deals, I’m on track to save between £2160 and £3240 overall.

    Even if you still want the latest tech, go direct to Apple or Samsung or whoever manufactures the phone and take it out directly with them, that way you could still probably half your overall bill due to the savings on a SIM only plan.

    My advice, don’t do it. Find a SIM only deal and get that, keep the phone you have. If your phone is on the verge of dying for good, look on Wowcher and get a refurbished model, mine cost £54.99.

  • What is a budget?

    A budget in its simplest form is a place where you write your income and expenditure down as plan for your week or month (sometimes year).

    It’s a good starting point to see where you’re at financially and if you have any money left over (surplus) or worse have a negative amount of money (deficit). You detail all of your income and then expenditure. You minus your expenditure from your income and see what you have left (or not)!

    The problem with most budgets is when you create them, you create them with the best case scenario in mind and they’re often too aggressive and not specific enough. Once you have paid all of your bills and put aside some money for fuel or food, everything else goes on paying off debt. You miss the annual expenses, birthdays, gifts and fun money. You then get caught out trying to scrape together money for a gift or even worse put it back on your credit card you’ve just paid off.

    I’ve been guilty of this in the past and my budget still isn’t perfect but it’s leaps and bounds ahead of where it once was and I think in a couple of months it’ll be perfect.

    So I’ve put together a list of things that I’ve learnt over time which has really helped me out.

    Income:

    • Only include fixed income that you know is coming, salary, child benefit, any benefits.
    • Do not include extra income you think is coming in (extra shifts, overtime). It may not come in.

    Expenditure:

    • Include all fixed bills, rent/mortgage, energy, car expenses
    • Add a section for annual expenses, things you pay yearly. Car insurance maybe? Put an amount aside to make it easier when that bill is due.
    • Add a section to save for things you pay monthly that you could pay annually, car insurance if you’re not already paying it yearly.
    • Gift fund, cards, birthday presents etc
    • Debts, credit cards, loans, car finance.
    • FUN MONEY. Everyone needs some down time, do not miss this out. You’ll overspend otherwise.

    Optional extras include, big ticket items, new car, house deposit, annual subscriptions.

    One you have a starting point, be patient. Your budget won’t be perfect and it takes time to develop and fine tune. The main thing is you start and start today.

    Good luck and happy budgeting!

  • Is £10 a lot of money?

    Yes and no.

    I pondered on writing this post for quite a while and decided that it was worth writing even if it’s to prove a point around perspective. In reality £10.00 doesn’t get anyone very far. Most people’s biggest expense is their mortgage or rent and when you compare that to £10, £10 is probably close to 1% in of their mortgage/rent in most areas of the UK so when you put it like that, it’s not a lot of money.

    I used to stress a lot about money, more specifically not any. Countless sleepless nights, waking up early on pay day to move money around before any company to take money off me, thinking I was in control bit in reality I was just avoiding my money issues and the issues were compounding but that’s not a sustainable way to live and it’s stressful. It takes its toll in more ways than you think, including your personal relationships.

    One of my money managing methods is now to break things down into £10 increments but I’ve found it only really works if you use that money wisely. That can include going to the pub or whatever you like but only if it’s planned correctly.

    Examples of what £10 can get me:

    1. My phone bill for the month (SIM only)
    2. Almost a monthly Netflix subscription
    3. Monthly Amazon prime membership
    4. 3 days of fuel
    5. Almost a monthly Spotify Premium Subscription

    Now I’ve purposefully listed the “fun” things above and the reason for that is setting aside or earning an extra £10 isn’t going to pay your mortgage but it is going to pay for those things listed above.

    I’ve talked about what the £10 increments can pay for but I haven’t talked about what £10 increments can do for your stress levels and your financial well-being. £10 a day over the course of a month is £300.

    £300 pays my energy bill in full and still leaves (a small bit of) change. It can pay for my water bill, 2 sets of car insurance and tax and still have change. Actually it can pay for at least 2 things a month, the only exception is our rent which it can’t do unfortunately.

    Instead of stressing and focusing on money I don’t have, I focus on money I could have and it’s liberating.

    I find £10 a day to be just about the right amount of money that anyone can focus on, it’s big enough to make a meaningful impact but small enough to feel achievable daily. I made £20 yesterday selling lamps I no longer need on Facebook, I have £48 sat in Vinted Vinted Review: Here and £20.05 selling books on world of books (review pending once complete). That’s £88.05 in a day.

    Is £10 a lot of money to you?

  • Are you missing out on FREE money?

    When I lost my job in April 2024, we came a bit stuck financially. We didn’t have any money to fall back on, we were living pay cheque to pay cheque, always one step away from financial disaster and this was the disaster.

    I had everyone’s worst nightmare, not being able to pay the bills. I had every man’s worst nightmare, not being able to provide for his family. So I swallowed my pride and asked for help, help in the form of benefits for the government. I arrived at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) office, terrified. Feeling judged and unsure of what to expect I walked in, sat down and patiently waited my turn, I was then met with a lady who tried to be helpful however, I left with more questions than answers. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I received £745 in housing benefit which saw us through to the following much, by which point I was back in employment. I will go into my experience in more detail but that isn’t the purpose of this post today.

    Last night, I was lying in bed next to my wife, talking about money and we got onto the topic of benefits. We both know people who are claiming benefits who are quite content on continuing on claiming them for as long as possible without actively looking to change their circumstances for the better. It piqued my interest and I was curious to see how people are able to live solely off benefits.

    I just want to be very clear here before I continue, I am not criticising anyone who is claiming benefits, in fact I’m actively encouraging you to check if you are entitled to any additional help.

    I started to look into the UK benefits system to see if we were entitled to any additional support and it’s a minefield. It appears simple in principle but it becomes overly complicated and difficult to calculate accurately as soon as you factor in partners and children. You could married and have children, if you don’t choose a primary caregiver (even though you split it 50/50), you lose out on some money in your benefits award. Madness.

    Then I came across an absolute gem of a website, Turn2Us. Turn2Us is a charity, they have a benefits calculator, simply input your information (don’t worry it’s anonymous) and it does all the calculations for you. So, I filled in all of our information and we’re not entitled to anything other than Child Benefit which we already claim but I was curious and so I played around a little bit and these were the results.

    • If we had another baby – £245 a month extra.
    • If we both quit our jobs and did nothing £1700 a month.
    • If we earned £400 a month each, £1600 awarded plus we would have £800 earned income.

    Now I’m not for one second suggesting you quit your job and live off the state but the two major points that stuck out for me.

    1. There are things you can potentially claim for that you wouldn’t think you could. Take an extra child for example, I was gobsmacked to see that we would be entitled to £245 a month. If I didn’t play about with the calculator, I would never have known and we would never claim.
    2. No matter what you current circumstance please check your eligibility to claim and check every time your circumstances change. You never know.

    Here is the link again Turn2Us

    Good Luck!