I’ve been making this for a couple months now, two of our family of four are vegetarian and this gave them an option from the classic meat version. Most of the products are based on an Aldi shop with the addition of Tesco Every Day Lasagne sheets which are currently half the price of Aldi.
Shopping List:
Lasagne Sheets Tesco 33p pack of 13 sheets
Every Day Aldi Baked Beans 1 tin 25p
Aldi Tomato & Herb Pasta Sauce 39p
Aldi Lasagne Sauce 75p
Aldi pack of 6 Tomatos 49p
Aldi Every Day Grated Cheese 450g pack 1.99
Ingredients:
6 Lasagne sheets 18p
1 Tin Baked Beans 25p
Half Jar Tomato & Herb Pasta Sauce 18p
1 Jar Lasagne Sauce 75p
1 Tomato thinly sliced 8p
100g Grated Cheese 44p
Method:
Use a table spoon and layer one spoon of baked beans onto a suitable lasagne/pasta dish, create two layers and then top with one lasagne sheet. Repeat until you have 2 stacks, each with 3 layers of baked beans and lasagne sheets. Pour over the full jar of lasagne sauce making sure that all of the sheets are covered. Use the half jar of tomato & herb pasta sauce to spoon evenly around the edges and between the two stacks. Layer the sliced tomato over the top of each stack and sprinkle the cheese over the top. Bake in a hot oven, 200c for around 30-35 minutes.
This lasagne lasts four of us for one evening meal or two of us two days.
Lowering the weekly shopping bill was one way to build in some slack to our very tight monthly budget. However with a little thought and some sensible planning we have been able to get our shopping bill down to around £30 a week, and thats for a family of four!
So our basic principles to getting the on top of food shopping are:
Plan a menu
Be creative
Don't get hung up on labels or brands
Where possible cook from scratch
Avoid takeaways
Take lunch to work / school
We tend to do the bulk of our shopping at Aldi, no matter how hard I look I struggle to find better value for money. One of the things I really like is that every week or two they change the offer fruit & veg range, so we just work those into our menu.
We have a couple of classics that we enjoy, pizza made with wraps rather than a dough base and a baked bean lasagne are both quick and tasty.
In my last post I detailed how we started the process of tackling our debt. In summary we determined what each creditor was owed as a percentage of the total debt then wrote to them offering an affordable amount from our monthly disposable income based on each percentage. Take a look at the last post for a complete breakdown of this process.
The Creditors Response
In total we wrote to 9 different creditors, included with our offer letters was a break down of our monthly expenditure so that they had complete clarity of our situation. 8 of the creditors accepted our offer and one rejected, this was due to the (car) loan being secured against the vehicle, so they advised that we either maintain the repayments or sell the car, this was an error on our part.
Conditions
Although the offers were accepted by our creditors they came with conditions and it's worth detailing them. If you do decide to proceed down a similar route you should be aware that it's likely that your credit score will be adversely marked. We've been advised that our credit score will have a negative mark against it for the next 6 years. It will take us around that length of time to clear our debt, so we were prepared to accept this caveat.
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
We are now in a position that we can afford all of our monthly payments, bills, living costs and debt repayments. We don't have too much slack at the end of each month but we're now taking steps to reduce other commitments and give ourselves some more breathing space. In my next post I'll talk about some of the other steps we've taken including how we've reduced our bills and increased income. For the first time in a long while we are starting to sleep a little better.
If, like me, you have a serious debt problem and you've made the commitment to deal with it then getting to grips with the detail is a critical first step. In this post I will layout a number of practical steps that I took and provide real examples. I will show you what worked and what didn't and why.
In an earlier post I talked about getting my head into the right place, conditioning myself to the harsh reality of being in debt and getting my mindset prepared to move forward.
Part of my initial preparation included creating a rough plan, an outline, as to how I would move forward. Being a visual person, I need to see things laid out in front of me, so sitting down at my computer I drafted, what I believed to be the most urgent of tasks.
Below I've added a copy of my first plan. I've de-personliased some of the content but you'll see that with a very broad brush I've detailed some actions that I wanted to discuss with my wife. At the time of putting the plan together I didn't know if I was going to act on all of the points or in which order.
Serial
Task
Requirements
Remarks
1
Determine full extent of debt
Bank statements, Credit Card Bills, Loan Details, Contact details for all above, Account details for all, intrest rates for all
Include any loan or credit card wihich is in a personal name
Do not include any non-regular income: i.e ebay sales, extra work income.
3
Prepare a full and accurate monthly budget
All utilities bills, bank statements, insurance paperwork and other non-loan payments
Factor in an allowance for non-monthly payments on a pro rata basis, i.eHeating Oil, petrol, Factor in a weekly spending allowance for both.
4
Prepare & send 'repayment offer letters
Details at serial 1 will populate all letters.
Maintain a record and copy of all letters sent and responses. Offer of repayment to be based on a prorata basis of available funds. Adjust DMP and budget against each response
5
Write to bank on car Finance
All car finance paperwork
Request a settlement figure and confirmation that car can be sold and outstanding finance can be cleared.
6
Assess other outgoings for savings
All utilities bills, bank statements, insurance paperwork and other non-loan payments
Look at every monthly outgoing for a possible cheaper alternative.
7
Other options for income
Ebay Options List
Ebay wherever possible, pay off fees on route to maintain correct income. Possible additional work but remain within capabilities.
Task 1 - Determine Full Extent Of Debt
As detailed in the plan, this was a simple administration task that involved pulling all the details of our credit cards, loans, statements and bills together. My wife and I created a single spreadsheet that listed the credit card / loan provider, the outstanding amount owed, the account details, the minimum monthly repayment and the current interest rate.
With the detail clearly laid out, we then created a monthly expenditure sheet with all of our income and outgoings laid out. This included an amount set aside for items that are paid less frequently. Credit card & loan payments were listed separately.
Once we were able to clearly see how much we had coming in, what bills had to be paid, what our total debt amount was and how much we had left after essential bills. For the purpose of this exercise, unsecured debt was not classed as an essential.
So we ended up with four totals:
Total Monthly Income
Total Monthly Essential Bills
Total Available Cash After Essential Bills
Total Amount Owed To Credit Cards / Loans
Task 2 - Math Time
We needed to work out from the total of our debt, what percentage each credit card payment was, by way of an example with some notional figures.
5 credit cards total debt =£47,500
Card 1 Outstanding Balance £10,000 - as a percentage of total debt = 21%
Card 2 Outstanding Balance £7,900 - as a percentage of total debt = 17%
Card 3 Outstanding Balance £11,500 - as a percentage of total debt = 24%
Card 4 Outstanding Balance £4,500 - as a percentage of total debt = 9%
Card 4 Outstanding Balance £13,600 - as a percentage of total debt = 29%
This provided us with a pro- rata percentage for each debt. Our total available cash after essential bills is what we had available to service our debt. We wrote to each card provider and offered them a repayment based on their pro-rata percentage from this available cash. So to continue with our example above with a notional figure of £800 available cash, each card provider was offered the following.
Card 1 @21% of £800 - Repayment £168
Card 2 @17% of £800 - Repayment £136
Card 3 @24% of £800 - Repayment £192
Card 4 @9% of £800 - Repayment £72
Card 5 @29% of £800 - Repayment £232
Note: If the provider accepts your offer then you are likely to get a strike against your credit score, do not send a repayment offer letter if you are not prepared to accept an adverse credit score, this could stay on your record for up to 6 years, it has for us and we are prepared to take this pain.
An example of the letter sent to all creditors is detailed below.
Dear Sir,
I write with regards to account number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I am
currently experiencing financial difficulties and I am unable to make the repayments
required by my current credit commitments.
I have enclosed a copy of my Income and Expenditure form.
This includes both my expenses and a list of other creditors who I am required
to pay. I have calculated all the payments to my creditors using the pro rata
method.
I ask that you will accept my repayment offer of £xx.xx per month. My first
payment will be made on the 9th October and by the 9th of the month thereafter.
If any charges or interest are being added on to the
account, I ask that these charges are frozen in order to allow my repayments to
start reducing the balance I owe.
I would be grateful if you would look favourably on this
request.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours Sincerely
xxxxxx
In my next post I will detail what the responses where and how we moved forward with them.
Like many problems in life such as obesity, alcohol addiction and gambling; the first step in tackling a problem is to acknowledge it exits in the first place.
Lets face facts, it's a lot easier to ignore a problem than to tackle it and it's this hurdle that must be first overcome.
I had allowed my own personal debt to grow, probably in the hope that the next round of borrowing would allow me to find a route out of the mess and partly because it would mask the problem for a short period of time. The irony, of course, is that it just compounded the problem.
My own situation continued for around 4 years until a number of issues compounded to force me into tacking action:
Although I was keeping up with payments, I was starting to get later and later in making them.
For the first time in my working life of over 30 years, I was unable to withdraw cash from my account on regular occasions.
I struggled to find a credit card that I didn't already have.
I was getting rejected for credit.
The First Steps
I'd often lectured my kids on the importance of taking responsibility for your own actions, yet when it came to my own debt, I was avoiding this.
Taking myself for a long walk, I forced myself to think about the level of debt I was in. I roughed up the total cost in my head, repeating this process a number times in order to let the scale of the problem sink in, and also to take the edge off the shock. This allowed me to think clearly, acknowledge that I did indeed have a problem and that now was the time to tackle it.
For the first time in several years I felt that a little weight had been lifted from my shoulders, I hadn't taken any action other than to recognise the size of the task ahead and accept that there would be no quick fix. However I allowed myself to believe that by acknowledging my debt problem, I was on route to recovery.
The underlying rational to my change of mindset was that things would now only get better and the level of my debt would start to decrease. Thinking clearly, I was now in a position to start to workout my route to be coming debt free.
Having made some poor financial decisions in the past, I've finally grabbed the bull by the horns and tackle the problem. I'm using this blog to share my experiences and hopefully others will pick up a tip or two.
