Anyone fancy joining me in a challenge.. Champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget

Am another one watching this thread with interest, but would like to make a couple of points:

- Groupon and the like are not offering anything luxurious, the offers are on cut-price services and I agree with PipneyJane about their ethics (or lack of).
- you can end up spending more than you would otherwise have intended if you go mad on dscounted toiletries, as there's always something better round the corner (new hair products etc)

I've spent the last 18 weeks running everything down, and using up what I have. It feels far more satisfying than spending on bargains!

Well, i think a lot of the time dh and i do live champagne lifestyle on a budget.

I think the shampoo scenario shows why the percentage thing doesn't necessarily work. E.g. I do use more expensive conditioner (don't use shampoo very often at all as i follow a mainly conditioner only hair routine) and i use expensive hair products. I have tried cutting down and i don't get the same results. But, i can get myconditiner at tk max every now and again, so thats what i do. I have a few bottles of cheaper ones i use if i run out before dh or i see one i like better at tk max. Same with hair products. If i am not going out i use up the cheaper hair products teying new techniques to see if i get better results, or just put my hair up those days.

We eat excellent food, because dh sometimes takes a work break at about the time the big name food halls close and grabs whoopsies, and our freezer is packed with expensive food we have paid a fraction of the price for. Although if someone can think of a way to convince dh not to buy more cheese i will be grateful....

I think one of the things about 'champagne lifestyle products' is ypu get sure about your purchase and you buy it ONCE, rather than working through cheaper alternatives upgrading and spending more.

Also, patience. I would rather wait a couple of years for the lamp/machine/whatever is not something with a sell by date that i want than get a compromise or pay over the odds.

And knowing where top compromise is the hardest thing i think. E.g. We live in a house that is practically a wreck, but we will never out grow it, and neve NEED to move, we saved all our adult lives to buy it, and are now doing the same to make it more luxurious, but there are compromises we will and will not make. This year we are having some structual work done, to create a new kitchen and (whoohoo) and indoor loo, But we will not be able to afford the kitchen we want for some time. We could get a cheaper one and make do with it or make do with it for ten years or so, but whata waste! Instead we re using furniture we have, some antique gun chests and cupboards that don't really fit well elsewhere in our house,and some odds and sods paired with some ply board shelving and reusing an old sink unit. Originally we were going to move the pld kitchen units over, but they are too far gone to survive a move.....they are at least thirty years old, and would last longer in situ, but the room they are in is falling down, lol. We would rather have an unconventional kitchen for a few years than 'waste' money and resources on a kitchen we do not love and that sometime in the fifty or so years we might live here we will want to replace.
bUT in the otherhand, our bedroom and sitting rom depress me as i feel i have no refuge from the Wreck and ruin, and so we have started by painting the bedroom and we have ancient and deifnitely faded glory old silk curtains i will replace, but only when i find the right fabric. I am orepared to spend LOTS on fabric, but save money by making the curtains myself, (with interlining so i can save on heating bills, when we have heating, lol). Similarly, i know the fabric i want for the sitting room, and its a lot, so i wait for a sale, bag it a bit more cheaply. We will decorate the sitting room over winter (or summer if this weather continues and we are confined to the house on summer weekends) and it will be in the knowledge, unlike the kitchen, it will need to be redone in the future, but the curtains will stay and just things we cannot do ourselves when we tart it up a little done.

We do not have heating, because the money was needed elsewhere instead of our heating system. My mother reminds me that most people who live in great piles cannot afford to heat them too, so i feel we are living the champagne lifestyle NOT being able to afford to heat our house this year.

I would rather produce a pn amazing meal for less overall with some lux or full price ingrediants and some very very cheap ones, than produce a good but not outstanding meal where everything was fifty percent off. Price might be the same, but to me more often than not its neither lemonaid nor champagne a resultmore a nice bottle of wine result. . Similarly, i would rather eat very ionexpensively five days a week to eat a little more luxuriously once or twice a week.


Good luck finding your lemonade budget champagne lifestyle!