Cash not Card

lollipopsarah

Yep I get £100 on friday for shopping
60 food - 30 fags and lottery (yeah I know)
10 rest of week for bread/veg and bits
That's ok until you get to the checkout and get a shock.
x

ruby_eskimo

Yep I do the same thing now as well. I find that if I have the cash in my purse I will think twice about "do I really need that?" when out shopping.

[Deleted User]

I have been doing this for well over a year now I get £100.00 for my food purse for the month and use it only on food(as was the case back in the 1960s when virually everyone used 'real' money as opposed to plastic stuff) It curbs me spending too much, and as a rule I try to use what's left over to go into a separate holiday account at rge end of the month .GC helps here as there is lots of support from like minded folk.

I live alone so £25.00 per week is more than enough for me I have also started shopping once a fortnight which helps, and only buying what's on the list by the kettle which is things I have run out of.It stops impulse buying, and no longer do I wander round the supermarket chucking odds and ends in the trolley (in fact I try to do without a trolley as if I carry it I know when its getting full I have enough stuff.)I am using up more stuff from the freezer than I did before and also shopping from my 'stocks' mean I don't have out of date stuff too often.It does take awhile to get used to but I think I have halved my shopping bill at least and never throw anything away that is in anyway edible.I am lucky that I go to my DDs once a week for Sunday dinner so I save a bit on that but I usually take a home made pudding as my contribution towards the meal or as in last week I found a nice piece of beef for £9.00 which fed us all on Sunday and I minced the remains up for her yesterday so they could have a sheps pie out of it.When you concentrate on what you already have in stock its quite suprising what can be streeetched to make a meal out of very little.My soups I always make myself and I suppose at least a third of my £25.00 goes on fruit and veg.Nothing ever gets wasted and at the moment I still have a fair bit left in my food purse to last to the end of the month which will end up in my holiday fund as I have no more shopping to buy until then

CH27

I use cash for everything. It makes me much more careful in the shops.

rachbc

Yep - hubby and I both put £250 each into the household pot each month for grocceries/ petrol. Since doing this we have stopped using a credit card totally.

For my personal account I have recently gone back to doing the same - I stopped for a while and found it really made a difference. Now the debit card stays in the purse and I take cash out weekly. if I buy something online (only time I don't use cash) I re calculate how much I can take out the next weeks

taplady

I set a budget for food shopping andlike JackieO I get that amount out in cash and thats it for the week, when its gone its gone. If there's any left at the end of the week I tend to use it to purchase some bogofs or special offers that will be put away for future use.

I always prefer to use cash - it makes you think more about it when you have to actually hand real money over.

OP - if you find your money disappearing why not keep a spending diary for a while - a little notebook and write down everything you spend then you will see exactly where it is disappearing to!:money:

shebangs

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Mistral001

I am just wondering, if there is anybody out there who uses cash fro everything. I mean gets paid in cash as well as paying their electricty bill in cash etc. They still pay tax (PAYE or cash) and do everything by the book, but just doing it by cash.

janb5

I`ve just started to do this too and plan to take £50 each week on Saturday as I was `bending` my card all the time and not really keeping track of spending. ALso use everything from freezer and try to use older stuff first.

Bargainloverbec

We've just started doing this after having a bit of a nasty shock at how all the little card purchases add up. I get my groceries delivered (trying to do a food shop with a 2 yo and a 6mo is NOT fun and I end up spending more just to get out of the shop) and then we have £50 cash for fuel, entertainment, clothes, toddler groups, birthday cards & pressies etc. DH gets £20 and I get £30 as I have the kids with me so tend to need a bit more.

So far it's working - our aim is to have some cash left over at the end of the week to put in our mortgage overpayment pot. It helps that we're both quite competitive so we're trying to beat each other on who can save the most money each week!