Simplifying Life - Mark II

MummyOfTwo

i hope that you enjoy your new lifestyle Lilykins.... we had a bit of a lightbulb moment too, when we realised that it would be better to spend a year saying 'no we cant afford it' rather than 'put it on the credit card'. the upshot has been that whilst we are shelling out £400 a month to clear these silly things, by december it will be gone and we will be debt free. my top tips to you to start seeing results would be:
1 - Meal plan! do a plan each week and shop each week. dont veer from your list, and go by yourself. my kids always ended up slying overpriced rubbish into my trolley, and hubby is no better!
2 - If you like a read of the mags, ask your mates to keep them for you. I adore the home mags but they are too dear - my stepmum keeps hers for me.
3 - get a little xmas fund on the go so you arent tempted to hit the cards in december.

do keep in touch!

mama67

Well done Lilykins, you've taken the very large first step.:T

Others will be along with hints etc but mine for what its worth is to use an envelope system beit online or with money bags in a tupperware. I do both.

Basically if you know that the school trip each June is going to cost £25 then each week once you've paid for the last one you put 50p into the money bag, then when the next letter comes round asking for the payment you should have the money there to pay for it.

Similar for bigger ticket items, eg. Car Tax is due end of Feb, pay full year then each month starting in March put away 1/12th of the annual figure so by next Feb its all sat there.

hth

RhiBi

Thank you lilykins for starting this thread. Can I make a pact with you? I'm in much the same position, except I have 4 children, I don't work DH does. He has a reasonably well paid job around £40,000 PA. However, his on-call his likely to get cut in the next year, and we will lose around £10,000 income a year So, I need to get into action, before things spiral out of control.

We have CC debts of around £16,000, and a loan we are paying £300 for the next 4 years - that was to pay the CC's off, but of course, it didn't pay them off completely, and then Christmas came, and holiday etc! Our mortgage is approximately £450 a month.

So, I need to firstly sort out my spending. I'm doing the monthly grocery challenge, its only been a week, and I'm shocked at how much I spend! Going to the supermarket (I do shop at Lid! mainly but pop to the super 4 too!) every few days, just to get fresh stuff and then spending around £40 more on 'offers'! What I save then can go to pay off the debts, and hopefully save eventually too.

My daughters are 13, 10, 6 and 4, and I am increasingly aware that those university years will be here before I know it, and at the moment there is no way we could afford it. I am determined that if my daughters want to go, our pst spending will not be the stumbling block.

One thing I'm going to be honest with now (please don't all shout at me!) is we have booked a holiday this year. My mother lives in the USA so we've booked flights (and paid for them with a cash sum MIL gave us when she moved to a smaller house!). We're not doing disney parks though, my mother is on the gulf coast so we're going to be at beaches and local things to cut costs.

Thank you Lilykins, just for posting, hopefully we can help each other on this journey to financial freedom

Rummer

feedumall wrote: »

Iam a bookaholic but no more buying books ,and lots must go:eek:,yesterday my hubby asked if i would like a kindle, i said no:Da test i thought i would never pass:D

I am like yourself and most of my spare time (when not in the garden) is spent reading. The local library is one of my favourite places and they know me so well that they put new books that they think I might like aside for me.

However in relation to the Kindle I was given one for christmas and I adore it. There are thousands of free books that you can access and it means that when I travel I can take tonnes of reading material with me without all the weight.

bugslet

What Rummer said about the kindle:o. Sorry!:o:p

Love mine too and there are loads of books for nothing or less than a pound. And in minimalist fashion it's one item as opposed to 80 books. Well that's my justification and I'm sticking to it:rotfl:

Pink.

Hi lilykins,

Well done for trying to make your life simpler. I've added this thread to the existing one on simplifying life to keep the tips and advice in one place. If you look at the first post in this thread you'll find a link to the previous thread.

Pink

Nargleblast

RhiBi wrote: »

One thing I'm going to be honest with now (please don't all shout at me!) is we have booked a holiday this year. My mother lives in the USA so we've booked flights (and paid for them with a cash sum MIL gave us when she moved to a smaller house!). We're not doing disney parks though, my mother is on the gulf coast so we're going to be at beaches and local things to cut costs.

No need to be embarrassed or ashamed - this could be your last good holiday for a while. The accommodation will be free (or low cost) and the flights are all paid for in cash, so enjoy yourselves and see how much fun you will have without needing to spend a fortune.

RhiBi

I'm another kindle fan, my mother bought mine for me for Christmas, and I'm converted! Sorry, probably not what you wanted to hear!!

ceridwen

bugslet wrote: »

Thanks ceridwen - none of these are me:D and I don't know them either:p

If you have been reading some of the blogs, you may know the first two at least.

http://mnmlist.com/

http://www.missminimalist.com/

http://www.bemorewithless.com/

http://www.alifesetfree.com/

Hope those are OK to post links for.

Thanks for that - I foresee a lot more reading coming on. Started with a checksee of alifesetfree and instantly came to mention of Starfishers (huh? I've heard of star children - but not....) and can see I'll be having a good read about that....

[Deleted User]

Hi there everyone- have been lost!! My thread 'I want a simplier life' seemed to disappear:(. Has taken me two days to discover its been merged with this thread- I'm still learning about the forums. I apologise if I did the wrong thing by setting up my thread, I had thought about joining this thread but it seemed everyone was so much further on their journey and I was starting from scratch.

The advice and support has been invaluable and I am truly grateful.

My journey to simplify things continues......:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: