A Fool and Her Money- CAFCGIRL's Debt Diary

CAFCGirl

Wow thanks for that bit of advice!

I did some calcs' on uswitch myself and found Powergen to be the cheapest for me too.
Also registered with quidco in the process.Do you find you make much through that system? Does everyone go through quidco to make any online purchases?

Am also looking into buying a smoothie maker through quidco from Tesco, but I get all flustered buying things these days? Is this what it means to be truly DFW?

Penny-Pincher!!

Hiya CAFCGirl

Just wanted to say well done so far hun and your doing a fabulous job!

Have you checked your getting the best deals on your broadband, loans, insurances etc? I think I would pay off as mush as you can from the higher APR cards and do the snowballing thingy:D If you put your details into the snowball calculator it will tell you the cheapest option and may save a few pounds there

I find meal planning the easiest option for saving money and also my OH goes shopping a little later in the evening at Asda/Sainsburys and he gets some fantastic deals. Mainly look for main meal items (lamb, chicken, fish etc) but always buys Warburton and other decent bread for as little as 4p a loaf. Do you have a freezer? If so, you could cook extra portions and freeze or pad meals out abit with a tin of beans or extra veg.

I would suggest also buying some store cupboard essentials (rice, pasta, kidney beans, baked beans, toms, sweetcorn, tuna, spices, soups etc etc). Or you mentioned buying soap powder in Wilkinsons-maybe buy a larger box and make a few pence saving there. Or....cheaper still...make your own! I havent done this but apparently is very easy and very cheap to make.

Do you have anything worth ebaying-or books on Amazon?

I'll be following this thread and I hope and am sure it wil go well for you.

Good Luck Hun

PP
xx

CAFCGirl

It's always nice to have a bit of support in the never ending battle to become debt free.

Firstly I'm quite sure I have not got the best deal for my loan, I took out a loan for £3,000 and I end up paying back £4,800, this includes PPI which I am desperately trying to get cancelled. But Abbey don't seem to want to be my friend anymore (I wonder why?!)

I've got £1,200 on Abbey cc which is the higher apr, and £1,000 on I.F which is 4.95 for life of balance transfer which worked out quite well for me.

I did an online "quote" (it wasn't the most indepth!) with barclays, and their typical apr on a loan of £5,000 for me would be 7.9%.

So now I'm at a bit of a loss as to whether I should apply for new loan with barclays and pay off the Abbey loan and cc.

This financial stuff sends my mind in a complete tizz quite frankly!

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I've currently got two items on ebay, Fath shoes and I've got a couple more pairs to upload, and then about 10 books, which I did have on amazon but they failed to sell!

I've been trying to cut back wherever possible, and I know its counting my chickens before they hatch but if I do get the job (only two applicants and I'm one of them!) I can still live on the same amount of money as I do now and everything else extra could go onto debts.

I have a lot more stuff to ebay but due to never ending problems with my usb ports I can't upload any photos. My only other choice on that one is to take all the photos (borrowing digi cam which memory card) and then get them burnt onto cd in boots or something (think its 2.99 for that? could be so very wrong though) and then upload them that way. Other than that I'm at a loss. Only managed these 4 because my mum took a photo of them and then emailed them to me!

Back to the above post though, I read through the make your own washing powder/last longer on OS, and managed to get a 3kg box of powder from Asda for £3, and some soda crystals. Haven't actually done any washing yet (money saving in itself) as havent had full load!

My other not so fantastic but every little helps (Tesco's is always in my head!!!) money saving methods have been to put the plug in the bath when I take a shower, and I've just been using the "dirty" (have showers practically every day how dirty can I be) to water my tub of plants outside our door, and was thinking of using some more of it to actually wash our front door too.

I dont have a garden just a tub so having a water butt or anyhing is pretty pointless for us. Wish I could sell it back to the water board lol

Have decided am going to take the book back tomorrow, although normally I hate doing refunds, and am going to use that money to get sawdust,hay and food for the rabbit.

Am also going to be compiling list of whats in my cupboard in a few moments, may even post it if I haven't lost the will to live by then and see what us jollies on DFW can make from it

CAFCGirl

After reading through the store cupboard challenge. I've opted to list all the contents on here, in case it helps anyone, or more to the point in case anyone can help me

So heres the TINS
8 x Baked Beans
2 x spaghetti in tom sauce
2 x beef ravioli (flatmates)
2 x tomato soup
8 x tuna (flatmates, i hate the stuff)
1 x rice pudding
1 x chicken noodle soup
1 x chopped toms
2 x corned beef
1 x sausage casserole
1 x pineapple slices

I generally dont throw anything tinned away even if it has gone past it's sell by, although I might draw the line at a few years plus
On doing this I did find a tin of new potatoes (why tinned first of all?!) that had expiry of september 2003, so they must have come with me when I moved in August 2003!:eek:

The Jars
1 x silverskin onions
2 x dolmio sweet pepper chunky bolognese sauce
1 x sausages tonight- hearty cumberland
1 x mediterranean tomato pasta sauce
1 x sizzle and stir tikka masala
1 x creamy mushroom pasta sauce
1 x chicken tonight spanish chicken
1 x sharwoods sweet and sour
1 x 350g tin of Smash

Boxes
1x Start multi grain cereal
1x weetabix

Shelf 1
2 x stuffing mix
4 x sachet chicken noodle soup
6 x cupasoup
beef oxo cubes
Golden vegetable rice
strawberry angel delight
sachet colmans lamb hotpot
sachet colmans chicken casserole
sachet colmans sausage casserole

Shelf 2
2kg brown rice (cooked one lot, was horrid!)
500g macaroni
2 x tub cheese sauce (bisto)
500g spaghetti
1kg white rice
200g farfalle pasta
500g quick cook penne pasta
500g conchiglie pasta

Shelf 3
Jalapeno chillies (flatmates)
salad cream
Frenchs mustard
Tomato puree
Sweet chilli sauce
maple syrup
Tabasco
Sweet chilli dipping sauce
Lea and Perrins
Vinegar (white and brown)
Soy sauce
BBQ Ketchup
Ketchup
Vegetable gravy mix
Balti curry powder
Dry mustard

What to do what to do!!!

Have also got various cake making paraphenalia (is that right sp?), like flour, sugar, cherries.

Emmzi

tips for brown rice...

pre-soak 2hours and boil for 45mins

or

do in pressurecooker - comes out creamy and yum!

Willsnarf1983

u have enough there to last you a month!

Will

gallygirl

CAFgirl you're doing really well.... only one idea to add.....


"sawdust,hay and food for the rabbit"...... you seem to have lots of sauces and spices, how about some of those for the rabbit rather than sawdust etc..... Old Style Board has nice rabbit curry & rabbit casserole recipes.....:eek:


just kidding, hope bunny doesn't read this!

CAFCGirl

Willsnarf1983 wrote:

u have enough there to last you a month!

Will

Im sure I probably do but I'm slightly worried about the content of my meals.
Theres no real substance item to build my meals around in there and I don't want to be too unhealthy, i.e I need some veg in there and what I've got is currently mostly carbs!

One whole shelf is taken up with condiments but at least I can vary my flavours!
I'm hoping I can make another week with not buying anything in,aside from milk and veg. I'm not a fan of fruit so will probs need to get some juices in too.

I can envisage a lot of things going on toast
Will make sure I keep ya'll posted about how it goes............

Now what to make for dinner today

CAFCGirl

"sawdust,hay and food for the rabbit"...... you seem to have lots of sauces and spices, how about some of those for the rabbit rather than sawdust etc..... Old Style Board has nice rabbit curry & rabbit casserole recipes.....:eek:


just kidding, hope bunny doesn't read this![/QUOTE]


OH MY GOD!!!

Run bunny..............
Hide

SAVE YOURSELF PEANUTS!

Molanole

Wow, you've got loads in your cupboard to keep you going. And fresh fruit and veg is the cheapest of all. I'm racking my brains trying to think of markets in Canterbury but if I remeber rightly it was all tat rather than fruit and veg and generally surrounded by thousands of French school children meaning you could never get anywhere anyway.

On the plus side of it, there's LOADS of farm shops around the C'bury area and they'll have lovely fresh fruit and veg which should hopefully be cheaper than the supermarket.

Just wondering if you'd heard any more about your job?