New year, New me (finally)

thrifty_fifty

Trying to think of a gift for new parents in a months time. Thought of getting a basket and making a homemade hamper, voucher for a facial for mum, whiskey for dad and some burts bees smellies for baby, or whether to do it like a new home hamper and put prosciutto, cheeses, wine, etc. Hmmm. Will start by looking on ebay for a basket.

Nottoobadyet

Hey thrifty- just found your diary and havent read it all, but just saw that your MSc is in Development Management, just like mine! Best of luck, getting into development is hard but its great fun once you're here :-)

thrifty_fifty

Thanks for dropping by Nottoobadyet

Just had a whole change of mind on the above entries. Just been reading some of the rate jacking stuff on some of the other forums on here. People who are good payers and not using their credit cards, rate jacked or having their accounts closed. Call me a panicker, but sod that dress and shoes, I want out of this mess ASAP. Virgin I stook with the old rate and the account closes as soon as it is repaid. All that was a result of me stopping spending on the card and starting to make serious dents in the debt.

Barclaycard reduced my limit, after I wasn't maxed out for a couple of months. I now haven't spent on it since feb. I'd hate to think they'd turn around to me in August and try and close the account, I'd still owe them around £1400. Got myself in a right old whirly now, pay more off Barclaycard because the balance is smaller?, and less off virgin. I shouldn't scare myself by reading those boards. After this is sorted, I couldn't care less whether I ever have a credit card again. I'll just save for stuff. I'm slowly getting back to the old me-hunting for a bargain and only getting what I need.

I can't believe how bad I've gotten. I had quite a shock yesterday and refused to buy some lipbalm. Vaseline lipbalm, it was 99p last time I bought it. Now it's £1.75 in the main shop area (I was in Boots), but £2.00 for the same thing in the pharmacy side. I walked out in disgust.

A friend and I went for a skin consultation at L'occitaine the other lunchtime as we believed there were freebies or so we were led to believe. Got in there and they were fully booked up for the offer period, but offered to show us on the back of our hand the feel of the products. Anyway after sitting there for our lunchbreak, we eagerly awaiting our free samples. Nadda, not so much as a spritz of perfume.They offered to knock £5 off a purchase of £80 for my friend. No. Is it all that hard to give away a couple of one application samples as a gesture of goodwill? So no l'occitaine custom from us two ladies in the future. Apparently the offer was the mini pack-3 small samples- was free when you booked a skin consultation-£15 booking fee. I hate it when they charge you. Oh but you can redeem it against a product at the end. Oh I see, so rather than letting me try the product before I buy it, you're commiting me to buy your sample pack at the end, to further entice me to buy more of your product? I don't think so. I'm more likely to buy from somewhere that offers gestures by spending time giving you a makeover, and then letting you decide if you actually like the product, before buying it. L'occtaine nil points!

I kind of thought half way through, when the woman was talking about how the Romans and Greeks used to massage their skins with olive oil, that ok, so instead of paying £35 for a teeny tiny pot of your-ultra fabulous potion 50ml, why don't I get my carcass down to my local supermarket, and just start using olive oil at around £2.00 per 200ml? It's olive oil, like the olive oil in your product, so will turn milky when I add water to it, to wash it off.

Seriously considering it. We're going to get a bag of that clay powder, mush up a couple of avocados, and start slapping that on our faces. In fact shouldn't that be my next challenge to get my beauty regime down to £20 a year? Ok so I'll still rely on essentials like lipbalm, and tinted moisturiser, but I'm going seriously tight wad from now on. Firstly to get out of the obvious above pickle.

How about natural yoghurt as a face cleanser? You can get the budget ehrmann one in a large pot for 49p. Screw it, lets do it. I keep you updated on my findings. I'll give it a try starting next week. if you have any ideas keep me posted, I'd love to hear from anyone. On that last one, no problem with getting cleanser in your mouth, you can eat while you wash, now how is that for breakfast and cleansing on the go?

This is good not just for obvious debt busting, but hopefully I'll be the most budget savvy, fabulous skinned, early retired person in my family (I know I'm not even 30 yet, but I've decided that if I do away with theneed for the dollar, then I don't have to spend longer than neccessary in a place, taking carp from smelly rubbish people, giving me wrinkles, a mild alchohol addiction, and taking up all my time that could be spent doing more interesting stuff.

I read an article once that claimed it actually costs you to be able to go to work, think about it

A car to get there
Car Park money
petrol
haircuts, eyebrow plucking to look presentable
work wardrobe
baby sitters
facials, creams, and makeup to get rid of the wrinkles caused by the stress and early mornings
car maintenance
more expensive insurance to cover travelling at peak times
the time it takes sitting in traffic getting to and from work
Paying out for qualifications to get a better job
spending exhorbitant amounts of money on leisure time to get over the trauma of being at work all week
Wine
Expensive ready meals, because we are too tired to cook.

Well you get my point. Now I'm not saying I won't still purchase shiny things, but unless it's 70% off or more, forget it!!

I'm now going off to embrace my new inner tight person, and to find clay and a recipe. Maybe I can get a free leaflet from that young botanist chappie on tv-Grow your own drugs is it?

thrifty_fifty

Morning.

Where did the weekend go?

I'm intending to have a productive day today, firstly starting with speaking to my manager about not being told stuff by my HD that I need to know in order to do my job, and also being used as a personal assistant for personal calls.I hate this kind of thing because I feel like I'm being a tell tale, but at the same time they can't go on thinking that this person has all of a sudden stopped being a bit of a shoite. I know the response will be, well we're working with HR to clarify involvment in this task, and I'm sure giving out your number for their personal call was just a mistake. I'm not going to accept that though and leave the office feeling 2 inches tall.

Anyway, apart from that hopefully I'll get lots of stuff done.

thrifty_fifty

Well today was not such a bad day afterall. Quite productive, and I intend to let that sail through into the evening too. Got CIPD training courses book through and it looks pretty interesting.

Sorted the problem out at work today, came across as very diplomatic I thought and didn't sit and just winge about stuff, which was good. Looks like some action is going to be taken about the personal phone calls, no-one could believe it. I was frank and honest and said that personal assistant wasn't a service I was prepared to offer.

Tonight is finish off the ADR, ILM, and all other acronym stuff that results in good change.

Was naughty and was spendy today, but it was more just stocking up to replace old clothes with newer much cheaper ones (in price, not quality). Was gutted to find that house of fraser were packing away all the LK Bennett stuff to send away. There were only a few shoes left, and the guys were counting them up and packing them away. I managed to grab the pair of purple suede peeptoe shoes £20. I figured that I'd pay £15 in asda for shoes. I'll save these for best. They have leather bottoms and should have been £139. SO that's that.

Need a new black cardi now, my long suffering one just developed a hole. I'm sure it's tumble dryers that put holes in your clothes. Grrrr! It took me ages to find this one too.

thrifty_fifty

Just finished planting at the allotment.

Rabbit had made a home in our compost heap. Silly rabbit.I guess he thought it would be luxury lodgings and could just pop out once in a while and eat our crops. Think again bunny!!

beetroot planted. Nice now that we can see the garlic shallots and onions coming up. Green stuff for our effort. Wahoo!

Going to take my purse out of my bag now, so no more spending for the rest of the month.

xx

thrifty_fifty

Naughty Thrifty fell asleep in the bath last night so didn't get those productive things done. Must do them today.

Also going to do a clothes and shoes audit and list those things I have, and those things that are on their way out-holey etc etc.

Have a good tuesday

thrifty_fifty

Annoying morning again on the return on a certain someone, but put my point across in the end.

Well it all helps me in my assertiveness. And well darn it, if I'm being treated as a PA, I might aswell do some proactive stuff, so I can get this written down formally in and ADR, as progressing the role, I'm basically managing staff too, so that's another string to the bow.

Aswell it also puts a case forward for me doing more training (ie expensive CIPD training that I can ill afford), in order to give me the skills to overdo my job. My CV looks great, in the meantime they think they are fobbing off giving me a payrise, when in fact they are helping me toward earning twice the amount, and saying ta-tah at the end

Now taken my switch card out of my bag, so I can no longer spend another penny until 25th May.

mrs_robinson_3

Good re the pro-activity at work. And even better re no cards. That's been one of my best MSE tricks, only giving myself a weekly cash allowance, and when it's gone, it's gone. Though I do allow other spends, like hair, and sometimes clothes, but only when planned and in the budget!

Mrs R

thrifty_fifty

Can you believe how hard it is to find a cotton normal black cardi at this time of year? My old one is feeling the years and has now developed its second hole. However upon entering the shops today, all I can find is woolly winter ones. I can't wear wool because it makes me itch like crazy. I just want a waist length, black, cotton cardi. Simple. The shops are full of brighty coloured skimpy tops. Hello! Why don't you cater for British summer time? We need a cover up cardi, because it is bound to dull over at some point of the day. Plus the air conditioning box is right above my desk, so I end up freezing my socks off, while everyone else is comfy.

So my new money saving self is going to dye the old cardi for £3, and sew up the hole, and if it gets too unsightly, I'll stick one of my brooches over the top of the hole. Seriously, the ones I saw today were £20 and the material was so seethrough, it wouldn't have lasted two washes. I'm old and thicker material=value for money. I'm not paying upwards of £20 for something that looks like it would have been sprayed on.