New year, New me (finally)

thrifty_fifty

Almost got my list of clothes in, so have had to be a bit spendy, as things are literally falling apart, elastic going etc etc. Spent £30 this morning and got, 1 jumper (£6), 1 long cardi (£9), 1 black short cardi (9.99) and 1 long sleeve back t-shirt top (£5). Just need to get smalls, tights, and two t-shirts, and my boots re-heeled, then that's me done for summer and autumn/winter.

thrifty_fifty

Tried the Olive oil and sea salt face scrub, and its really good (if a little messy), cheap as chips is this girl's motto, so I'll be using that from now on-plus I figure that when you go on holiday, you always have lovely soft skin, must be all that good sea salt. I'm sure slapping a bit of it on your face must do some good

Maybe the Milka bar that I'm ploughing through as I type, isn't. Ooh Eck!

Tomorrow just going to do a trip out to get my last wardrobe essentials-tights for next autumn winter, and a couple of t-shirts for the summer, and I should be fixed then. Bravely going to try and put my purse away until 25th May. No alcohol this weekend either. Was determined to stick to the food budget, and wine would have pushed it over. Hhmmmmm, wine, condensation running down the glass. Will not think any more about wine. I have some lovely squash in the kitchen.

Not quite the same for a saturday night is it?

thrifty_fifty

Just joined the 'complete this challenge-challenge', to not buy any more toiletries or makeup, until I have used my old ones up.

Also joined the May No Spend Day challenge for 10 days, as I was a bit rubbish in April, was mostly replacing holey clothes, but lots of naughty snacking too

thrifty_fifty

Hmmm.

Struggling with making my own face mask. Where to get dried olive leaves from? I could drive miles down the road and buy an olive tree but for £45 that wouldn't be so MSE friendly, when we have our own place and a south facing garden, maybe.

Typed olive leaf into Holland and Barratt website and came back with some liquid at £27. £27!!!!!!!!!!

and some snail gel (yes you heard it right, snail gel). Collected from only the finest snails from Chile. As if the fact that the slime didn't come from the common english garden type, makes it any better. Money saving wannabe I am, but could you imagine?

'Hey there Mr Snail, you look nice and slimy today. How about having a crawl around my face for a bit? There's a lettuce leaf in it for you at the end'

7 slime filled days later. Oh look at my skin, it feels like a babys bottom. And prior to washing it, looked like a wet weekend in the cabbage patch. Ewwww, ewwww, and furthermore ewwww!!!

thrifty_fifty

Morning

Just thought I'd put a question out to ladies. Are men generally not able to budget? I do tend to feel sorry for OH at times as he is on less money than me, in annual salary about 4k, but monthly income, around £100.

I'm not sure whether it was how I was brought up, but generally when you need to put a new shirt on your back, or replace a pair of broken shoes, you cut back and find the money for it (ok I kind of forgot that somewhere down the line), is that true? I managed out of a £20 a week cake shop job to buy birthday presents, fund nights out, and buy clothes.

Now I felt sorry for him, when he had his problem at his other house with his housemates being out of work and him generally paying their way, but now I'm starting to think that he doesn't know what a budget is, and will be eternally relying on others to buy the things he doesn't budget for.

He has had a lot of handouts from his parents, something mine were never able to do. I'm not questioning his upbringing but for someone who is the same age as me, he is not very worldly. He's extremely shy, and if I'm honest, socially he's quite awkward. He has to have such structure to other areas of his life-like if I say casually I'll be five minutes, he takes it literally, and if you're not there he's ringing, and generally wondering where you got to (I'm not sure actually if he's autistic, or has some kind of social difficulty, there are lots of things that there are rules for, and if they are broken he can't comprehend it), I can't understand the money thing.

I upset him yesterday because I commented that the t-shirt he was wearing was a little bit smutty. It says in bright red letters 'warning may contain nuts'.He actually genuinely thought it wasn't rude because the way he read it was, every packet now contains this warning, and he thought it was a pun on that, and he just bought it because he liked the colour of the t-shirt.Either I have a one track mind or he's more naive than I thought.

Anyway the next minute I look around and he's in tears. I of course feel like a complete !!!!! by this point. I asked him what was wrong and his reply was that I was taking the p out of the one decent t-shirt he had left that wasn't stretched around the neck. The t-shirt isn't stretched, he used to be quite porky, and now we have started to eat more healthily he has lost the weight, and hence the tshirt it baggy now and the neck sags.

Jeez louise. Now normally I would be feeling pretty bad at this point and would offer to buy him some new ones. I couldn't help but feel a little angry yesterday though. He was basically again looking for something else to blame for the fact that he couldn't get new t-shirts. 5 minutes before, he had been talking about getting a £25 takeaway. So my thought was, you can afford a new t-shirt, but if there is £20 in the pot and you can either get a dirty takeaway with it, and think fondly of your student days, or buy yourself some new t-shirts. Takeaway it is every time.

I don't get the whole student thing, as far as I can see, they lived in houses surrounded by dirty crockery and spent most of their spare time, and cash swigging cheap lager and eating takeaway.

Take some responsibility is what I say. It really p's me off when men talk as if you are making their life unliveable by switching from their regular brand of bread, say, to one that is ever so slightly cheaper.Grrrr.

Anyway back to the t-shirt thing, I decided that a bit of a lecture was in order, and said that if he wanted t-shirts then he should have a look around places like M&S where they have some really good bargains like 2 for £8 on t-shirts. But that involves taking time to shop, and men don't like that do they?

Since I have been going out with him, I have paid for holidays, all toiletries for him, razors, deoderant etc etc. He gets a new jumper, socks and boxers every year from his mum and dad, so no need to buy one of those. But when his shampoo runs out he uses mine, he uses my bubble bath. I have given him three pots of my moisturiser now, which he says is very good. But he won't get them unless I buy them or give them to him. He could afford all these things if he wanted to, but there are other things he would rather spend his money on.

I don't want to be the parent. We have basically spent out 20's leading different lives, he was a student, I have had a house, a job and have spent my money on plants for the garden, and going on holiday. I just feel like I'll never have a holiday again unless I save the money for it. I could understand if we were on wildly different salaries but the money isn't that different.

He makes me feel as though I'm able to go out and spend on myself, while he is languishing at home with nothing. Hello, bottles of wine x2 in one week at £5 each, plus olives and proscuitto to snack on at another £5, there are your t-shirts, or half the money towards the new shoes you want. Here I am trying not to buy a pack of 49p crisps because I spend too much on snacks. I'm able to stock my wardrobe with cheap, but long lasting clothes.

I even had to point the shoes out to him. I don't think the money is an issue at the end of the day, he could be on twice my salary, and still not have money for shoes etc, The basic point here is that this is simply something he isn't interested in spending his money on, and until someone else buys it for him, he'll keep walking round in the same old stuff, pleading poverty.

The reason I give him my facecream (one I have bought to help me try and budget, as it was on offer), is because he spends all his money on snacky treats, and then has to buy cheap razors and cheap shave foam, that dry his skin out, and he mopes around the house because half his face is falling off.

His comment was the other day aswell, i'll take 'my' car keys. Now I've been here before, being named driver, paying all the running costs and washing it at the weekends, only to have the thing claimed back and whipped from under my feet at the end. Not again!! so my rather childish reply was 'ok then, I'll stop paying towards repairs, and you can clean 'your' car this weekend, as I spent my last day off work cleaning it.

He basically needs to start taking some responsibility for his actions, and accept that if he chooses to spend his money on other things, then he has to walk around with holey t-shirts, and cannot guilt me because I've gone out and bought new work clothes in the sale for a meagre £30 total.

If he was interested in getting himself new clothes and shoes, he'd find the money.

Anyway sorry for my rant. I just get a little p'd off sometimes that some men end up blaming the female for their lack of money, and sit like demanding children, waiting for everything to drop on their lap. You want something, you go out there and find a way to get it. End of!!!

And on that point, when this lot is paid off I shall start saving myself a little pot of money up for my own car, and my own emergency 20k fund.

And on that note I shall refer back again to my list of needed clothing items for the year ahead, that I have the money for from selling other stuff, and not socialising this month.

Nottoobadyet

My OH is not quite as extreeme, but I definetly know what you're talking about! Like yours, he was supported by his parents at least in part for far longer than I was, and I think its affected how he spends his money. His payday moves around, and often just so he feels like hes paying something he'll put the CT or food shop on his card, when I could just pay in cash and he coud pay me back, once he gets paid, saving the intrest. Totally irrational and drives me nuts!

thrifty_fifty

Just spent my last clothing spend for the year. Saying that is a scary prospect, and is definitely long unchartered territory for me. I usually buy clothes because they take my fancy, not because the other ones have worn out.

Bought this morning a nice plain purple t-shirt, 3 pairs tights for £3 from M&S and some smalls from there too. Spent £16, then another £10 on food for dinner, a bottle of wine and some chocolate. This is my last splurge for the year. I'm now taking my purse out of my bag for the rest of this month, but I'm going to see how long I can make it last. I guess it could get quite addictive after a while. Only problem would be birthdays at work I have all my presents in for family birthdays and Christmas (almost). Oh and I will be going to see SATC 2 at the end of May with a friend. I didn't see the first one at the cinema, so I'm treating myself to that.

I have to say the airbrushing on the new film poster is a bit scary. Charlotte and Miranda look "normal", but Carrie and Samantha look at tad overdone.

Have placed The Carrie diaries on my Christmas wish list. Yay.

thrifty_fifty

Happy Bank Holiday

Today I'm getting back on the No Spend Day band wagon. Looking back at some of my earlier posts, I was cursing myself for having spent £1.13 in a day, so lets get back to that frame of mind.

I have to admit, the thought of walking around with no spending power in my bag is quite scary. If I have a rubbish day, I can't rush across to the shop and buy chocolate, or anything that takes my fancy. I have lots to do around home, and a few snacky bits to eat up, but tomorrow and for the first few days, I guess I'm going to be grumpy.

This sounds absolutely silly when you look at it. I'm behaving like a spoiled child. ' I want things and I want them now!!!'

I'm sure that will pass though, like the first few days of a new diet. I'm going cold turkey again.

Todays tasks are to get a draft ILM assignment written up-hand in is the 21st. Eeek!
Sort out my clothes
Wash work clothes
Paint nails- I got one of those nice red nailvarnishes with InStyle this week
Finish reading my book

And will payday hurry up. Know I only got paid last week, but after the initial, wahoo I got paid, I've paid some more off my debts, then comes staring at the depleted bank account and wishing for the day when I actually see some money myself one day. I'm just getting impatient. This time next year I'll be 90% debt free-oh but it's so far away.

Mind you, when OH said 'only 6 months til Christmas', I have to admit my initial thoughts weren't of turkey, and any presents, but rather 'Yay I'll only have 5 more months after that til I'm debt free'. Sad I know.

thrifty_fifty

I'm dedicating what remains of today to the 'Kim Cattrall, we salute you' day.

That woman is amazing. If I look that hot at 53 then I shall be very proud indeed.

xx

thrifty_fifty

And on a similar vein, have found a special Cinema De Lux SATC 2 package, £22.50, champagne and premium canapes in the directors lounge, ticket to see the film. This is one occasion where I'll be glamming it up to go to the cinema. I'm so excited. OH thinks I have gone temporarily insane, going to see what he calls three !!!!!s and their mother. How rude!!

Clothes have been sorted, so I'll get those onto ebay, hopefully they'll get me some wonga, and not 99p. You can never tell what things will/won't sell on there. Things you think for certain will go, either don't sell or make pennies, and other fly off the rail.

I'll dip my toe in the ebay water again. I should think my case re the dress will close soon. It will be three weeks today since I last replied, and there has been no update in messages from her. I wish if she'd given up, she'd close the case. I keep having to set aside £30 just in case.