New year, New me (finally)

thrifty_fifty

Today I'm singing the praises of mulled wine. Although it may not cure a cold, it certainly makes you feel a hell of a lot better.

xx

thrifty_fifty

And my job application has gone in.

Wish me luck

xx

thrifty_fifty

I have been awake since 3 this morning. Woke up randomly, just wide awake, after having dreamt that I pulled the car up to the end of the road and it broke down beyond repair.

First thing I thought of when I woke up? It's the budget announcement day today. I do wonder that when I'm out of debt, I will start to wake up in the morning and my first thoughts would be, where am I?, what day is it? That kind of stuff, instead of money, what bad stuff is going to happen today and so on.

Well clearly I'm not going back to sleep now, so I've grabbed myself a hot water (healthy and saves on the teabags), and a chocolate cookie (no, my stomach has no concept of what time of the morning it is, as soon as I'm awake, it's rumbling).

Read a BBC article about a guy who did his own 40% budget cut, which got me inspired. Given I have come a long way since february, including kicking myself that if I had addressed this head on a year ago, I would possibly be looking at being debt free this august just gone, and not only about to reach it next year, providing that the job holds up.

OK, so what did I come up with?

1. Getting invited round to others houses for dinner rather than mostly entertaining here. OH loves to cook, but I think he needs to understand that we can't afford to start feeding others free food-and expensive stuff with wine thrown in too.
2.Don't wear make-up
3. cut hair cuts down to cheaper £12.95 ones
4. Go for budget brand supermarket face toner and cleanser 72p each or consider going back to soap (It used to work when I was a kid, so I figure I'll give it a try)
5. Home made remedies and beauty products
6.More foraging
7. More home made food, and kick the waitrose food habit, making this a treat rather than the weekly thing it has grown into
8. Try spending a week eating stuff out of the freezer and only getting basics from the supermarket
9. Going to the local farm for our meat, so that we get quality without the cost
10.No ebay or charity shop 'little purchases' for the house
11. Cut out snack purchases, the occasional bought sandwich and magazines
12. Try to not buy clothes for a year

So the above are the final habits that I need to kick to get back to how I was living in the late 1990's. Well I figure that with the conservative way forward we will be living with for at least the next 5 years, I should revert back to how I was living in the 80's/90's. And I may even consider if things get really tight switching the tv off. There's a saving of £145 a year (isn't that an increase of another £30, for the same lack of choice of viewing?) I can watch DVDs etc on my laptop. It might also make us a lot more productive around the house, and mean that I start to read more books.

Obviously doing all of the above will cut out all vices and life would perhaps seem terribly boring, however waking up each day and not worrying about money is surely no compromise?

thrifty_fifty

My frugal food plan for next week (includes food for guests), most of this stuff we have in the cupboard/freezer already. I estimate our shop should come to £13 this week. Now just need to keep OH in check.







· Soups for lunch with home made rolls
· 1x ratatouille
· 1x chicken pie
· 1x tabuleh
· 1x crudit!s
· 1x mixed bean stew
· 1x fish with mashed potato and peas

Things to be bought
1. Pastry £1
2. Goats cheese £1
3. Salmon from fish market £4
4. Spring onions 50p
5. Carrots 50p
6. Tomatoes £1
7. Fruit £2
8. yoghurts £3

moo2moo

Rather than kicking the Wiatrose habit completely could you compromise a little and have Ocado deliver once a month. I'm suffering a weekly deluge of 20% off my bill offers. Delivery can be as little as 99p and rather bizarely its cheaper than Lidl for some stuff. When you chuck in the MySupermarket novice shopper discount via Quidco and Ipoints its all good. Besides that a little of what you fancy does you good. Life cold turkey is rather depressing.

Meanwhile I could rave about the River Cottage Hedgerow Handbook. I had no idea there was so much edilbe stuff about. Pretty much everytime we go for a walk we spot something else 100m from our door thats edible.

Could you at least attempt pastry making? Its really not difficult and it tastes a heck of a lot better than the shop bought stuff.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/foodwise/article-view.php?id=1543

thrifty_fifty

Finally arrived at friday, and what a week.

I'm getting back to basics though, and have set myself aside a strictly work wardrobe that is easy to wash and iron. I feel like I'm getting back to the old thrifty me as each day passes.

I know this will probably sound really sad, but I'm really looking forward to starting on my new facecream this morning, after finally finishing my other pot after a year.

Stocking up on the essentials from the £ shop today, and going for some more foraging at the weekend.

Seriously tempted by the free listing weekend on ebay, but can I go through all the agro again? The picky buyers, the cases being raised a month later? Ooh la la. Some careful consideration needed me thinks.

thrifty_fifty

On another note, just checked my ING ISA to see if they had put the free £20 for opening one in there, and nothing, nadda. I know they said to allow 28 days, but it has been more like months. How rude. I feel a letter coming on (no they don't have an email contact).

thrifty_fifty

Good productive day today. Payday so the money comes in and then it pretty much all goes out again. Good thing to see though is that Barclaycard interest charged on the statement has gone down by £4 this month and should go down another £6 next month. Just two more months until that is busted.

With respect to the job, I haven't heard anything about the interview yet, and the one I currently have, I predict cuts will start to be made from March next year onwards, if this needs to happen. I'm swaying on the pessimistic side and getting my finances in order as much as possible in preparation for this. In the meantime I will be taking all the training available to me and also filing away job applications. Obviously if the worst came to the worst, then I would have to take a cut,however at the moment I'm aiming for the same grade with more security, and at a push more pay, based on the fact that I will be better trained.

Continuing to receive positive feedback at work regarding the changes that I'm implementing, so this has been good. Practicing my being assertive, and even though it is scary, it is all a learning curve and a good experience.

Have decided today that I will learn at least one new thing, and do one thing that I am scared of each month. I need to push myself in order to grow as a person, and this is my way forward.

Hope the rest of the week is good. Cold has pretty much gone. It feels good to be getting things into order.

xx

thrifty_fifty

Oh and PS... Next month will be mini victory month as I will be sub 8k (£7400) wahoo for mini victorys

xx

thrifty_fifty

Oh and Christmas presents.... picked up a nice scarf for £1 from m&s for my niece, so that will go nice with some chocolates (all pressies are going to be sub £5, owing to wanting to get debt free next year, and the potentially rocky job situation)

mum and dad already bought
just need to spend around £20 and that's me done.

People may think I'm being tight, but I'd rather give them something small that I can afford, than to cripple myself financially well into the new year, when Christmas and the gifts have long since been forgotten.

xx