Reformed shopaholic? please can you give me the benefit of your advice

Anglea

Hi girls

Cl - designer jeans - you'll be the best dressed girl around. And you could always sell them if you wanted.

Froglatina and CL, your weeklies are good.

Right so I'll join you - so far in January
£30.14 (travel, watch battery, library, books, clothes)
£60 on food (including milkman bill) - more than 1 person
£7.50 on gifts for 2011
£271 - utility bills
0.60 - other

I wonder what will happen this weekend for us?

CompletelyLost

I like seeing other peoples expenses. I never really include household bills in mine, but probably should. My mobile & internet, for instance, I never remember to add those to my spreadsheet. Hmmm!

Funnily enough, I was thinking about selling one pair of jeans & keeping the other two :S But then they are free, so maybe I should just enjoy the thrill of having something designer (without the usual expense that comes with it)??

I'm not doing much at all this weekend - you all know how thrilling my social life is by now, haha. My lot went out today but I stayed in as my hair is a grease bomb. Have sorted through a massive pile of CDs and am parting with most of them. Also filled two more bags with rubbish. It's never-ending... who would've thought one room could harbour so much tat?!

How about you?

Frogletina

Hi C L

I've been to an 'overs party' for the leftovers from Christmas which my daughter organised.

No expenses today as I got to my daughter's using my bus pass. However, I've just had a letter to say the pass is going up next month by £4.50 so already have to adjust the budget to take that into account. I must work out how much I am using the pass to see if it is worth it, but the alternative is making sure I have enough change everytime I might need to take a bus. So far this month I would have paid £8, pass will cost £36.75 from February.

Anglea

Hi all

Guess what I've just been doing just now? Using an online calculator to work out my annual totals for 2010 because my one suddenly decided to pack up. Got some unexpected surprises. I'm sure I'd have even more cause for :eek: if I had literally written every single thing down, not just the major expenses.

Today I spent about £7. One item was a book - Detoxing your Finances!

CL I'm surprised you didn't add the mobile or household expenses if you have any to your lists.

Froglatina have you now used up all your Christmas food after the party? So you need to go shopping again?

Frogletina

Hi Anglea

Most Christmas food gone, but loads of other food in. My freezer and cupboards are still full, so will be making meals from what is in there for a while to come.

I have a Christmas cake not started yet, and as I'm wanting to lose weight I'm not sure when the first cut will be made. Hoping visitors will come and can be offered some.

My house guest, who has only been here a couple of days over Christmas and New Year is back again tomorrow night but has a permanent place to live from 21st

NGlady2

Hi girls... just a quick message to say - MAN I HAVE SINNED!!
Ill give you the full low down, and a shocking amount I have spent on food last week later on - when I see how bad I do today!

Anglea

Hi all

Froglatina - Christmas cake is fattening, but yummy. Luckily this year I only had a slab rather than a whole one. Mind you they can last ages so at least you know you don't have to eat the lot within a few days!

NGlady - telling off in advance for you my girl!

CompletelyLost

Hi all,

Anglea: I should include them as I do contribute to household things, but mainly just record my personal spends because the household stuff is unavoidable. I will probably start including my mobile though... even though it's nevermore than £10-ish/month.

I wonder whether your unexpected surprises are good or bad??

NG: uh-oh, what have you been up to? *waits with baited breath* Hope you haven't hit the sales.

We still have a tonne of food in the freezer from before xmas - we got sooo much stuff reduced to 10p just before xmas. Literally spent about £10 and filled the freezer with bread, meat, everything.

I have a small slip-up to admit to... though it's not clothes or anything like that, just crafty stuff to fix something that needs fixing.

Anglea

Hi all

CL, I got a bit of a surprise when I discovered my personal spends were the same as the chemist ???? Because I never buy any toiletries unless absolutely necessary I'm guessing the rest is stamps, household, snacks, prescriptions, Xmas.

Food reduced to 10p - that's amazing!

If I decided to become exceptionally organised it would be really interesting (or frightening) to list every item you have - in clothes, toiletries, and other categories. That could be a wake up call.

Like yesterday I was contemplating buying new pillowcases because when I was changing a bed in the week I had trouble finding spares. I stopped myself buying as I knew I had quite a lot of them.

A while back I used an organising tip with bedding that seemed like such a good idea at the time (putting all the bedding for one bed together and tie it together with ribbon). However, since my beds aren't all the same size, I ended up having to untie a lot of them trying to find the right size sheets etc. Plus sometimes I needed an extra sheet for something and then needed to use part of the tied up set. No wonder I lost the pillowcases

I remember once putting all my t-shirts and tops on a seperate rack and discovering over 20 near identical ones in the same colour :rotfl:

NGlady2

Well evening ladies - *tries to butter you all up* wow you look lovely today Have you lost weight? and WOW look at your hair today...

Ok it didn't work!!

Now for this weeks spending analysis.

Work related:
Work travel: £6.90
Work foods - including drinks: £11.90 - little bit of an improvement this week I think, normally I would spend approx £23. Did learn a lesson that, I don't drink a full bottle of pop, normally throw half away. Put it in my draw over night and its still perfectly fizzy the next day, so can get two days out of one £1.30! YAY

Deman related.
Car parking £2
Now for the biggie - the deman and nglady eating out ... £33.60 - my opinion on that, pathetic... however... this probably was more in the past. Even with this £33.60 - deman still paid £16.. so in actual fact we've spent £50 on eating out! this MUST be worked on.

Clothes:
Lovely jacket from next outlet last sun £7
£19.00 for a lovely bag and a pair of earrings in accessorize.
Magazines:

On two magazines and three books (why oh why did I buy these lol) I have spent £6. If I take the books out it is a little less than normal. Hopefully no more than £3 on magazines this week... including magazine to read on train next sat as traveling 2hrs to meet some mates
I did do a £30 refund this week.


So total spends including refund £64.20 .. total spends not taking refund into account £94.20!!!

Target for this week:
I've already spent £56.12 -- £7 of this was from car savings though as was for a highway code pack also £7 has got to be refunded as the trousers didnt fit. I need this to be a VERY cheap week as going to meet the girls on Sun - we dont live particually local and it tends to be a very expensive day when we do meet up; I should have saved up! so target £75... Meaning £25.80 left... and this includes work relateds.