Nervous of my own challenge - reduce or stop spending!

zippychick

carrieon wrote: »

Please what does IYGWIM stand for? sorry, thick or what!

If You Get What I Mean. I hate acronyms!:rotfl:

carrieon

Thanks zippychick. You dont know how long i've been trying to decipher that. lol

zippychick

carrieon wrote: »

Thanks zippychick. You dont know how long i've been trying to decipher that. lol

he he, is ok! Another one is IYKWIM - know instead of get...

If you google it you can usually find the answer too x
OP - try to avoid going to the shop unless absolutely necessary. I play this like a game and see how long I can go without needing to

BLUis

I have got 2 challenges on the go.

1. I went shopping on Sunday and I have told my family that I dont intend on setting foot in supermarket again until the 28 (apart from the usual, bread, milk etc). I will be batch cooking this week and freezing for next weeks meals. Soup (homemade) and sandwiches for some teas and we are also going veggie for a couple of meals - so we have a similar challenge!
2. I am doing the race for life in july and i have decided no crisps, chocolate and lager. Chocolate is easy, i dont like that much, but crisps and lager?? hell. i havent eaten crisps since 2 January!!

Good luck with your challenge. Im gonna need some with mine!!

Olliebeak

LilacLillie wrote: »

........Any tips/advice to keep me disciplined :A..........LL

One of the worst things for making you go to the supermarket (and hence spending money you don't really need to spend) is running out of bread and milk midweek.

• Try to keep some long-life and dried milk in your cupboards as well as having fresh milk in the fridge. I buy semi-skimmed and then water it down as we normally only drink skimmed.
• Keep a couple of loaves in the freezer (if you've got the space) as well as a couple of packs of bread-mix (or breadflour and yeast) in the cupboard so you don't HAVE to go for some.

LilacLillie

Well, day 1 & 2 were 'No spend days', today I had to decline a weekly raffle ticket in my quilting class for £1.
I felt soooooooooooooooo mean!
It was for chocoltes so I'm glad I wasn't in it or I might have won them :eek:.

Today I hated doing it (in my £5 a week if I have to budget) but spent:

£1.50 on a packet of spinach

30p on a packet of whopsie plums

40p on a TV guide (just ordered 12 issues of RT for £1 cc, so will be taken out in March)

£1.50 class fee.

Hopefully no more spending this week.
Thinking about it I should have used the cabbage I already have in place of spinach I'm still learning.

I do feel rather bad about any of the spending though and its only day 3, especially as its only my 3rd week at craft class and they think I'm terribly poor far to hard to explain to strangers what I'm trying to achive.

LL

zippychick

Lilly! Ok, firstly you need to do something nice to cheer yourself up. An oldstyle pamper session?:D:T

Focus on your goal and why it is important:A. And don't worry about the craft class for now. I went once to one and not been back as am getting work done, so while i feel terribly rude in the mean time, i will go when i can and apologise for my absence. Do not worry - family and friends are the people who matter.

Also - I see you bought a tv guide. Do you ever look online? I use this one and have it bookmarked so one click and I'm there. You tailor it to your settings, and then it will remember next time you click it.

Ok - next time you go to buy something, stop and think . Actually walk away from it and think about it - do you really need it or can you use something else instead? In such a low budget every penny counts so you really would benefit from being a bit more stingy where you can be. (as if you don't hit target, I imagine you will be frustrated

I'm not criticising - I think you are doing brilliantly Will be subscribing to see how you do.

Remember, no matter what combination of ingredients you have, someone on here will have a delicious meal suggestion!

Get your inventory up so people can give suggestions for meals and planning (if you want help )

Print off things that will help you as a visual aid if you are a visual person? Or make a graph of your spending or something you can look to , to see how you are spending?

For eg, if you spent £1.40 on spinach - it's interesting to see how much that is compared to your weekly budget

So 1.40/£5 = 30 % - so you spent 30% of your weekly budget on spinach you may not have needed. If you had a calculator when shopping, you could do a quick calc and weigh things up more that way? I dunno, im just thinking out loud........ Your tv guide - 0.40 / £5.00 = 8% of your emergency budget?

Or you could set up a spreadsheet with that calculation so you could price stuff online and work it out at home?

Anyway, dunno if any of this makes sense but I take my hat off to you in your challenge.:j I totally think you can do it.:D

pink_numbers

I think zippychick said it all!! They were all the points I was going to make, but said in afar more eloquent way!

zippychick

Good grief:o! Don't think I have been called eloquent in quite some time!:rotfl:

LilacLillie

Gosh what a lot of sense there!

I thought about making a list of everything I have in store, but without kidding it would take at least a couple of days SOLID!
Probably longer...........I keep finding stuff in other places that I don't even remember putting away.

Caterina has offered to help on that front and sorting out some menu's with me.

Last time I defrosted the freezer I did write everything down and am pleased to say I've kept that up to date.

The TV guide is a waste, DH likes to read it but we have Sky+ so really don't need it. Should have made him buy it as he isn't including himself on my challenge.

I must say the spinach was worth every penny for the meal tonight, it wouldn't have been the same without it ,and I have half left for a couple of days time for another recipe.
It was sweet potato, chick pea and spinach curry with coconut rice. YUM.

Have to wait in tomorrow for a parcel collection, so no spend day ahead.
If he arrives early will pop to library and get some books on quilt making and leave my purse at home.
This is the girl who can't go out of the house without a credit card on her...............and I'm not kidding _pale_
Bring on the day 4 ............
LL

zippychick wrote: »

Lilly! Ok, firstly you need to do something nice to cheer yourself up. An oldstyle pamper session?:D:T

Focus on your goal and why it is important:A. And don't worry about the craft class for now. I went once to one and not been back as am getting work done, so while i feel terribly rude in the mean time, i will go when i can and apologise for my absence. Do not worry - family and friends are the people who matter.

Also - I see you bought a tv guide. Do you ever look online? I use this one and have it bookmarked so one click and I'm there. You tailor it to your settings, and then it will remember next time you click it.

Ok - next time you go to buy something, stop and think . Actually walk away from it and think about it - do you really need it or can you use something else instead? In such a low budget every penny counts so you really would benefit from being a bit more stingy where you can be. (as if you don't hit target, I imagine you will be frustrated

I'm not criticising - I think you are doing brilliantly Will be subscribing to see how you do.

Remember, no matter what combination of ingredients you have, someone on here will have a delicious meal suggestion!

Get your inventory up so people can give suggestions for meals and planning (if you want help )

Print off things that will help you as a visual aid if you are a visual person? Or make a graph of your spending or something you can look to , to see how you are spending?

For eg, if you spent £1.40 on spinach - it's interesting to see how much that is compared to your weekly budget

So 1.40/£5 = 30 % - so you spent 30% of your weekly budget on spinach you may not have needed. If you had a calculator when shopping, you could do a quick calc and weigh things up more that way? I dunno, im just thinking out loud........ Your tv guide - 0.40 / £5.00 = 8% of your emergency budget?

Or you could set up a spreadsheet with that calculation so you could price stuff online and work it out at home?

Anyway, dunno if any of this makes sense but I take my hat off to you in your challenge.:j I totally think you can do it.:D