Newbie with a lightbulb moment !

spud30

Bells&Whistles wrote:

The shopping is £5.00 for me to spend on groceries for the weeks lunches for me and my OH, he buys the real food shopping for the house, I will def have a chat with T-mobile to see if I can reduce my tariff.

Thanks for the advice :beer:

You can make packed lunches for 2 for less than £5 per week

Bells&Whistles

Yeah but I'm quite fussy about what I will and wont eat, I know I can't really afford to be but surely I can't make that much of a saving from the £5.00 ?? if so I will take suggestions

Lord knows I need a real kick up the !!!!!! :rotfl:

Catseyez

Hi Bellz,

You're clearly beginning to make the right moves. Just a couple of comments to some of your responses. Sorry in advance if this doesn't come out right but I'm going to attempt typing in a different colour.

3) You say you have two credit cards. Are these on 0%? If they are then great, hide them away or, better still, cut them up so you aren't tempted to spend on them.
If they're not on 0%, pop over to the credit card board and look at swapping them over. You will be able to pay off the balances much faster if you aren't paying interest.

I dont think I would be able to get a 0% card, I seem to keep getting turned down for CCs, I wanted to get my credit report from experian but you need a CC to even do that !! talk about catch 22 !!
You don't need a credit card to get your report. You can apply by post with a cheque for £2. That's what I did. It's certainly worth it. I discovered I was stilll inked to somebody and they were damaging my credit score. If you go to the Experian website, you can find instructions on where to post. It's also worth checking Equifax as they sometimes hold different data. Not all banks use Experian when performing credit checks, so it pays to get both.


7) Now the hard part - resisting temptation! For me, whilst out shopping I would ask myself if I actually needed the item. If I didn't need it, I wouldn't buy it. In the end I bought hardly anything as about 90% of the time, I didn't need anything at all! On the occasions where I slipped up, I would later return the item back to the shop for a refund. The best way to avoid over-sepnding is to stay away from the shops altogether.

This is the hard part, I think I should try to steer clear for the time being !!
Absolutely!

9) Try to reduce the amount of glossy magazines you read. They make the reader feel as though they have to buy 'that coat', 'that bag', go on 'that holiday' etc. It will only make you feel depressed if you know you can't afford them.

This is another point that I suck at, I can't resist the pull of the glossys, I read them in about half an hour and then they go in the recycling, why can't I get my head round the fact that this is just plain dumb !!
I used to be just like this! If you need your fix, get it on-line. Sites such as handbag.com, Vogue, Cosmpolitan should have all the celeb goss and info you need. You'll soon stop needing to buy the mags! At £2.50-£3 a magazine you'll save a lot over a year.

You can do it!

Bells&Whistles

Thank you so much for the advice on Experian & Equifax, have looked this up and sent my cheques off today !

Hope this will shed more light on the situation and motivate me more !!

Oh and the online mags are gonna be a HUGE help too !!

Ta very much !!!