my SOA (joint income/joint outgoings)

La_escocesa

moremoneythansense wrote: »

no-one on line tonight? oh well, I'll make some inroads in tomorrow.
not sure how you keep conversations going - not sure where to go from here - as so many posts/so quickly - this drops down the board very quickly and therefore no new people see that it has even ever been posted... (sorry, does that make any sense?)
Night all............zzzzzz

PS - You can bump a thread by posting on it again, and then it'll get put back to the top of the list.

La xx

moremoneythansense

Thanks again La,

Yeah - I really must get round to exchanging Mr T vouchers for restaurant vouchers - have done that in the past and they are really good value.

I do plan to sell some things on ebay. Have recently sold some things and now have some money to put towards a dining table (sick of eating my evening meal off a tray).

When you say Old Style Boards - what do you mean? - sorry..

La_escocesa

This board here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=33

At the top there is the April grocery challenge and there's also meal planning threads, recipes etc.

Hope that helps xx

moremoneythansense

La_escocesa wrote: »

Hi Moremoneythansense :wave:

You might find it helpful to go onto the Old Style Board for some advice about meal planning and batch cooking. That could help reduce your food bills.

I started a spending diary www.spendingdiary.com and I find it really helpful to find out where all the extra pennies are going!

Do you shop at tesco? We've started swapping clubcard points for restaurant vouchers and have reduced our eating out bills.

You could also start by selling some things and the money from that could be put towards either debt repayments or towards something else, like Christmas presents or haircuts/beauty products...

HTH xx

Just wanted to say thanks again :T- I have just registered for the spending diary and have entered today's spends.:)

zarazara

Well Done. Thats a good start.

slummymummyof3

Have you tried looking at what you could get with Virgin for your satellite tv and internet - I think I saw on one of the cashback sites they were offering £120 cash back. You could always try bartering with Sky and see if you can get a price reduction in your package without losing anything you currently have.

Have you considered putting the cat on dried food? Considerably cheaper, longer lasting and not as foul smelling.

Many newspapers you can read online so you could save yourself £10 per month fairly easily.

Try Aldi, I was an avid Sainsbury/Tesco/M&S food shopper until one day I totted up what I was actually spending on groceries and thought OMG! I now mainly rely on Aldi and Lidl - the quality is very good and I have not been disappointed with anything to date (after 2 years) I have even stopped using my old favourite - Clinique Lipstick @ £14 in favour of Aldi lipstick @ £1.99 which is at the very least equal if not better than the Clinique one. Shopping for the 5 of us (groceries) is about £300 cheaper per month for me now!!!!!!!

vandanfc

If you have access to a variety of supermarkets, check out mysupermarket.co.uk for pet food prices and try and shop were the offers are, or buy more when they are on offer.

Can you try a mixed feeding regime, ie some dry food and some wet food, will overall save some money. Good dry foods are Royal Canin, Hills, James Wellbeloved.

moremoneythansense

Thanks all of you,

Can't put cat on dried as she seems to get cystitis every time we put her on dried food. she does have sprinkles for a bit of crunch but not on every meal. Thanks for mysupermarket tip - will try that.

The 'newspapers' is mainly just our local paper once a week and one Sunday paper. Will probably cut out the Sunday one for a while.

I did go to Aldi for a while and I don't like everything - but I do like their corned beef, baked beans and their irish sausages. I also got some Lacura foundation from there which I ditched my Clinique one for as it is just as good (and believe me it took me long time to find one I liked before Clinique)

I do need some more foundation and I will buy it again - but no more make-up/toiletries until my stash has gone - I have plastic boxes of the stuff piled high!!!

Enjoying finding ways to save money - hope I keep it up.

Today, so far, is a NSD! yippee!

miggy

HI, I haven't read your entire thread yet so apologies if I cover things you've already addressesed, but I wanted to say while I remember:
Magazines and newspapers - I'm not saying don't buy, but do think about whether you really want them. Can you get news from the TV?
Coffee, sandwiches, meals out - big savings to be made here. Again, you don't have to give things up, just look at what you really want and celebrate each saving.
Groceries - it may be easier for you to do menu 'planning' by noting what you actually eat for a few weeks then repeating the cycle with any helpful modifications. For instance if you bought your carrots at M&S the first time round, buy them at Aldi next time - but get your OH in on the act too. If you plan a trip rather than hoping it'll happen, isn't it more likely to happen?
Don't set your targets too high or beat yourself up about what you feel you should have done but haven't. That way lies discouragement and this needs to be a learning curve not a crash diet. You could always keep a tally of what you've saved if that will give you an incentive!
And well done on reducung that horrendous mobile bill and using up the toiletries stash!

**confuzzled**

Like others have said shopping can be cut down easily!
when you renew the RAC membership go through a cashback site like Quidco;)
Your pet food & costs could easily be cut down too, our puss costs us approx £10p/m for food & insurance, admittedly she's only 2:) but we always pick her food up on deals, we get the sachets too but in the big boxes when they're on offer:) she's currently working through a box of 42 that we got for £6:money:
The newspapers and magazines.....can you not catch up online, if its for OH it'll give him an excuse to play with that damn Iphone;) my hubby has one too and I'm seriously thinking of getting it surgically removed from his hand or elsewhere if he carries on being cheeky to me:p:rotfl:
again meals at work can be gone, do yourself some sarnies/hm soup before bed and then you literally pick them up on your way out, hard to get into the routine but once you've cracked it, you'll save a fortune:)