All the small things - tell me what you have done to be MF today

DannyBhoy27

This is a great thread. I have really enjoyed reading all the ideas of veteran MFWs! Inspiring and helpful....

Today I bought a new flask after my old one broke at a cost of £11.99.

I tend to need a coffee to get going in the morning and recently I was paying £2.95 for a coffee at my train station. :eek:

I calculate that one flask of coffee made at home costs me 55p so I need to use it 5 times to break even, after that each usage saves £2.50

Tomorrow I am making vegetable and tuna stew to take in instead of sandwiches lunches (at a rough cost of £3 - 3.50 per day).

This month I have used London cycle hire bikes on 9 days of the month, saving £4 each time - so saving £36 this month. Hoping to raise this to over £40 next month.

( I saved over £500 last year with the bikes:j)

Good luck all you Mortgage Free Wannabes

Highest debt 140,300

Current debt 129, 838

OP since 2010 - £3009

ammonite

Hi Daanny & welcome, I'm a newbie too! Coffee is so expensive! I used to pay £1.20 or a mocha at work, found I liked the nescafe sachets just as much which work out at 32p each - huge saving!

ammonite

Ooh...so can someone explain the taxing yourself to me? What kind of things do you tax yourself for and how much? X

curlygirl1971

It's just a bit of silly fun. I started taxing myself if I ate chocolate - money motivation . It was to stop me eating chocolate and it's worked. I also have just started rewarding myself for exercise! And going to bed late incurs a hefty fine

For Chocolate and other bad things I use the calorific value ie 99 kcals = 99p
Takeaways on a work night = £5
And I've listed a few others in the 1st post of my diary

Remember the intent is to make it so that I don't want to pay the tax and therefore don't want to eat them! Of course you are welcome to join in either using this tariff or your own, it could be that you want to give up smoking (so you could do a fine - if you smoke - or an offset reward if you don't), or maybe cut down something like coffee? Coldcazzie is doing sugar.

Anna_Glypta

So I'm feeling pretty good this morning - although I went to the shop yesterday I had to go to W this morning to get the things I couldn't get yesterday - I did let a couple of things slip into the trolley that weren't on the list but they were good things so I'll let myself off PLUS a lovely old lady in the queue in front of me at the till looked at my shopping and guessed that it was over £50s worth and gave me her £5 off voucher as it was about to expire today and she couldn't use it. Will have to do something nice for someone else to pay her kindness forward.

Anyway, came home and have borrowed my Mum's slow cooker so I now have 2 slow cookers on the go with turkey and chocolate chilli in one and gingered beef in the other which will go into the freezer to help with the menu planning for the next few weeks. Also just made some butter bean and rosemary soup for lunch and there will be plenty of that left for the freezer too. Tomorrow I plan to have the two slow cookers on the go again, one with a chicken in it for dinner and the other with olive and lemon meatballs for another freezer ready meal. There has to be positives for this rubbish weather.

So the grocery bill is going to end up pretty big for April but I should see the benefits in May so I can live with that.

AG

mirry

Talking of slow cookers , I am making a rice pudding in mine today . Made a big batch of soup today from woopsied veg.

Making a big batch of oat biscuits (twinks) for the kids packed lunches this coming week. Sewed some more spring onions in the garden (in between showers).

Needed a new mobile phone cover so used some old wool I had laying about the house and crocheted a lovely one, which gave my daughter the idea of xmas pressies for her friends.... so making more and costing nothing .

Sent off for loads of freebies.

done some more surveys and building up some amazon vouchers for xmas pressies for the kids.

Going through my freezer and trying to use up old stuff .

Managed to buy some whoopsied mince .

Hoover broke , but found one reduced from 199 - 79 & free delivery and quido.

gallygirl

Anna_Glypta wrote: »

So I'm feeling pretty good this morning - although I went to the shop yesterday I had to go to W this morning to get the things I couldn't get yesterday - I did let a couple of things slip into the trolley that weren't on the list but they were good things so I'll let myself off PLUS a lovely old lady in the queue in front of me at the till looked at my shopping and guessed that it was over £50s worth and gave me her £5 off voucher as it was about to expire today and she couldn't use it. Will have to do something nice for someone else to pay her kindness forward.

So, you've paid £5 off the mortgage I hope . Nice old lady :T.

Anna_Glypta

gallygirl wrote: »

So, you've paid £5 off the mortgage I hope . Nice old lady :T.

Haven't quite got to grips with that yet - was thinking it was more like a free bottle of wine :rotfl: I'm a work in progress!!

ammonite

Thanks curlygirl! sounds like a plan

well done everyone else! Today's saving has been £25 on the hire of a tool that we've managed to borrow from a friend:D That's gone in the pot...now over £100 in there this week. On the negative side, had to drive to pick something up so probably spent about £7 in petrol that I should have just ordered online with free delivery, but I left it too late. Must be more organised

ammonite

Just found £13 in my Chow account so I'm transferring that over for the £200 overpayment. Need to save another £82 by the end of May to get to the £200. Can't believe how much I've been saving, I always use vouchers etc. but actually squirriling away the money we would be spending is really starting to add up. :j

Showed hubby the mortgage overpayment calculator & when he saw we would save £25k and almost 10 years off our mortgage, he was very keen to start finding £200 extra month

Got £29.50 in 1poll - been going 5 years on that Desperate to get to £40 then I'm not bothering! Will make an effort to check more regularly for surveys.

Completely addicted to trying to become MF! 2024 is a long way off though! :rotfl: