Super Scrimpers

Rage_in_Eden

We should start a campaign to get Alvin Hall back AND Spendaholics AND Bank of Mum and Dad......now they were useful....that C4 offering was complete tosh. It wasn't even "MSE lite" as it would be branded....

Reverbe

ceridwen wrote: »

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- here is me showing you my empty garage - I got rid of the car, as I worked out I was spending x number of hours per year working to keep the car on the road and I decided to have some extra sparetime instead (or have more money to pay the mortgage back early).

QUOTE]


Have you looked into letting your garage for extra income to someone for storage or their vehicle? I have heard of this tho dont drive/own a car/ garage myself

TheDoolallyDilly

valentina wrote: »

It's not even funny that they threw away so much food :eek:
And that old dear with the trays - how many trays do you need?

I agree - the food waste was shocking. And the trays made me laugh - I have a tray (wedding present - got married 24 years ago, trays obviously have a long life ), so therefore it's not 'thrifty' to buy a cheap, scruffy old tray, and then 'renovate it' to make it look worse

song_of_calliope wrote: »

Yes most of us have heard all the tips before

What tips? All the other programmes people have mentioned - Martin's own show, Spendaholics (thank you for whoever remembered that!), Alvin Hall, Bank of Mum and Dad - were brimming over with tips, and this one ... just wasn't.

laineyc wrote: »

We are in a fortunate situation financially, but I strive to be OS to cut down on waste, reduce comsumption and lead a simpler life. We were not always as secure financially. I often feel that I should feel guilty because this is a choice for us as a family, not a neccessity.

Yes, same for us - I can't bear waste, and hate to feel insecure, so we don't waste money, despite having more disposable income than many. I am an 'elegant sufficiency' type of person, rather than a spendaholic/shopaholic. I totally think I should be here, so so should you, laineyc

*Jellie*

The facts on the amount of food people throw out shows that many people do need to learn some basics on menu planning. Although that has been done better on other shows I think anything that might help someone have a lbm is a good thing. This program may just scratch the surface but many people need something like this to get them on the road. The website for this program suggests people head over to MSE for help. This must be a good thing. Now I've been here a while there was nothing new on this program but back in the day this program was the kind of one that prompted me to find this site.

dreamyd

What really hacks me off about this programme is how much of a missed opportunity it is. A sensible, friendly conusmer programme would encourage people to take control of their expenditure, without resorting to the tired, lazy and mostly irrelevant format that they have thrown together.
DH and I are probably in a better position than most, due to a combination of quiet living, bargain hunting and a touch of financial luck (working with 1.5 professional incomes, no kids, an older car and a cat). But we got to this point by foregoing big holidays, cooking from scratch, swapping dvds with friends, car sharing, hunting out whoopsies, using websites like Approved Food, and rarely going out without clutching some kind of voucher. Looking back, we have saved a massive amount, and lot of that has been down to advice I've found through the sainted Alvin, MartinMSE and fellow forum members. We don't feel like we've missed out and it means that if something happened, we've got a safety net.
It's a real shame that the programme makers didn't take their chance seriously to make an interesting, informative and relevant series rather than the utter rubbish they have served up.

CommitedToChange

I came on this thread to discuss the programme but I am honestly appalled at some of the personal comments aimed at the people on the show. I take it everyone that has slated them for being 'fat' or dressing odd is a size 10 with perfect dress sense? Surely we should celebrate peoples individuality, I didn't realise everyone should be 'perfect' or they're not allowed to give advice.

lauren_1

A true MSE person would sod they tray and just do 2 trips

lostinrates

laineyc wrote: »

Lostinrates, I know what you mean. I feel very uncomfortable sometimes when I read scathing comments about high earners. We are in a fortunate situation financially, but I strive to be OS to cut down on waste, reduce comsumption and lead a simpler life. We were not always as secure financially. I often feel that I should feel guilty because this is a choice for us as a family, not a neccessity.

I value all the information and advice on the OS board. Overall, I think it is a very helpful and friendly board. However, I am often reluctant to join in when threads take a certain turn. I enjoy reading the tough times thread. But I feel that perhaps because my situation is different, that I shouldn't really post.

Thank you. I love the tough times threa, because tbh, despite knowing and appreciating our luck so far, we want more. We've bought a big house with a lot of problems and a big mortgage, and relatively times are tough...just in a different way. Our choices are just that, choices, and I would never compare our decision to buy a wreck with the decision people make over heating and eating...ours is more heating or paying for abit of work to be done to make the house better (its literally falling down, so we're trying to afford a structural engineer ATM). While its very much choice and labour of love, it still leaves us with ...not a lot at the end of the month, and frankly, being ''sensible'' with money seems to get harder, and demands get bigger. Last week the woman from the village hall told me they were hoping to get x amount from each of the ''big houses'' and I blanched. We are lucky, lucky, to be in this house and with good income, but we are young, our savings were the deposit for this place and we have less behind us and probably in the bank at the end f the month than an older more established couple with a smaller mortgage on a house they bought a decade ago or whatever....we're a bit fur coat no knickers ATM . Sorry for a bit of an outburst, but I felt comments like some being made were as thoughtless as spending what you don't have

sistercas

CommitedToChange wrote: »

I came on this thread to discuss the programme but I am honestly appalled at some of the personal comments aimed at the people on the show. I take it everyone that has slated them for being 'fat' or dressing odd is a size 10 with perfect dress sense? Surely we should celebrate peoples individuality, I didn't realise everyone should be 'perfect' or they're not allowed to give advice.

i agree we shouldnt be personal , it isnt fair ,we should embrace the fact we are all different

so far i am interested in the HM bath oil and the hand cream , i might have a go at them

ceridwen

lostinrates wrote: »

I'm starting to feel very, very unwelcome on this board.

Last year a colleague of dh's in his thirties bought a two bed ex LA flat in a dubious part of London: because its what he could afford and could get a mortgage for (there is a whole social issue about where the people who the flat was built for could afford to live but...). We have a good income too, but live about 90 miles from where dh works and he rents a not terribly attractive room four nights a week.

We are really very lucky to have a good income, and I don't underestimate that for a minute, but it still all goes. Property IS expensive, even after the property prices dropped a lot of people, even good earners, can't borrow so much as many seem to think.

lot of people on big incomes haven't always been on them, dh's income doubled after he qualified but we had pretty erratic incomes before he became a lawyer.

There is no way any person on a six figure number is strugling like many: but the demands are different too. e.g.....we would not spend anything like £250 on christmas for just us, but that's the amount dh gives his secretary for Christmas, in line with company policy. We also feel it ou duty to contribute in ways we can to our local community (this week its the village hall.) I have been made feel very unwelcome by this ''they earn lots the wasters'' comments, because despite being naturally OS and having a decent income its not always what it seems. e.g. dh's income is big, mine is negliable ad thats after years of not earning diddly squat through ill health (for which I asked nothing because I felt it morally wrong to ask for money from the state while dh could feed and clothe me). Like many people our age (early thirties) who earn well, a huge percentage of our income goes on commuting expenses and housing. We are incredibly lucky t have some choice around that and the remaining money, but many o the comments in this thread suggest I should have the temerity to want to strive to be OS.

When people whinge about old style ways this board is quick to say that a lot of being OS is choice, environmental concern, having money to do other stuff well as well as necessity and just good common sense. But it seems that in practise its not true: and that good earners should be roundly whipped for their good luck (and hard work). That's not to say they aren't idiots, I didn't see the second one but thought the first programme was terrible, but more sad to me is that the comments here about people not needing help when very cleary people with that scale of overspend on that scale of income need a great deal of help...maybe not just financial.

Well - to me - we all start from different points on the financial spectrum. Some of us from very low income level indeed, some from NMW or not much better income level, some on reasonable income and some on very good income. BUT BUT BUT - what we all have in common is that, for whatever reason, be it lots of debt that we need to clear or be it that we were on good income but have found it was cut unexpectedly - we are all here to save money and make the best of what resources we have.

So - to me personally - someone is welcome on here - whether they come from the "pennies a week end of the spectrum" or "been used to lots of money, but things changed, end of the spectrum".

We all have lessons to learn from each other and what I DO think is that it IS much easier for all of us to readily empathise with/understand those who are at the exact same "financial point" as we personally are and find it harder to visualise what it is like to have more or less money than we ourselves have. We will ALL notice this on the Boards. We will all (if we TRY at least to put ourselves in others' position!) think "Crikey - it must be bl**dy hard indeed to have to literally watch every single penny - and thank goodness I dont have to be THAT careful" on the one hand and/or "Cor....I'd think I was made if I had a starting point at that level" on the other hand. Thats how life is...For the vast vast majority of us - there will be people worse off than ourselves and people better off than ourselves.

It is NOT a question of how much money we have per se - it IS a question of whether we are responsible "stewards" of whatever level of money we have and try and manage our resources well and, if we are fortunate enough to have a high income level (like most of us - I wish....:() then whether we are being responsible with it.

So - personally - I hope we will ALL of us feel that we are getting encouraged to "manage our money" well and responsibily - whatever income level we have personally (whether its "wondering where the next meal is coming from" level or "how to best manage surplus income level" or somewhere in the middle of the two).

I think its useful for all of us - whatever income level we have - to see how it feels/how peeps think/how peeps manage if they are at a different income "level" to ourselves.