Where do we go from basics?

katholicos

My heating has been off since about the beginning of April. When leaving rooms we turn the lights off. Meal plan in advance, eat less meat, make meat a treat and not a frequent visitor at your dinner table, cook using pulses and beans etc. Pasta and potatoes can be purchased fairly cheaply and are both very versatile (mysupermarket will help you check out prices before you shop, if you use certain supermarkets). Drop down a brand...i did recently and was very pleasantly surprised.

Buy a clothes airer (a tenner or less) and dry clothes on that in poor weather and line dry outside when it is fair, rather than use a tumble dryer. Refrain from purchasing snacks, make them instead. When you cook or bake, try to make enough to freeze some for another day. Make a list for shopping and stick to it. Use cash rather than cards to pay for goods. If you take only enough money shopping to purchase what is on your list, then you can't overspend.

Before purchasing anything, ask yourself if you NEED it. If you don't need it desperately and can't afford it anyway, then don't buy it. Speaking as someone who recently waved goodbye to debt, after years and years of being in debt...i can honestly say that it is all made far too easy to purchase on credit and charging things to our overdrafts. I only got in to debt because over a decade ago i left my husband and left with nothing (apart from my kids and my dog) and had to start from scratch...it's taken me all of 11 years to get out of debt. 11 years of stress and agony...having to rob 'peter' to pay 'paul'...it's the interest payments that kill of course, but thats the price we pay for spending what isn't ours.

Living on what we have, cutting our cloth according to our means really is the only way...and it doesn't have to be oppressive, challenges don;t have to be 'bad'.

silverleaf79

Gigervamp wrote: »

It took me 5 years to persuade hubby to let me get chickens! Now, he admits that he was wrong and we should have got them sooner!

They're not only good for eggs. Had a stressfull day at work? Sit watching the chickens for a while and the stresses melt away!
They're pets +. Much more entertaining than cats/dogs/fish etc, and you get the added bonus of eggs. :j

5 years?? I can't wait 5 years!! How did you persuade him in the end?

And yeah, I want them for pets as much as for eggs. Probably more, to be honest! I also feel very sad for battery hens and would love to save a few of them from slaughter after a horrible life when they have plenty more years left to potentially enjoy. Seeing them peck, scratch and flap about for the first time would make all the initial cost worthwhile for me but unfortunately HI doesn't see it that way. He's an old stick-in-the-mud, and wouldn't even agree to me getting a rabbit at first so I had to resort to just bringing one home anyway! And although he won't admit it, he does like having a bunny in the house. I know if we did get chooks he'd like them too, but it's just getting him to agree in the first place.

Prudence

What to do when it appears all the fat has been trimmed? Barter, maybe? If you don't have a local LETS (Local Energy Trading System) group, start your own among family, friends and neighbours. You don't need a cast of thousands to make a difference. Everyone has the capacity to offer something...:)

Gigervamp

silverleaf79 wrote: »

5 years?? I can't wait 5 years!! How did you persuade him in the end?

I wore him down. 5 years of me saying "We WILL get chickens." :rotfl:

And he'd been chatting online to a guy who has chickens and asked him what they were like. The reply was that they're great, so I think that helped.

mardatha

Silverleaf, my Ratty Virgo is the world's worst stick in the mud. No no no no and no are all you get if you try to discuss like mature adults... So what I did was have tantrums. Quite a few and massive ones.
"I do everything for you and help you and let you get anything you like and run after yur backside all my life and you never have to lift a finger or go without and its not fair when I only want one thing and you turn round and say no you cant have it I never say no to you you get what you want why are you so special am I just a second class citizen in here or a servant or something like I dont have a life and wants and dreams and and " and BREATHE :D:D
Try it!

Gigervamp

Hehe, that's the way to do it!

sparrer

mardatha wrote: »

Silverleaf, my Ratty Virgo is the world's worst stick in the mud. No no no no and no are all you get if you try to discuss like mature adults... So what I did was have tantrums. Quite a few and massive ones.
"I do everything for you and help you and let you get anything you like and run after yur backside all my life and you never have to lift a finger or go without and its not fair when I only want one thing and you turn round and say no you cant have it I never say no to you you get what you want why are you so special am I just a second class citizen in here or a servant or something like I dont have a life and wants and dreams and and " and BREATHE :D:D
Try it!

Oh, I sooo remember those days! Bur eventually got tired of it all, had one last enormous silence which lasted for weeks, and I mean weeks! Until in the end he left me for some peroxide blonde floozie from across the pond (only lasted 6 weeks he he). I really wouldn't recommend going that far but today I get my own way all the time


Oh, and no, I didn't take him back....:p

[Deleted User]

mardatha :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


love it

what works with my dh is sowing a seed in his head ie how useful/economical etc chickens are. Then backing off and staying quiet about it. Lol, he always gave in and I always got what I wanted

Hippeechiq

mardatha wrote: »

Silverleaf, my Ratty Virgo is the world's worst stick in the mud. No no no no and no are all you get if you try to discuss like mature adults... So what I did was have tantrums. Quite a few and massive ones.
"I do everything for you and help you and let you get anything you like and run after yur backside all my life and you never have to lift a finger or go without and its not fair when I only want one thing and you turn round and say no you cant have it I never say no to you you get what you want why are you so special am I just a second class citizen in here or a servant or something like I dont have a life and wants and dreams and and " and BREATHE :D:D
Try it!

:rotfl: Go you!!! :T
If only I had some grass/earth I would have a couple. But I only have paving, and chooks were born to peck & scratch to their hearts content, so I can't

They're such lovely old things......much nicer than Other Halves and Darling Husbands

DebtFree2012

This thread is fantastic.

I have recently dropped a brand to value products which I am VERY pleased with and I menu plan a month in advance and literally have enough to buy essentials to provide for my family a healthy balanced diet and once that cash runs out it's gone. I don't carry cash about and do my shoppin online for £3 delivery assuming there isn't a free code on here. That way I can work it exactly menu plan for the price it'd cost me to get there/around anyway. I then go during the month for fresh fruit and yogs for packed lunches which is £5 a week where I look for discounts too.

Also I am loving the shampoo idea with bi carb - thanks for that - I have almost ran out of one bought for me for Xmas so was dreading buying more - looks like I don't have to!!!

I wish I could read these all day but I think work will have something to say about that!