Learning to Live on Less!

White_Iris

Twice today I benefitted from the kindness of strangers The first time I was trying to negotiate a downwards path to the post office and juggle two large parcels with the rubbish little pram (which I foolishly used because I thought it would be easier to manouever around the post office :mad:). When the sun canopy collapsed under the weight of the boxes, not one but three kind people helped me rescue the children from the carnage that is my little pram and two of those people even carried the boxes to the post office for me :j The second time was less dramatic - a kind shopper spotted a toy that I'd left tied to a shopping trolley and ran across the car park to return it to me :j Little things restore your faith in humanity (better do some good stuff for others now to keep the karma flowing!).

DHs wage from his little second job arrived in the account today and I promptly re-directed most of it to the holiday savings. One month to go and 50% of the target reached.

I also did quite well with my mini-grocery challenge. My grocery budget runs four weekly and I have £200 for food, toilettries, cleaning supplies...pretty much everything except dog food (which is budgetted for separately). So that's £50 a week, today I spent £33.66 and took out £10 to keep in the house for bread and milk when we run out during the week. So far I'm £6.34 under budget :T

debtfreesomeday

It seems our lives run on scarily similar parallels WI!

I had similar pushchair/post office issues the other day too! It's always nice when you get someone who helps out rather than stares at you as if you're a madwoman!

Well done on the savings and the grocery budget. We have a £200 budget for the month too and it is always a struggle to keep within it. I've tried all ways - online only, notebooks, withdrawing all the cash etc, but the way that seems to work for us is to transfer the £200 out into an e-saver at the start of the month and put any spends back over into the main account as and when we buy groceries. We also find shopping at Aldi gets a lot more for our money and the produce is always fresh and long-lasting.

I bet it's nice to have a little ebay break, although the lack of extra money isn't such a plus.

DFSD
X

White_Iris

Ooh, the people who came to view our house have put theirs on the market (apparently on the strength of viewing ours, if estate agents are anything to believe)...we could be moving this year after all!

White_Iris

White_Iris wrote: »

June Mini Money Resolutions

1 - save £15 in emergency savings pot
2 - save £20 in personal savings pot
3 - save £25 in conveyancing savings pot
4 - save £25 in holiday spending money savings pot

TOTAL MONEY TO SAVE - £85 DONE (or it will be once the money transfers from PayPal)

5 - sort out all remaining eBay inventory and get it ALL listed in June DONE (all sold except three items)
6 - do a food inventory of freezer. fridge and cupboards DONE
7 - make meal plan for the month Nope - but we seem to have managed ok just working from the inventory
8 - sort out childrens toys and get rid of 5 they no longer play with DONE

Since I've got through almost all my eBay inventory July will have a different focus.

GETTING RID OF THE BIG STUFF IN JULY

1 - dolls house
2 - coffee table
3 - writing desk
4 - changing table
5 - extra large holdall
6 - tent

Hopefully I'll make some money when I get rid of these things but the main thing is that I'll make some space.

White_Iris

Well the coffee table has been listed on eBay and has quite a few watchers and I'm aiming to get the dolls house listed today. I really need to un-pack the tent and see if it needs cleaning before we try to sell it but that's not a job to do when the children are around so maybe I'll tackle that tonight. DH is currently using the bureau to mark exam scripts so I can't sell that for another few weeks and I'm waiting for a free listing weekend to sell the changing table. Overall not much progress made towards clearing out the big stuff. Still it is only the third of the month!

I had a bit of an eBay spending spree yesterday , although in my defense it was for the children ( *cough*apart from a lovely pair of Boden PJ bottoms*cough*), so that's a fair chunk of my spending money for the month gone already!

It's a very soggy day here, so I don't think the children will be playing outside much. This means I'm not going to be able to get much done...lots of TV and reading for me today I think.

White_Iris

Both the coffee table and dolls house have been sold for £16 and £33. A great weekend - lots of space cleared and £49 in the pot!

lucielle

Well done. It all helps.
L

White_Iris

Unfortunately my good weekend was also quite a spendy one. Both the children need new shoes and wellies. The outgrew their shoes a few weeks ago but I was hoping that we could make it through the summer with just sandals and wellies and then I'd get them some new shoes in September. When I went to put DS in his wellies at the weekend I noticed that he has split the seams and his feet are bursting out of them a'la the incredible hulk! So I'm currently bidding on new wellies for both (DDs were also getting quite tight) and also some shoes to get us through the next few weeks. Its the first time I've bought them shoes from eBay, so fingers crossed they fit ok. So paying for the shoes, along with a few other bits I've bought for them, means my PayPal account is looking a bit depleted - not much going in to the savings pots at the moment!

White_Iris

Bah, a buyer from a few weeks ago has just been in touch to complain about an item (which was sold as not working). I've grudgingly offered a refund once the item is returned but I'm certainly not paying for the return postage or money towards the cost of the things they did to get to the item working (which they hinted at).

Grrrr, some people just want something for nothing and cause a fuss if they can't have it :-(

White_Iris

It goes from bad to worse :-( As the 1st was a Sunday, our credit card payment didn't get processed until Monday and now they have hit us with a late payment charge. I need to get DH to call them and hopefully get it removed but he's really snowed under with work and quite stressed at the moment. I'll speak to him about it at the weekend - hopefully it hasn't spoiled our 0% deal.