Learning to Live on Less!

White_Iris

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

wow well done you for being so organised! I usually am but this year I am waiting for vouchers from park so have held off spending a penny until I get them and they best hurry up I don't want to miss all the offers! I've no idea what to get for any of the kids though :eek: I best let them peruse the argus catalogue that I usually hide from them

"It's begining to look a lot like Christmas"!

So, so far I've bought DS's main present and presents for three of our godchildren using vouchers and sales. :money: I've also planned what DD is getting and hopefully I can exchange my old phone for some Amazon vouchers which will go towards it and reduce the cost by almost half.

I've also started to buy cheap bottles of wine for DH to give to his work team at Christmas. He normally forgets about this until a few days before the end of term, then it's a mad dash to the supermarket to grab half a dozen bottles. He's also a bit more spendy when it comes to these things than I am - he would go for a £5 bottle whereas I'm aiming for more like £3. I think I may also do the same for FIL, as he's very difficult to buy for but he does like a glass or two of red. Might have to go for something a little more expensive for him though.

I've dipped in to my eBay savings pot to pay for the Christmas presents but the wine has come out of the grocery shopping money, so although I've stuck to budget this week I don't have any extra to add to my pot (in fact I've actually spent the £3 that was in there as DH needed change for something last week ).

White_Iris

So, the wine I bought for DH to give to his work colleagues appears to have been drunk but at least now I know that it's reasonable and I can buy more with a clear conscience! The Christmas presents I bought online last week have all arrived and they're great - so pleased with my bargains!

Hectic weekend, ending with DS suffering from the sickness bug that floored DD last weekend. After a night of being woken every hour, either through being kicked or walloped by DS tossing and turning (I put him in our bed and packed DH off to his room, so he'd get a good nights sleep ready for work today) or by him waking me to ask for water, I am now exhausted . Thank goodness for a bread maker and a reasonably well stocked store cupboard, as I'm not going to make it to the supermarket today. Tonights tea is going to be a lucky dip from the freezer I think!

debtfreewannabe321

Oh bless I hope DS is feeling better soon and that you both get some rest today. There is so many bugs at this time of the year that I feel like locking the kids in the house for a month till they are all gone

My BM is on too, but i've still got to pop out !

Sounds like the wine was well deserved too xx

thifty

White Iris, I read your post about the wine and was thinking to myself I wouldn't have the self discipline not to drink it myself, and then I read the next post!!! Call it research;)
And thanks for the post about up your income- off for a read!

White_Iris

thifty wrote: »

White Iris, I read your post about the wine and was thinking to myself I wouldn't have the self discipline not to drink it myself, and then I read the next post!!! Call it research;)
And thanks for the post about up your income- off for a read!

I bought some more wine yesterday and I've hidden it at the back of a cupboard and haven't told DH about it, so hopefully it'll last until December this time!

Big shop yesterday, spent £64 but I should have enough for the next two weeks, so hopefully I'll only need to top up milk, fruit and veg next week. That means that out of the £100 grocery budget that I've set myself for this week and next, I'm hoping to be able to put at least £20 in my savings jar by the end of next week.

Currently sitting here watching "Extreme Couponing" - I'm so jealous! I wish I could get £800 worth of groceries for less than a tenner, although a lot of the time they don't actually get any real food, just snacks, condiments and toilet paper!

I've also started to get back in to surveys again, after a summer off. Nearly ready to cash out some My Survey points for some money through PayPal, which is good because my survey/eBay pot is earmarked for Christmas presents and I've still got a lot to buy. I really need to get some things listed on eBay soon, especially now the weather is getting colder and wetter I can list all of the childrens old winter clothes and shoes. I also need to sweet talk DH in to assembling the old cot beds, so I can check all the bits are there and take some photos, and wash and scrub their old car seats ready for listing. Hopefully I can get about £100 from eBay before Christmas. Oh, that reminds me that I also need to go through the childrens old toys and sell/donate when they're out of the house, to make more room for new Christmas stuff.

White_Iris

Feeling utterly exhausted today, I came down with the sickness bug that DD and DS have had, on Friday and although had stopped being ill by Saturday I've just got no energy and no appetite to re-fuel. Having said that, I did manage to get 10 items listed on eBay and I'm aiming for a few more today, so hopefully I'll get some more funds in the eBay pot before long.

I'm going to need it too, I've just booked our annual trip away to see my family just before Christmas and although i've managed to get the hotel room half price it's still cost £98 which has had to go on the credit card. :eek: Plus the petrol costs to get to the other side of the country and back, I think I'm going to need to raise around £250!

It's definitely time to tackle the credit card I think. The balance is around £1400, although DH owes £250 from a trip he took in the summer and depending on how expensive my car repairs are next week (yes, more repairs :mad:) I may be able to pay off a little bit as well. I'm aiming to get the balance down to around £1000 by the end of the year and then concentrate on paying it all off in 2014.

White_Iris

Well, the car repairs were about £100 less than expected (:T) but our insurance renewal price is about £50 more than budgeted (:() although I may try to haggle that down. Overall though, I should be able to pay about £50 off the credit card this week.

Finally got the ok from our landlord to get a water meter fitted, so that should mean our bills are halved. It also means I've been able to just pay a portion of our annual un-metered sewage bill, instead of the £145 they wanted, saving us about £120 (which would have had to come out of the emergency savings as we weren't prepared for an un-metered house when we moved). :j

On the whole, I'm feeling fairly positive about getting rid of the credit card and once that's gone we can concentrate on over-paying our loans to get them paid off quickly and saving for our next house purchase.

White_Iris

Just completed a Pinecone survey, so that'll be £3 heading my way soon. I need to complete two or three surveys on MySurvey to get to the £10 PayPal withdrawal point but at the moment I'm not getting any, which is very frustrating. I could cash out a lower value but I'm going to hang on for a while longer before I do that.

Off to the supermarket later today, hopefully I can come away with some change from the £35 I've budgeted for this week but we have run out of a few things over the last few days, so I'm not sure whether I'll have change that jingles or change that folds! Either way it'll go in my pot for treats at Christmas.

White_Iris

£8 savings in the grocery pot and I decided to cash out before I got to the £10 level, so £8 in the survey pot from MySurvey and £3 from Pinecone.

Current balance on the credit card is £1299.38 - hopefully I can get this down to £1250 by the end of the month.

White_Iris

Came home from collecting the twins from pre-school to find a big bag of runner beans on the doorstep. What a change from a few months ago - neighbours from hell to neighbours from veggie gardening heaven! They are a really lovely retired couple who've also brought us round many bags of tomatoes and blackberrys. So pleased we moved, despite the financial blips it caused.

Not quite so please with the rookie mistake I made with my laundry. I threw in a pair of jeans with a coloured load, assuming that since they've been washed 101 times already they wouldn't cause a problem but the lighter coloured things now have blue-grey tint to them. Hopefully it'll fade after a few washes though. :mad: