What everyday goods do you now consider a treat?

CH27

The price of grapes is:eek:

[Deleted User]

Great thread. I no longer buy:
Fresh flowers - can't believe I use to buy them every week!
Branded anything
Cloths - I make my own ones out of old sheets and they are pretty good if I do say so myself - last much longer than the shop bought ones.
Kitchen roll
Make up - I really can't be bothered puting it on anyhow!
Jewelry - the stuff I have is fine.
Furniture polish
Have my hair coloured at the hairdressers - around £65 in my area - although I do make a mess of the bathroom when I do it myself. Considering going grey gracefully.

CH27

[Deleted User] wrote:

Great thread. I no longer buy:
Fresh flowers - can't believe I use to buy them every week!
Branded anything
Cloths - I make my own ones out of old sheets and they are pretty good if I do say so myself - last much longer than the shop bought ones.
Kitchen roll
Make up - I really can't be bothered puting it on anyhow!
Jewelry - the stuff I have is fine.
Furniture polish
Have my hair coloured at the hairdressers - around £65 in my area - although I do make a mess of the bathroom when I do it myself. Considering going grey gracefully.

I'm too scared to do that.

tara747

Vampiric_Addiction wrote: »

Hairdressers I haven't been to in AGES. Luckily my hair is relatively long (mid length? Past my shoulders anyway) and doesn't really show that it's gone without a cut for so long, especially when straightened. Like others, posh makeup is out! MAC etc used to be my staple, but now it's more ELF, 2True (try that stuff, it's amazingly good for the price), MUA etc.

aGREE ABOUT THE 2tRUE - IT'S FAB, ESPECIALLY the mascara (oops caps).

shandyclover wrote: »

As far as avoiding the sandwich swindle I've taken to always having a few disposable spoons in my bag - that way I can buy a tub of yogurt from a supermarket to eat. Works for me as I'm hypoglycemic so have to eat protein and avoid eating carbs alone, plus means I can usually save pennies as well as calories.

What a brilliant idea!!! :T

goodgirl80 wrote: »

I don't wash my hair as often, I keep it tied up as soon as I've washed it, it stays damp longer and the wash 'lasts' longer

Does this work? I really hate having to wash my hair as often as I do, I try to go 2-3 days between washes (not from a MSE point of view, just that I CBA doing it every day lol) but it drives me mad!

DonaldTrumpsHair

Something that has become a necessity and therefore one has less money for a luxury, is those darned recycling bags that you have to use for the kitchen caddies.

Currently about £3 a pop in our Waitrose. I have tried the Sainsburys ones but they are of very inferior quality and tend to be disintegrating when you take them out of the box. In my view anyway.

spike7451

CH27 wrote: »

I'm too scared to do that.

Well I'm going bald n gray gracefully...I'm at the Ross Kemp stage now!

xx_Jo_xx

Wow - Im in awe reading this thread! I think you are all inspiring.

There are so many things that I have given up/live without that it never actually occured to me that thats what has happened - its just become a way of life.. Neither did I realise so many people feel the same as me! Sometimes when your skint and struggling, you feel like its just you! Its only me and DS at home who is 9. I was unexpectedly made redundant on payday (the company went into administration that day....so no pay!). Suddenly, I had no money so sustain any form of lifestyle, let alone the over-indulgent one I had created for us!! These forums and boards taught me a lot, and some angels out there really helped me through it. To keep costs down initially, I bulk bought meats etc when I could, then batch-cooked it and/or froze it... two years later Im still doing all the same things.

I used to be a lancome/clinique/MAC make up girl.... Not anymore - and I used to be awful for buying products as soon as they came out to try it - needless to say, they were never all used after a few goes and I look back now and think of the £100's wasted! Same for clothes - it was a 'hobby' as some of the others have pointed out and now I buy what I need and mostly from cheaper stores than I would have previously. I try to buy well for the LO and make sure I look after his clothes more - before when a T-shirt or something was stained, I would simply chuck it away and not even try to salvage it... I know... the shame!

I would love to be able to cut back further but I dont know how. I work again now so I never really have the time to bake and cook all of our meals from scratch each day, but am still doing what I can and reheat from the freezer, cooking on my days off. But as some of you are all feeling too - it doesnt matter how much you cut back, the price of everything keeps going up!

We are far from poor, or on the breadline, but I am much more careful with my money now that I ever have been before and using every available bit of cash to try to become debt free - Oh yes, my lavish extravegances were not all my own hard earned cash!!

I cannot remember the last time a ready meal or a takeaway ever came into this house... I do an online shop mostly as I cannot over indugle in the shop and saves me the fuel, which justifies the delivery cost (which I book for a weekday as its cheapest). We tend to only eat whats on special offer that week and somethings most of you have already mentioned (cherries, grapes etc) we simply never have anymore - we dont feel like we are missing out though. Meat is either on special offer or we dont have it. I try and stock the freezer when I see bargains and then 'shop' from there. We dont have a butchers and the farm shop doesnt really sell much other than eggs... which are 70p for 6 which is great, so we get those from there. Milk - I buy the offers and freeze half... this helps avoid spending more at the local spar or going back to the supermarket.

Wine/Alcohol is definitely a luxury now, before Id have thought nothing of slinging a couple of bottles of wine in the trolley for a glass or two with dinner at the weekends. Now that adds £10-£20 to my shopping bill!

I noticed what some of you said about baths/hot water etc. LO still has baths, but since hes at the age where he has stopped peeing in the water (hopefully ) we share it now and I use his water after Ive popped him in bed. When its cold, we dont put the heating on - we watch a movie in our cosy jammies under a blanket and have some hot chocolate etc. I do put it on in winter when its 'proper' cold...but we have hot water bottles etc to try and keep the fuel bills to a minimum..

But its things we just DO, that I just never would have thought about before - before the heating would be whacked up and a fridge full of overpriced food past or nearing its sell-by date which most of which would have been wasted! Looking back now - Im kinda proud of how Ive change and what Ive acheived from the cutbacks Ive made. We eat fresher and healthier than we ever have but if fruit and veg keeps heading the way its going Im going to need to find new ways to be smarter with my shopping to combat the ever-rising prices... !!

chirpychick

a treat for us is non "value" toilet roll.

if we can get it cheap enough we will buy an 18 pack of what we call luxury toilet roll i.e velvet, charmin, andrex every other month and use it for every other roll, we cant use "value" loo roll for all the time as it creates "nappy rash".

I never thought we would be struggling to buy toilet roll!

We shop in Asda now and Hubby went to Tesco with his mum today and she brought us some bread and fruit bless her as well as a few items between them, they had about 3 bags of shopping that cost £65 for just a few days!!

That did feel quite luxurious having Tesco food instead of Asda.

Our months food bill is £80 so the thought of £65 for a few days scared the daylights out of me!

p.s large chips is £3.60 here.

chirpychick

Other things we can no longer afford which we took for granted

definately petrol we have to walk or cycle we use the car very rarely, went down from 2 to 1 and now cant even really afford to run that.

washing powder - we use a tablespoon at a time now of powder when we used to use them tablets (seems like a lifetime ago, i wouldnt dream of using them now!!!)

really struggling to buy deodorant! both hubby and i have very sensitive skin and use nivea as its the only thing that doesnt make us sore! if anyone has a cheaper alternative id be grateful!

we use value/smart price shower gel instead of lush miss lush!!
will be moving to blocks of soap from now on though.

i have hair to my waist and i hate the smart price shampoo and conditioner but have no other choice.

we dont have the lights on except one small very low watt lamp.

we wear the same clothes probably more times than we should and only do washing once a week 2 loads.

there are so many more things really, things we took for granted and now im about to loose my job ive no idea how we will survive, but we will.

babyshoes

chirpychick wrote: »

really struggling to buy deodorant! both hubby and i have very sensitive skin and use nivea as its the only thing that doesnt make us sore! if anyone has a cheaper alternative id be grateful!

Have you tried dusting with talc and bicarb mixed together? My gran used to use that instead of deo sometimes - the talc absorbs moisture and the bicarb absorbs some of the smell. She was never a very sweaty person though - I found it only worked for a short time when I tried it.

Also, I have heard that the smell of sweat is caused by bacteria on the skin which feed on the sweat, so occasionally washing the pits with antibacterial soap can help reduce the smell over time, as sweat itself doesn't smell, it is just the output from the bacteria. Seems to work for me anyway!