Yearly Spend

jm28cardiff

I have debts of £7,000, and for the last year have kept a spreadhseet of my spending to see where the money goes. Here are some of the figures:

Food - £1909.86 ($3746.82)
Alcohol - £1560.98 ($3063.63)
DVD's - £671.94 ($1318.77)
Books - £556.74

Im sure I can cut this down a bit! Although I live alone, I spend about 4 days a week round my parents, so that food spend is madness! Its mostly food bought in work.

As for books, I have over a hundred that I havent even read yet, so I should work through those before buying more!

DVD's - no point buying many of these if DVD is on the way out (HD or Blu Ray coming in).

Booze - you have to go out, but maybe getting hammered each time is not the answer!

dfdemello

Hi Jm28cardiff,

You seem to know the answer to where you can cut back on...good luck.

I havent bought a DVD in years...I either rent it again to see it again at blockbuster....using my Tesco Clubcard vouchers I dont pay anything anyway. If you know that you havent read many of your books makes this saving an easy one...or use the internet for source material. As for the boozing apart from bringing your mates around for a drink and learning how to make moonshine I think this one is down to you. You could give it up but turn into a miserable git afterwards. I think alot of peeps on this site take packed lunches to work...get some good recipes or nick some ideas from a good sandwich shop!!

Good luck

rog2

Why do you have so many books? Could you sell some?

Smashing

Time to join the library! And dig out a lunchbox.

jm28cardiff

I want to make a packed lunch, but I have 2 problems:

1) I am inherently lazy!
2) I find it really hard to get up in the morning, so struggle for time when I do get up.

Flimsy reasons for not doing it though!

rog2

jm28cardiff wrote:

I want to make a packed lunch, but I have 2 problems:

1) I am inherently lazy!
2) I find it really hard to get up in the morning, so struggle for time when I do get up.

Flimsy reasons for not doing it though!

VERY FLIMSY INDEED.

elantan

you could attempt it the night before tastes no where near as nice but possible better than some of the cardboard you would get out of mcd's etc

Smashing

jm28cardiff wrote:

I want to make a packed lunch, but I have 2 problems:

1) I am inherently lazy!
2) I find it really hard to get up in the morning, so struggle for time when I do get up.

Flimsy reasons for not doing it though!

Go to be earlier.
As for laziness, if someone told you there was a £10 note on the pavement outside, you'd get up to grab it, wouldn't you? Well you're letting money just blow away for all the time you spend thinking 'I can't be bothered.'

jm28cardiff

I also spent about £220 in the year on magazines. Nothing I would want to subsribe to, just the odd computer mag, Empire, GQ, Esquire, the usual thing you flick through then probably chuck without fully reading! Adding things up for the whole year is painful!

Smashing

jm28cardiff wrote:

the usual thing you flick through then probably chuck without fully reading!

Yep, but would you throw £5 away? I think not. Money is far more respected than the material objects we spend it on - even if they are supposedly equal in value. So keep hold of it - for your own good.

dfdemello

Easi sandwich making made easy

1. Buy a loaf of bread (Best of both is pretty good)
2. Buy some spread (Olivio or whatever the heck is called is the dogs)
3. Buy some filling (ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce, coal)
4. Get two slices from the bread bought in part 1.
5. Get some spread from the spread bought in part 2.
6. Scoop some spread from the container and using a backwards and forwards motion, smooth over one side of each slice (this can be tricky)
7. Get the filling from 3. and spread on one of the slices of bread
8. Get the other slice of bread and place on top of the other slice with the filling
9. Cut in half
10. To make the above EXTRA easy get someone else to do it...if you can't then do it YOURSELF