Buy nothing for a month challenge

166million

Spent £5 on car parking at the woods, and bought fags on Friday, also encouraged OH to get a takeaway. I am dragging him down with me! :-(

sharronej

Well we had a cheap weekend - I was ill from Friday night until Sunday afternoon so we didn't actually go out anywhere, the only thing is I really was planning on buying a load of very cheap fruit and veg from the markets.

kate_pixie

Thus far I have spent £1.21 on food this week. Primarily because we had no bread in the house and carbs are needed to supplement the boring soup I have been bringing in from home. An unnecessary spend really when I could have knocked together some rolls at home if I'd been bothered.

Still, onwards! How has everyone else been doing this week? Stupid 5 week month! xx

FireWyrm

Oh dear..I've fallen off the wagon. With the house move and paying two lots of utilities this month, I had to go and get some shopping, there was nothing in the house to eat. I spent £97 which should last a month and I just had to put petrol in the car. I've had a very bad month as far as I'm concerned and spent £30 more than my pay, so slipped a little further back into the overdraft. Next month is going to be tight, but I know I can pull it back out in November. All these part bills are killing me at the moment.

20somethinghousewife

Welcome newbies :wave: Wow everyone's doing so well!!!

As predicted my month is a complete and utter disaster budget-wise. Have been off on my travels and spent £300 in petrol :eek: instead of my usual £40, £70 on new clothes, £21 on gifts, £15 on entertainment and £50 on other unnecessaries. Also I'm pretty sure I've blown my grocery budget with eating out I'm hoping not to need to spend much for the rest of the month and will hopefully make up for it all next month with 'no spend days' galore.

Still, as far as holidays go I think it was fairly cheap and we had a great time.

kate_pixie

Ouch!!! I just went and got two massive 6 & 0 balloons for my Dad's birthday meal on Sunday (Don't fret, the money came from my Birthdays/Xmas account :cool:).

£14!!! :eek: £14 I tells ya, on TWO balloons! And I went to our local bargain basement card store too. Does anyone else think that's steep, or is it just my moneysaving brain making me tight in my old age? I had guessed they'd cost about £8. Boy was I wrong.

Dad's birthday seems to have cost me a fortune this month. But still, he deserves lovely things and it's going to be such a great surprise.

Sorry for my off-topic babble, no-one in the real world seems to care that much, lol.

Have a great weekend all xxx

166million

Right, I'm starting again as of now! about £45- unecessary expenditure last month. I guess about half of what I would normally have done. Running from now until 31 Oct. Wish me luck x

Update - spent £1, but it was in loose change that wasn't part of my budget anyway:o

166million

I think 'celebrations' are used as an excuse to rip people off in many cases. Just try booking a meal at a restaurant. Then get someone else to try to book a 'wedding' meal at the same restaurant!

sharronej

Well, I haven't been as succesful as I'd hoped but using the envelopes has shown me very clearly where my extra spends have been going, part of the problem is that I have underestimated how much I need to spend on food - £20 for milk, bread, fruit and veg is just not enough so I've increased my budget for next month. I have about £4 to last me the rest of the week now so I'll have to try hard if I'm going to make that last! I'd built up a huge store cupboard which was in my wardrobe but because it was upstairs I wasn't using anything out of it so today I've cleaned two cupboards in the kitchen and put it all in there and I'm going to try and use at least a couple of items out of there every week. At the end of the month I will list all my extra spends in the hope that I will do better next month!

Good luck to everyone for the remainder of the month!

rictus123

Well folks i got back from Holiday on Thursday, was great to be away in 40 degree heat...any apparently its going to be a scorcher(15 degrees maybe) of a week here so i must have brought the sun back with me. Back into this challenge 100% not spending a penny any day this week. October on Saturday, only 2 months of the year left after that....where has the time gone!! Il need to spend on Saturday as Van in for its mot but until then its no spends from me what so ever! Payday on Friday aswel....Only 6 pays left this year after Fridays!

Setting up a budget right now, having a 10 minute break to catch up on forum, that will forecast the rest of the year so i can hopefully see where im at with paying off debts and getting ready to save for house deposit. I think at the end of this year i will take a look at my income over 6 months, get an average and use that as a guide, set up an outgoings budget for the whole of 2012 and join the Frugal living challange aswel as keep this one going.Its fantastic especially knowing you have earned money that day yet spent money on absolute nothing!! Just really need to crack on and get rid of debts so any money that does come in is all mine and not the banks!! Carry on everyone....