London Socialite Sees The Light

clippy_girl

hi london girl,

popping in to say hi as just read your whole diary and thought i would perhaps give you some tips i have learnt over the course of my diary!

not sure how much breckie is at your work but if you did eat breakfast at home (or take with you) you could spend more of your allowance on lunch to get a bit more choice! i eat porridge for breckie and have it every day during the week. i buy a bag og 1kg value oats for 75p which last about a month. even with the cost of milk its probably only about 20p a day. totally sympathise with the canteen costs, its about £3.50 for a JP at mine but about 90p for chips!

Not sure if it would work for you as you need a decent bit of freezer space but I do a monthly meal plan and at the start of month buy all the ingreds for my dinners, squash, tins, cleaning etc…. and I batch cook and freeze all my meals. I think all my evening meals work out at less than £1 each and I have meat in all of them! I then do top up shops each week for milk, fruit and yoghurts. If you are doing a massive shop you may find it cheaper to do an online shop at tesco etc.. as even paying for delivery some of its cheaper than waitrose (although I know their value range is pretty much same price). Also means you are not restricted in what you buy as you don’t have to carry it!

I find it easier to give myself a monthly food allowance separate from my other spends (also means you can have a NSD even when you go to the supermarket!)

As you have given yourself £10 per day, whilst I know its great to save it and have it left over, don’t feel guilty to spend it if you want to go out with your friends and spend it as thats what its therefore and in the long run its cheaper than depriving yourself and thinking 'f**k it' and going to a £100 resturant! if i have money left over from my budgeted spends, i save it in a pot so that if i have an expensive weekend coming up i can use ot for that without breaking the budget

Regarding cheap nights with friends do you use groupon and similar? They have great deals where you can go to restaurants and get drinks for v cheap so you can still go out! Or if you normally go expensive restaurants, try a night at cinema or bowling using vouchers (vouchercloud currently have 40% off odeon vouchers til 13th oct)
Good luck I will subscribe and see how you get on!

LondonGirl252

ani*fan wrote: »

Hi there LondonGirl :wave:

Thanks for dropping by my thread. Just caught up with yours and you're doing so well. I agree that its comforting to have buddies on this journey...makes me feel loads better about the debt!

I've already picked up a couple of tips from you I plan to use. First, leaving the cards at home. The thought of it has me breaking out in a sweat. What if there's a disaster? What if my car breaks down? In reality, I use my cards to buy a coffee, bar of chocolate and packet of crisps on the road somewhere. I've started taking lunch to work every day and that's going well so the next step is not spending anything at all through the day. I know I can manage without the cards so I'm going to give it a shot. Thanks for that!

Also, running. I used to love running. I was never much good at it, more of a plodder, but the energy it gives is amazing and being out in the fresh air is fantastic. And its free if you've already got good trainers which I do. So I'm going to start that too. You're right that healthy food is more expensive than junk. You can buy a greasy pastie for about 70p up here and a lovely sandwich with fresh salad is about £3.50. I really need to keep an eye on this as I'm prone to putting on weight. The running will help though.

And the socialising...my biggest downfall! I've been working loads in the last 2 weeks so literally not able to do anything but the thought of losing friends cos I can't afford to spend time with them is awful. I felt for you after the races when your mates went to dinner and you went home. It feels so unfair eh? I wonder if you can make some extra cash selling stuff and save a small amount so you can occasionally join in with spontaneous things? And now they know you're trying to save money, you can maybe pick something really cheap to eat and not be expected to split the bill evenly? I'm still trying to figure this one out too so will keep you posted if I have any great ideas.

Best of luck LondonGirl.

Hi ani*fan,

Thanks for stopping by and writing such a nice post

Leaving the card at home is going to be my lifesaver and already has been this week, as its not physical cash I just see it as a never ending supply of money! Which it clearly isn't!

The social thing will come I think. Once people see I'm serious hopefully they will support my ways and not tempt me off track as that is what has happened every time in the past when I have attempted this!

Thanks

LondonGirl252

clippy_girl wrote: »

hi london girl,

popping in to say hi as just read your whole diary and thought i would perhaps give you some tips i have learnt over the course of my diary!

not sure how much breckie is at your work but if you did eat breakfast at home (or take with you) you could spend more of your allowance on lunch to get a bit more choice! i eat porridge for breckie and have it every day during the week. i buy a bag og 1kg value oats for 75p which last about a month. even with the cost of milk its probably only about 20p a day. totally sympathise with the canteen costs, its about £3.50 for a JP at mine but about 90p for chips!

Not sure if it would work for you as you need a decent bit of freezer space but I do a monthly meal plan and at the start of month buy all the ingreds for my dinners, squash, tins, cleaning etc…. and I batch cook and freeze all my meals. I think all my evening meals work out at less than £1 each and I have meat in all of them! I then do top up shops each week for milk, fruit and yoghurts. If you are doing a massive shop you may find it cheaper to do an online shop at tesco etc.. as even paying for delivery some of its cheaper than waitrose (although I know their value range is pretty much same price). Also means you are not restricted in what you buy as you don’t have to carry it!

I find it easier to give myself a monthly food allowance separate from my other spends (also means you can have a NSD even when you go to the supermarket!)

As you have given yourself £10 per day, whilst I know its great to save it and have it left over, don’t feel guilty to spend it if you want to go out with your friends and spend it as thats what its therefore and in the long run its cheaper than depriving yourself and thinking 'f**k it' and going to a £100 resturant! if i have money left over from my budgeted spends, i save it in a pot so that if i have an expensive weekend coming up i can use ot for that without breaking the budget

Regarding cheap nights with friends do you use groupon and similar? They have great deals where you can go to restaurants and get drinks for v cheap so you can still go out! Or if you normally go expensive restaurants, try a night at cinema or bowling using vouchers (vouchercloud currently have 40% off odeon vouchers til 13th oct)
Good luck I will subscribe and see how you get on!

Hey,

Thanks for your awesome post it has definitely helped me think about food etc.

You're right about the food allowance I think, I need to work out how to make my allowance last and eat the things I want, Im just so funny about blinking breakfast as I hate milk :eek: haha beans on toast is my usual fuel or more recently, just toast and jam. I have just bought a reduced loaf from waitrose which will be cheaper than buying it at work..

Cool, I will do that with my save £'s from NSD's I think if i reduce my social life to nil I will fall off the wagon very quickly

Groupon ... consider me subscribed as of now!!

Thanks again ... i need all the help I can get!

LondonGirl252

Well this morning certainly has been a productive one...

Cleaned the bathroom :cool:

Listed all my old accountancy textbooks on amazon, if they sell will be over £60 in the bank

Listed all my old CD's and DVD's on music magpie, once I've sent them I will have a nice cheque of £9.18

Some of my newer DVD's and some in packaging I checked the price on amazon vs music magpie and amazon and the lowest price on amazon was lower than MM so I have listed them on Amazon and if they don't sell I'll go for MM.

And then I went to Waitrose with £15 cash as Id budgeted for £13.45 and I spent £14.91 a little more but I'm pleased with that as I couldn't find any turkey mince so I had to buy beef which was a little more expensive but I did get 2 for £6 and the fabric softener I spent £2 instead of £1 something as the larger size was reduced, bought nothing that wasn't on my list which is a huge first for me!

Since I have been writing this one of my closest friends just called me, she's recovering from thyroid cancer and her relationship ending and the last few months have been difficult but she is doing really well now anyway, as a thank you she has surprised me and her other close friends members tickets to Olympia (international horse show) in December :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D I cannot wait! What an angel :A

The rest of my day entails cooking spag bol then going for my mystery shopper meal, enjoy the sun all :cool:

LondonGirl252

Spag bol cooked and divided up into 8 meals. Pretty good going huh!

Horace

Remember if you like going to the cinema and one of your chums has a mobile phone with Orange then you can go for Orange Wednesdays and I think you get in for free or half price.

It is free listing on ebay this weekend too..so get listing.

LondonGirl252

Thanks for the tips Horace, I will re-list my un-sold items on ebay now.

One of my DVD's has already sold for £4.25 (I only bought it for £3!) will post that tomorrow!

Off for the mystery shopper meal now, my flatmate indulged us in a nice NZ Sauvignon Blanc so we are merrily on our way to free food!

LondonGirl252

Well I have just returned from mystery shopper.... HUNGRY!

I rang this afternoon to book the table... outside ... at 5pm. Was told there would be no need to book.

So off me and FM1 (flatmate 1) trundle to Kentish Town. To find the map was wrong and we were supposed to be in Camden... off we go back down to Camben. Find said pub.

Look for outside area...there isn't one. Find table, sit down, order wine. Wine not available, then informed kitchen is closed :mad:

So we leave the dingy, hot pub and come back home. As the questionnaire stressed we must order proper food we didn't want to risk spending money we might not be re-imbursed.

Am quite proud of the email I just sent to them, I wrote a full report on what we experienced and told them how much my flatmate spent on travel so hopefully they will give us that back. what a waste of time!!

I'm now going to tuck into portion 1/8 of my spag bol and a Kopperberg cider :beer:

Monday tomorrow, have to say it's so nice not dreading Monday like I used to :T

turbo.jet

How did you get into mystery shopping? I'd be up for that!

LondonGirl252

turbo.jet wrote: »

How did you get into mystery shopping? I'd be up for that!

I just got into it through my flatmate when she passed on an assignment that she couldn't do. I haven'y had all good experiences of this company so I'm hesitant to pass on details but do PM me and I give you the number happily

There's also a thread on here somewhere for mystery shoppers I believe!