The UltimateGuide to Penny Pinching

bramble1

ninnoodle wrote: »

I don't think she should be expected to donate the money. If it wasn't for her and all her work getting the offers and vouchers and getting the bill down to only £15 to feed that many people, they would be left with a huge food bill. Should she be expected to put the money in if the bill came to £100? Plus she was the one putting on the lunch and working for the charity. I think she deserved a 'free' lunch after all that. It really annoys me that after all the work she seemed to have put in for this, people are still tutting about not paying for her lunch.

She got paid for the food she provided so if it came to £100 she'd get the £100 back if it came to £15 she'd get £15. It's not out of her own pocket.

Her attitude that she wouldn't contribute much to a charity lunch if she attended one that wasn't put on by herself wasn't very great to be honest especially as she knows first hand the effort needed to put something like that on.

gettingthere

I'm sorry to say that I thought the table decorations were horrible.......though all credit to them for making them themselves....!

flippin36

Hardup_Hester wrote: »

I watched this programme & I also wondered where she got all the coupons from, I don't think it was made clear, may be, as someone else said she buys a lot of magazines. As for the free lunch, she helped run that lunch every month I think, so probably felt that she was making a contribution that way. Whenever I have done charity events like this the helpers have never been expected to pay. etc.
Hester

I may have misheard - but didn't they say she helped provide the food too. I thought she was amazing...I don't really understand why people are so down on her.

tessie_bear

i enjoyed the programme...thought no thanks to the road kill...thought the wedding was interesting...thought the couple in morrisons with the little boy seemed sweet and thought the lady with the vouchers was wow....id love to know where the vouchers all came from and the gps coordinates of the lovely tesco she shopped in....9 times out of 10 when i try and use vouchers the cashier tells me to get lost

kitschy

I think the table decorations would have looked much better if they just rolled the icing (if that's what it was) in hundreds and thousands or those silver balls for cakes. Would have taken a fraction of the time too! Having had the mahoosive wedding (paid for by the outlaws, who were the ones wanting to impress their friends!) and subsequent divorce, I plan on having a much more personal and less expensive one should I get married again.

For the family comparing prices before shopping - they don't necessarily use more petrol - I compare prices on three supermarkets as I pass them every week anyway, so it makes no extra journey for me. I don't compare Mr T as it's the other end of town and unless there is a super amazing deal (like the double the difference debacle) it's usually not worth the time/petrol.

The coupon lady irritated me - not with the amount of coupons, but the fact that she didn't really care if her kids were eating well or enjoying their food as long as it was free! I agree that those microwave burgers are about the most hideous things in the world - you'd have to pay me to eat one!

valk_scot

Re roadkill...I have a friend that lives down the road from a farm where they rear pheasants for rich folk to shoot. She says they're incredibly stupid (the pheasants, not the rich folk...probably) and that as they wander around the road in a zen like trance it's impossible to miss them all the time. So if she runs one over she picks it up if not too squashed and takes it home to eat. As she says it's as fresh as you'll find and if she didn't it would be a waste of the pheasant's life. I hasten to add she doesn't go chasing them down the lane in her 4x4 but they usually squish a couple a week in the right season. I doubt the rich folk eat all the ones they shoot, come to think of it.

As to bargain buys/coupond v healthy eating, there's plenty of time I've left food on the Whoopsie shelf because even at 10p a pack or meal or whatever I just refuse to feed it to my family. I may be on a tight budget but I've still got enough wiggle room not to have to be forced to feed my kids by price alone, not like some poor souls have to. If you can afford it I don't think you should be scrimping on healthy food just to save money for the sake of it. That's getting a bit obsessive if you ask me.

And I think most weddings are pouring money down the drain tbh. Folk blow ££££££££s on a wedding then struggle to pay the rent or find the deposit on a house for years after. Big Day it may be but it's the marriage that's the big bit, the promise, not the dress or the big party with overpriced catering. And in these times it's ludicrous to be spending a year's salary on one party, I think. I'm all for budget weddings!

pinkteapot

Pheasants are thick as two short planks when it comes to cars. They literally will not move. Trouble is, if you hit one at any speed you can do serious damage to your car. A few weeks ago I was out early one Sunday morning and on the slip road to a dual carriageway. Had to come to a complete stop because 7 pheasants were sat in the road. After a couple of minutes, they meandered off. Luckily no one else was around - if someone had been behind me it would have been dangerous to stop and I would have had to plough through and probably ruin me car's radiator grill.

Going to watch this programme on 4OD as I missed it. Saw a review in the paper. Coupon lady did sound amazing but in the paper it said that her obsessive use of coupons meant her family had to eat lots of bulk-bought microwave burgers. Yuck!

flippin36

valk_scot wrote: »

And I think most weddings are pouring money down the drain tbh. Folk blow ££££££££s on a wedding then struggle to pay the rent or find the deposit on a house for years after. Big Day it may be but it's the marriage that's the big bit, the promise, not the dress or the big party with overpriced catering. And in these times it's ludicrous to be spending a year's salary on one party, I think. I'm all for budget weddings!

My parents gave me £5000 to contribute towards our wedding. We spent £1500 and the rest went towards the deposit for our first house. We only rented for six months when we first got married. I definitely don't regret it, but we did get a bit of stick and a few hurtful comments afterwards - you have to be confident to do it and not bothered about impressing people with grandeur.

richardw

They missed an important point that all grocery outlets don't put all their prices on line for a full comparison.
Morrisons, Lidl, Iceland just put special offers on their websites and not all of their prices.

vasseur

tessie_bear wrote: »

....id love to know where the vouchers all came from and the gps coordinates of the lovely tesco she shopped in....9 times out of 10 when i try and use vouchers the cashier tells me to get lost

Well I live in the same town as the coupon lady and that certainly wasn't our town centre Mr T's or any of the metros that have sprung up locally. In fact I was racking my brains trying to think which one it was so she is almost certainly having a bit of a drive to get to it which kind of defeats the object.

I also thought that it didn't look like a 'proper' weekly shop with all the fresh stuff that you'd normally buy. I also noticed that she fed her kids processed junk while her and her husband had a meal cooked from scratch.