Meet the frugal's, 365 day challenge of buying nothing.

Country_girl_5

Hi, I didnt realize that so many people are trying to live without buying rubbish and unnecessary "stuff". My situation seems to be a little different from the majority of you all in as much as I'm retired and have a fixed income, I live alone so only have myself to think about and have years of BOGOFs and other accumilated bits and pieces. BUT I do need to keep my spirits high and because I live alone only have myself to rely on, which is why I'm so very pleased to see this site to share with everyone. Living alone though can be benificial because I have only myself to please or not please as the case may be, no arguements or tantrams for me.....just do it!
At the end of last year I took out some extra credit cards that benefitted me in some way such as Nector points or cheaper petrol. Whilst moving my loyalties around I felt that my finances had become a little out of hand as I never seemed to know when my cards had to be paid, this in itself caused problems because pensions are only paid monthly on set dates in the month.
Christmas came and went and then the credit card statements starting arriving and I felt a bit overwhelmed and to be honest a bit panicky. On the 16th Jan I decide I had to take action in some way or another and then happened to see a book review in one of the newspapers about a book called "Not Buying It" I thought to myself, thats the answer just stop buying rubbish and uneccessary bits and pieces. I did just that and now about seven weeks on my credit cards are getting sorted and I'm beginning to see the wood for the trees, plus my freezer and larder is begining to become a little emptier and easier to manage and sort through. I have to buy fresh fruit vegetables when needed and when supplies get low there are some essentials that do need replacing. On the whole though it hasn't been as hard as I thought it might be and the satisfaction I get from seeing my cards get sorted has to be experienced to be believed.
A final word for now, the National Savings website lets you do a financial health check which can be very enlightening and can help point out where money is being wasted.
Good luck to you all in your challenge, I look forward to reading your hints and ideas as well as laughter and tears.

Mortgagefreeforme

Lauren you are an inspiration. Your thread has made me take a harsh look at my own spending habits. I'm glad to say I have reduced my food bill by about 40%, my petrol bill by 60% and I'm working on anything else I can think of.
We were already quite thrifty, not throwing away much, recycling lots, cooking everything from scratch. Our kids and even us when possible are head to toe in hand-me-downs, and if we do need anything Primark is my limit! You did make me look at all the wee things though, a paper here and magazine there add up, and I am also choosing cheaper brands where possible.
My top tip has to be to make a menu for the folowing week before you go shopping so you can decide in advance what to use up from your cupboard/freezer (thank God for pasta!) and it helps for doing the shopping list.
Thanks to you our very tight budget is now stretching a wee bit further and we should be able to afford our summer hols afterall. Keep up the good work.

TurnaroundSue

Welcome County Girl - it's great on this post, especially like you who lives alone, coz when you're on here you'll never be lonely and get all the support you'll ever need.:happyhear Thanks for the tip on NSD website - we'll be visiting there very soon!:D

lauren_1

DAY 13

Unlucky for some but not for me!! I found a £5 no 7 voucher in the lift at boots :j (had to get the little man some formula, i also had a 50p ofF SMA voucher) the transition to cows milk is giving him a bit of a runny tummy, he also refused every bottle yesterday leaving me with a hungry, stressy, poorly baby. Eventually trudged to the small tesco express shop and got a couple of cartons until i could get in to town.

He is fully on solids but is psychologically attached to his bottle :rotfl:
Anyway back to this voucher, i got a body massager, with pumice, brush and bobbly thing to get rid of cellulite for free as it was reduced to £4.99:eek: :j
And was given another voucher for buying the follow on milk and got 2 bottles of factor25 sunscreen for £4.25 as it was BOGOF( yes they are essential items, can never be too carefull when it comes to skin) :T , the NO7 lady was telling me the cheapest items to get and what i could buy to get the free wrap bag, i did resist it though but wish i didnt as its mothers day soon :mad:

Any idea's for mothers day? concidering my mum has done free babysitting every weekend for the last 5 years.

Spendless

Hi Lauren

Not sure how old your LO is but I tried my eldest on cows milk unsuccessfully at 12 months and then tried again at 15 months with success cos of the following advice from my then HV. If your child is having an 8oz bottle, make 7oz formula plus 1 oz cows milk, keep him on that for few days then change to a 6oz formula/2oz cows milk mix and so on. It total it took 3 weeks to get my son onto cows milk but it worked. :T

As for your mum, something with the boots vouchers not sure what but sure they'll be loads of ideas on the boots thread

lauren_1

He is nearly 10 months old

Spendless

Is it possible he's a bit too young yet. When I had mine (7 and 4)cows milk wasn't recommended till 12 months, but advice changes [STRIKE]daily it seems[/STRIKE];) so often nowadays this may be totally incorrect.

inkie

I would and did wait until 12 months for cows milk.

the_optimist

I breastfed mine (now 21 and 20) til they were 6 months old, then went straight to cows milk without any problems.

oops_a_daisy

I was told to wait till 12 months for my DD although things may have changed as she is now 13 years old :eek: I did as advised above and gradually weaned her onto cows milk from formula.

Good luck with you challenge - I havent posted on this thread before but I like to look in every day to see how you are getting on.

All the best OOPS