Fiscal Fast – 7 days no spending (at all)

lizzyb1812

Hi Ches - welcome to the thread! You'll find loads of motivation and ideas here

Shopping day today. Combined the trip with more deliveries to my friend to save a separate trip. Spent £26-52 but that includes 6 weeks' worth of dog food and 16 flower buckets for the price of 8 from Mr M. In fact most of what I've bought will last well over a week - flour, peas, wraps, etc - although the bottle of wine will not :rotfl:

Quite a while ago I stocked up on cheapy tea bags and have now bitten the bullet and started to use them up. Takes 2 bags to get a decent mug of tea but I'm not throwing them out.

Aiming to FF until the end of the month now except for the dreaded MOT tomorrow :eek: Quote for service and MOT was good so keeping fingers crossed no extra work needs doing.

calicocat

OMG......dog chewing gum.....that is truely vile

:rotfl:

I have fallen,intended to not spend until payday (28) but went to shop this morning for cream 4 coffee. Ended up seeing mushrooms reduced to 50p,beans for 70p,3 chickens for £10,and cornflakes half price so got two,milk.......spent £16ish........BUT ,the chickens will last a month and cornflakes maybe 2 months so feel these were sensible purchases all in all.

It looks like I will manage on petrol I have and don't need to spend on anything else over next few days.

So,this means have saved £50 of happy cash this month and £40 of the food budget!! So this will be put into emergency pot.

Well done to those who have made the 7 days,and welcome to new starters.

Still seem to have dog chewing gum in my head.......thank god my cat is not into doing any mousing,she just waits for me to feed her. She did catch a mouse once (she's 10 now) but it was a baby...blind and cudnt move much so I don't really think that counts as a 'catch'......but I'm not complaining.

I will be doing a shop 4 basics top-up and petrol when I get paid and jumping back onto the fast as it certainly works,and makes you think about what rubbish I must have been buying before. I haven't spent on credit card (would normally have found something useless to get) and have saved on my food,which I thought was pretty good to start with...so just shows what can be done when you put your mind to it.

Keep going everyone.

Walk away from the purse:T

GreyQueen

Ooohhh, you lot do keep me on the straight and narrow. I was sorely-tempted to nip into a shop and buy chocolate after work and I rationalised that you lot would never know if I didn't mention it, that it was only a challenge to myself etc etc etc.

Then I thought how I would be ashamed of myself to tell you lot a lie and walked away from the purse. Golly, but it was hard and I'll be buying choccie tomorrow for sure.:o Funny how accounting to yourself to a bunch of strangers in the virtual world can change your behaviour in the real one.

Tomorrow is post-Fast and I'll have to crank my purse open to pay for the pushbike and get some little bits but I'm keen to carry on and get as much use as possible of the stuff on the premises. I'm going to continue with a modified form of the Fast.

Ladies, this has been a life-enhancing experiment. Thank you posting your trials and tribulations.

Righty, off for a cup of milk-less tea with those ultra-cheapy Sainbury Basics teabags........ummm they're not half bad.

Have a good iun, GQ x

Ches

Well the pasta sauce wasn't too bad as it happens. I chopped and sauted the chicken, added a tin of chopped tomatoes, some very sad looking mushrooms and the remains of a bottle of sweet chilli sauce. Stirred in some cooked penne pasta and served while looking hopeful. OH ate it without a complaint so thats day 1 completed. Oh and BTW we had a tin of soup from the storecupboard for lunch so I am very pleased with today.

firesidemaid

GQ - you are very good:A

Thanks to the poster who put up the be-ro link, i didn't realise they had a website!

more porridge for bfast. lunch as planned and made veggie cottage pie for tea, which will also do for tea tmrw. we had it with a fresh cauli from our allotment too:).

did buy a loaf of bread (we are actually using up entire loaves now) and some yellow-stickered ring donuts for 32p - boy were they yummy, sorry.

have already made a cheese n celery swich for tmrw plus taking rest of tinned peaches.

butterfly72

Ches wrote: »

I have large amounts of food stock in as I already menu plan and shop for the month and as not all of it gets used in the month it was intended it has built up .

Hi, i menu plan but just for the week ahead. I still end up with unused fresh food leftover and use it as a basis for the next weeks meal planning. How does your monthly planning work in that respect? I'm looking for ways to make life easier as i'm starting a new job soon and could do without a big shop every week! Thanks.

niksyg

Evening all!

DAY 3

Unfortunately I had to spend £2.39 on certain lady items today that were totally unavoidable so I only managed 2 days without a spend However, normally when I go into that shop I have a good look for yellow stickered goodies and usually end up spending a tenner on bits that seemed like a good idea at the time....however, today I spent £2.39 and not a penny more than I HAD to :T

My purse has 12p left in it that is going into my coin pot and then that'll be it for the rest of the week.

On the upside we both had breakfast from stores, lunch was leftovers (lentily soupy stuff from the weekend for me and L/O veggie lasagne for OH). He is out tonight so took some extra sandwiches to eat after work and I have had beans on rye toast for tea - yum!

Also today I modified a tshirt that I was going to send back to the seller after an incorrect listing on ebay but rather than go to the post office to send it back, I took my scissors to it and now I have a completely original and very swish vest top!! :T

Found a free car parking space whilst I was at uni this afternoon - bonus!

A very good day infact apart from the one spend, but staying with the theme of neutral money...after making a whopping ebay total at the weekend, surely I can let that £2.39 slide? Can't I??? :A

calicocat

My nxt door n/bourgh and I have just spent 45mins trying to save a mouse from her cat (who is a vicious mouser)....got it eventually and I have given her one of the huge bells I put on mine to scare any birds away.........that's 3 bells he has on now. I love cats,but they are very cruel creatures aren't they.

Anyhow horrid subject really.......have hidden this months saving from myself and put into lock-box in case get smug and tempted to spend. Phoned bank and can save £250 towards car this month !! Yippee

Ches

butterfly72 wrote: »

Hi, i menu plan but just for the week ahead. I still end up with unused fresh food leftover and use it as a basis for the next weeks meal planning. How does your monthly planning work in that respect? I'm looking for ways to make life easier as i'm starting a new job soon and could do without a big shop every week! Thanks.

Although my OH eats what I put in front of him I must confess to mainly only cooking meals which he prefers (anything for a quiet life) I sat him down and made him tell me all the meals he really likes and I made to list of 28 meals he likes or hasn't too much problem with if he only has them once a month. I then made out a master shopping list of freezer/fridge/storecupboard/fresh stuff needed for the month. At the start of each month I make a list of anything we need to enable me to make the monthly meals (except for fruit/veg/milk which is bought weekly) so I would for instance buy a beef joint (I buy large ones when on offer and halve and freeze which would then last for 2 months) a ham joint (ditto) 1lb sausages, 2lb mince etc. I divide all this up into portions for 2 and freeze. The reason it builds up is because if I need say 1 tin of baked beans and they are on offer in packs of 4 I would buy perhaps 2 packs (8.) and store. I shop at Mr S mainly because if I put my order into My Supermarket.com Mr S always comes out cheapest for us. Sometimes I order on line and sometimes I go to the supermarket but I buy most of the meat from the local butcher except for the beef and ham joints which are always Mr S when on offer. I hope this helps.

kittendothroar

I have been lurking and reading this thread and really want/ need to take part! Following 2 unexpected car bills totalling £255, not to mention car tax, mot and service all this week and in a month where will probably get half my pay to unpaid sickness, and in preparation for next months car insurance am very skint!

Have bought uht milk and water tonight (our tap water is minging!), which should last me next 10 days or so - and now going to lock away my card!

So will attempt from tomorrow morning to no spending - excluding above car bills of course, and am going out Friday to theatre so need to cover train fare but will be cheap and take sandwich from home!