What little things have you been priced out of?

Fiasco55

Similar to a lot of posts already - no mags or papers nowdays and just going for a drive or visiting family and friends. Now use the phone a lot more (free evening and weekend calls), Skype and social networking sites for catching up.

I have had to alter my hair upkeep too. Now instead of a salon my hairdresser comes to the flat.

Beauty Therapy treatments. I never got regular manicures or facials but did get regular lash tints and brow shapes (every 4 weeks). Now last appointmnet was 4 months ago- this I do miss and now things have financially improved for me I will be going back thought still not every 4 weeks.

Also mostly brown bag lunch and rarely go out for lunch. After adding up the costs :eek: I was highly motivated to do something.

I also joined the No Buying Toiletries challange on here and have managed to save hundreds by using up my stash haul over the last 18 months. I has been difficult as I loved buying my lotions, potions and make up but it is worth it.

lipsthefish

Small bottles of water for me, I am always thirsty because of medication so used to buy loads of 500ml bottles of still water and take one everywhere with me, now I just fill the bottle with tap water, chill it in the fridge and take that.

euronorris

split_second wrote: »

i dont feel like i am priced out of anything i just think most of it costs stupid amounts

example:
when i go on holiday in the summer i will be going for 2 weeks, i havent had a 2 week holiday for about 4 years so i dont have very many tshirts and could probably do with buying a whole new set of them, looked on the burtons website (i buy my jeans there as they are excellent) one tshirt i liked was £18 :eek:

For cheap holiday bits, such as T-shirts, you should have a look in Primark. Cheap as chips, and the T-shirts are usually pretty good.

Jumpers....not so much. Bought two smart, relatively thin, jumpers in there recently. Both the same style and size, just different colours. One is a tight fit, and the other loose. And yes, I've double checked the sizes on the labels. Bizarre!

Birdie85

I used to like buying papercraft magazines, but they're nearly £5 now and they're full of tutorials using stupidly expensive tools so I can't actually afford to make the things in there! Blogs are the way forward, although I can lose an entire evening on the internet getting ideas.

I haven't bought a new full price book in years. The most I pay is 2 for £7 in the supermarket if it's something brand new that I really want to read, but usually I end up getting them for £1ish from the charity shop. I'd use the library, but my reading is quite sporadic and there's no saying if I'll have time to read a book in 3 days or 3 weeks so don't like the time constraints of the library, and my local one isn't very good!

I've started playing badminton with a group from work and I've been priced out of practising on a weekend with my DH as the leisure centre charged us £11 for use of a court for 1 hour a few weeks ago! :eek: Never again, I'll stick to playing in our big group paying off-peak prices on a weekday lunchtime!

We've also noticed that more often than not we make sure that we eat before going out now. We never really cared, and if we were hungry when we were out we'd grab lunch somewhere, but it rarely happens now. Ditto to going out for meals on a Saturday night, dinner with a bottle of wine in a restaurant = £40, same thing at home (with the steak cooked exactly as we want it!) = £10, and we get to wear comfy clothes!

ms_london

I don't feel as though I have been priced out of anything, just had a shift in my personal views where I don't want to spend my hard earned money on what I see is rubbish.

Used to spend a lot on trashy magazines - sometimes I will be the annoying person who will stand in a store and flick through them without buying, but quite frankly, they are all diet related and a bit shallow - so I can't be bothered with it, would rather read something that is interesting - actually would rather come online and read MSE!

I always have a bottle of water in my bag, purely because I drink a lot and its silly to buy it all the time!

I prefer aldi serum, mascara, and V05 shampoo than the more expensive brands - my biggest beauty luxury would be perfume, perhaps the occasional eye lash tint or massage - but compared to what I used to spend, this is nothing.

Alcohol - hardly drink anymore, did go out saturday night, what a waste of money for a headache the next day! Would rather spend money on something else.

Lunch - I have been awful at taking lunch into work, but that is down to laziness than anything else, but have been better and I do prefer it. Well prefer having more money to myself!

Clothes - not a massive shopper and prefer ebay or charity shops.

I'd say my biggest expense and luxury would be holidays! But still done on a budget.....

I have a stable job at the moment, but have struggled throughout the recession and have been unemployed - but I think going through debt years ago taught me what is important, so have made my personal choices on that basis xx

split_second

euronorris wrote: »

For cheap holiday bits, such as T-shirts, you should have a look in Primark. Cheap as chips, and the T-shirts are usually pretty good.

Jumpers....not so much. Bought two smart, relatively thin, jumpers in there recently. Both the same style and size, just different colours. One is a tight fit, and the other loose. And yes, I've double checked the sizes on the labels. Bizarre!

i've had a look and they have some cool ones, i pass a huge one when i buy my tram pass so will see what delights await me

marywooyeah

ms_london wrote: »

Alcohol - hardly drink anymore, did go out saturday night, what a waste of money for a headache the next day! Would rather spend money on something else.

I always have a half bottle of malibu in my handbag if I go out - I used to think it was really chavvy (tbh, it still is!) but I can't justify spending £4 per drink when I could buy 4 diet cokes for £1.50 each (which is actually still a lot seeing as I live off asda own brand diet coke). I tell myself I am being mse

If I do buy a magazine I tend to give it to a colleague afterwards so its not just chucked away, saves someone else a bit of money who may have been priced out of buying a magazine.

CompletelyLost

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know (approx!) how much your average plain black coffee is in Starbucks? I know they do all sorts of amazing coffee concoctions but I'm just curious. I've actually never been there in my life...

amiehall

CompletelyLost wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know (approx!) how much your average plain black coffee is in Starbucks? I know they do all sorts of amazing coffee concoctions but I'm just curious. I've actually never been there in my life...

It would be £1.90 at Caffe Nero. I wouldn't go to Starbucks often enough to know sorry

purple.sarah

I've cut back on buying clothes, I only buy in sales or secondhand.

I've been priced out of the cinema because of the rise in ticket prices before you even think about the overpriced snacks.

I haven't been on holiday in years since I was going on holidays with my parents. Saving up to go on a belated honeymoon with hubby at the end of the year though.

I don't go to the hairdressers anymore, my housemate gives me a trim at home and I use home hair dye. I don't have beauty treatments either.

We moved a housemate in to help with the rent.

I only buy fresh fruit and veg reduced, I couldn't really afford it otherwise.

I don't buy newspapers, I just read the free metro or look up the news online.

I haven't cut down on magazines yet but I should!